| |
Newport line-up announced |
 |
The full, amazing line-up for this year’s Newport Folk Festival (July 30 – August 1) has just been announced – and what a celebration they have planned for Rhode Island to make the event’s 51st anniversary another memorable occasion.
Of course, it’s great to see our own Pokey LaFarge & The South City Three included in the solid gold-encrusted menu that includes Levon Helm's Ramble on the Road, Steve Martin & the Steep Canyon Rangers, The Avett Brothers, Doc Watson & David Holt, The Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Calexico, Richie Havens, Sam Bush, The Low Anthem, Tim O'Brien, The Felice Brothers, Justin Townes Earle and The Punch Brothers with Chris Thile.
Tickets are on sale now, and Pokey fans who’d like to win a special discount rate can find out how by visiting the www.pokeylafarge.net website.
|
| |
| |
Congratulations! |
|
We are delighted to offer congratulations to newlyweds Robert and Trish Miller who were married at a beautiful ceremony in Lochwinnoch on March 13 and are clearly destined for many, many years of happiness together.
The couple maintain that Brookfield-Knights played a Cupid’s role in bringing them together as they met and fell in love when attending one of our music nights at Brookfield Village Hall on July 13, 2007, as we were entertained to the fantastic music of The Lollo Meier Quartet.
We are offering congratulations too, to Pokey Lafarge & The South City Three as their new album, Riverboat Soul, has entered the hugely-influential FAR Chart, complied from returns sent in by independent radio stations all over the USA, at Number 9. It’s a big deal and confirms that the band has been getting coast-to-coast Stateside radio exposure.
|
| |
| |
Better Late Than Never! |
|
One of our favourite radio shows is BBC 3’s Late Junction and one of our favourite presenters, Fiona Talkington.
It was particularly pleasing, therefore, to hear her featuring tracks by not one, but two Brookfield-Knights acts recently - Pokey LaFarge &The South City Three and Woody Pines, on the eve of the band's first UK tour.
After playing All Over Now from the Counting Alligators CD, she said: "We like that".
…We always knew she would.
|
| |
| |
Let’s Work Together… |
|
West Virginia hot shots, The Fox Hunt have been collaborating with The Henry Girls – the singing sisters from Co Donegal – in a transatlantic exchange of musical ideas that will see them teaming up to showcase the results at summer festivals in Ireland in June.
The band has just released a new album (their third) entitled LONG WAY TO GO, due for a UK launch in May, just before they arrive on this side of the Atlantic to tour here.
The Henry Girls - Joleen, Lorna and Karen McLaughlin - released their third album, DAWN earlier this year, featuring music from the award winning movie “A Shine of Rainbows” starring Aidan Quinn and Connie Neilsen. They were nominated for an Irish Film & Television Award for Best Original Score for their work on that project.
When they team up with The Fox Hunt, audiences will get to hear what came out of the creative collaboration when they appear together at Cork Midsummer Festival and Earagail Arts Festival in Letterkenny. The band also has some dates in Scotland, including Hebridean Celtic Festival in Stornoway in mid-July.
|
| |
|
|
In Their Own Write... |
|
Some of our Brookfield-Knights' brothers and sisters do well this month, with most of the good roots music magazines moved to say nice things about a certain few deemed worthy of attention.
Reviewing Raina Rose’s latest release, When May Came, for Americana UK, Dan Wilkinson says her voice is “a nuclear grade instrument”.
Having enjoyed Woody Pines’ Counting Alligators’ CD, writing in R2 (Rock ‘n’ Reel), Jeremy Searle concluded it’s a damned fine recording so good that it projected the band into a “must-see” category.
Gordie Tentrees might not be ‘family’ but we were glad to be involved in getting his new album, Mercy of Sin into widespread circulation. Also in R2 magazine, the same writer, says he is “staking a claim for a place in the first team” as he “barely puts a foot wrong”.
We liked that.
We liked it too, when fRoots said Furnace Mountain’s Fields of Fescue release was “at its best, quite stunning”.
Maverick, meanwhile, said the band stand out “because there is a freshness about their playing that makes the music sound new and vibrant” and added: “Furnace Mountain is more than qualified to be mentioned in the same breath as the Be-Good Tanyas, and in some areas, is significantly better.
“The music has more drive and attack and could never be accused of being twee, something of which the Tanyas have sometimes been guilty.”
We have enjoyed working for another fine kindred spirit this month as well and we’re talking Matt Keating here.
It was heart-warming to see Americana UK waxing lyrical about his latest album, Between Customers, and saying he was in such fine form that “fans of Josh Rouse, Josh Ritter and their ilk will find much to enjoy here”.
|
| |
| |
Gurf’s Tribute To Blaze |
|
Gurf Morlix has spent most of the winter months in his Austin studio working on his latest project - a tribute album to the work of the late Blaze Foley.
He took time off to enjoy the latest SXSW bash in his home town but confessed that he has been "totally consumed" by the project, where again, he will play all of the instruments apart from drums, Rick Richards who handled all the percussion on Morlix's last solo album, the highly-acclaimed LAST EXIT TO HAPPYLAND, once more doing the honours.
Gurf has revealed that this is something he has always wanted to do ever since Foley was murdered, in 1989, and thinks the time is right.
"The legend of Blaze is growing steadily," he said.
"He never had any real success during his lifetime - never even had a proper album released - but since he's been gone, he's had songs covered by Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, Lyle Lovett, and John Prine.
"Lucinda Williams wrote the song Drunken Angel (from CAR WHEELS On A GRAVEL ROAD) about Blaze, and there's a book about him called Living in the Woods in a Tree: Remembering Blaze Foley (North Texas Lives of Musicians) by Sybil Rosen, which came out last year."
A documentary about the man and his life is also scheduled for release later this year.
Gurf says he had a tough time selecting tracks for the project as there were "so many great ones" to choose from.
"I finally narrowed it down to fifteen. We are aiming for an official release just before I come back over to the UK to tour in October," he confirmed..
|
| |
|
|
|
