When Nancy Griffith makes her tour stops in Connecticut, New York and Massachusetts October 22-24, the opening performer will be Amy Speace. “Of the many artists that I look up to Nanci Griffith surely is high up on my list of influences,” says Speace in a recent press release, “and it will be a huge honor to share the stage with her on these shows. Nanci paved the way for the rest of us trying to bridge the gap between folk and roots and country music.” Griffith is touring to promote her new CD, The Loving Kind.

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 and then go on to Massachusetts, Maine and Pennsylvania and make a circle back around the country, visiting a total of 19 states through June. The group will also perform at the Country Rendez-Vous Festival in France in July.

Group members Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Joe Ely and Butch Hancock are all singer/songwriters. They co-wrote about two-thirds of the tracks on the new CD, Hills and Valleys, released by New West Records. Judging from my own listening to the web site samples, fans won’t be disappointed with the results. Brad Buchholz of The Austin American-Statesman has written a detailed review for the paper’s Austin360 site.

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 April 1, Oakland April 14, Chicago May 6 and Boston May 30.

I wouldn’t want to be Gordon Lightfoot’s bus driver right now. The listed tour schedule has Lightfoot performing in Austin March 3rd, Grand Prairie March 4th and San Antonio March 5th. What were they thinking?? Then they have an extra day to get to Tulsa for the March 7th concert.

Not counting the mileage to get down to Austin in the first place, door-to-door mileage is 207 from Bass Hall in Austin north to Fort Worth and east to Nokia Theatre in Grand Prairie, 287 back through Fort Worth and south again through Austin to the Majestic Theatre in San Antonio, and 569 north again through Austin and Fort Worth to the Mabee Center in Tulsa. Wow!! Map the directions online and you’ll see what I mean. They’re going to spend a lot of time on Interstate 35. But you gotta love someone who goes to that much trouble to sing for you!

http://www.lightfoot.ca/2009.htm

Folk and bluegrass performer and teacher Orrin Star celebrates 2007 as his 30th year of full-time music-making, and is kicking things off with a tour of Nevada and California later this week.

“It was in February of 1977 that I ( along with my then duo partner Gary Mehalick ) started performing full time, up in the Boston area. In 1979, in the liner notes to our first recording, I wrote: “We are thankful that we’ve been able to support ourselves playing this largely non-commercial music that we love; we’ll probably continue being field hands in the garden of the American musical tradition for some time.”

I didn’t realize how prophetic that thought would prove to be.” See www.orrinstar.com for complete info.

According to Rolling Stone and Springsteen fan site Backstreets.com, Bruce Springsteen will release an album of songs by Pete Seeger in May.

The Chieftains, the legendary traditional Irish music group will kick off their annual winter tour beginning Jan. 17 in Shreveport LA.