Robin and Linda Williams: March Marches OnDear Friends,Yes, March marches on. We can't believe we're already over a week into it. What a beautiful weekend we just had. Everyone we know is in high spirits as we all watch the snow disappear and we head into "mud season." There is still plenty of snow left but, if the weatherman is correct, most of it should be gone by the end of the week. There's been snow on the ground since December. Winter's not gone but, here in the Shenandoah Valley, we can see it leaving. Twice in our lives we've taken trips that didn't revolve around gigs, once to London many, many years ago, and once to Washington, DC for a weekend thirteen years ago. Last week we took another one, to the Mississippi Delta, to see some of Delta Blues' holy shrines. We have many friends, some of whom might be reading this, who have done a "Blues Tour" and they gave us many good tips. So thanks to Barry, Lacy, Jon and Marcia, Hillary and Eric. And thanks to Steve Cheeseborough for his wonderful book "Blues Traveling." We'd have been fine without it but we were better for having it. We left on Monday and got home on Saturday. It was an informative, fun adventure we'll never forget. Our problem here is not taking up too much of your time telling you every detail of every day. And we just scratched the surface. We'll hopefully do it again in the not-to-distant future. This week at home has been fun. Winter is the perfect time to work on new music. Robin just got a steel guitar that he is annoying Linda with. Linda's comment is, "It's so loud." He's in awe of anyone who can pick up a slide and get good sound out of a guitar. Hopefully one day he'll be able to. But the luxury of being home is about to end as we're getting ready to be busy again. At the moment we're trying to figure out how to pack for a trip to upstate NY and the Caribbean, from gloves and woolen parkas to shorts and sandals. It's tough duty but we'll rise to the occasion. The spring's work looks good. We're returning to some favorite venues, which is always nice, as well as playing some new venues and then returning to some places we haven't played in years. It's the perfect combination of the familiar and the unfamiliar. And we've just found out that a tour of the West Coast is being planned March of 2011. We haven't been west in a while and are glad to know we'll be heading back there. The summer's bookings are almost complete and are coming together. There are a couple of out-of the-ordinary things happening that we'd like to mention. First, the Lime Kiln Theater in Lexington, VA will stage another run of our musical "Stonewall Country." Due to the success of last year's successful weekend, this year it is scheduled for two weekends. We're please to see the interest in "Stonewall Country" and are really looking forward to getting back with the cast and crew at Lime Kiln. And we just signed on to teach vocal harmony at Augusta Heritage's "Bluegrass Week" in Elkins, WV. This should be a lot of fun for us. We sometimes take harmony singing for granted. Having committed to teaching for a week, we're starting to realize that we do have a lot of knowledge about harmony and singing, which is the foundation upon which we've been able to have such a wonderful life. It is an immense source of pleasure and we're elated to be able to pass this on to whomever is interested and are looking forward to the challenge of teaching what we know. The booking for this year's Fortune Williams Music Festival is about finished. We've confirmed our featured act on Saturday night along with the songwriters for the Friday night show. So we're almost done and are getting fired up about this year's event. We'll keep you posted. Sights from the road: "Jimmy's Plumbing - We repair what your husband fixed." Hope this finds you all well and that our paths will cross sometime in the near future. Remember, music makes you smarter. Robin and Linda
Williams Robin and Linda's web site: www.robinandlinda.com |