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NEWSLETTER JUNE 22 2006 Having finally got home on June 6th. after more than two months away, it has taken me a while to settle down again and catch up on all that's happened while I've been on tour. I drove home with all my equipment in the car at the end of May, then flew back three days later for an outdoor show with Wolfgang Niedecken and BAP (It was Charlie Watts' birthday so we played "Dead Flowers" in his honour) then onwards the same night to Hamburg for the three-day Beatles event organised (again wonderfully) by Ulf Krueger and his team at K and K. This is the third time I've taken part and it has become almost like an extended family : the regulars include dealers, musicians, photographers, Star Club participants, Beatles experts and fans. This time the invited guest-list was topped by Cynthia Lennon, who appeared twice together with old friend Astrid Kirchherr and Mark Lewisohn, the oracle of all Beatles knowledge and author of the seminal "Beatles Sessions" and "Beatles Chronicles". Mark turned out to be great company and a fascinating source of information - a very well-timed inspiration as I start up the last phase of my own book. He offered to help in any way he could, so I've gained an valuable ally. Having been in Germany for such a long time, I was glad to get home, though it is always a big adjustment for all concerned. I need a few days to wind down and spent it unpacking, listening to music (on LP of course!) and calling friends. I had 400 spam e-mails on my 'public' web address which explains why that has been closed down. I know from conversations at the concerts that the new version of my guestbook is difficult to negotiate and awkward to get into. I'll be addressing those problems as soon as I can get together with Dave Andrews, my web-master. It does appear to be next to impossible to be accessible without immediately being the target of internet sales pitches and pornography. We obviously need to try a gain for a better and more idiot-proof system, so please don't give up on us just yet and watch this space for new developments...For me, being able to get your feedback and be in touch is one of the most important parts of having this website. My new UK agent has been busy while I've been gone so I'll be announcing more British dates over the next months - we are aiming at a run in the Autumn and again in the early part of 2007. I plan to be back in the USA in September at the latest - in time for the 5th. anniversary of 9/11 - there may be an event in Chicago to commemorate those amazing few days. Geoff Court has completed his pilot film for the BBC and is waiting for confirmation to go ahead and make a full documentary about the connection between stranded passengers in Newfoundland and the local people. I'll be proud to take part when it happens - he seems to be hopeful of a result I'll let you all know when I hear anything more. The planned harmonica workshop in Tuscany is definitely cancelled in July - for whatever reason the support for it didn't justify going ahead. I'm disappointed as Reinhold and Martina (the hosts) put a lot of effort into their plans - Their guitar and singing workshops will still be happening in that beautiful countryside and are highly recommended! A lot of you (predictably and quite rightly) teased me and berated me for the non-appearance (again) of my songbook. We put out leaflets at every show to show what the cover could look like and to reassure the faithful that it is on it's way. I promise you that I am suffering as much as anyone - It's not usually my style to promise something and not deliver, but I confess that with last year's events, it was all I could do to get the new CD made, the tour rehearsed and the gigs happening. Sorry... The near future will be mostly taken up with intense desk activity so that I can finish my biography of Nicky Hopkins before the Autumn arrives. I had visions of working in hotel rooms during the tour, but the distances and tiredness soon put paid to that notion. Now I need to re-focus my efforts, carry on where I left off in March and FINISH IT! Since I got back to the UK I saw Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham play a wonderful show in a church near Piccadilly in London, and after my own two shows (in Portsmouth and Brighton) last week I went up to London again to visit my ex-guitarist Steuart Smith who has now been playing with the Eagles for four years. It was wonderful to catch up with an old friend and Steuart fixed it for me to visit Joe Walsh in his room as well as sorting out VIP passes for two at the Wembley Arena concert the same night. Joe Walsh gave me a great interview for the book so it was nice to say thanks in person. He was extremely charming and promised to help in other ways too. The gig was faultless if somewhat soulless with Steuart now carrying almost all the clever guitar bits and solos. I played my Brighton show together with Andy Roberts and my daughter Holly who both had landmark birthdays in June - Holly turning twenty-one and Andy reaching a grand sixty. Iain Matthews achieved the same anniversary on June 16th. so congratulations all round to my fellow Plainsingers and my daughter. I'm next on July 4th. Another year older...A lot has happened in the last twelve months and I find myself feeling increasingly grateful for the health I seem to have, despite the various aches and pains I experienced on tour, the friends and family that start seeming more and more important and the loyalty of all of you out there, still buying tickets, still buying the occasional CDs and still helping me make a living off something I love to do. On that note I'll leave you, wishing you all a great Summer with warm weather and not too much football! You can see the upcoming festivals and one-off concerts I'm involved in over on the TOUR DATES page.
Best wishes to all, Julian, Somerset
TOUR REPORT No. 3 (Potsdam) After a few days with no internet access and LOTS of driving, I am online the morning after a lovely show at the Waschhaus in Potsdam. Richard and I had defnitely reached that point where it was getting harder to keep up the excitement at the shows - hopefully not something that an audience would notice, as the music becomes pretty tight after 30 shows but nevertheless it becomes difficult to think of anything but bed after a 900 kilometre drive that gets you there just in time to soundcheck and go on stage.... Musicians! Always whining about something... In Nashville they say "What's the difference between a singer-songwriter and a puppy?" "After six weeks a puppy stops whining!" On the whole we have had a great time despite the various enemies of the gigging musician such as good weather, bad weather, Eurovision Song Contests (Grand Prix) on TV, football championships and of course the other thousand acts that are touring. The audiences are universally delightful, even the promoters who didn't have a full house have asked us back and the CDs have been flying off the sales table! What more can a man ask for. WE now have only four shows to go so the spirits are lifting and the last days will be even more fun. Then we go home! Sorry that we weren't able to tell more people about the cancelled show in Karlsruhe, but we only had two days notice. Thanks to everyone for all your support and now back on the road! (My Passat clocked up 200,000 miles when we entered Frankfuet - that's 350,000 kms...) Love to all, JD
TOUR REPORT No. 2 Grabbing the rare chance to be connected to the Internet (in Ulm today) here is a swift update on our activities... The shows have been universally wonderful experiences and on the occasions that the perfect Spring weather has cost us some of our expected guests, those who did come seem to appreciate us even more. Songs come in to the setlist and then disappear again, so there is no chance to get stale playing the same show over and over. In Weimar we played an extra hour and a half by playing one song by every band who's poster was hanging on the club's wall : the list included the Doors, the Animals, Led Zeppelin, the Ramones as well as usual suspects like the Beatles, Rolling Sones and Bob Dylan. I don't often have need of that part of my brain, but it is fun every now and then to play people's favourites as well as my own songs. ...which reminds me - I flew home for three days to film a pilot for a BBC4 TV documentary about my experiences in Newfoundland and while I was there another call came in asking for permission to use my "Waiting For A Plane" song in BBC Radio 2's "Home Truths" programme. It's great to have a chance to think back on the amazing time I shared for that week in September 2001. With another 12 shows to go we are at that point where the music is really taking off but both Richard and I are ready to head home again. I think this will be the last time I ever undertake a 50 date tour! Today we are off to Austria for 3 days and then back for more German gigs as well as Holland and Luxemburg - I'm looking forward to all of them. NEWSFLASH! Our Karlsruhe show has been cancelled now and will take place in the Winter instead. A number of new dates have come in for later in the year, so keep checking in on this website for details. The Harmonica Workshop in July doesn't look like it will happen this year, so I'll just stay home and finish the Nicky Hopkins book at last! Off we go again, Love to all, JD
TOUR REPORT Having left home on March 28th. it already feels like a lifetime that we've been away. The first port of call was the Frankfurt Music Fair which was noisy, exhausting and great fun too. I was playing for Lakewood guitars, AER amps and Hohner harmonicas, with occasional spots for Martin guitars due to the 'Carthy connection' and to Shubb capos where I also played once or twice - Rick Shubb took pictures of me playing the gold capo he made to commemorate the sale of his two millionth capo! You can see the picture on his website (www.shubb.com). I was very happy to meet up with Sonia from 'disappear fear' whom I'd met in Baltimore ages ago but hadn't seen for a while. I really like her and her playing too and hope we may hook up for some work together. I received an invitation from my German friends in BAP to join them onstage in Neu isenburg and Mainz, (both near Frankfurt) for their gigs there - always a pleasure. Highlight of the Fair was playing "Keep On Running" with Spencer Davis - another candidate for a Nicky Hopkins review too! My tour started in Mainz and got off to a fine start with a show in Bonn being filmed in a five camera shoot for a future DVD. Since then Richard and I have done 12 shows and there are about 30 to go. Spirits are good, the audiences have been delightful and the new CD seems to be going very well too. My only off days upcoming will be spent flying back to England to film an interview for a BBC documentary about the events of 9/11 and my experiences in Newfoundland as a passenger on flight UA 929 to Chicago - It will include a live performance of the song I wrote (or rather re-wrote) at the time "Waiting For A Plane". Well, having grabbed the rare opportunity to get on line, I've now got to get back in the car and head for Halle in the eastern part of Germany, which I last played when it was still part of the old DDR! Thanks to all those who have made it through the new guestbook - there will be a German 'Wegweiser' as soon as we have time to do it. I look forward to seeing lots of you at the shows, Best wishes and thanks for everyone's support so far - onwards and upwards, Greetings, Julian PS Please note that our May 1st. show in Oldenburg has been postponed to the Winter.
