I have been asked to play guitar with Emmylou Harris and her extraordinary band this Summer! I am thrilled beyond belief. Her soon to be released new album is fantastic, and of course, her legendary career precedes her. It is an honor to say a big loud “Yes” to the gig. The band is full of good friends, including one of my favorite drummers and people in the world: Bryan Owings. So it will not just be a gig; it will be really good company. I am so thankful for this opportunity.

Of course, this also means about six months of less work on my own music. But that’s ok. I will learn and grow so much playing with someone like Emmylou and the band.

I am busy at work on new projects of my own and beginning some new ideas with Tommy vis a vis DADDY. Hopefully I will get something wrapped up for a release in the not too distant future. I certainly have plenty of songs. I’m still working on my digital downloads project. And of course I’m still working on some other folks’ stuff, too. To be honest, right now I’m back to that 7 day a week pace from back in the Fall of 2010.

Hello. My name is Will, and I’m a workaholic.

I love what I do; I can’t help myself.

See you out there. I’m headed to New Orleans, for Cyril E Vetter’s book event, celebrating the release of “Dirtdobber Blues”:

http://www.dirtdobberblues.com/

The book celebrates the life, music and art of Tangipahoa Parish’s own Butch Hornsby. I had the pleasure of meeting his family last night in Baton Rouge. Laissez les bon temps rouler!

It’s Joe Cain Day in Mobile. I drove home from Parkersburg, WV, today: 450 miles. Home from a delightful 3 day tour of Frankfort, KY, Newport, KY, and P’burb, WV—great shows!

I expected a sleepy Thursday night routing date in Frankfort; instead, the house was pretty packed and I had a blast.

Southgate House is always one of my favorite venues, and Friday night was no exception. Had about 110 people there. Lisa Oliver Gray showed up with her Suzies and sang with me all night. Chalk up another killer night at Southgate House.

My first trip to Parkersburg, WV was a dandy—-played a coffee house type house concert sort of thing for 75 music lovers in that neck of the hardwoods. Thanks to Steve Tuck for putting on a cool music series in Parkersburg. I here he does good works there, too…

I have been working on Ilo’s album off and on for a couple of months, with David Henry at True Tone Recording. We are taking the mixes to Jim Demain at Yes Master tomorrow morning for that final audio step: Mastering. What exactly is mastering? Don’t ask me! It’s magic. I can tell you this: it’s an essential final step. I have had the pleasure of working with the likes of Jim Demain, Michael Romanowski and Greg Calbi during my career. I once even got to drink beer with Bob Ludwig at his studio in Portland, Maine. Lucky me.

This week is action packed. I have two days in the studio with Kate Campbell (!) at Lij’s Toy Box Studio in East Nashville.

I also plan on working on my songs in my home studio.

Don’t forget about the band show at Callaghan’s in Mobile March 19. Have a great week.

I took February off the road. But I wasn’t off work. What was planned as a month of writing and home recording turned into a lot more work on quite a few projects. I teamed up with Brigitte Demeyer and Chris Donohue for Tuesday nights at Belcourt Taps and Tapas. I sang some demos for a very exciting project Sheryl Crow is working on. Angela Easterling’s new album is being mastered today, and I will take the mixes of Ilo Ferreira’s new album to Jim Demain at Yes Master on Monday—-Jim is mastering Angela’s record as I type. Bill Toms’ album is being mixed by the wonderful Rick Witkowski right now.

I have been writing and honing my home recording skills. Beginning with my “Americanitis” CD, I have been doing a good bit of the recording of my albums at home, at first on a Mac Powerbook and a Pro Tools Digi 002R interface, with a couple of Oktava Microphones. Now I have a newer iMac with a Black Lion Audio modified Digi 002R, a couple of better mic pres and a little bit nicer vocal mic. I have built some acoustic treatment panels that I move around the 9 x 12 room, depending on what I am recording, whether I am mixing, etc. It is trial and error. I am trying to take what I have learned watching over the shoulders of David Henry, Lij, Brad Jones, Eric McConnell and many others over the years. I am getting better, but it is never good enough. My plan is to have some brand new songs available from download at my website’s digital store before heavier Summer touring begins. I want to release an album’s worth of songs that way before I release another ‘official’ CD. We’ll see what works out, but for now that is my plan. I am working on what seems to me to be two separate albums at once: one, a blues- and folk-oriented group of songs; the other, a pop record that reflects my love of The Beatles, The Kinks, Big Star, The dBs, XTC, Crowded House, The Windbreakers and Let’s Active—among many others. I may mix them up as downloads before releasing them on CD. Time will show the wiser.

See you in Kentucky and West Virginia. And Mobile, a little later in March.