GAMBLERS ALL – I first heard Pieta Brown back in 2002. Her debut record had just come out and she came through town to play the Cafe Carpe while I was out on the road. I missed the show but Kitty who owns the bar lent me her copy of the disc, and I took it back to my room on Grove Street. I'd given up my apartment in a sweet old Victorian mansion, the one where I'd painted every room and refinished the hardwood floors, because I was on the road too much to pay rent on someplace I visited once in while. I was in the process of moving my few possessions from the back of my truck into the front room at my friend Mark's house: desk, typewriter, hand-me-down computer, steamer trunk full of letters, photos, and journals, and a very bachelor single-bed covered with my Grandpa's army blanket. I mention this only because the details of that little room are somehow paired with, and seared into mind by, her album. I'd made a record of my own the year before but hers was much better, and this both thrilled and disappointed me. The thing I want most from a collection of songs, mine included, is what my friend Dombrowski has referred to as "a voice and a world," or what Barry Lopez describes in his essay Landscape and Narrative, as the profound sense of well-being that comes when a story successfully harmonizes the interior and exterior landscapes. That's the long way around to saying that her work felt fully realized, and there was a place for me in it. Mystery and homecoming.

I've followed Pieta's work all these years and we've become friends. This December we're going out on the road together on a tour called Gamblers All (after the Bukowski poem), sharing the bill and the band on a brief run in Wisconsin, Illinois, and Minnesota. Get your tickets now for these few special shows at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago, IL. (12/10), the Trempealeau Hotel (where there may be just a few standing room tickets left?) in Trempealeau, WI. (12/13), the High Noon Saloon in Madison, WI. (12/14), and the Cedar Cultural Center in Minneapolis, MN. (12/15) (Lancaster is a very small room and semi-private, and sold out in about half an hour). These are going to be great nights, and likely the only full band shows until later in the year.

KINGS OF JOY – I'll close out 2023 with the Kings of Joy, first at The Parlor Room in Northampton, MA. (12/21), and then Sally O'Brien's in Somerville, MA. (12/28). Real blues, rock'n'roll, the shuffle and swing. The music that reminds you that life is hard and strange and beautiful and someday you're going to die, and also makes you want to shake your ass, and have three drinks real fast. Our songs, their songs: Little Walter, Howlin' Wolf, Billy Boy Arnold, Mama Thornton, Solomon Burke, Slim Harpo. American music, not Americana, whatever that is. Come and get it.

THE RIVER YOU TOUCH – Last year I spent a month recording the audiobook for my friend Chris Dombrowski's fantastic recent memoir, THE RIVER YOU TOUCH (Milkweed Editions), composing some minimalist guitar pieces for the theme and chapter headings, and learning how not to also record the sheep grazing out the window. The paperback is out now and if you're looking to impress your friends and relatives at the holidays, I'd recommend wrapping up a copy, or four.

My new album, THE UNIVERSAL FIRE will be released into the wilderness of digital commerce in 2024, and the boys and I will be out on the road behind it throughout the year. More about that when there's more to tell. Until then, send your friends out in the towns where we're playing, and we'll see you out there.

DECEMBER 2023