NEWSLETTER – FEBRUARY 2006
Greetings to everyone from sunny Somerset (it’s true, the sun is really shining!) where I am home alone for ten days of intense writing. I’m taking a break from ‘the book’ to update the news. As promised at Christmas time the new CD “Nothing Like A Dame” is hot off the press and will be available through Blue Rose Mail-Order, at all the up and coming live shows and of course through this website. It’s my first album of cover versions and they are all songs either written by or famously sung by women. The idea came up when I recorded Doris Day’s “Move Over Darling” and Aretha Franklin’s “All The King’s Horses” back in 1997. I guess that having grown up with six brothers and then spent 10 years in boys’ only schools, it’s not surprising that the opposite sex and what makes them tick has held a fascination for me. I was thinking particularly of some sixties songs, where the lyrics were often so demeaning to the female singers and so skewed towards men and their needs. I thought they would sound really different coming from a man – a crazy concept, but one I’m proud to have seen through. Now we’ll see what the world makes of it…
I’m very happy with how it has turned out and am particularly pleased that, for the first time, what is on the CD will be identical to what will happen on stage when I tour in April and May (again with Richard Kennedy). Official release date is March 24th. 2006 so it will be out in plenty of time for the shows. I’m also very pleased that we’ve finally got the Guestbook up and running again on this website and hope to hear from lots of you out there after the long gap of forced inactivity. It took a while, but I hope we can catch up now it’s back. The e-mail link to me works properly now as well. Other news : My 1996 production of country legend Charlie Louvin, “The Longest Train”, is being given a re-release by Los Angeles based label Varese Sarabande. They asked me to be closely involved in the new CD, now re-titled “Echoes Of The Louvin Brothers”, so it includes extensive sleeve notes, unused photographs and two live bonus tracks from when I accompanied Charlie in the UK all those years ago. Again the release date is in March if all goes to plan. (Note : It's now out and on the Varese Sarabande website). My songbook has taken longer than we anticipated but is definitely on the way. It will include tons of old photographs, cartoons, memorabilia and other stuff as well as over 100 songs – with 2 DVDs in the back featuring the artist (ie. me) singing all the songs, guitar in hand. It’s been quite an undertaking and my thanks go out the Reinhold Pomaske and his wife Martina, for the incredible amount of hard work that has gone into it so far. A little more patience and it will finally be out! By the way, for the harmonica fans among you, if you've ever wished you could learn the instrument yourself, or brush up on what you already know, you can join me for a week in Tuscany from 15-22 July for my first ever Harmonica Workshop. I spent a few days with Reinhold there (near Arezzo) last summer, filming the songs for the DVDs and it's an incredibly relaxed environment with home cooking, a swimming pool, good company and fantastic scenery. For a look at the place and more details (for German speakers) you can go to the link www.gitarrenliederschule.com, call (0049) 2331 42820, or e-mail me through the guestbook. Work on the Nicky Hopkins book continues despite the setbacks we had in the Autumn. Some interview partners I had given up on suddenly came through after all, which means there is more and more information to deal with – a nice problem to have! I’ve occasionally had to re-write chapters that were finished, but there are some great stories and I feel sure it’s going to be a good read when it is finally finished. Most of January was spent in preparation for the upcoming Spring shows in Germany (and neighbouring countries), with new posters, new photographs, the new CD to be made and all the other thousand details that need to be attended to. I’m glad that there are still upwards of fifty venues that want us to play and look forward to meeting as many of you as possible at the shows. There are even a handful of UK shows in the calendar! I was recently interviewed by BBC producer Nick Low for an upcoming Radio 2 portrait of Nicky Hopkins (about time!). The show goes out on March 25th. and may feature my collaboration with Nicky, "You're Listening Now". On March 26th. I will be appearing at a charity tribute concert at York House in Twickenham, in memory of Carlo Little, the wonderful drummer who worked in key bands with Nicky Hopkins. I got to know Carlo and his family through the interviews we did for the book and both he and his daughter Giselle have been a great help with my research. I know it will be a terrific night with wall-to-wall sixties legends and great music. I’ll again be attending the Frankfurt Musikmesse at the end of March, playing for Lakewood guitars, Hohner harmonicas, AER amplification and Elixir strings – all the good folks that keep us musicians going. I always enjoy meeting friends there so do come up and chat if you see a tall, bald man passing by! Then comes my own tour with the amazing left-handed Richard Kennedy again accompanying me on his upside-down right-handed guitar. We’ll be featuring the new CD’s songs as well as old (and new) songs of mine. Our show in Bonn will be filmed for a future DVD. See the Tour dates page for all the upcoming live appearances and have a look at the new photographs and trivia pages too. I look forward to seeing lots of you at the gigs – we’re going to have fun and will do our best to send everyone home with a smile on his (or her) face. See you down the road, Best wishes to all, Julian Dawson, Somerset JULIAN'S PRE-CHRISTMAS MESSAGE (sounds like the Queen!) Regular visitors to the website haven't had a lot of new information in the last few weeks. A combination of the fact that I've been concentrating on 'the book' and some of life's little difficulties have meant that the web had to wait a while. Right now the most important thing is to wish all of you a very Happy Christmas wherever you will be spending it. Two seasonal CD releases have recently appeared, both featuring my song "Christmas Every Day". One is Rosie Flores' "Christmasville' and the other is Garry Tallent's Americana fundraiser CD 'For Kate's Sake' with Buddy Miller, Jim Lauderdale, Joe Ely and a host of others. Rosie sings our song again in a different version with a great horn arrangement. The other tracks are cool too and there's a forkate'ssake website to tell you all about it. I'll be back here with a brand new 'News' page to start the new year. I can tell you all that the Spring will see a brand new CD project titled "Nothing Like A Dame", the long-promised Song Book and hopefully a finished Nicky Hopkins biography. The new Guestbook will also be up and running so we can talk to each other again through this site. We are looking forward to all the touring in April and May and there are plans afoot for Holland,the UK and the USA too. Thanks to everyone for their patience with me and my low profile - Have a wonderful Christmas break and let's hope that 2006 is a more peaceful year than the previous one. Love and best wishes from Somerset, Julian Dawson
JULIAN NEWSLETTER SEPTEMBER 2005 Hi everyone, The month began with a couple of live shows – one in Hachenburg, Germany was outdoors as part of an ‘English week’. Unfortunately the weather was just a little bit too authentic and I played to a few hundred people clutching umbrellas in a downpour. Holding an umbrella makes clapping difficult, but with a little bit of onstage madness and some Woodstock spirit, it still ended up as a storming gig. I mentioned in my last letter that most of my time at the moment has been taken up with writing my Nicky Hopkins biography, but my next bit of travelling in July was actually for the upcoming songbook. I flew to Pisa in Italy to join publisher/editor Reinhold Pomaske and his wife at their Guitar Summer School near Arezzo for four days of solid filming for the colour DVDs, which are planned as extras for the songbook. With a stunning landscape of Tuscan hills in the background, Reinhold filmed me playing over 120 of my songs, past and present – a marathon for both voice, concentration – and cameraman. Some of the songs I hadn’t played or even thought of for twenty years – what I needed was a songbook! The finished work will be available for my touring next Spring. It was great to meet up with familiar faces such as Astrid Kirchherr, Klaus Voormann and drummer Gibson Kemp and it was another exhausting but very enjoyable weekend. I gave myself an extra day in Berlin to visit with FJ Krueger and his partner Juliane. I wrote some lyrics for FJ some time ago and was very pleased to be able to hear what he’d done with them for his upcoming album. I liked his band Ideal enough to say that their album ‘Bi Nuu’ is almost the only German record I have at home. He is a brilliant guitarist and a great character, (he reminds me a little of Ian Dury) so I’m looking forward to his album coming out. It is half German and half English and 100% cool! August was almost all holidays, although I did take my computer and notes with me to France and got into a routine of getting up at 5.30 or 6.00 in the morning and writing until the rest of the house woke up for breakfast. I came home at the end with another two chapters written and a tan. By coincidence I met up with Dave Kelly of the Blues Band while in France, who was on holiday with his family in the same area. He was a nice man and helped me out with e-mail addresses for two of his Blues Band colleagues, Paul Jones and Tom McGuinness, both of whom feature in the Nicky Hopkins story. When I got home there was a lot of catching up to do, not having read an e-mail or taken a phone call for three weeks. There are lots interviews outstanding now and some really interesting names cropping up. I’m waiting at the moment on Ray Davies (still!), Donovan, Rod Stewart and many others. Sometimes it seems like such an enormous task that I lose my head and panic about ever finishing, but on the whole it’s a real pleasure digging into such a fascinating story and it’s progressing steadily now. I took a short break in early September for my traditional twice-yearly concert visit to Kempen, near the Dutch border in Germany. I managed to persuade my daughter Holly to come along and sing with me and she brought the house down again with her amazing voice. She is so much more confident than two years ago and the almost sold-out audience really showed their appreciation, leaving one proud Dad with her onstage. There was just enough time in our schedule to go and visit Iain Matthews at home in Holland and see his brand-new baby for the first time. She’s a beauty too! Just yesterday news reached me that guitarist Chris Jones, who has played for years as a duet with my old pal Steve Baker, was taken ill while visiting Poland, made it back to Germany to go into hospital, was diagnosed with cancer and died two days later. I played with Chris last year at the Hohner harmonica master-class and had the chance to see what a fine guitar picker he really was. He lived the old-fashioned image of a musician’s life to the hilt, smoking too much, drinking too much and moving on as soon as he got in a relationship, but he sang and played with a lot of soul and was great fun to be with – another very sad loss. I find it takes me a lot longer to recover from the travelling and missing nights of sleep than it used to (I guess I still find it hard to realise I’m over fifty), but now that I’m home again, it’s back to the writing desk with just a few scattered concerts between now and the New Year. Later this month there’s a one-off in Germany again followed by a couple of English shows and a song-writing workshop in Scotland, all of which promise to be fun. Richard Kennedy will be playing with me too. Best wishes to everyone – Stay well and enjoy life all you can wherever you are living it. I hope I see as many of you as possible at the shows and since our guestbook is finally going to be put right again, I hope I’ll hear from you on this website too. Julian, Somerset, September. NEWSLETTER JUNE 2005 Hi to everyone out there in internetworld. I'm back and a bit
late as usual….. I left England by car on April 5th. to be in Frankfurt for two
days of the big Musikmesse Trade Fair. I'd been waiting the whole
of March for my interview with Keith Richards, promised four years
ago and finally about to happen. When I got to my hotel near Frankurt there was a message from
home : Keith Richards will call you Thursday 7th. April at 17.00
local New York time - eleven o'clock at night in Germany! The hotel people were extremely nice and let me use the only
speaker-phone in the building, which was on the reception desk,
even though they had all gone to bed. I arrived this time not for song-writing, recording or performing, my usual occupations, but to spend two and a half weeks going through Nicky Hopkins papers, tapes, records and contracts for the book. I stayed with my old friends Barry and Holly Tashian and, despite the beautiful weather, went off dutifully every day to a dark room in Nicky's widow Moira's house to do my research. The work is becoming more and more interesting the further it goes, as loose ends start to be tied up and more amazing things turn up about which I knew nothing. Finding yet another LP Nicky played on, that nobody knows about to add to the list, is a great satisfaction. Though I really worked hard to make the most of the days I was
there, I still had time for one gig. I was one of several guest
vocalists appearing with the 'Long Players' a group of top local
musicians that includes my old friend Bill Lloyd and ex-producer
Garry Tallent. They get together about every two or three months,
pick a classic album and play it live from start to finish, with
an array of guest vocalists. This time it was the Who's "Who's
Next' album. I also had time to visit my usual round of favourite people :
I saw Dan Penn and his wife Linda for one afternoon of quality
time before they left town (Dan played me a new album he has produced
on Bobby Purify that is beautiful - look out for it in July).
