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Current mood:  energetic Category: Life
Moving to Texas in october of 07 has brought many new things into my life: lots of new friends...I'm told Austin is the best place to be single; a much milder winter weather (haven't spent a summer in Texas yet and will this coming one...can't be much worse than Tennessee tho?); and perhaps most of all, a large change to my musical direction. Whereas having grown up in the Mississippi Delta town of Memphis and heard so many stories from my Grandmother about the Civil War and her father who was, in fact, a slave owner, I've written so many songs about that period in history and am in the process of chasing down the funding to do record my "masterpiece" called Southern Heart which will have on it Volume One of my Old South/Civil War songs. They have been gestating for 30 years and are full grown and ready for release.
But even more timely is the forthcoming album titled Tall Texas Tales which we begin recording early March containing 12-14 of the best of the 25-30 songs I've written since moving to Austin...with titles like Mushroom Cloud Lil, Texas Is An Only Child, Fort Worth Blonde, Turquoise Heart With A West Texas Smile, Thats What I Love About Luchenback, Grown Up People and other favorites of mine from the last year of being influenced by the vivid Texas lifestyle.
Life in Austin is so different from Nashville. In Nashvegas, a person is measured by who most recently recorded his/her song, whereas in Austin the measuring stick seems to be how receptive one is to the graciousness of other artists in terms of their offers to share gig info and space on stage. For example, I've gotten to know many of who I consider to be Austin's finest writer/performers and have asked half a dozen of them to write music to lyrics I've given them for this new Texas record. Some of the guys who are on the cas are Will Sexton, Joe Manuel, Marvin Dykhauis, George Ensley and Bob Pearce who is actually a very old pal of mine from Sacramento now living in Austin. I also have talked with Kevin Welch, Ray Wiley Hubbard and Bill and Ruth Carter about musical contributions to sets of lyrics.
I'm looking forward to an exciting spring and summer doing gigs and festivals with my Berkalin Records mates Brian Kalinec, George Ensle andn Tim Henderson. We'll be traveling often together and doing shows as artists on the label. I'm also in the process of booking my next massive UK tour which kicks off october 21st and will run into december with my good pal Geoff Haves from London accompanying me this tour on guitar. He and are refer to ourselves as England's "WhatEverly Brothers"...him being Fill WhatEverly and me being The Don WhatEverly :-) Geoff and I have played often together over the years on my Europe tours.
Another recent and wonderful addition to my life is this new fan site which is the brain and heart child of my dear friend Stephanie Wilbanks. Its opened a brand new can of communication and wonder for me, and I wanna thank you all for contributing to its rather stunning success. And here's hoping the new year brings us all our dreams and an end to our country's difficult times. My very best to you all. love bob
1:34 AM
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