Home and Far Away
Hey everybody! Sammy here writing from our home in beautiful Whitehorse, Yukon! I finally got my Canadian Residency and followed Nadine up to Whitehorse, where she has called home since 2000. After many visits over the years and many longings to be here when not on tour, I decided to call Whitehorse home as well. I love it. It’s a small town full of inspiring, great folks from all walks-of-life, overwhelming outdoor adventures and crisp, bright days. Come visit!
The Foghorn Stringband has been busier than ever. We completed our 8th album, “Devil in the Seat“. We’re so excited about it and have already done two tours this year in the States to promote it. We all met up in late January to do a two-week Pacific Northwest run, starting on Vancouver Island, British Columbia and finishing up at the wonderful Oly Old Time Festival . In March we met up in Brooklyn, NY at The Jalopy Theater and School of Music to start another fantastic tour, finishing in Southampton, MA at the Parlor Room. We had such an amazing tour, playing in Montpelier, VT for a square dance, workshops, and a show- that’s an amazing music community right there! Thanks to the Summit School. We also played an amazing square dance in Boston and a sold out show there at Club Passim!! We are really looking forward to playing two shows back at Club Passim http://passim.org on September 2nd as well as even sooner, on May 25th at the legendary Irish pub, The Burren in the front bar. Yeah, Boston!! We also had a lovely time in Maine, Rhode Island, Albany, NY and New Jersey. Check out Foghorn’s website for more details as well as more info about our upcoming tour of Ireland, Scotland, and England! We hope to see you there somewhere!
2014 Recap
2014 was an action-packed year for us for sure. Getting most of my stuff up here to the Yukon seemed rather uneventful compared to some of the music adventures we got to be a part of. I’ll try to re-cap:
The year kicked off with a last “hometown” hang in Portland during the Old Time Gathering, complete with a house-full of friends crashing in every corner of the house. From there we headed to Glasgow to play Celtic Connections with Foghorn and stick around to see a bunch of shows and visit friends outside of Edinburgh and even snuck in a quick visit to Liverpool (sorry about your car, Sarah and Joey…)! The sessions were epic of course, a highlight being tunes with Anna Lindblad (cousin!) and of course our old friends, Sarah McFadyen and Joey Sanderson!
From Scotland we flew straight to Anchorage for the Fiddle Train! The snow wasn’t quite right for skiing like in 2013, but the company, tunes, and the hilarious tune/shananigan-filled train ride was the best! We then met Caleb and Reeb in Minneapolis and started a sweet Midwestern Foghorn tour with The Cactus Blossoms, who we try to play with or just plain listen to whenever we get the chance. You’ll have a hard time finding better harmony singers or nicer fellas anywhere. On that tour we covered a lot of ground, a main stop-off being Folk Alliance in Kansas City. It’s a great place to meet/play for festival promoters and meet up with old friends and have some good sessions. The tour ended in Louisiana for a show with bossman, Dirk Powell, at Parish Ink, and we were in the tidal wave that is, of course, MARDI GRAS! The night before Mardi Gras out at Faquetigue Foghorn played for Lundi Gras in the ice cold weather that continued through the next day. It was “Freezer Gras” for sure! Still fun of course…
The day after Mardi Gras, Nadine and I recorded the second Cajun Country Revival album with Joel Savoy and Jesse Lege called, “Greetings From Louisiana” in Joel’s studio and then headed to China for two weeks with Nick Spitzer, host of the radio show American Routes!! We all had a great adventure playing over there. China is a place I never thought I’d get to visit, let alone go and play there in the first ever cajun band to play at on mainland China! We played in Guangzhou, Harbin, and Shanghai and Nanjing. We were treated so well, and had amazing responses everywhere we played. It was incredibly empowering for the women there to see and hear Nadine play the upright bass and sing the way she does. Folks went nuts and lined up after every show for autographs! We had a little hiccup in our journey over there- the flight attendant on our first flight took our fiddles and guitar off the plane saying they “don’t allow instruments to be in the overhead”, even though they take up much less that people’s huge carry-ons full of whatever unbreakable sh#% !! So the guy lied to us, saying they would be gate-checked and actually made us go to the normal baggage claim, causing us to miss our flight to China and we missed the first gig. Our already checked baggage was, however, on the flight, which caused some problems and it took one week to be reunited with our bags. It was hilarious though- the nice folks up in Harbin at the American Consulate outfitted us with some grey track suits!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtZPfq1qodIAfter China we enjoyed a relaxing couple of weeks up here in Whitehorse before meeting up in Germany with Caleb and Reeb for a month-long Foghorn tour. It was a blast for me to go back to Germany, having studied there myself in ’98-’99. We all had a great time enjoying the sites, beer and heavy food! From there we flew to London and played a couple of nights before heading to Wales to play at Fire in the Mountain, an incredible festival in Wales we can’t wait to make it back to.