The biggest surprise of all was that I came home with four new co-written songs, one with the Tashians, one with Pistilli, one with Bill Lloyd and a Christmas song, written with Rosie Flores over lunch (!!) a first for me and not a bad song either. It will hopefully appear on a charity Christmas album which Garry Tallent is masterminding. I spent my last evening in town at the Exit Inn watching Glen Tilbrook and his four-piece band giving a typically improvised and brilliantly played gig. Glen had me up (on harmonica) and Bill Lloyd (on guitar) to play two three songs at the beginning of the second set - a really fun way to round off a great visit. Since getting home I've spent another day in London recording
with Maggie Reilly, a project that is moving along very nicely
and should soon lead to an album and a live group for touring. My songbook is progressing well too and is another project that is taking up a lot of time and energy but will hopefully produce a great result. At the end of May I played a surprise double gig with harmonica-player Johnny Mars in Honiton, not far from home, when another band cancelled at short notice - Good to see him again. We jammed a few numbers with two harmonicas and made plans to resurrect my "Harp To Heart" project together. His bass-player and drummer turned out to be nephews of my long-time guitarist friend Jay Stapley! What a small world (but, as tour-manager Simon Tassano used to say, "I'd hate to have to paint it). Now the gig sheet is back up to date, even though it's a bit thin at the moment, I still hope to see some of you at shows - particularly for the UK dates - I need any help I can get. One or two notes : It was pointed out last month that the juliandawson.de German website appeared to have gone to sleep last year. An e-mail to the site's creator, Martin Rechmann, produced the explanation that he had been seriously ill but was now on the way to recovery. My very best wishes go to him for a speedy return to health. The guestbook problem on this site goes a little deeper than
I feared…..My webmaster explained to me that the volume of
spam mail on the Internet now is so huge, that it is difficult
to prevent the arrival of endless Viagra offers etc. alongside
the genuine letters from friends and fans that I love to receive.
I also hope that you all have a perfect Summer and don't completely forget me, just because my gigging schedule has slowed down for a while. Back to the writing desk, Best wishes, Julian, Somerset.
NEWSLETTER MARCH 2005 It's the first day of March
and time to ring the changes again on the website. I know from my own experience that it is always bad when you check back on a website to find that nothing has changed - and when things are left out of date for months there is no temptation to go back for another look. But generally, though I hope very much that all of you who have been kind enough to give me your e-mail addresses at a show somewhere will want to have a look every now and again at what I am up to, I am very aware that :
It's been pointed out to me that the German website put up by the wonderful Martin Rechmann, is currently very out of date. Unfortunately that one is out of my control, however, I am determined to update this site more often, add new stuff, (including a Trivia page) and hope that there can be as much dialogue as possible with all of you - and a good reason to check back regularly. Do keep sending in your thoughts and messages on the Guest Book page - I'm very happy to hear from anyone and promise to reply sooner or later. I've been home a good deal more than usual this last few weeks, and apart from one or two short visits to Germany, (one in March and one in April), that will be the pattern through the Spring. I've turned into an author for the time being….I just completed the translation of Ulf Krueger's ultimate book about the Star Club in Hamburg, for English publishers Genesis Books and decided that I would get straight on with the Nicky Hopkins biography while I was in writing mode. Regular readers will know that I've been collecting photos, material and interviews for this project for some years now. I was prompted at Christmastime to get on with it, by the untimely death of Dick Heckstall-Smith, one of the musicians who knew Nicky well, and had promised me an interview which I had failed to get around to. I've definitely made up for lost time since then, with interviews, (either in person or by phone), with a wonderful range of musicians including Steve Miller, (as in "Fly Like An Eagle" and "The Joker"), singer Cliff Bennett, Jefferson Starship's Pete Sears, bass-player Herbie Flowers, (who played on hundreds of hits including "Walk On The Wild Side") and drummer Micky Waller. For a record collector and music obsessive like me, it is great to be able to talk to the people that were actually there and ask the questions I've always wondered about. I have purposely not taken on too much touring in an attempt to make a real start on this book - if not to finish it…..Nicky played on so many albums in his lifetime (my discography has so far stalled at 197 records - and that's with artists you've heard of !).There are many more as well as singles, soundtracks and compilations. He really had an incredible career, but it does mean that a book about him is not going to be a quick task. I am so proud that one of my albums is on that list and am determined to do a really good, readable book that will hopefully do him justice. Other news : all the up and coming gigs are on the Tour Dates page. I'll be at the Musikmesse in Frankfurt working with Lakewood Guitars and AER, the amplifier people, for the first two days (6th. / 7th. April) and am happy to say that I will again be at the Estrel Beatles Convention in Berlin on 16th. / 17th. July. Work is carrying on for the 'Julian Dawson Complete Songbook'. Reinhold Pomaske and his wife, who are doing the hard work, have some ambitious and really good ideas for this project - it won't just be a book full of words and music! We are aiming at Christmas 2005 for a release date. I've just started working again with Maggie Reilly (the voice on Mike Oldfield's 'Moonlight Shadow' on an acoustic version of her music. More on that later. I am planning a long-overdue trip to Nashville in May and, as always, expect the unexpected as well….Which reminds me - congratulations are due to Charlie Louvin who celebrated 50 years in showbiz with a gig at the Ernest Tubb Record Shop on February 26th. I wish I could have been there! Best wishes to all you faithful visitors to this site, tell your friends if you enjoy it - and I'll hope to see you at a show somewhere. Thank you to all the people who e-mailed to tell us about the
guest-book not working, (and for the flood of e-mails regarding
the song-lyric question!). Cheers! Julian Dawson, Somerset. NEWSLETTER JANUARY 2005 I'm feeling thoroughly ashamed that it's taken me so long to bring this page on my website up to date. I won't even try to make any excuses, instead I'll just get on with looking back at what's been happening since my short September update and forwards to some of the events that hopefully 2005 will bring. I played a handful of English shows in September which underlined my status in my own country as an almost unknown but also gave me tantalising glimpses of how things could be if only I had some real help on the business side. In two shows where I opened for other artists I seemed to be able to get the attention of people who had no idea who I was before I played and then bought four or five CDs immediately. At the wonderful Bein Inn in Glenfarg, it is a small room anyway and I drew enough people (some coming back after my show in the Spring with Gene Parsons) to have a really great night. I am resigned to the fact that my support in the UK may never match up to the audience I've built up in other countries, but I still enjoy the challenge each time I go out and get enough encouragement to keep trying! In October I flew off to the USA, only weeks before the presidential election. I started off with three days in and around Chicago then flew to Washington DC for a particularly fine house concert in Falls Church followed by more shows in the New York area. My friends Meg and Ed Greenberg provided a home base for me as well as a fun gig in Tarrytown. I did my best to add my anti-Bush sentiments at all my performance, but apparently without success - what a depressing moment it was to realise we'd have another four years of those Republican faces on our television screens! I bumped in to Iain Matthews and his stage partner Ad Vandeveen in Wilmington, Delaware, had time to visit my dear friend Allan Pepper and his wife in New Jersey. Allan is busy scouting for a new venue in Manhattan to continue his legendary run in the Bottom Line, which tragically was forced to close in a stand-off with NYU earlier in the year. I'm sure there will be news before long of a new venture. I played a surprise guest spot in Paramus, NJ on the same day with Jill Sobule, who was doubling up at a new theatre with Jonatha Brooke. I only had two harmonicas with me but luckily one fitted with what Jill wanted me to play. I've known Jill since my first visit to Nashville in 1989 and she keeps on getting better. We share a very similar (ie. unplanned) approach to live gigs which makes it much more exciting and unpredictable. She even phoned up her Mum at home to sing a live duet with her….a great show. Jill was travelling with her friend Marykate O'Neill who I'd met last year on a protest march in Manhattan. Marykate is a fine singer and writer too and offered to put my 'Bedroom Suite' CD on her label imprint in 2005, giving it a US presence, even if it is limited to the Internet. I managed to slot in another interview for the Nicky Hopkins book - this time with the legendary Al Kooper at his home in Somerville near Boston. I'd known Al since Nashville where he sat in with us at the Bluebird Café once on a Songwriter with Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham. I bumped into him again at Fitzgerald's in Chicago and drove up specially to interview him - fun and very informative. I managed a day on Long Island with Nicky's sister and niece and explained that the moment had finally arrived where I felt equipped to start the writing part of this enormous task. I'm shocked myself at how long I've been collecting material, but the fact is that with a story like Nicky's the deeper you go the deeper it gets. November began with a four-day attendance at a harmonica master-class in Hohner's hometown of Trossingen in S. Germany. My old buddy Steve Baker organised the event and I determined to go and learn a few new tricks from the world-class players he had brought in to teach. It was a lot of fun and great to have time to think about nothing but playing music and may lead to a few harmonica -related jobs next year. I followed this with a week of concerts in Germany and Denmark - lots of driving but mostly good shows - one was a mini-festival with Fairport Convention - fun to have a night catching up with them. One enthusiastic fan has invited me to play in South Africa in early March - more on that when it is confirmed! When I finally got home it was to a long stretch over Christmas and into the New Year without any travelling. I must admit I was ready for some time at home and I have plenty of things to do. I am half way through translating Ulf Krueger's Star Club book for the English publishers Genesis Books and when I'm finished plan to carry straight on with the Nicky book - at last! There are small clusters of concerts here and there throughout the early part of 2005 but I plan to use the time at home for the various projects that have been promised for so long. These include
a new CD project involving some interesting collaborations and…..(this
