Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Getting Ready to Travel and a CD Release

Well as usual I wait until the very last minute to pack, getting ready for my trip to Austin and Echo Hill Ranch in Medina, home of Utopia Rescue Ranch and Kinky Friedman; up today at 2:30am to start packing and putting stuff together. Very excited to see my friends in Texas again. I get in tomorrow night and Thursday night will play a show at Joe Pope's house in Manor on the outskirts of Austin, then drive on over to Medina and perform at the ranch. Originally I planned to go back down there in November but this is great, Mercury retrograde or not (I've noticed things just take a little more attention during this time).

These last two months in Washington, I got my bus moved up to the hill, which was no easy feat, driving a 30 foot Bluebird straight up three miles of windy dirt mountain road full of ravines and large rocks and drop offs, but I took it slow, and that old diesel just creeped on up and didn't even overheat. And I started a garden which is growing like crazy already, going back up there today to check on it, drop off Willie the dog for a two week vacation with Mom, visit with the folks a bit, then it's back down to town to catch the bus early to head to Spokane to get the plane.

This morning I made available by digital release my "new" CD called "Because of You." It's been done for a little while now, The CD can now be found here, and the money will actually go to me:

https://chetokeefe.bandcamp.com/album/because-of-you
You can preview all the songs in their entirety to listen first and see if you like them enough to buy them. You can buy the whole she-bang for 12. bucks or buy the tracks individually for a dollar a piece.


I had such a great time recording this CD, I flew into Nashville, had a few writing appointments with Thomm Jutz, Kim Richey, and John Weisberger, and two of the songs we wrote went directly onto the CD, those are "Blue Martin" and "Oh Angel." Also what's pretty cool and an honorific thing for me is that Blaze Foley's sister Marsha gave me 5 of Blaze's songs that were never published and never had music put to them, so at her request I wrote the music and she accepted 4 of them. "Because of You" is one of those songs and "Goin' Downtown" is another. What an amazing deal. Merle Haggard is getting ready to record these songs as well. If you've never heard of Blaze, check his music out. He's been recorded by Willie Nelson, John Prine, and Merle Haggard.

When I raise a little bit of money I'll have some physical copies made.

So, on with the day. The sun comes up around 4am and goes down around 10:30pm, and now at 6 the sky is brightening and it looks clear out there. Yesterday afternoon we saw the heaviest rain I've ever seen since I've been here, it washed away part of the street in front of the house and they had big machinery out there putting it all back in place.

Thanks Nancy for putting it all together for this show Saturday evening! Also a big thanks to Joe and Dona Pope who are opening their house up for guests and camping and for me to play Thursday night.
























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