Updates
Yesterday afternoon I returned home from a long weekend in Lanesboro, Minnesota attending the Bluff Country Gathering. It was amazing and I have a great deal to say about it - so much that I anticipate writing at least two, possibly three or four separate posts about it. And, as I turned in my grades for the Spring semester last night, I’ll hopefully have enough time to do that this week. But before we get there, I wanted to do a little housekeeping, as they say.
First of all, I’ve decided that, once I get to a dozen posts or so, I’m going to start paying for Buttondown’s basic level of service, thus enabling me to take comments on my posts and also accept subscriptions. My plan is to set up the newsletter for voluntary contributions, meaning that it will remain free, but if you feel like my writing is of sufficient value and you are in a position to throw a little money my way, that will be a thing that can happen. All contributions will go towards keeping the newsletter going and/or funding old-time music making.
Secondly, I’d like to use my own personal computer (as opposed to the one provided by my employer, which is what I’m using at the moment) to write Lantern in the Ditch, and I’ve set it up as a Linux system, which has proved somewhat challenging. Getting it properly set up and updated is a project in and of itself, one that I will also be working on this week. So that could conceivably gum up the works in the short term.
Thirdly, following my last post, a well-informed reader told me that Joe Thompson was primarily a fiddler, and not really a banjo player. Additionally, it turns out Dirk Powell was an early supporter of the Chocolate Drops, and his musical partnership with Rhiannon Giddens makes a good deal more sense in that context.
I will endeavor to continue writing about playing and discovering old-time music in this newsletter, and I’m enormously grateful to all the folks who have been reading and encouraging me. If the gathering in Lanesboro is any indication of how music making will go for me in the coming months, its going to be an epic summer. And I’m looking forward to telling you all about it.