time really….) the definitive Julian Dawson Songbook. I'm sad to mention the passing of good friends like Cliff Aungier and Carl Wayne, who both died in the Summer. It makes me more aware of how lucky I've been to continue touring, recording and making music till now. I mostly manage to reply, sooner or later, to e-mails you send to the guest-book or to my home e-mail address. In some cases there is no address to reply to - so here's a thankyou to all those of you who send messages, we love getting them and will always try to answer. I'd like to wish everyone the greetings of the season - good food, good drink and good company over Christmas and into the New Year and hope to keep on meeting old and new friends at shows at home and abroad in 2005. Look at the Tour Dates page for upcoming gigs in Holland, the UK, Belgium, Canada, Germany and the USA - and maybe even South Africa! Cheers! Julian Dawson, Somerset News Update - July 2004 Summer greetings to all and everyone reading this - my last News bulletin before I turn fifty! This event was brought home to me when my daughter brought home a swimming timetable from the local pool with times blocked out for……"Over Fifties"! I guess it is an achievement of a kind - perhaps I'll get over my 10 year mid-life crisis now and grow older gracefully! I'm glad to be at home to celebrate with a few friends (and all three of my kids) after spending most of the Spring touring. The UK shows in March with Gene Parsons were a delight and I hope to be going back to several of the venues on my own later this year or early next. I played a solo set each evening and then joined Gene for most of his set - always an absolute joy to harmonise on classics like "Do Not Disturb", "In My Hour Of Darkness" or "Sin City" - and two harmonicas on "Take A City Bride" is a real showstopper. Having so much fun in the car and at the gigs made it really hard to have to leave him and his partner Star as we both went off to our separate dates in Europe. Richard Kennedy proved to be just as good a travelling companion. With nearly forty shows to play together we both needed a lot of stamina, a lot of patience and plenty of good humour to get us through. In retrospect it's very hard to pick out highlights, but all the shows went over extremely well and I heard from several people that they thought Richard was the best onstage partner I'd had for a long time. His brilliant guitar playing freed me up to play more harmonica and allowed me to cover songs like "Wichita Lineman" that I've loved for years. With so many shows routine inevitably sets in and there will always be unexpected and not always welcome problems (for instance the car I ran into in Herbrechtingen)! All in all, we had a wonderful time, met lots of great people, had a few great shows and no disasters - not bad for such hard times as these! I think Richard's German experience was completed by meeting Astrid Kircherr while we were in Hamburg and then Klaus Voorman in Bavaria towards the end of the tour - heaven for a Beatles fan! I went straight from a last show with Richard to a morning workshop the next day in Schorndorf at the "Gitarrentage". This year I had eleven students and after one or two early nights for the teacher (!!), we achieved the same mixture of fun and learning as the previous year - some good songs were written and performed by the students at the last day's concert and there were sad partings all round. There were several talented teachers this year - I specially enjoyed meeting Ramesh Shotham, a wonderful Indian percussionist and hope to collaborate with him on a future project that I am discussing with Iain Matthews. I finished up with a show in Horst in Holland, where Iain now lives and had one of my favourite shows ever at the Cambrinus - one of those nights you wish had been recorded. It was great to see Iain and his lovely wife Marly and great to have him on stage. The last gig was in Antwerp followed by a night drive and a night boat back to the UK. After such a long time away it's strange for everyone when I finally get home - specially as Al Stewart called up asking me to guest with him at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London two days after I came home! A week's holiday in France helped smooth my landing and I now have a few projects that will keep me working but still at home until after the Summer. First up is translating a book about the legendary Star Club in Hamburg for my old friend Ulf Krueger - then at last the Nicky Hopkins book! Dates are trickling in for the rest of this year and I am excited about my first proper tour in Belgium and Holland next April. So hitting fifty doesn't seem to mean instant retirement! We'll update the tour page as things come in…. Here are a few updates on topics from my last letter : Our charity walk finally raised over £2,500.00 for the Breakthrough Breast Cancer charity. (I just gave a telephone interview to their in-house magazine because apparently so few men know they can even get the disease)! Thanks to all who contributed. While on tour I discovered a stash of "Travel On" CDs that came to Europe from the old Watermelon label release. I haven't been able to offer that title for some time so I'm glad to say it's now back in the catalogue. The "50th. Birthday Sales Extravaganza " went really well at the gigs and we'll maintain the special prices on the website for the rest of this "Birthday" year. So, apart from the newest CDs, all my albums are available via mail-order for £5.00 (or 8 Euros). David Suff has a wonderfully efficient service - quick and easy to use. (My sincere apologies to the people who had to wait a while for their copies of the new "Bedroom Suite" while I was away. I'll sign off with a general thank you to all the amazing musicians and songwriters I've met and worked with for all these years and all the faithful friends who have kept me and my family going, by coming out to the concerts and buying the albums that I've been privileged to make. I've enjoyed every minute of it so far and still love my job, whether it's recording, writing or playing the music! I hope I can carry on for another fifty years…..With all that is happening in the music business and on the Internet, it is going to be interesting but I've always loved a challenge! Wishing you
all a wonderful Summer, Greetings from Somerset, PS: Thanks for the lovely birthday messages and greetings, I can't reply to everyone individually, but I was really touched to hear from so many people. September
greetings to everyone - I hope a good Summer was had by one I spent 3 weeks in France, returning home to a month's worth of post, e-mails and phone messages which I am working through today. Gigs have been coming in steadily while I have been away and there is a full update on the tour news page. It took a long time to nail down the British dates in September and for a while it looked like there wouldn't be any....As it is we've salvaged four, two of which are venues I played in the Spring with Gene Parsons that have asked me back. I'm specially hopeful that those will be good nights so I'll draw special attention to: The Musician in Leicester : Wednesday, September 22nd. and the wonderful Bein Inn in Glenfarg (north of Edinburgh) : Saturday, September 25th. Of course I'll hope to see lots of you at all the gigs wherever they are. I wrote several new songs while in France and will be working them into the next shows along with songs from the new "Bedroom Suite" CD. Onwards and upwards - and see you all in the Autumn, Greetings from Somerset, JD March 2004
I got up early this morning to find time to write a few lines before going off on tour for two months(!!) I start with Gene Parsons in the UK in four days and then go almost straight over to Germany for our marathon run of forty shows, ending up with a gig in Antwerp (a new addition) at the end of May. These days there are always mixed feelings, as it means not seeing my family for so long, but on the other hand I’m incredibly grateful that there are so many places that want me to play and am really looking forward to trying out the new songs live - and seeing as many people as possible on the way. My last letter went out in January since when I spent a lot of time preparing the release of the new CD “Bedroom Suite” which came out on March 8th. on Blue Rose. Reactions so far have been very encouraging – we should see some reviews in April and May. It’s always interesting to see how people react to the music, but more and more I can honestly say that I make it the way I like it and don’t think about what critics will say. I was told that in the month my CD appears there are 600 releases – things have come a long way! I’ve had fun with Richard Kennedy rehearsing for the upcoming shows. He will be playing an opening set of his own each night before joining me for new songs and a cross-section of older stuff – I like keeping it fresh, so we’ve looked at a lot of different songs – and as always there’ll be a few surprises. Having Richard’s guitar means I’ll be able to play more harmonica than usual,something people often ask me for. Last week was entirely taken up by the charity walk I mentioned in my last letter. I walked 150 miles across country with two local friends (both experienced map-readers and walkers) from Cadbury Castle in Somerset to Tintagel Castle in Cornwall, to raise money for breast cancer research. We had (mostly) wonderful weather, with crisp, cold mornings and pale Spring sunlight. Of course,this being England, we got drowned too – on day seven we had four hours of unrelenting rain that seeped through waterproof clothing, into boots and backpack - but somehow you can forget the bad moments when you have arrived at a dry place, hung up your wet clothes and got a meal inside you.
I’m off today to meet with my web-designer Dave, so we will be making some changes and updates to the website. I always appreciate the feedback I get from your messages and try to reply as often as possible. I have one confession to make (groans of disbelief from all sides)….I still have not managed to complete the long-promised song-book but it is on the way. Sometimes there just are not enough hours in the day. I know I’ll be meeting some disappointed faces and I know I’ve said before it will be ready, so I can only apologise.
I’ll sign off now in hope that I’ll be seeing lots of old friends – and some new ones at the gigs. Between now and June I’ll have played in England, Germany, Holland, Belgium and Luxemburg. Please note that from May 19th. to May 23rd I’ll be back in Schorndorf for another week of Songwriting workshops at the Gitarrentage (www.schorndorfer-gitarrentage.de). It was a great success last year and I’m proud to be asked back again. Things are firming up for a UK tour in September, USA and Canada in October and Belgium and Holland in April 2005. In the Summer I’m hoping to record tracks for a CD with my daughter Holly, planning to complete the legendary songbook and the Nicky Hopkins biography too. Best wishes to all for now, Julian, Somerset, March 2004 NEWS UPDATE 20/01/04 Hi again folks! I know this is sooner than usual for my news bulletin, but finishing the new CD and all the new dates and activities seem to be good enough reasons to put up a new message. Having completed the recording part for the new CD in Somerset on December 19th. (as usual working up to the last possible minute) I took my friend and co-conspirator Jean-Marie to the airport, delivered the tracks to Andy Metcalfe in London for mixing and took off for Luxemburg and Berlin (for gigs) and then Christmas. We had a good time for a few days, just doing family stuff and relaxing and then it was back to full-on action to get the various parts of the CD process happening. Andy had done a great job on his own mixing the music I’d left with him and after two days spent together we had the album finished. I then flew immediately to Germany for one night and a day to oversee the final process of mastering the tracks. All the flights I’ve taken recently have been so bumpy that I’m starting to have a problem flying – this journey was no exception and I arrived at Frankfurt Hahn to be greeted by 140 km. winds – and a two and a half hour drive each way ahead of me! The results more than justify all the work and I feel like this is one of the best CDs I’ve ever done. When I tell people that it’s quite different from previous efforts they laugh,(that’s what they all say!) but I’ve been able to make several experiments I’ve always wanted to try in a studio. It’s my first recording using loops instead of real drums, I built up one track using just harmonicas, arranged several tracks for horns and played most of the instruments myself. I’m very pleased with the sound of it and look forward to the release date to know what other people think. “Bedroom Suite” comes out on Blue Rose on March 8th. 2004 in time for an extremely long period of touring. There are eight brand new songs and three cover versions, some interesting guests (including two of my children) and even a concept, since 8 of the songs deal with aspects of marriage and relationships. I won’t give away any more details now…. Between now and May 25th. I will have played over 50 shows in England, Scotland, Denmark, Germany, Belgium, Holland and Luxemburg. I’ll be accompanied on most dates by Richard Kennedy, a wonderful guitarist who has worked with The Roches, Jules Shear and Marshall Crenshaw. He will open the shows with his own set as well as playing with me and there will be some additional surprise guests here and there too. Before that
there is a one-off at the Strib Winter Festival in Denmark on
Feb.14th.followed by a week of UK shows with Gene Parsons in March. We had a sad day in early January at Putney Vale Cemetery for the funeral of Johnny “Jonah” Jones who stage-managed Fairport’s Cropredy Festival most years and ran the legendary London venue the Half Moon in Putney in the seventies when I first started out. It was heart-warming to see so many faces,famous and otherwise, to give Jonah a good send-off – extra-special thanks to Ralph McTell who did us proud with a wonderful speech. Another great sadness that I have to report is the closing, despite all efforts to the contrary, of my favourite club in the world – The Bottom Line in New York. A dispute with its landlords escalated to a point where even the support of Bruce Springsteen and a host of other artists couldn’t prevent its demise. It’s truly the end of an era! My heart goes out to Allan Pepper and his family – he’s been one of my staunchest supporters in the USA for over a decade and I’ll really miss those nights. What a terrible waste! I’ll try to end on a happier note by saying I’m really looking forward to getting out on the road this Spring and hope I’ll see as many of you as possible at the different venues. Your support in these times, where the industry ignores my kind of music almost entirely is vital to its survival – believe me I appreciate every ticket or CD sold and every letter you send to my website or to the PO Box. Thanks to you all and see you down the road…. Julian Somerset January 2004 News Update 27/11/03 Greetings
to all and everyone out there in Internetland, Soon after
my last posting I played a handful of concerts in early October
– my favourite was a Sunday appearance at the Open Strings
Guitar Festival in Osnabrueck. I’m not quite sure how I sneaked
onto a programme featuring nothing but guitarists, but it turned
out to be a delightful concert and a great audience. I also had my two-year anniversary health check-up and all was well, so that was a relief, both for me and for the family. After that
it was straight on to preparations for my U.S. visit. My shows were scattered all over the map so I had a good chance to see the country in a way I’d never managed before. As always there were high points and a couple of real lows too, but all in all it was a great experience. I met a great number of wonderful new friends, had a chance to visit some old ones - Tom Ghent, Gene Pistilli and Barry & Holly Tashian in Nashville and Steuart Smith, my guitarist of many years, in Arlington, (who gave me the lowdown on his new job with the Eagles). My favourite
