Greetings from Joyscream Headquarters! I am so pleased to announce that the latest release "Right Where I Should Be" is now available on this website! Some of you figured this out already, but this newsletter is the OFFICIAL kick-off of the internet and snail mail ordering frenzy!! Be the first to get it on your street! OK, your town, maybe even your state!
My big CD release concert was in early February and it was a smashing success despite the weather. Bless you, hearty New Englanders, for braving the slush and snow and making it a night I will not forget. It was such a treat to have Tom Dean, producer of the CD, as a guest, and of course my dear friend and inspiration Harvey Reid. And there was such a great combination of familiar and unfamiliar faces in the audience!
It's exciting what good feed back I've been getting on this CD! I sent some pre-release copies out to radio and press in early January. They're like little seeds, and if the DJs and reviewers like them they can turn into plants that flower. So far so good! Harvey Reid called me up from California in mid-January with "Who's Gonna Shoe My Pretty Little Foot" blasting out of his rental car radio and when I went to pick him up at the airport in NH there were re-playing my interview with Marilyn Rea Beyer on WUMB from earlier in the day. Coast to coast airplay with witnesses! WUMB, one of the premier folk stations in the country, has "Right Where I Should Be" in rotation. Minnesota Public Radio is going to do a studio interview with me and feature the CD on "The Morning Show", and Kevin Elliot, WEFT DJ from Champaign, IL, ranked me as high as #3 on his weekly top 20 list when Bob Dylan was #1! (Now "Beat Ave", Eric Andersen's new CD which I played fiddle on, is #1 on his list.) Listeners have been hearing "Right Where I Should Be" across New England as well as Washington state, Washington DC, Arkansas and in between. Once again the folk radio DJs are my heroes. They play it if they like it! It's amazing how rarely the world works in such a straighforward and candid manner. Four papers did feature stories on me (including the Boston Globe!) to support my CD release concert and several more have given the CD rave reviews.
Harvey and I made a quick trip to my old stomping ground, Nashville, for the National Folk Alliance convention. It was wonderful to put some faces with some of the DJ names and to see friends from all the different places I have lived over the years. A highlight was talking to Ralph Stanley. I was so happy to just shake his hand, look in his eye, hear him say how happy he was with the way things had gone for him these past few years, and to let him know how much he moved me. He's got an inspiring connection to something lonesome and beautiful.
And we got to visit with one of our favorite songwriters of all time, David Francey: sharing some stories of the road and encouraging one another to stay strong and keep the music coming. He has a new CD coming out soon that we can't wait to hear!
I got a delicious break from cold New England in southern California where I joined Harvey for part of his January tour. We made out with some cool new stage attire from the boutiques of LA, but this Elvis jacket was not one of items that made it into the shopping bag, cool as it was.
The trip to Sweden that I was readying myself for in my last newsletter turned out to be quite inspiring. It's a bummer that I don't have pictures ready for you because everyone in Sweden is beautiful! I have incorporated a couple Swedish tunes into my repetoire that I love to play and I came home with a pile of CDs that I haven't come close to digesting yet. And the collaboration between Swedish fiddle players and the Childsplay fiddle orchestra was sealed when they came over this past December for our annual Childsplay weekend of concerts. I was inspired also by the fiddling of fellow Americans in the group. I'm currently working on some old-time tunes played by Ruthie Dornfeld. Wow, she's swingin'!
Inspired by my recording session for the Eric Andersen CD (which is now out) Tom Dean and I went down to a studio in NYC to capture a handful of the songs for "Right Where I Should Be" live with Zev Katz on bass and Frank Valardi on drums. It was exciting to be the guitar player with a band backing me up (usually I'm the fiddler in the band) and it had the desired effect of getting some very spirited, heartfelt live performances with a bit of a different sound from my last solo CD. "Right Where I Should Be" is not a huge departure from "The Girl I Left Behind", however. People are still commenting on the sparse arrangements.
Recordings are just a snapshot in time of where one is musically on a particular day and more generally a time in ones life, and I am very pleased with the decisions Tom Dean and I made with regards to the songs chosen for the project and the treatment they were given. Harvey Reid also helped and had an effect on the balance of the project lending his expertise on capturing compelling solo performances. Here's Tom and I warming up at the CD release concert (I was too busy to remember to take pictures in NYC.)
Harvey and I are playing lots of music together as well as separately these days. Our collaborative project "The Great Sad River" was very well received and we look forward to making another duo album. Currently Harvey is working on an autoharp recording to which I will contribute some fiddle and possibly vocals. His fans have been begging him to do this recording for years and if you know his autoharp playing you can rest assured that it will be a beautiful album! This is a picture of us playing a special "Wreck of the Isidore" concert in Kennebunk, ME on the 160th anniversary of the night that the ill-fated ship set sail from that very town... Harvey's vision of bringing this amazing story back to life was realized...the program was a hit and we'll do it again next year on November 30th. The song "The Wreck of the Isidore", written by Harvey, is on "The Great Sad River."
I have lost two very dear friends over the past few months, Jay Smith and Brian "Sinc " Sinclair. Both men were amazingly supportive of the musicians who were lucky enough to cross their path. Their influence knows no bounds I am sure.
Jay Smith, founder of the legendary music club the Press Room, was in a great way responsible for the rich folk scene that has been a hallmark of the greater Portsmouth area of which I feel so lucky to be a part. He was an elder statesman, an old world proprietor, a devastating singer, an avid music fan and a friend to many. With his death the fabric of Portsmouth lost a beautiful golden thread.
Ol' Sinc, 30 year co-host of the "Hillbilly at Harvard" radio show on WHRB was an encylopedia of country music.He was the quickest thinking, smoothest talking, DJ I've ever heard and he played music that would break my heart one moment and make me cry laughing the next.Actually I think it was just Sinc who made me cry from laughter...he had that wonderful gift. He interviewed many a country legend on his show, but he made me feel like just as big a star. Here I am playing live for him in the studio.
It's humbling what some folks are able to contribute to the world with their time on earth. I thank Jay and Sinc for reminding me how finite my time is, and how precious our relationships and our contributions are.
As I said before, I feel so lucky to be a part of the Portsmouth music scene.You can go out any day of the week and enjoy live acoustic music and good conversation with any number of lively Portsmouth characters.I love going down to the open mikes where you'll hear amateurs singing in public for the the first time and professionals trying out their new songs. This winter I got my Mom, Barbara Andersen, to sing with me at my favorite hoot, tuesday's Press Room hoot!
And every once in a blue moon I get to fly by the seat of my pants and thrill my heart to the western swing and blues of "Lex and Joe" in our alter ego band, the Lexicats. The yelps I let out in this band may well be of the type that gave Joyscream Music her name!
Thanks for reading this far! Look around the website, drop me an email, order from our selection of CDs for sale, buy one for a friend. And go out to a show and support live music in your area! Or start a concert series yourself!
Peace,
Joyce Andersen
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