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September, 2002
For those of you returning to the site, I hope you find some new information. For you newcomers, welcome! This is the page where I keep you informed on what I've been working on, and what's on my mind in general.
A few updates: First off, anyone who has tried to contact me through my P.O. Box address and has been unsuccessful, there's a reason for that. I had the wrong zip code listed on this web site. I had it listed as 55412... wrong! The real zip code is 55411. It has been corrected... sorry about that.
I have a few more new recording projects to tell you about. Two Christmas recordings for the Lifescapes label of Target Stores. Celtic Christmas and Bluegrass Christmas. They should be available in Target Stores toward the end of October, just in time for the Christmas season. The Celtic Christmas CD is all instrumental. The musicians featured are Dick Freymuth on guitar and bouzouki; Laura Mackenzie on flute, whistle and bagpipe; Ritchie Dworsky on piano; Marc Anderson on percussion; Joe Sayles on bass; and myself on fiddle and mandolin. In addition to the old Christmas carols, there are some great Irish tunes and a few new original tunes by yours truly.
The Bluegrass Christmas recording features the same folks who recorded the Bluegrass Praise recording with me (released in July [see the What's New Archives]). This recording features mostly singing, with a few instrumentals. It also has a few of my own compositions. I'm very proud of both of them and hope you check them out.
I've been getting great response from the Bluegrass Praise recording. If you haven't hear that one, it's still available. And remember, these recordings are only sold at Target Stores. Look for the Lifescapes kiosk at Target, or ask where to find them, because they are not located in the same area of the stores as other CDs and audio products.
My new recording for Red House Records is done. The working title is still Five Saturdays in March. This is a CD of tunes that I wrote and originally performed on the Prairie Home Companion back in March. Red House plans on releasing this in January of 2003. The title of the CD may change... I'll keep you posted.
The Mando Boys live CD is also finished. The title is The Mando Boys Live: Holstein Lust, the Midwestern Tours. I'm still working on the artwork and graphics, but hopefully it will be available by the end of the year.
I would also like to mention that one of my new compositions, Meditations of the Thin Space from St. Paul Chapel is being featured on the National Geographic website. They have a story and pictorial called Sanctuary at Ground Zero (click link for a new window with the National Geographic story) and are featuring my music on the story. I'm honored that they are doing so. I have also featured this piece of music on my MUSICAL RECIPES page. Check out the music, along with a new borscht recipe.
Last, but not least, I continue to work on my transcriptions of Irish fiddler John Doherty.
John Doherty, who passed away in 1980, was a brilliant fiddler, with an amazing repertoire of tunes. I fell in love with his music a few years ago and have been transcribing his style and repertoire on the musical page ever since. Tapes of his music are hard to come by because he was rarely commercially recorded. I have managed to track down quite a bit of it, and have even gone to Ireland to see if I could find more. To date I have a few hundred of his tunes transcribed, and still have more to go. I would love to see his music preserved and played for generations to come. I hope to publish these transcriptions in the near future. I also plan on recording some of Doherty's tunes as a companion piece to the book. Let me know if you have any information about John Doherty and his music, or if you have any interest in this project.
That's it for now...