gigs were in Chicago, Salt Lake City, Nashville (an in-the–round
with Charlie Louvin, Steve Young and Bill Lloyd) and top of the
list a show in Tarrytown NY, opening for Little Feat. Their audience
really seemed to enjoy my part of the evening and my playing a
few years back with Paul Barrere and Fred Tackett meant that I
was asked up to play harmonica and sing back-ups for the last
portion of their show. Playing some of your all-time favourite
songs with one of your all-time favourite bands just can’t
be beat (I said it can’t be beat!) – Returning to the Nashville visit: Kathy Louvin, (Ira’s daughter and Charlie’s niece) had put together an all-star tribute CD to the Louvins with guests like Vince Gill, Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt and James Taylor all singing Louvin Bros. Songs. The CD was just out and had lots of publicity so it was interesting to see that comparatively few people were interested in seeing a real life Louvin as opposed to honouring the idea of one! At the show Charlie said he wanted to record my song “Pilgrims” on his next CD, which will be an honour, as always, if it happens. I had time to hook up again with Daniel Tashian, who’s been out touring with Josh Rouse as well as pursuing his own music. He agreed to my suggestion that we work together on my new CD in December, so he’ll be arriving in England this coming week. I am also probably the only Brit who has played a songwriter show at the new Country Music Hall Of Fame – quite a thrill to sing in their special booth surrounded by images of Hank Williams, George Jones and Patsy Cline! By the end of my tour I checked my rental car mileage and I had driven 6,657 miles in less than a month! Is this the final confirmation that I am actually insane? Answers on a postcard…. I had a few
days to recover at home before jetting off to Munich to help out
at the book-launch for Klaus Voormann’s autobiography. Although
we’d only met a few times over the years, he has always been
someone I thought highly of, so I was happy to meet up with singer
Wolfgang Niedecken, Helmut, the BAP lead guitarist and German
TV personality Wigald Boning to assist at a televised talk show
followed by an impromptu music performance. With Klaus playing
his old “psychedelic” bass we sang a handful of Beatles
songs and tunes from his past sessions with John Lennon, Manfred
Mann and others. It was as much fun for us as for the audience
and quite amazing to be singing “Imagine” etc. with
the man who originally played on it! The immediate future will be dominated by the recording sessions for my new CD. I’m not 100% sure of what direction it will take, but it will certainly be completely different from “Hillbilly Zen” and I’m very much looking forward to getting together with Daniel, who is the same kind of all-round talent as Gene Parsons. Talking of Gene, I will be performing some UK shows with him in the second half of March next year, before embarking on my Spring tour in Europe (which commences on March 30th. and takes me through to mid-May). I will be accompanied at the shows by a fine guitarist, Richard Kennedy, (who has played with Jules Shear, Marshall Crenshaw and the Roches) and will have the new CD and hopefully the new Julian Dawson Songbook with me. I’ve
kept the next few weeks clear of gigs so that I can sit down and
begin working on the Nicky Hopkins book. (I had an unexpected
reply to my questions from Pete Townsend just before my US trip
and had a great interview with May Pang while I was in New York). I’ll
post the new concert dates as soon as possible and send out my
thanks and greetings to all the kind folks who helped me out in
so many ways while I was in the United States : Greg Johnson in
OK City, (good luck to the Blue Door), Peter & Von Zeldow,
Jodi Taub & Dan Burke in Chicago, the Holtons in Little Rock,
Meg & Ed Greenberg in Tarrytown, Karen Finkenberg & her
husband in Long Island, Pete & Anne in Greensboro, Bob Rogers
and Sara in Raleigh, The Tashians & Leslie in Nashville and
Susanne Millsaps, Grant & Linda in Salt Lake City. I wish everybody a very Happy Christmas and look forward to seeing as many of you as possible in 2004, the year that I turn 50 (aaaaargh!). Best to all,
Julian, Somerset November ‘03 NEWS UPDATE 24th. SEPTEMBER 2003 Hi to everyone again, I hope you all had the same blissful Summer weather wherever you were as we did both here at home and on holiday. In fact in France the two weeks of 47 degrees heat was a bit too much of a good thing – like Texas at it’s hottest, it made sleeping very difficult – but I’m still not complaining…. It all seems distant now as we just had my daughter’s harvest festival in school and we had the first rain for weeks, the leaves are turning and it’s definitely Autumn again. My first post-vacation work was the end-of-August Tonder Festival in Denmark with Plainsong. Since bass-player Mark Griffiths had to pull out at very short notice we did it as a three-piece and though we missed his playing it was a nice way to play with only Iain Matthews, myself and Andy Roberts. There was more emphasis on the harmonies and all of us were specially “on our toes” to make up for being one short. Our first and biggest show was recorded by Danmark’s Radio (I’m afraid I don’t know the broadcast date) but it sounded really good. Other highlights for me were meeting up with Chip Taylor again, whom I hadn’t seen for a few years. He was playing with a great line-up featuring Carrie Rodriguez on fiddle and vocals, Danny Thompson on bass and John Platania on guitar. Danny is an old mate from gigs with Richard Thompson but I was especially pleased to meet and have some time with John who played guitar on all my favourite 70’s Van Morrison albums (with David Hayes on bass who also guested on my “Hillbilly Zen” sessions in California). Another highlight of the weekend was Iain and I being onstage with Chip to perform “Angel Of The Morning” and (of course) “Wild Thing” at the Monday party. The festival was brilliant as always so big thanks to Carsten Panduro and his team, who make it run so smoothly. I stayed in Denmark for two more low-key but really nice solo gigs near Copenhagen and in Haslev – Things there are gradually getting going through the hard work of my booking agent Lissen Jacobsen. In fact on the agent front things have taken a great turn for the better : I remain as ever with the tireless Juergen Stahl at Pulse Entertainment in Germany but have had a gap in the UK and in the USA – now both filled. At home I’ve teamed up with Robert Griffiths (whom I met through Gene Parsons a year ago) and in the USA I’m already working with Marianne Taylor, who has been an absolute star already adding in dates at very short notice to my up and coming October visit. I’ll print all their contact numbers on the website so if any of you have ideas for a special venue that might like to make a booking you can contact them – likewise any promoters! My most recent travelling took me to Duesseldorf in September where Jean Marie Peschiutta and I played a “launch party” for invited guests only to celebrate the CD we made together earlier this year. Considering it is not a commercial venture and is not in any shops, there has been a lot of interest and a steady stream of orders which is very encouraging. The gig (at our friend Hartmut’s house) was very joyful and very emotional too – special thanks to Tina and Marius for making us all so welcome! Next week we start work on the long-promised Julian Dawson Songbook – I’ve decided that publishing myself is the best way to go and my friend Kevin Brooks (who is behind the John Sebastian fanzine in the UK) is helping me with the technical side of things. All being well it will be on sale in time for the Spring tour in Germany. I’m still interested in which songs people feel should be in there if you’d like to mail me via the guestbook. There is so much going on at present that sometimes it makes my head spin : two new CD ideas, the ever-growing Nicky Hopkins book project, a possible house move in 2004and all the usual exciting family stuff as kids get to University age – I guess it’s good to be busy and we can all sleep later! As so often there are one or two cancellations (or at least postponements). My December workshop dates with Jerry Donahue had to be pulled for technical reasons and will hopefully happen next year instead. The planned exchange dates with Ellis Paul also look shaky as I haven’t had much communication from his people in the USA despite several attempts. It’s an idea that I still hope works out in the future. We’ll see….. Before signing off, I was shocked to hear via e-mail that my favourite venue in the world, The Bottom Line in New York, where I’ve had so many special nights, is under threat of closure – I’ll cross all my fingers that a solution is found – it’s a real institution and would leave a huge gap in the city’s cultural landscape. Thanks to everyone who has left messages in the guestbook and specially those who ordered CDs : I will continue the limited offer price of £10.00 (15 Euros)( plus £1.00 post & packing) for the three newest CDs. Love to everyone and see you at a show soon, Ian
Matthews/Julian Dawson : Songs From The Red Couch NEWS UPDATE 01/08/03 Hi everybody, I thought a quick pre-vacation message might be in order as there has been lots going on and new things are coming in at a great rate. The Beatles convention in Berlin was great fun – I sang a set of Beatles songs once a day and translated talks by Allan Williams (the man who gave away the Beatles), Roy Young, (who played with them at the Star Club) and Paul Saltzman (who met up with the Beatles and took beautiful photographs of them at the Maharishi’s Ashram in Rishikesh. I received a copy of a new limited edition Astrid Kircherr book in which I had translated a poem from German to English – good to be part of such a great project. My traditional Kempen concert on July 24th. was even better than the last time – with both my kids playing and singing, a lovely atmosphere and a sold-out venue! Next appearance is with Plainsong at the Danish Tonder Festival followed by two Danish solo shows. I’ve been asked by Wolfgang Niedecken to help out in the studio on the next BAP recording (in Cologne, I think) also in September. October has a house concert in Luxemburg, a Guitar Festival in Germany and an ever-growing visit to the USA (see the date-sheet for details) which takes me into mid-November. The workshop tour with Jerry Donahue will be from December 1st. to 8th. with possible further dates to be added. Meantime I recorded a three-hour visit for Spyda Radio in London which goes up on the Internet on August 8th. I sang eight live songs, played some favourite CDs and chatted with Alan O’Leary the host – you can pick it up at www.spydaradio.co.uk Have a great Summer wherever you are and I’ll re-appear with more news in September….Cheers JD People seemed to be buying the “Pangolins” album and liking it even if it hasn’t been our most popular with the critics. One of the advantages of growing older is that I genuinely don’t care what is written about the CDs or concerts – It’s enough to try and meet your own standards and please the people who do like the music. Thanks to all the faithful who keep on buying tickets and recordings so we can keep doing this wonderful job a while longer. The unexpected surprise so far this year for me was the week spent “teaching” songwriting as part of the “Schondorf Gitarrentage” in Germany at the end of May. Having never done anything like this before, I was very nervous. I had a nearly full class of students waiting for me and found that with some general preparation and a lot of improvisation I could really enjoy the five days of classes. It was very interesting to be forced to think about what I do for a living and how I do it….We built up a very intense and supportive vibe among the fourteen or so participants and it seemed that everyone felt they’d learned a lot by the end of the week – including me. The local press picked our course to write about and seemed to be as excited by our work as we were – so I came away with a perfect calling card if I am asked to do any more teaching in the future. I was delighted to be asked by my old friend Gigi Bresciani to take part in a three-day harmonica festival in Italy with gigs in Udine and Bergamo. I hadn’t played there for nearly ten years so it was great to make contact again – and I was assured that we won’t have to wait ten years to go back! As always the shows were in uniquely beautiful places, the audiences delightful, the food and wine incredible and the weather hot…what more can a man hope for?? The real news this time is to be found in the Discography section of this website – there are no less than four new additions to the list to which I’d like to draw attention. There are now two live Iain Matthews / Julian Dawson CDs from Austria -–volumes 1 and 2 so to speak…The first recording is titled “Songs from The Red Couch” and is a concert recording from 1996. The second is from our concert in Thalgau last September and both are fundraisers for the flood damage that took place there last Summer - Part Two is named “Flood Damage”. They are available through this or through Iain’s website and feature songs from our solo repertoires, Plainsong songs in duet form and some surprises. I mentioned in my last news that I’d done a track for a Bob Dylan tribute CD. Well, that is now released too (on BMG) and is titled “May Your Song Always Be Sung : The Songs Of Bob Dylan Vol. 3”. My track “When I Paint My Masterpiece” is in good company with offerings from Rick Danko, Eric Andersen, Chris Whitley and others.
