We're in the "dog days" of summer now. It's hot and it's muggy and we're all walking slow and drinking lots of liquids.

The big news is a release date for our CD of live performances from A Prairie Home Companion. We have been working on it for months trying to get all the permissions needed and finally Red House Records has given us the release date of October 8th. The CD title is "Radio Songs" and will be available at your normal CD outlets, from our website and, of course, at The Fine Group Boutique.

The Fortune Williams Music Festival -http://www.fortunewilliamsmusicfestival.org - is starting to crank into gear. Lately we have been listening intently to the music of several of the acts who will be coming to the festival. Specifically we've listened a lot to a couple of Marty Stuart's recent releases, "Badlands" and "Souls Chapel," and to Adrienne Young's new CD, "Room To Grow." Listening to this music is making us realize anew how good this year's festival is going to be. It's exciting for us to be part of it. We are looking forward to Billy Joe Shaver's new CD which will be released in a week or so.

The people of Staunton and Augusta County, VA have really helped the festival out this year. The Huss and Dalton Guitar Company has made a beautiful guitar especially for our festival. For you instrument afficianados, it's a Custom CM #2068 with Indian Rosewood back and sides, an Englemann Spruce top with sunburst, Gotoh tuning machines inscribed with the H&D logo with Ebony buttons, and a TKL tweed case. For those of you who aren't guitar geek s, let's just say that this guitar is very special. The Huss and Dalton folks have a picture of it on their web site - http://www.hussanddalton.com/news_around_shop.htm. We'll soon have a picture on our web site as well.

The guitar will be raffled and, here again, we must mention the local folks who're stepping up, as good neighbors do, and helping us out. The Staunton-Augusta Rotary Club has offered its help in selling tickets. They sponsor the very successful Jazz In The Park summer music series in Staunton and, every year, offer a music scholarship to a qualifying student. For those seeking information about the raffle tickets you can call our friend Nancy Sorrells at (540) 377-6390. We'd also like to thank Elliott Chevrolet in Staunton for being an outlet for raffle tickets. The guitar will be displayed in the lobby of the main branch of Planters Bank in Staunton. Both Elliott Chevrolet and Planters Bank are sponsors for the FMWF and we thank them sincerely for their support. The raffle will continue until the Sunday afternoon concerts at this years FWMF. The drawing will take place just before Michael Martin Murphey's concert on September 30. You do not need to be present to win.

We've got some fun shows lined up. This weekend we'll do our very first Robin and Linda symphony show. We are thrilled that the Rockford Symphony has taken the time to orchestrate ten songs from our repertoire for the concert. It's exciting for us and we're looking forward to it. We're going to stay pretty busy with road work for the next few weeks. Hope to see you somewhere along the way,
Robin and Linda