We’re very pleased to be among the performers at this year’s Ola Belle Reed Homecoming Festival. We recorded Ola Belle’s song “High On a Mountain” for our second CD, Where You Been So Long, and we’re going to learn another of her songs especially for the festival.

The trip will bring us to North Carolina for the first time. On the way to the festival, we’ll do a radio show in Knoxville, and a show in Fletcher, NC. We’re riding a high right now. On our last trip, we passed through three states, and weren’t threatened with a firearm once. Take that, Wisconsin!

I’ll be playing in the Madison area this Saturday (August 2), backing up Deanna Veragona at the Sugar Maple Traditional Music Festival. Deanna is stepping in to fill the void left by Hazel Dickens who, sadly, has fallen ill and is unable to perform. New Lost City Rambler Mike Seeger will be performing earlier in the evening, as will several former Bluegrass Boys.

The emcees for the show are interesting as well: Tom Martin-Erickson, a Wisconsin Public Radio host who has been kind to Tangleweed in the past, and Bill Malone, author of the best comprehensive history of country music, Country Music USA.

Deanna has made a lot of interesting music over the years. In addition to her solo work, she was a founding member of Lambchop, and has collaborated with the Silos, Paul Burch, Bobby Bare Jr., and host of other notable folks.

All of us, by the way, are huge Hazel Dickens fans, and wish her a speedy recovery.

We had a great trip on our first ever Rocky Mountain Foray. Here is a link to my pictures. Hopefully the other guys will post theirs at some point too:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/10799390@N06/sets/72157606443571057/

Here’s a quick summary of the trip:

Day one - drive 300 miles, play two sets to a nice audience at the Bluegrass Cafe in Tama, Iowa, then drive 800 miles to Denver, Colorado over night.

Day two - eat a great breakfast at Udi’s in Stapleton (finally, Colorado green chile!), crash at Ryan’s old friend Molly’s house for 4 hours of much needed sleep in the early afternoon, play a short living room set for Molly and her husband and kids, clean up and drive to CO Springs, eat a fantastic bbq meal and play three well received sets outdoors at the Front Range BBQ, before following our new friend Joe Johnson to The Ancient Mariner bar in Manitou Springs for a latenight acoustic set by the bar. Then drive an hour back to Denver to crash at our friend Cyndy Bruce’s house. Her boyfriend Tommy was an excellent host (Cyndy was stuck out of town) and gave us a great place to rest up and recharge.

Day three - chill at Tommy and Cyndy’s place all day before playing three sets at Duclinea’s Hundredth Monkey on Colfax that night. Many local and out of town friends were in attendance and we had a great night. My old school chum Pete Condon was on hand to add some excellent harmonica to Don’t Think Twice and Mountan Dew. After the show, we packed up and drove 60 minutes to Lyons, CO to setup camp in the dark at Rockygrass.

Day four - wake up to the bright Colorado sun after 3.5 hours of sleep and enter Rockygrass Festival. Hang around for several hours before playing three songs in the band contest. We didn’t place but we had a blast, and had no regrets about our lack of matching suits, or any suits at all, for that matter! Our set was very well received by the audience and though we surely could have played better than we did, considering how we got there, I’d say we did pretty well under the circumstances. The festival grounds were amazing and the band selection was fantastic. We made lots of new friends, re-connected with old ones, and had an excellent time throughout. The highlight of the festival for me was a long latenight jam session with our new friends Andy and Robin from Oregon by our campsite.