It features five songs of mine that have never been recorded before and lots of harmonica – I’m really proud to have seen this project through in honour of our friend Hartmut Blecher, and very pleased to have had a hand in getting this side of Jean-Marie’s vocal and guitar talents on record at last. Anyone interested in having a copy can contact me here through the website guestbook and I’ll be happy to send it by mail for the special price of £10.00 / 15 Euros plus £1.00 P & P. The rest of 2003 will definitely see me more at home than out and about – I’ve promised a songbook and I’ll be doing it this Autumn – see the Tour dates page for the few gigs I am doing – the October/November visit to the USA is shaping up nicely – and meantime I wish all of you a hot and peaceful Summer. (Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday to me…..) Love
from Somerset, Julian NEWS UPDATE 01/04/03Hi y’all! (notice appropriate Southern greeting after my two weeks in Nashville last month). Today seems a good day to be penning my update as it is the traditional English April Fool’s Day, we’ve already started our Plainsong tour in the UK with the very strange backdrop of Bush and Blair’s war on the news. While hoping for peaceful days in the rest of the world, here’s the news from my corner. Before looking forward though, I’ll tell you a bit about my recent travels and experiences. I must confess to being a little nervous when I reached Heathrow on February 2nd. for my flight to Nashville as I was taking exactly the same route (through Chicago) that I’d taken on 9/11/2001. This time I arrived without incident, picked up my car and went to where I was staying with singer-songwriter Tom Ghent, whom I’d met through Dan Penn and with whom I’d written the song “The World Keeps On Changing” (from my “Under The Sun” CD). Tom and his family put me up, (or is that put up with me?) despite my constant comings and goings, for my whole visit – and my only rent was to play some harmonica on the CD project he is working on at his home studio. A bargain! My schedule in Nashville always seems to be crazy and this time was no exception….Beginning with a phone interview with BBC Scotland for Plainsong on my very first morning, continuing with a wonderful “Songwriter’s Circle” on WNPL Radio with new R’n’B star Ellis Hooks and Essra Mohawk. Ellis brought along producers Jon & Sally Tiven as well as ace guitarist Duane Jarvis, while Essra surprised us all by bringing along her friend Bonnie Bramlett to sing backups. As a song round I’d place it right up in the top 5 I’ve ever done (it can be heard on the web at www.wpln.org) – and I specially hit it off with Bonnie. Going to lunch with her after the session led to me meeting her dinner guest Jo-el Sonnier, the Cajun accordionist, who had played on my 1993 “Headlines” album but whom I’d never met as I was out of the studio when he played! That’s Nashville for you….. My real reason for being there this time was the Folk Alliance conference which kicked off with a Tribute to Woody Guthrie at the original Ryman Auditorium. I was invited backstage by my friend Ellis Paul , who was one of the dozens of performers (others included Arlo Guthrie, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott and Guy Clark) – high point of the evening for me was being introduced to Muscle Shoals legend Donnie Fritts whom I’d never met. I’ve attended the conference before in other cities and was expecting the intense activity and schmoozing that defines that sort of get-together. I played one official show for Elixir Strings, and was able to put in the first confirmed concerts for an October tour of the States on the spot. It’s a great opportunity to meet up with DJ’s who have been playing the CDs, record company people I’ve been involved with in the past ( and present : Meridian Green was there with the first sales news on “Hillbilly Zen” in the USA and Japan), and most of all, like-minded songwriters like Mark Erelli and Mary Gauthier. The intense activity and noise levels generated by over a thousand performers vying for attention in one hotel is exhausting but always fun too. This time when it was all over I stayed on in town with a few more days to calm down again, visit with Daniel Tashian and his parents, play at the Bluebird with Rosie Flores, play a harmonica track on a new Dan Penn recording and write a song with Bill Lloyd. My vinyl collector’s heart was gladdened by Jon Tiven who passed on a copy of Spooner Oldham’s incredibly rare “Pot Luck” LP. All in all a great visit….. I flew to Chicago for a delightful house concert organised by Plainsong fan Peter Zeldow and his wife then straight on to New York where I had a number of radio interviews set up to help the recent CD release. It was already bitterly cold but I visited some of my usual haunts, saw Kate and Anna McGarrigle at the Bottom Line with Emmylou Harris and Rufus and Martha Wainwright as guests, had supper with my favourite producer and favourit guitar-player Stewart Lerman and Steuart Smith and after a chance meeting in Umanov's guitar store ended up playing harmonica at Syd Straw's traditional Valentine’s Day concert at the Mercury Lounge with Jane Siberry and Marc Ribot among the other guests. On February 15th. I was supposed to meet up with Jane again to take part in an anti-war demonstration in Manhattan. In the end I went alone on the subway and it was a truly amazing experience to be part of such a huge mob of diverse people – Hispanic, Chinese, Iraqui, black , white, old and young, all gathered to say what they felt about the gathering threat of war. There was an estimated crowd of 900,000 uptown for a gathering that was officially forbidden by the authorities. Having failed to hook up with Siberry I then against all odds found myself walking next to Jill Sobule, whom I hadn’t seen for years – an amazing coincidence to meet her in that crowd and a lovely surprise! Next morning was a Sunday and I was up early on a train out to Long Island for a radio interview with Charlie Backfish at Stony Brook and dropped in on a house concert featuring fellow Brit Bob Fox. The weather forecast predicted a huge snow storm so I hightailed it back to Brooklyn and sure enough that night two feet of snow fell! To say it made my movements difficult is an understatement – on the Monday it took me two hours to get from Brooklyn to the Bronx for a radio interview at WFUV – and then with even less of the subway system working it was three hours getting back! The last port of call of my trip was Boston where I was scheduled to play a sellout “Member’s Concert” at radio station WUMB. With the weather conditions being so extreme the concert was in the balance but in the end I made it up there from New York on a train and the station decided to go ahead. I played to the 60 or so guests that made it in and again the result can be heard on the web. All these adventures were pretty exhausting so it was a relief that next morning the weather warmed up and I was able to get to the airport and catch my scheduled flight home in the evning. I had time for a quick daytime visit with local songwriter Mark Erelli – enough time to make plans for a future project together (more on that later). I went straight from Heathrow to Cambridge to see my daughter Holly sing in the musical “Bugsy Malone” with her Whizzkids Theatre Group. She sang fantastically, stole the show and got some great headlines in the local press – move over Dad….. After only one day at home (!!!) I was off to Aachen in Germany to meet up with Jean-Marie Peschiutta to finish off and mix our January recordings (see last news). It’s turned out very well and will be completed in April and available soon after. Sometimes the schedules go crazy and after another one day visit at home I hopped on a Ryanair plane to attend the Frankfurt Music Fair (with Lakewood guitars and AER amplifiers). After the recent Folk Alliance experience, the noise and madness of the trade fair was almost too much, but it was still a good visit and I was able to make some great contacts and put some future plans in place including a “workshop tour” with my old mate Jerry Donahue for November and – though no one will believe me – new plans for a song book! Back at home in March I had my hospital check-up (everything fine), and my two solo shows (both very nice) followed by a blissful week or so of peace and good weather in Somerset before the Plainsong guys arrived for five days of rehearsal. I managed to squeeze in the recording of a Bob Dylan song for a BMG Dylan tribute CD the night before our first show. I chose “When I Paint My Masterpiece” and played everything myself with Plainsong helping out vocally - which brings us up to date (today is a day off between Ipswich and Bodmin). The first four group shows have been really well attended, the new “Pangolins” CD is selling like hot cakes and the music is finding it’s feet already. Since this has turned into my longest Newsletter yet I’ll mention just one or two future events. Gene Parsons unfortunately has cancelled our projected plans to play together in the Autumn for personal reasons, but I will still be at the Tonder Festival – with Plainsong instead of Gene. I’m really disappointed as I am really looking forward to playing some duo shows with him – but it will have to wait for now. As you can see my “quiet year off” isn’t quite working out, but I probably wouldn’t want it any other way…Best wishes to all and hope to see you at a Plainsong show or down the road. Spare a thought for my brother Matt who is going through a different experience with cancer than mine and has to undergo weeks of chemo and radio therapy in Luxemburg. Greetings
from Somerset, JD January News Update It’s not so long since my last “proper” news in early December, but a new year deserves a new posting – First things first : “Happy New Year” to everyone! I remember writing that 2003 would be a quiet year for me – actually it’s beginning to look busy already with lots of different activities…. My February trip to America for the Folk Alliance conference in Nashville now includes radio visits in Nashville, Chicago, New York, New Jersey, Long Island and Boston to promote “Hillbilly Zen” over there (though I’m not doing official concerts this time). There are Plainsong dates in England, Holland, Germany and Austria to support the new “Pangolins” CD which comes out on March 24th. on Blue Rose. Plainsong info is available at www.uktouring.org.uk/plainsong I have my two March solo dates in the UK in London and South Petherton (near home in Somerset) – a rare occurrence so I hope my friends in England will come out and support them. At the end of May I’ll be giving my first ever songwriting workshop in Schorndorf in Germany. I’m really looking forward to this five-day event with a concert at the end – for details and bookings look up www.schorndorfer-gitarrentage.de Another event which is a new departure for me is the July Beatles Festival in Berlin organised by my old friend Ulf Krueger who has invited me to be a French/German/English speaking presenter who also sings Beatles songs to order! It’s nice to have a chance to use skills that I’ve accumulated on the way and I am still a serious Beatles fan! The January recording sessions with Jean-Marie Peschiutta turned out really well – we did 12 tracks including some blues, a bit of country, two French songs and four unrecorded songs of mine including the title song “Voodoo In The Music”. We’’ will be finishing off the recordings at the end of February so I can tell you more then. All in all there are lots of interesting things coming up – please do keep looking at the website as it will be changing all the time – and leave a message in the guestbook – I try and get back to everyone sooner or later. There may soon be a German website too! Best
