I'm not sure enough can be said for just how beautiful the hills of Virginia are, especially in the early misty morning on the first day of Fall. I'm sure Thomas Jefferson took a pretty good stab at it. either way, today I'm writing from the front lounge of the tour bus as we make our way down to Nashville after a fantastic Sunday night at Jammin' Java in Vienna. we enter the home stretch of the tour today with a night off before playing 3rd and Lindsley in Nashville and Smith's Olde Bar in Atlanta, then finally heading on out to the Isle Of Palms for the Hotel Carolina event. this has been hands-down one of the sweetest tours I've been on yet. it's been really great making our way from coast to coast these past 4 weeks. I certainly want to thank everybody who's made it out to share in the Evening of the Feeling Song. what a nutty thing. if you haven't seen the tour video blogs, please, do yourself a favor: 

Don't miss out on the special pre-sale offer for Tony Lucca's "A Night At The Mint." This exclusive offer gets you a signed copy of the DVD and also includes shipping fees, but only lasts until August 25th - order yours today by clicking here!!

played New Orleans last night and actually got a chance to walk around a bit before the show. the venue was too far from the French Quarter to walk, being that it was probably 95 degrees with about 70% humidity. as well, the Quarter is usually the only part of New Orleans I'm ever able to visit anyway. instead, I strolled through the warehouse district and came upon the Canal Street Historic District. I remember that this was where most of the reporting took place during Hurricane Katrina. I recalled the images of National Guard tanks rolling through the streets, military commanders shouting orders, troops with rifles at the ready. like so many, I was glued to the tube for the weeks that followed that horrible calamity. I still get worked up just thinking about the nightmare that was the Bush administration and just how blatant their disregard was for helping the people of Louisiana. here in Baton Rouge, my friend told me that they went from a city of 300,000 people to a city of 1,000,000 almost overnight. that's unimaginable! oddly enough, I had been in New Orleans not even a week before Katrina and had returned only a couple months later, after the city had slowly begun to open its doors again. I was with Ernie Halter and my cousin Johnny. the 3 of us decided to drive through the 9th Ward on our way out of town. I've never been to, seen or visited a battlefield, much less right after a battle, but after seeing what we saw that day, I can only begin to imagine what kind of horror must befall those in the face of such an unfortunate turn of events. my heart broke for the people of New Orleans. my heart broke for people everywhere that, for some reason or another, find themselves in the throes of our society's underclass. when I saw the levy and the inevitable path of destruction to be caused by its impending breach, I could see it as nothing other than what it was, a controlled extermination. wow. I'm no conspiracy theorist but sometimes you have to tear through the rhetoric and see things for how they really appear to those most affected, or in this case, displaced altogether. 

hey y'all. writing to you from the back bench of the Benjy Davis Project tour van, on its way from St. Louis to Cincinnati for a night off. had some time to make so I thought I'd write what seems like a rather long-overdue blog. Twitter's made things a little too easy these days. and although I've really grown fond of attempting to master the art of brevity, it's always nice to stretch out and not have to keep track of the number of characters all the time.

Enjoy a free live version of "Pretty Things" featuring Ernie Halter.