5 Jul 2010: Africana in the mix.

Hello and greetings. While it might appear that I have been less than diligent with the diary, thing is we’ve been between servers for a while and wrinkles have been in need of ironing before doing the swap. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it. One wrinkle that escaped was that the last newsletter slipped between the cracks...so may fudge a bit on this one. But the site is now up almost fully ironed, and has some nice new features.

The new trio try-out went over very well to a packed and partisan crowd in Melton, with some of the new blues based tunes getting a very well received debut. Nice thing about the blues based stuff is that it’s a currency accepted wordwide, and I’m finding it a lot of fun writing blues lyrics. Was speaking to my mate Keith Lentin in New York about the meaning of the blues and he quoted some old blues icon as having described the blues as “Being po’, and mean women. ” This all works perfectly fine as a guiding light and the songs keep coming. Boeremeisie has just looked over my shoulder and asked… do I mean being mean to women. Why she would ask that I have no idea.

The fragility of life and the myth of safety in the UK was illustrated for me recently when I was bitten by a thing called a Blandford Fly. Apparently east Anglia is part of a belt, similar to the Beira malaria corridor, or the Zambezi valley tstete fly belt, where these little bastids are common. Very painful, bites swelled up, was a hell of a thing. And there I was just sitting by the river in pastoral bliss…just goes to show that you’re never safe. They’ve gone down now, thanks. Was inspired to a write a song along the lines of Leadbelly’s “Bluetailed fly”, so all’s well that ends well.

Otherwise settling in with the new teenage element in the house. One just has to adjust to the fact that what looks like a tidy room to them, looks to you like the site where a homeless person was torn to pieces by wild dogs.

Looking very forward to working the new blues album in SA early next year, and duly encouraged by the success of my last SA tour I might even brave a few Gauteng and Durban shows.

The new roots compilation “Africana” is now available on iTunes and from the site. Featuring a mix of the more blues/African/country material, it’s been compiled for the solo UK roots gigs and enables punters new to my oevre to get a fair idea without having to buy five albums.

It includes a re-mix of Rough Justice, a re-mastered version of “Southern Cross” recorded live with the Louis Mhlanga band and Joy of Africa choir, “Grief of Ages”, the bluegrass ballad recorded in New York with Keith Lentin, and remasters of various tracks recorded with Peter Cohen, Nelson Barbosa, Andy Green and Yoyo Buys. The cover features a pic of the Richtersveld taken by my mom in law Maggie...I thought you can’t go wrong with a nice African tree! The title is a reaction to the plethora of middling Americana that the UK is currently awash with….not sure what you have to do to escape it. Probably go to America. The track listing goes:

Charly go crazy: Rough Justice: Bobby come back: Fortune Teller: Drunken girl: Over the mountain: Iron in the sky: Grief of ages: Rikki Tikki Tavi: Southern Cross:

UK Gigs for July all up on the live page, all solo acoustic except for the Smiths Ale Festival which is an electric trio show. More trio shows coming up, a nice festival at the end of August and some solo September dates in Devon(nothing to do with going for a surf of course) being set up.

That’s it for now, til next time,

best,

Robin