wishes from Somerset : Julian 27/01/03 I’m back at my desk after spending two days catching up on e-mails and the other stuff that piles up whenever I go away. I just returned from a weekend in Austria with Iain Matthews where we played a benefit show for flood victims organised by Bernhard Iglhauser in Thalgau on the Friday night and a show in Radstadt for our friend Otto Fritsch the following night. Even after twenty-six years of doing this job I’m still amazed to suddenly find myself somewhere completely different – one day rainy England – the next Austrian mountains! Here’s what’s been happening since my last posting back in September….. Life always has surprises in store – some good and some not so good. While I was away doing my September shows, my house was broken into and two guitars and my beautiful 1920’s S.S. Stewart banjo were stolen. I completed two gigs in Copenhagen before coming home to see the damage for myself. By an amazing set of coincidences I actually got back my Veillette baritone 12 String, but so far no sign of the other two! Even more amazingly, the police dusted for fingerprints and actually arrested the thief, who turned out to be the son of the guitarist from Hawkwind – I seem to be surrounded by rock trivia even when I’m robbed! With an alarm installed at home I was back out on the road first in the UK as guest of Gene Parsons and Meridian Green in Brighton and London – a joy as always, then Germany for a run of nine solo gigs including Hamburg, Berlin and Frankfurt, ending up in Singwitz (near Bautzen in what was East Germany). I’ve already forgiven my agent, but I must say driving back in one day, after only three hours sleep from near the Polish border to Calais and then from Dover to Somerset was a bit much – even for me! It took me four days to get over it, by which I was already deep into the next project, which was recording a new Plainsong album at my house. All the guys arrived the day after I made it home, the family went off on holiday and we turned my living room into a studio (more guitars and instruments than a music shop!) with Andy Metcalfe in the next room engineering on a Pro Tools computer system belonging to Andy Roberts’ friend Willy Russell, (who wrote “Educating Rita” and “Shirley Valentine” among all his other great work). Considering the whole idea was an experiment and considering the budget we have available these days, everything went incredibly smoothly, we had a lot of fun and recorded twelve new songs in ten days for a CD release next March (on Blue rose Records) in time for touring in England, Germany and Austria in the Spring. If you’ve read my last news you’ll know that I wrote four songs with Iain Matthews for the project – two of them made it as well as two other songs I wrote alone. There are two or three well-chosen covers and a bunch of Iain’s new material – a typical Plainsong album in fact! I won’t give away any details yet…..We finished up by recording backing vocals on two of Willy Russell’s songs as a thankyou for the loan of the equipment, then everybody went off to their various homes – peace at last!! The rest of November included my own show at the Greys in Brighton with Andy Metcalfe on bass and accordion and Richard Kennedy opening the show and joining us on guitar and vocals. Since this was two thirds of the Night Owls line-up of last year, we played one or two Lovin’ Spoonful songs as well as mine. Last weekend’s Austrian visit brings us up to date – I should mention that with the kind support of Sony in Thalgau a live CD of a concert Iain and I gave there in 1996 was manufactured in a limited edition of a thousand – again for the benefit of flood victims.The first 50 were sold on the night and it is available via Blue Rose Records mail-order – A volume 2 is planned for next Spring as they recorded the show last week as well. We only repeated one song from the previous concert and there are some surprises on both -–At the first gig I surprised Iain by singing one of his early works – “Darcy Farrow” from Matthews Southern Comfort and at last week’s show we decided during the break to sing a Beatles song accapella – I think we got away with it! In December I’m playing two UK shows, two in Luxemburg and three in Cologne, then shutting down for Christmas and New Year. 2003 kicks off with another recording session at home with my old friend Jean-Marie Peschiutta - a tribute CD for our friend Hartmut Blecher, a great lover of music, who sadly died two years ago. I’ve wanted to record Jean-Marie in the style we started with as a duo in the 70s so he’s taking a break from his country leanings with his band Detour to dig back into the blues! In February I’m off to Nashville for the Folk Alliance conference – I am performing a showcase for Elixir Strings there and filling in with a handful of low key concerts on the East coast – details will be on the date sheet ASAP. Next year is already shaping up to be busy although I am planning to be cutting back on solo concerts to get on with writing the Nicky Hopkins story at last. Lastly, welcome to all the new people who joined the mailing list by signing up at the concerts and apologies to those who have slipped through the net in the past due to computer error! Please keep your eyes on the date sheet and come along to the shows…..and for all you Americans, don’t forget to look for the “Hillbilly Zen” CD on Stringbender Records. Best wishes and a Happy Christmas to everybody – see you next year, Julian
– Somerset in early December JULIAN DAWSON NEWS UPDATE 9/9/02 Hi to everyone out there in Internetworld! – My last message went out on my birthday (July 4th.) and we are now close to a bigger landmark with the 9/11 Anniversary two days away - so here is the news from my part of the planet…. I’m marking September 11th. with a visit to Eileen Cantarella in London, who was one of the passengers stranded with me this time last year in Gambo, Newfoundland. It’s been a pretty amazing year since then, both in my life and in the world news, but making so many new friendships on that plane has certainly helped put a different slant on the experiences of the last 12 months. You can see some of what’s gone on since that amazing week by looking at www.UA929.org Looking at my July News I notice that, as usual, I mentioned some up-and-coming plans and as usual some of them happen and some have to wait…… We are definitely re-launching the Plainsong line-up with Iain Matthews, Mark Griffiths, Andy Roberts and yours truly. Iain and I spent four days in July writing together and came up with four new songs (my first for a long while) for a recording date in November. The CD we then make will come out exclusively on Blue Rose Records in Germany or direct from us and will be ready for the early Spring with UK dates planned for March/April and more live work to follow. Still no result on the planned limited edition “live” CD from the German dates with Andy Metcalfe (and sometimes my brother Matt). We will get to it but simply haven’t been able to co-ordinate Andy’s schedule with mine to mix and sequence the music. Watch this space and I’ll let you know…. Plans to perform and record with Maggie Reilly look hopeful but not for a while yet. American dates for the Autumn didn’t work out but the release of my “Hillbilly Zen” CD on Gene Parson’s Stringbender label in the USA is going ahead and should be available from mid-September. Meridian Green, who runs the label has told me that the first 100 have been sold before the CDs are even ready – to Japan - A first for me! I’ll be in the States and Canada to help promote it in February 2003, first at the Nashville Folk Alliance conference followed by selected live dates and radio interviews. I’ll be able to give more details next time. My researches into all things Nicky Hopkins continue and are always full ofsurprises – most recent interviews were with the wonderful Shel Talmy in Los Angeles, who produced all those early Kinks and Who tracks and Nicky’s ex-wife Dolly who accompanied him through some of the wildest times and has some great stories and a good perspective on the rock and roll hero cult. I’m still waiting for one or two more key contributors and will then disappear for a while to WRITE THE BOOK! A glance at my datesheet for the next few months shows that I’ll be here there and everywhere with concerts in Germany (natch!), Austria, Denmark, Luxemburg and the UK (not as many here as I’d like – apologies to the faithful who send me e-mails asking why I’m abroad so much – the answer is that it’s always been a lot harder for me in this country with no full-time agent to work on bookings. I really enjoy the dates that do happen and hope to catch up with more of you when we take Plainsong on the road in England next March. One gig I’d specially like to highlight because it’s a benefit show: Just after I played in Thalgau, Austria in June the area was hit by the terrible flooding we’ve seen in many parts of Europe. Bernhard Iglhauser who has put on shows for myself and for Plainsong many times asked if we could come back for a fund-raiser. Having played a memorable duo gig there in 1996 with Iain Matthews I asked him to take part and he agreed right away – so we’ll be there on Friday November 29th. and the show will be recorded and put out on CD to raise money for flood relief. If you can get there – please help us out. That’s about it from me for now – I’ve still got to pack for my next trip to Germany and Denmark so I’ll finish here. There are a couple of recordings I’ve been involved in I’d like to draw your attention to… Charlie Louvin has a brand new CD out titled “The Sound Of Days To Come” (on Country Discovery Records) and has done me the honour of recording my song “The World Keeps On Changing”. It’s a very traditional country album as you’d expect but beautifully sung with all the dignity that 75 years (!!) brings with it. My favourite CD at the moment is the latest from Kimberley Rew – and nothing to do with the fact that I played harmonica and sang on one or two tracks. It’s titled “Grand Central Revisited” (on Bongo Beat Records, Canada) and quite simply has everything I like about music! Great lyrics,(typically quirky and very English), beautiful tunes, blistering guitar playing and a totally positive spirit – Thoroughly recommended! Bye for now! Best wishes, Julian My
last news was posted just after my Denmark / Germany tour in early
May so for once I’m ahead of the usual rhythm of an update every
3 months. With the Summer coming up and a lot of recent activity
this seemed a good day to catch up. I
had about two weeks to recover from the March-May tour marathon
and felt proud that I’d made it through without losing my voice
or collapsing. I don’t think I ever slept so much on a concert
trip, but with 26 shows in 29 days at one point, I figured I must
be recovered! With the travelling team of Andy Metcalfe and “Wolle”
Geier it was a very smooth operation and a lot of fun too. Thank
you to everyone who has sent messages to the new web-site guest
book. I try and reply to all of them sooner or later but if I
haven’t managed it yet, I really appreciate all the good wishes
and positive reactions to the concerts. I talked to Blue Rose after we finished and there is a plan to release an “official bootleg” CD of the live dates with Andy. Unfortunately that project has been delayed due to some personal stuff in Andy’s life, but we’ll get to it as soon as we can. Meanwhile
I’ve been busy organising a U.S. release for the “Hillbilly Zen”
CD. I went over to the States in early June and had a hectic but
really rewarding trip. I only played 3 benefit shows
- one special one in Oak Park, Chicago organised by Dan
Burke, A co-passenger on UA 929 on September 11th.
