Man, what a year. In February eleven fellow guitarists and I were acknowledged with a GRAMMY® Award for our contributions to the CD “Henry Mancini; Pink Guitar.” Congratulations to my fellow guitarists and Grammy Award winners David Cullen, Laurence Juber, William Coulter, Pat Donohue, Al Petteway, Mark Hanson, Doug Smith, Amrit Sond, Aaron Stang, Wayne Johnson and Mike Dowling.
This handmade bobble-head was a gift from Sharon L. The head moves and the hands twitch. Kills me every time.
Played the Knock on Wood Guitar Festival in Maine in April and had a great time hanging with G.E. Smith, Muriel Anderson and everybody. Kudos to Randy Labbe for a great job putting the Festival together. Spent a great week in May back at the Fur Peace Ranch guitar camp, always love to see Jorma, Vanessa and the gang.
In Sarzana, Italy with two great friends
Alessio (L) and Gianni (R)
In June I traveled to Bratislava, Slovakia for a terrific guitar festival. A great audience and a truly beautiful city. Thanks to Jozef Zsapka and to Jana Kovacikova for inviting me. The summer found me on the road again, returning to the National Guitar Workshop in San Francisco and the Swannanoa Gathering in North Carolina. I’ve been saying I’m gonna take a year off from teaching for several years now, but I have such a great time I can’t say no.
Got home from Swannanoa for a day and a half then got back on a plane to Italy, where I spent all of August touring. My great friend and manager in Italy Alessio Ambrosi organized a wonderful tour. It was a very busy tour, and I got to some really special places. Check out the photo gallery at my website for more. It was great seeing my old friends in Italy, I hope to come back soon.
At this writing I’m still at work on the blues album. I scrapped some things and rethought the direction a time or two, as I really wanted to show some respect for the blues. I think it’s going to be a good piece of work, and I’m finally happy with the way it’ll hang together. I should be finished recording and mixing in the next couple of weeks and will hand it over to Solid Air Records for manufacture. With some luck we might see it before the end of the year. Thanks to James Jensen at Solid Air (and all who’ve inquired about the album) for your patience. Check out the website for the latest info.
Thanks
Chief Noda, Marcus Vichert, Tim Sullivan, Joe Barbieri, Larry Dalton and all at Fishman, the guys at Breedlove, D’Addario Strings and Chris Darling at WMPG. Thanks to all my friends in Italy for support above and beyond the call of duty; Alessio Ambrosi, Gianni & Mari Giappiccini and Geppi and Rosandra. Thanks also to Jana Kovacikova and Jozef Zsapka, Al Petteway and Amy White, Jorma and Vanessa Kaukonen and especially Kelli Bertram. Thanks to all of you who’ve come out to my concerts and workshops, bought my records and books and generally supported my creative endeavors. I am flattered and grateful for your continued friendship and support. I’ll look for you out on the road somewhere.
Wishing you love and music,
-Ed
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