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ON THE ROAD (YES, AGAIN), AND A FEW OTHER MUSINGS FROM THE (SOMETIMES) IMPENETRABLE GREAT WALL OF GINA
I looked at my website the other day and realized that it had been a year since I last updated it.
Ok...let me qualify that...
For those who have been looking for the latest Gina Forsyth news, if you check the upcoming dates page, you know that the
upcoming gigs are always up to date.
However, if you only look at the news, without checking the dates, you may not know that in the past year, Gina has had a full
slate of gigs, from solo shows at places like the Neutral Ground in New Orleans and SugaCanes in Hammond, to fiddle gigs with
Bruce Daigrepont, to Fall, Spring, and now, Summer 2003 tours with the Malvinas.
Since their highly successful 2002 Summer tour, the Malvinas have played guerilla showcases at both the Northeast Regional and
National Folk Alliance conventions, did a spring tour in Texas and Louisiana which included the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage
Festival, and are now wrapping up a Summer 2003
tour that included shows in the Midwest, Canada, and New England.
Gina will be escaping the New Orleans heat through August 16, as, at the conclusion of the Malvinas' Summer tour in Vermont,
she will be joining Bruce Daigrepont for his Canadian tour in Quebec and New Brunswick.
MALVINAS NEW CD NOW IN STORES
The Malvinas
new CD, i'm not like this, is now available at Louisiana Music
Factory and Tower Records. So far, the reviews have been mighty good, too.
As Keith Spera writes in the Times-Picayune Lagniappe section, "More
folk music should be this invigorated."
The best news of all is that we'll be back at the Neutral Ground August 15
at 9pm. So, if you want to get invigorated for the Dog Days of summer,
come to the Neutral Ground August 15 and get a CD!
SOME SAD NEWS...
The world of music lost two giants last Friday, July 19, in Alan Lomax and
Dave Carter.
Alan Lomax (along with his father, John Lomax) recorded a gigantic treasure
trove of folk music from all over the US and beyond; without him, scores of
songs that most of us know would never have been heard by most of us--songs
like "Rock Island Line" and "Home on the Range," for example. Perhaps more
significantly, he made some of the first recordings of Muddy Waters and Woody
Guthrie. The Folk Revival of the 1950s and 60s probably wouldn't have
happened without him. You may have heard a couple of his recordings on the O
Brother Where Art Thou Soundtrack; they've also been playing a number of
these field recordings on WWOZ in the last few days. May his legacy never be
forgotten.
Dave Carter wasn't quite as well-known in many circles, but he was well on
his way to being there, and then some. In the past several years, I have come
to know a whole slew of brilliant songwriters, but I have to say that Dave
Carter was the brightest light of all of them. I mean, he made most of us
look like utter fools--not just because he could rhyme "orange" and "door
hinge ("The River Where She Sleeps")," but because his songs possessed a
tremendous depth way uncommon to most songwriters in our day and age--and I
dare say in any era ("When I Go" and "The Mountain," to name two). His three
recordings with Tracy Grammer are some of the best of the last four or five
years in folk music. I am forever grateful for having known him, for his
genuine warmth and generosity, and for his many words of encouragement. I
will miss him more than I can ever begin to say. Visit
Dave and Tracy's web site.
LIFE AS A MALVINA
A dispatch from Gina, on the road...
The best way that I can describe the trio I've been part of, of late,
The Malvinas,
is from an email that I wrote to a fan in St. Louis (just one of
the places we'll be playing this summer):
The Malvinas are myself and two former members of an all-female quartet out
of Dallas called Chattervox. They are Lisa Markley, on guitar, who still
lives in Dallas, and Beth Cahill, on mandolin and tenor guitar, who now lives
in Canada. As you can imagine, these days, it's a bit of a challenge for us
to get together, but somehow, we managed to put together a CD.
I met Lisa at Kerrville a couple of years ago, and Beth the day before we all
played our first gig together, back in October. The CD grew from there: I
think it grew out of something we were going to push at Folk Alliance to help
us get some gigs. We landed a radio gig in Chicago, and that got the ball
rolling to go on tour this summer. We each contributed three songs, plus
there's a cover--a real stunner of a song to the Virgin Mary by a guy from
New Jersey named Mike Laureanno.
In a few short months, it has come to feel like a good match: I give them my
"edge" and my swamp/country roots, and they give to me their smoothness,
their pop and jazz influences, their musicianship, and some incredible songs.
Realistically, it may be hard to keep it going, as we all live so far away
from each other--but I can honestly say that there are few people I've
enjoyed playing with as much as I've enjoyed playing with Lisa Markley and
Beth Cahill.
I don't know if that tells you much about our music, except to say that it's
still pretty folky. There's not a lot of production on the CD, except for one
or two songs at the most. Oh yeah, the web site, for what it's worth, is
www.themalvinas.com. I think there's a sound clip from our CD, as well as one
from each of our solo projects.
REVIEWS
Several reviews of You Are Here
are now available in the new reviews section.
YOU ARE HERE HITS THE FOLK CHARTS!
In June, 2001, You Are Here came
out on Waterbug Records, and in the past couple months, it's
been getting airplay from folk DJs around the country.
For July and August, 2001, You Are Here hit #20 and #19 on the
folk-DJ airplay lists (respectively). That means that they're playing You
Are Here alongside Nanci Griffith, Gillian Welch, and Tom Russell (In
July, Tom Russell and Gina were both tied for #20 on the list). You can check
out the folk DJ lists on the web at: http://www.hootholler.com/charts.html and http://www.folkradio.org/.
THE REST OF SUMMER 2001, IN A PARAGRAPH (OR TWO)
From Gina's diaries...
This summer, I packed all my belongings and moved to a new apartment; put my
computer in the shop for about a month (it was being upgraded while I was
going through my glacially slow moving process--sincere apologies to those
who didn't get a prompt reply from me via email; now you know why); played a
few road gigs (Chicago, St. Louis, and The Evening Star Concert Series, with
guitar monster Jack Williams, in GA); took in a game at Wrigley Field and saw
Barry Bonds and Sammy Sosa hit home runs in same game; and hung out at the
Kerrville (TX) Wine and Music Festival on Labor Day Weekend.
Special thanks go to Nancy Walker, Sue McClelland, Sue Fink, all my friends
in Chicago and St. Louis--along with Rich Warren at WFMT in Chicago and
everyone at KDHX in St. Louis--and Don Porterfield at The Evening Star
Concert Series, for all they did to make my travels this summer a success,
plus a lot of fun!
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