Robin and Linda Williams: October Outings: 2008Dear Friends, There's been a lot going on lately. The Fortune Williams Music Festival was a complete success. The crowds were good and the music was wonderful. It's so intense getting ready for the festival and then the music starts to happen and all the intensity disappears. And when it's over, you can't wait to get working on next year's event. We along with our co-host and his wife, Jimmy and Nina Fortune, and our festival director, Larry Smith, want to send a big thank you out to our many sponsors and volunteers as well as those of you who attended. Without you all we couldn't make it happen. Our webmistress, Trisha Simmons, has updated the festival's web site to include some comments from the local paper. As well, we'll hopefully get some pictures up soon. A few days after the festival we drove to Nashville, TN where we played on the Roots and Branches stage at the International Bluegrass Music Association Fan Fest. It's huge. We can't imagine the amount of work it takes to put it on. And everything seems to run like clockwork. We had a great time and, on the one hand, wish we could have been there more than one day. On the other hand, there is so much music going on all the time that it becomes an endurance test. As one person said, "IBMA stands for 'I've Been Awake Mostly.'" And with a heavy schedule facing us it's probably just as well that we didn't wear ourselves out. When fun rears its ugly head, it can sometimes take days to recover. Our new CD, "Buena Vista," was released on September 16th and has been well received. It always pleases us when we hear that our CDs make the charts. We're so out of it that we're oftentimes unaware that the charts even exist. Luckily we have a record company that is on top of it. For instance, there is the European/Americana Chart (http://home.hetnet.nl/~noci48/) that has us listed as number 4 this month. The Roots Music Report (http://www.rootsmusicreport.com/2.0/charts.php?name=bluegrass) has had us in the top 10 the last couple of weeks. And the Folk-DJ list has "Buena Vista" as the number 5 most played CD in the month of September. So there you go, R and L "on the charts." Who woulda thunk it? We're getting ready for the next road trip to the midwest and the northeast. You'd better believe we're giving the traveling rig the good once over. After our New Mexico breakdown we're listening to every little squeak and rattle and making sure it's not something to be concerned with. "Turtle" is running great now thanks to Truth Or Consequence's resident mechanical genius, Bill Rose, who replaced the high pressure fuel pump and got us rolling again. We want to send our heartfelt thanks out to D.D. and Ruth Archer in Caballo, NM who were more than hospitable to us the two days we spent waiting on the repairs. We got the rig back at noon on Wednesday, we set out back across country and Friday night found us in a motel in Morgantown, WV where we watched Bill Mayer's HBO television show. He's got a movie coming out which we're interested in seeing called "Religulous," and, on his show that night, he was making light of folks who believe in Guardian Angels. we're not taking religious stands here, one way or the other, but if D.D and Ruth Archer aren't Guardian Angels, they're the closest things we've run into in a long while. Bumper Sticker Of The Month: "HUMANKIND - Be Both" We've just got a couple of more days at home and then we're off again. We're having fun playing the new tunes we've got and are looking forward getting back out in front of folks. So come on out and support live music because, as we all know, music makes you smarter. Your pals, Robin and Linda |