New Year's Eve

Kiss 2009 goodbye. Let’s welcome the new year with high hopes.  We’ll be celebrating with our good friends, the Fitzgeralds, in Berwyn, Illinois.  There’s snow on the ground and more coming down but we’re expecting a full house and it’s going to be red hot inside the club tonight.  We’ll be thinking of all of our good friends all over the country and the world, toasting to family, health, friendship, happiness, love, and prosperity.  We will be wishing you well.

The wonderful thing about playing music is that every day I think of someplace we’ve been, some people we’ve met, who are doing the real work of lifting people’s spirits.  Music and the intrepid gamblers who produce shows and festivals, who travel and play gigs, who support the artists by creating societies, foundations and charities, that’s what keeps us going.  It’s a generous community and in return for often very little compensation, they bring hope and joy (and barbecue) to the world every day and night.  We’re working on the peace part.

As for me, I resolve to do something in 2010 so good that it honors the memories of Eddie Bo, Bud Shrake, Stephen Bruton and Robin Shivers.

If I start thanking people, it’ll go on all night long.  But what the heck – I don’t have anything to do until sound check.  Just stop reading when you get tired of it:  

I want to thank our families, my great band, Alligator Records, The Rosebud Agency, Page Hite, Deb Fleming, Antone’s, Fitzgerald’s, The Blues Foundation, The New Orleans Jazz Fest, Sweet Home New Orleans, HAAM, the Delbert Sandy Beaches Cruise, The Palms, The Triple Door, B.B. King’s in NYC, Knuckleheads, Dosey Doe, Rhythm and Roots, Michael Arnone’s Crawfish Boil, The Belly Up, Rancho Nicasio, The Legendary Rhythm and Blues Cruise, Irma Thomas, The Stone Mountain Art Center, Seth Walker, the Turning Point, Dominos For World Peace, the Knickerbocker, The Ocean Mist, Sokolowski’s in Cleveland, the Granada, Bobby Charles, The Rams Head, The State Theater in Falls Church, VA, the Birchmere, Tracy Nelson, Yoshi’s, my Pilates instructor Darragh, The Aladdin Theater in Portland, OR, the Dakota in Minneapolis, Crystal Bay Casino, The Houston International Festival, Snug Harbor, Jimmy Anselmo, The Chocolate Church, Loose Wheels, The Ark, The Iron Horse, The Beachland Ballroom, the whole towns of Louisville and Greeley, CO, Sengelmann Hall, Blues on the Green, KRVS, The Bourbon Street Club in Sao Paulo, Brazil, that great NYC Hudson River cruise, The Stephen Talkhouse, The Little Fox, Angela and Bob, The Regatta Bar, Floyd Domino, Nancy Coplin, Elvin Bishop, Kimmie Rhodes, Skipper’s Smokehouse, Mama’s doctors, all the folks in Oslo at Herr Mueller’s, in Odense, Denmark, in Vilnius, Lithuania, at Le Meridien in Paris and especially at the Lucerne Blues Festival, everybody who played on my Birthday Bash in February, everyone who came to my Birthday Bash, the Pousson Family who all worked on my Birthday Bash,  Red Young, Brian Nolan, The Tejana Dames, The Firedogs, Sculler’s, House of Blues in New Orleans, Tipitina’s, W.C. Clark, Artz Ribhouse, Tom Marker, Ben Sandmel, John T. Davis, River Ranch, Blue Moon Saloon, Linda Bacon, Threadgill’s, the Continental Club, Margaret Moser, The Saxon Pub...

There are more but the band’s here and it’s sound check time.  We’re going to party like it’s 2009!  You too.