The Back Porch News

Over the next several days, Ken and I will be taking the final steps to transfer The Back Porch News website from him to me, including a change in hosting location. Please be patient if you run into any difficulties using the site. Hopefully that won’t happen and the transfer will be invisible to you. Thanks in advance for your understanding.

Started in 2007 to honor independently owned music retailers, and celebrated the third Saturday in April, Record Store Day is April 18th this year. With special promotions, artist appearances, guitar giveaways and fun activities, it is becoming a popular event. Find your nearest participating record dealer here.

The annual Alaska Folk Festival started Monday in Juneau and continues through this weekend. This year’s “guest artists,” the only paid act in the festival, are De Temps Antan, a traditional band from Quebec. The festival mixes amateur and professional music. Public radio station KRNN is streaming the festival live.

Newsweek is offering Bob Dylan fans a free listen to one of the songs on his new album, Together Through Life. The magazine will also be carrying Dylan’s ongoing conversations with music author and VH1 exec Bill Flanagan. The album streets April 28. More details in this article.

If you live anywhere near Hendersonville, North Carolina, you might want to find a way to listen to folk singer/songwriter Jenny Arch. According to a recent BlueRidgeNow article, she plays regularly at the Back Room in nearby Flat Rock, has recently left a band to concentrate on solo work and plans to record a CD this month. I’ve listened to song samples on Jenny’s MySpace page, and believe we will be hearing much more from this musician. I’ll watch for the CD release and keep you posted.

New South Wales, on the east coast of Australia, is the location for two festivals over Easter weekend: the East Coast Blues and Roots Music Festival (“BluesFest”) in Byron Bay, in the far northeast corner of the province, and the National Folk Festival in Canberra, 1,000 kilometers to the south. Both festivals have attracted some [...]

Assuming all went as scheduled, Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts presented Bernice Johnson Reagon with an honorary doctorate of music last Friday at their annual Liberal Arts Symposium. Reagon founded the a cappella group Sweet Honey in the Rock and is curator emeritus of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History. She [...]

A National Headliner Award in the Public Affairs category was recently given to the “Texas Music Matters” program of KUT 90.5 radio, based at the University of Texas at Austin, for the audio documentary “Amazing Grace: The Story of Willie Nelson.” The documentary was produced by David Brown of KUT along with journalist Michael May. [...]

Louisiana bluesman Sonny Landreth’s Levee Town CD, originally released in 2000, will be reissued April 21 in an expanded format. Jennifer Warnes, Bonnie Raitt and John Hiatt contribute vocals. For reference, here’s a review of the original.

In a previous post, Ken described the release of a 1999 Folkways series in podcast form. The web site location for that series has changed, so I just wanted to provide the new link. The series includes interviews and sound recordings from many of those involved in creating, finding and/or preserving what we know as [...]

This Texas folk trio released its first album in five years on March 31, and is on tour now. The Flatlanders started their journey in Austin last weekend and will be playing in Ithaca, New York today and Albany tomorrow. After performing in New Hampshire and Connecticut, they return to play in New York City [...]

Vancouver Island singer/songwriter Scott Valentine is trying a novel approach to publicize his music. For each of 52 consecutive Tuesdays, he is giving away a music download of at least one song, totaling 57 songs. He began the project March 24, and the songs are from his 4-CD debut album, Seasons.

Valentine’s record label is Thorny [...]

We posted in February about Steve Martin’s release of an album of banjo music. Billboard magazine reported Wednesday that Martin has been invited to perform at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee on May 30. Album producer Jon McEuen (of Nitty Gritty Dirt Band fame) will also take the stage, as will several other [...]

Former Nickel Creek member Sara Watkins has a self-titled CD coming out April 7. The album is produced by John Paul Jones (of Led Zeppelin) and contains material written by Sara, songs written by some of her friends and  songs by other artists whose work she has long admired. The sound is an intriguing combination [...]

Awards shows tend to be unpredictable, but some very impressive talents were rewarded Sunday as Canada handed out its annual music awards in Vancouver.

Dallas Green, who performs solo as folk artist City and Colour, received a Juno award for Songwriter of the Year for songs from his album Bring Me Your Love.  Green is also [...]

The daily stage-by-stage performance schedule for the 40th annual “peace, love and crawfish” celebration is now available. The first weekend’s scheduled artists (April 24-26) include, among many others, the Lost Bayou Ramblers; Joe Cocker; the Kumbuka African Drum and Dance Collective; a tribute to Mahalia Jackson by Irma Thomas, Mavis Staples and Pamela Landrum; James [...]