Day five - wakeup from a few hours sleep to another blazing sunny day, get a leisurely breakfast and make our way into the festival grounds for our first day of absolultely no commitments. We all enjoyed the fest in our own ways, crossing paths variously throughout the day between swimming/tubing in the river, checking out the band contest finals, enjoying the mainstage acts, shopping for gifts at the local vendors, and sampling the excellent festival chow and beer selections. It was a very nice day, the musical highlight of which was the Carolina Chocolate Drops, who fired up the crowd in a huge way and had a blast doing it. Sam Bush Band put on a great set of classic bluegrass to close out the night while Tangelweed got seriously hula-fied by my old pal Pete Condon. Sam got his friends Peter Rowan, Chris Thile, Edgar Meyer, Mike Miller and several others to join him for a huge three-song encore that sent everybody out of the festival fully sated from a long weekend of bluegrass. Not wanting it to end, we then jammed some more in the parking lot with some new friends from Nebraska before packing up camp and hitting the road at 2 a.m.

Day six - drive 16 hours overnight and all day Monday through Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa and Illinois, arrive home safely around 6 p.m. Sleep the sleep of the dead.

We’re very proud to be back at the ‘A Day in the Country’ shindig at the Hideout. Last year, we got things rolling with an all-acoustic set outside. This year, we’re inside, toward the end of the evening. I’ll also be assisting Deanna Varagona’s Gospel Jubilee with their special reunion set.

The complete schedule, in reverse chronological order:

9:45 Hoyle Brothers

9:00 Fulton County Line

8:15 The Lawrence Peters Outfit

7:30 Tangleweed

6:45 Gin Palace Jesters

5:45 Deanna Varagona’s Gospel Jubilee

5:00 The Blue Line Riders

4:15 Katie Belle and the Paramount Boys

3:30 Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader String Band

2:45 Northside Southpaws

2:00 Possum Hollow Boys

We’ve just finished two shows at the Bill Jorgenson Memorial Bluegrass Festival, and are heading south at an unlawful rate.

We had a Saturday night show, and a Sunday afternoon show. Both went well. Andy Leach filled in ably for Scott on guitar. Lots of folks bought CDs, and pre-sales for the new CD, Most Folk Heroes Started Out as Criminals, were brisk as well.

After Saturday’s show, we hung out with the Chasin’ Steel guys for a while, and jammed with some good pickers in the barn until about 1 am or so. Billy, Paul, and Ryan reenacted some scenes from Iron John and Lord of the Flies afterward, the results of which have been videotaped. The tapes will be released to the media in the event that any of them attempts to run for president.

Paul and I played a round of mini golf at our hotel, fighting to a draw. Billy acquired a large quantity of golf balls. Ryan made three cents busking. I heard the Clash playing over the store speakers at the Piggly Wiggly. We fit four people, a fiddle, bannjo, mandolin, and suitbass into a Honda sedan, largely due to Billy’s genius packing job.

Unlike our previous two trips to Wisconsin, no band members were threatened with firearms.

Despite a day full or apocalyptic weather in Chicago that continued right up until the start of our set, the clouds parted for our Downtown Hoe-Down tonight. The band scheduled immediately before us had their set rained out, and ours was nearly canceled as well. But the rain stopped and, within a few minutes, stars were visible above Daley Plaza. Annie Coleman and our ringers got folks moving, and, pretty soon, the plaza was packed with dancers.

Thanks to all who came out and danced, as well as to all the good folks who put Looptopia together & kept it running through some very difficult conditions.

We’re very pleased to be hosting a square dance tomorrow night in the Loop as part of the annual Looptopia celebration. Join us at Daley Plaza by the Picasso for an evening of music and dancing. Our friend Annie Coleman from the Golden Horse Ranch Square Dance Band will be calling, and we’ll have expert dancers on hand to help keep things moving. Music starts at 8pm, rain or shine.

For more information, visit Looptopia.com.

Our fine fiddler Billy Oh was invited onstage to jam with Toumani Diabati and his band last night @ Logan Square Auditorium. Here’s a blurry cameraphone shot of the festivities. Click on the image for a larger, blurrier version.

It was painfully cold in Chicago last night, but I doubt that anyone in attendance regretted venturing out into the snow. Diabati’s band was one of the finest I’ve ever seen — a collection of virtuosi who exhibited remarkable restraint in their ensemble playing.