Hey folks...summer is here in Austin, Texas, and I'll be spending it in the US rather than doing my yearly summer UK tour. Not to worry tho, I'll be seein' you folks in the UK beginning October 22nd thru the first week of December.

The tour is nearly booked, and I'll be posting the concerts on bobcheevers.com when they are all written in stone. Accompanying me on the tour will be Cutting Crew bassist Dominic Finley with London guitarist Geoff Haves hooking up with us for the final London area gigs. This will be a comparatively "short" tour of about 40 concerts in the UK, and if things fall into place (as they seem to be doing), I'll then head for Switzerland, Germany, Austria and Turkey for concerts in those countries taking me almost up to Christmas.

Lots of good American news: a brand new CD has just been completed. It's called "Tall Texas Tales" and features ten of the 25-30 songs I've written since moving to Austin a year and a half ago. Under the direction of one of Texas' top producers, Stephen Doster, the record was done LIVE-TO-TAPE in his state-of-the-art analogue studio (with the exception of keyboard parts, accordion and backup vocals which were overdubbed). It really gave the record much more of an edge doing it that way. We are all very excited about it, and I'll be promoting it on the autumn Europe tour then releasing it in the US after the new year.

Check out photos from the studio:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bobcheevers/

In addition to spending several months booking the Europe tour, I've been very busy booking myself in this country and playing a lot in and around Texas as well as in other parts of the US. Moving here has really changed my life in so many ways -- all of which are good. I don't feel like a Texan, but I've sure been welcomed with open arms by these folks down here and have made a lot of wonderful new friends.

The following URL http://www.austinconnection.net will take you to the recent Austin Connection Pod Cast I did at host Jeff Tveraas' studio on May 4th. I return to the main stage of the renowned Kerrville Folk Festival the end of May and continue to be "song doctor" for the Austin Songwriters Group giving constructive criticism to a talented bunch of up-and-coming writers on as many Tuesday nights as I have free. Being on the advisory board of the ASG has opened many doors and given me a great chance to give back to the music community here in Austin of which I'm finding myself becoming a big part.

That's my news in a nutshell. I look forward to seeing a lot of friends in the coming months. My very best to you all. Ciao...bob