This brought us to summer and we jumped right in, heading to California to play at the Grass Valley Father’s Day Festival, Weiser, Idaho to our favorite sandy lot, Stickerville for a week of pickin’, then a quick trip to Kentucky to play ROMP, teach at Fiddle Tunes, play the Big Horn Mountain Music Festival before heading back to the Yukon for some serious summer action in the North! Woo hoo! Highlights included some great swimming here at Long Lake and a trip to Dawson for the Moosehide Gathering.
We got to travel all the way to Newfoundland to play a The Newfoundland and Labrador Folk Festival and the Woody Point Writer’s Festival with the Cajun country Revival. We loved Newfoundland and are counting the days till we can get back there!! We then flew down to Portland and played a couple gigs with Foghorn before heading to the legendary Tønder Festival in good ol’ Denmark. We had a blast playing with both The Foghorn Stringband and The Cajun Country Revival, as well as hilarious sessions with Dirk, Cedric Watson, Anna Lindblad, Sheesham and Lotus & Son, among others! Woo hoo! We followed this up with a sweet little tour of Sweden and Norway by train.
Then it was time for The Cajun Country Revival to join Pokey LaFarge for his Central Time Tour. We had such a blast and made a bunch of good friends along the way! We finished near St. Louis and met up with Caleb and Reeb to play with Foghorn at the Folk and Roots Festival and then off to IBMA for some of that. Next was some family time in eastern Quebec, a couple of “Nadine and Sammy” gigs and workshops in Toronto, Wolfe Island, and Nadine’s aunt’s lavender farm before heading back to Whitehorse for almost a month at home. We didn’t have the snowfall to do our usual snowshoeing and ski trails, but were able to hike a bunch and enjoy some good northern hang time.
Then it was time to make the 8th Foghorn album, “Devil in the Seat” and what better place than on a small island in the Pacific?!? We’re super happy with how it turned out and finished with time to have a last few chill days on Kauai, HI before flying to Boston to be a part of Christmas Celtic Sojourn for two weeks with Solas, Kevin Burke, Lumiere and some amazing dancers from The Stepcrew. It was a great couple of weeks hanging out in Boston with some amazing people. Thanks to Brian O’Donovan for bringing us there and to he and his wife Lindsay showing us a great time!
From Boston we headed to Nadine’s family up in Quebec for the holidays and brought in the New Year there. It was a great couple of weeks of family time and a time to be together after the passing of Nadine’s grandmother, who brought music into the family. We had many late night jams in her honor!
This brings us back to the start of 2015! We kicked it off in Juneau, playing a couple nights at the Alaskan Hotel with The Cajun Country Revival, then Homer at Alice’s Champaign Palace before playing the Anchorage Folk Festival with both The Cajun Country Revival and Foghorn. Thanks to Cedric Watson for filling in last minute and tearing it up! What a blast!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1z_9s65ABk
Remember to check in with what we’re up to on The Foghorn Stringband’s website and The Cajun Country Revival
We’re headed off soon to do a tour with The Foghorn Stringband of Ireland, Scotland and England!
See you somewhere down the road!!!
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