This story seemed to capture the interest of the media and was
covered by the Chicago Tribune, NPR Radio and local TV. The concert
was even visited by the Canadian consul who presented me with
a book “A Diary Between Friends” which featured my “Waiting For
A Plane” song lyric among some wonderful photos and tributes to
Canadian-American friendship during the 9/11 tragedy. I consider
this a real honour - and funny too, given that something that
was made purely for fun and was never promoted, should still reach
so many people – maybe there’s a lesson there! What
else? I continued collecting material for my Nicky Hopkins book
and had an especially good run of luck this visit, including interviews
with Steve Miller, Gary Duncan from Quicksilver Messenger Service,
and meetings with May Pang and Jorma Kaukonen (Jefferson Airplane)
in New York. It’s great to realise how much everybody loved Nicky
and his playing. I’ve gathered some great material - now I just
have to start writing! I
came back straight to a shared gig with Elliott Murphy in Thalgau,
Austria, a beautifully organised event with a great crowd. Now
I have a break for the Summer, except for a handful of UK dates
and a short visit to Germany again in mid-July but with a lot
of interesting things on the horizon. It looks like we’ll be re-activating
Plainsong, starting with a visit from Iain Matthews to Somerset
this month to try and write some songs together. There is a possible
support slot in the USA this Autumn (more details later) and I
hope to be working together with Maggie Reilly. I’ll be
getting to know the workings of my own studio too with
a view to making my next album at home! Watch
this space, keep in touch and I’ll hope, as always, to see you
all at a show somewhere. Meanwhile : “Happy Birthday to me….. SOMERSET,
SUMMER 2002 JULIAN'S
POST-TOUR UPDATE As so often happens, the minute the last deadline was over my body collapsed in all departments (nothing serious I must add - just cold, cough and flu-type stuff) which laid me low for the first week back home. By the time I was back on my feet I was already getting close to leaving again for the next trip. I think I am setting some kind of record at the end of this month with a show in Eschwege (near Kassel, Germany on may 31st. followed by an informal gig in Pacific Grove (near Monterey, California) on June 1st. Mad world! The rest of the German tour dates went really well finishing up with a sold-out show in Heiligenhaus where I was already ill, but since it was the very last night, Andy, my brother Matt (who was sitting in on pedal steel) and I determined to have fun and played a lot of songs we'd never normally do, took requests and generally fooled around. I sang an "Andy Metcalfe tribute medley" with a song each from the Soft Boys, Squeeze and Sandie Shaw - a really great ending to a fun tour!! The Summer is not as busy and I will be devoting time to getting to know my home studio and starting properly on the Nicky Hopkins biography I've been working on for the last two years - it's an exciting business uncovering new photo material and talking to people who knew Nicky in his heyday...recent interview victims include bassist David Hayes, Bobby Keys, Albert Lee and now Bill Wyman - I'm really enjoying digging into someone else's life for a change! Back to my own affairs, you can read all the upcoming concerts I'll be playing in the datesheet on this website - My US visit is a mixed bag with a few days on the west coast followed by a Chicago visit for a concert organised by one of my co-passengers on United Airlines flight 929 on September 11th., three days in new York and straight to Austria for a mini-festival in Thalgau on June 15th. Andy Roberts (my ex-Plainsong partner) told me that he played my song "Pilgrims" to Tony and Cherie Blair at a private party late last year - fame at last! There may be more news on Plainsong soon - I've missed singing with Iain Matthews and look forward to working with him again before too long. I still don't have details about the WDT TV film I mentioned in my last message, but will pass on any developments as soon as they come in. Meanwhile, as always, I hope to see some of you at the concerts and please keep the messages coming to the website with comments and questions - I'll try and reply as often as possible. I promise to get to work on the Songbook project as soon as possible - meanwhile you will soon be able to read the lyrics to all my recorded songs on a link site from my website, thanks to Carsten Weikamp from Germany. Thanks again to all of you who supported the recent shows - have a great Summer and enjoy the World Cup football! Cheers for now, JD Latest
News Update From Germany 25/04/02 Hi to everyone out there in Cyber-World from one very tired but happy singer, somewhere in Germany. We’ve just hit the halfway point two days ago and have had some lovely gigs and met lots of nice people. The new CD has had really nice reviews and is selling twice as fast as the last one, so Blue Rose seem to be happy too. Andy Metcalfe (bass, accordion, guitar and vocals) has been recording several shows so we will have some exclusive MP3s up soon. My daughter Holly came out and joined us for a week at Easter, sang beautifully and went down a storm with the audiences. With two weeks still to go we hope to see some of you at the shows – here’s the basic set list for those who can’t make:
I purposely dug out some songs I’ve never played live (or not for a long time) and I’m glad it’s so different form last year. I’ll write a full report and a proper news letter when I get home in May – till then keep writing to us and be well, where ever you are. P.S. One newsflash: WDR TV are going to make a 45 minute “prorate” film, possibly this summer! I’ll keep you posted. Julian
Dawson News Update 31/01/02 Dear
Friends and kind supporters, As
the English saying goes, “The best-laid plans of mice and men….”
I’ve had several e-mails wondering if the lack of news on my website
is something to do with my recent illness. This overdue posting
is to say that is not the case – in fact I just returned from
the clinic for my first three month check-up and have as good
as a clean bill of health! Unfortunately
the news freeze is due to a breakdown of contact between myself
and the wonderful Natalie Davis in the USA who has been doing
my “official” site since day one entirely out of kindness. I have
lost touch despite all efforts with post and e-mail so…we are
entering a new chapter this week with a brand new hand on the
technical side of things – a new look with new and better technology,
but retaining the best of what we had before. Anyone
who has been kind enough to be interested in me and my musical
career knows that in a typical Cancerian fashion, it is sometimes
two steps forward and one step back – I do appreciate your patience
and your wonderful support while I’ve been ill. Now
I am entering 2002 with new energy, a brand-new CD and LOTS of
concerts upcoming!! Here’s what’s been going on since my last
news at the end of October. As I predicted the rest of 2001 was spent mostly at home, though I was able to get on with mixing the new CD with Andy Metcalfe at Glenn Tilbrook’s studio in London. With Karl Hofer’s beautiful photos from California I was able to deliver it to Blue Rose in Germany and Fledg’ling Records in the UK on time for the scheduled release date of February 25th. Title this time is “Hillbilly Zen”. There are fifteen songs, one or two of which some of you might recognise from Plainsong or from earlier live shows, but which are otherwise all new. Gene
Parsons excels himself on a multitude of instruments and I think
the fun we had making the music together comes across on CD –
I’m also very happy with how it sounds. We’ll see what the critics
make of it when it comes out! I’ll be backing up the release with
nearly two months of solid touring in Europe from mid-March to
mid-May, followed by a visit to the East and West coast of the
USA in early June. On the Euro dates I will be accompanied again
by Andy Metcalfe on bass, keyboards, guitar and vocals plus the
occasional special guest. Look at the tour dates below and please
come along and bring some friends when we are near your town! Not
to make this news too long I’ll mention one or two recent events
that come to mind. I
went to Nashville (after my failed attempt on September 11th.)
on January 9th. and was able to spend time with the people I hadn’t
seen for so long – Dan Penn, Charlie Louvin, Lucinda Williams
(who is nominated for five Grammies this year!), Bill Lloyd, the
Tashians, Garry Tallent and Gene Pistilli. It still amazes me
that there can be so many talented people in such a small space
– I spent the last four days there working on a secret project
with my friend Karl Hofer, which involved taking pictures of some
of the above as well as legends like Duane Eddy, Spooner Oldham
and Charlie McCoy – more on that later. I
went to New York on my way home spending a day with Joe Butler,
drummer/singer from one of my all-time favourite bands The Lovin’
Spoonful. I hope next time we’ll be trying to write a song together.
It was fun to spend time with him after the experience of playing
a whole night of Spoonful songs back in October with The Night
Owls. I went down on my last day in town to see the devastation
at the World Trade Center – hard to imagine what it must have
been like for the people that live in the city. Back
home I’m hard at work preparing the way for the new CD release
and all those concerts I just received a brand new CD release
by Sean Keane (brother of the wonderful Dolores) with a lovely
version of my song "Pilgrims" on it – a big thank you
to him for doing such a fine job. I’ll
leave off writing for now and get this off to my new web-partner
and hope to see you all at one or another of the concerts! Love
and a Happy New Year to all, Julian, January 31st. 2002 |
Having recorded the basic tracks the first week of December with Richard Kennedy on second guitar and Andy Metcalfe at the mixing desk, I had a few weeks to live with the results over the holidays. We had recorded 12 songs very simply, with just a vocal and two, sometimes only one instrument in support. I fully intended to continue in January with instrument overdubs, guest appearances, backing vocals etc. but I found myself liking it more and more just the way it was, so all I did when we got back to work was add one last track with the incredible Martin Carthy on guitar, (a performer I’ve admired ever since I was at Art College) and mix and master the results. 
Greetings
to everyone,
Last
but not least the CD project with my friend Jean-Marie Peschiutta
is finished, in a very limited edition of five hundred copies.
It has turned out beyond both our expectations.