June Greetings Everyone from very hot Memphis!
And hey I know it’s uncomfortably hot lots of places right now. I do pray everyone’s managing.
With that in mind... Last weekend my wife and I took a walk sponsored by an organization called Asha’s Refuge, and I was able to meet and walk side by side with refugees from many troubled places, including Afghanistan, El Salvador, Somalia, Rwanda and a number of other countries. Talk about perspective! So easy to complain about the problems of the privileged... like me.
OK, I do have a little news, and I’m excited to share it.
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CONTENTS of This Newsletter
1. Ireland AND Scotland tours in 2023!
2. Sherpas booked for fall festival in TX…
…with a planned album release
3. Back in the studio
4. TK Poem of the Month: Chewing Gum
5. Wisdom for our time from Tom Hanks.
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1. Ireland AND Scotland tours in 2023!
a) Ireland 2023
My upcoming summer 2022 tour is sold out, but we’ll be soon taking reservations for 2023.
We’ll be doing something a little different in ’23—starting on the east coast, then exploring our way across the south and the southwest. I'm quite excited about this tour as we'll be covering rich, fresh territory... for me anyway.
Dates: Tuesday, April 18—Thursday, April 27, 2023
Where: Counties Dublin, Waterford and Clare
Tour Company: Inishfree Tours
Host: Yours Truly
For more info: HERE and HERE (for Inishfree Tours).
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b) Scotland 2023
I’m thrilled to have just been given the opportunity to host my first fans-friends-and-family tour in Scotland! It’s a music-centric tour, and I’ll be working with a top-notch, small, personable and knowledgeable outfit called Traceless Tours.
Dates: Monday, May 1—Thursday, May 11, 2023
Where: Our home bases will be Edinburgh, Pitlochry and Inverness
Tour Company: Traceless Tours
Host: Myself!
For more info: HERE (for more on my 2023 tour, plus a sample itinerary) and HERE (for more on Traceless Tours).
(As with the Inishfree Tours in Ireland, we'll have a first-rate guide and skilled driver with us all the way.)
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2. Sherpas News
a. Sherpas play the Welcome Home Festival
The Sherpas have just been booked for the Welcome Home Festival in Kerrville, TX for the evening of Saturday, October 15, 2022.
More info on the show and the festival coming soon (as it becomes available). For more on the festival, click HERE, and for more on the Kerrville Folk Festivals—this years big fest wrapped up last week—click HERE.
And BTW I had a blast performing and teaching at the KFF three short weeks ago!
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b. Sherpas album progress
Michael, Tom and I have continued working on our new album (together and long distance). It'l be our first in twenty short years—and virtually all recording is done! I’ll be heading to Maryland in mid-August so we can all finalize mixes together. Our intention is to have the record (CD and perhaps vinyl) by the time we play the Welcome Home Festival.
And not to get overly excited, but, well, we’re pretty excited.
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3. Back in the studio
Not sure why, but it’s taken me awhile to find my groove in my little attic studio in Memphis… but of late I’ve been holed up in here, which is where I am at this moment.
Projects I had left to chill when I moved from Mississippi to Memphis last summer are back on the hot stove. It’s good to be immersed in work again, and there WILL be music to share before the year’s out.
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4. Poem of the Month
Chewing Gum
Approaching our fifth anniversary
I tell my wife the traditional gift
is chewing gum and she says Really?
No I say. It’s wood.
Ha ha but she’d believed me,
which is why I’m a confessor.
That is to say, I out myself
and yeah it’s funny and all that
but I could get away with things
and I really don’t want to.
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5. Wisdom for our time
“What is the point of trying to do the right thing when it’s just a drop in the ocean? But what is an ocean but a multitude of drops?”
—Tom Hanks (b. 1956), actor (New York Times interview 6/14/22)
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Till next time, Maximum Peace, Love and Understanding,
TK