The annual festival honoring Florida folk musician and songwriter Will McLean (1919-1990) takes place this weekend at Withlacoochee Campground, Dunnellon, Florida. McLean spent much of his life traveling around the state and writing songs based on Florida history. He was awarded the Florida Heritage Award in 1989 and inducted posthumously into the Florida Artists Hall [...]

The man whose dogged persistence led to the formation of the Library of Congress American Folklife Center passed away on Sunday, March 22 at the age of 91. With a heritage of socialist activism and an education in political science, he began as a union activist (in addition to being a shipwright and carpenter) but [...]

A two-CD set from Leonard Cohen’s July 17, 2008 London performance will be released Tuesday, as will a DVD of the same. Songs include “Suzanne,” “In My Secret Life,” “Sisters of Mercy,” “First We Take Manhattan,” “Hallelujah” and 21 others. Audio and video excerpts are available on CBC Radio 2.

Cohen will be performing in Austin [...]

After her crowd-winning performance at the South by Southwest Music Conference last week, singer/songwriter Caroline Herring is headed to Savannah, Georgia for her April 2 concert during the Savannah Music Festival. Caroline’s “Southern Gothic” folk music writings capture the imagination, and her voice is wonderfully easy to listen to. The video on the Savannah site [...]

The Swallow Hill Music Association is celebrating its 30th anniversary Saturday night, with RootsFest Denver, an event known in previous years as the Denver Folk & Roots Music Festival. Shawn Colvin, Leo Kottke, the Boulder Acoustic Society and Joe Pug are among the performers. Also playing is the longrunning bluegrass group Hot Rize, currently consisting [...]

Hartsville, South Carolina hosts the Renofest Bluegrass Festival each year during the fourth weekend of March. The event is named for the bluegrass banjo player Don Reno. A major element of the festival is a set of contests: the state bluegrass band, guitar and banjo championships. First-place winners will take home a $1500 cash prize, [...]

The Old Town Temecula Bluegrass Festival began today in Temecula, California, and ends Sunday, with free concerts all afternoon. Performers include, among others, This Just In, Claire Lynch and Windy Ridge.  A concert by Scott Gates and Nathan McEuen (son of Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s John McEuen) is a recent addition to Sunday’s schedule.

The Glendale Folk and Heritage Festival started today and ends tomorrow at the Sahuaro Ranch Park in Glendale, Arizona. Folk, country and bluegrass music is being presented by over 150 performers. Admission is free. Music workshops and demonstrations of early settler life are also part of the event.

Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park in Live Oak, Florida is the site of this annual music festival, displaying a wide variety of roots music. Folk icon Richie Havens is among the performers appearing at Springfest. Others include the Emmitt Nershi Band, Swamp Cabbage (with a sound reminiscent of ZZ Top), Darrell Scott and the [...]

After a long closure, the Village Pump Folk Club in Trowbridge, Wiltshire, England will reopen next month. A selection of the club’s best regular performers will play the grand opening. The club will then begin a regular schedule of Friday night shows featuring artists such as the award-winning acoustic folk band Show of Hands.

As I mentioned in a previous post, the Swedish bluegrass group Abalone Dots will be playing at the South by Southwest music conference in Austin, Texas this weekend. Live music from their performance at the Belmont tonight is available through UStreamTV. Please note that, as is often the case with music events, scheduling may change [...]

Tickets go on sale March 30 for Pete Seeger’s 90th birthday celebration, a benefit concert at Madison Square Garden for the nonprofit Hudson River Sloop Clearwater. Emmylou Harris, Arlo Guthrie and Steve Earle are just a few of the many participating musicians. We’ll write more on this closer to the event.

One of my favorite CDs purchased in the last year is Epiphany Project’s Hin Dagh, a collection of original songs and adapted prayers in various languages including Armenian, Swahili, Aramaic and ancient Welsh. Epiphany Project is the duo John Hodian and Bet Williams. Bet’s full voice and four-octave range and John’s piano compositions make a [...]

The sixth annual Oxford Folk Festival will be held March 20-22 in Oxford, England. Musicians scheduled to perform represent a wide variety of folk music. I’ll mention just a few of them. Telling the Bees, composed of Andy Letcher, Colin Fletcher, Jane Griffiths and Josie Weber, plays music inspired by everything from modern protest to [...]