Harper February Blog

Hey Everyone,

Welcome to snowy February here in the USA. January saw us in the freezing cold in Missouri, Kansas, Iowa and Michigan then we headed south to Alabama and Florida for some much appreciated warmth. Our Florida shows at the fabulous Bradfordville Blues Club in Tallahasse, Ms Newbies in Panama City Beach, Aces in Bradenton, Celtic Rays in Punta Gorda, The Backroom in Boca Raton were alot of fun. As was Little Willies in Alabama. We performed yet another show for the special needs kids at the Buckingham Center for Exceptional Students where as per usual we had a blast. It seems with each visit we stay longer and longer. The wonderful kids and their teachers are such a blessing to experience. This time we all had to be finger printed which is now required by law for all Floridian schools. Our new guitarist Drew thought it would be funny to put down as an alias "Shifty Joe" on his application, not realizing the seriousness of the situation. Thankfully he crossed it out. So I guess Drew now has a new nick name. After a two year absence we performed at Key West's fabulous Green Parrot Bar. The afternoon session was huge with at least 200 in attendance. There were quite alot of familiar faces plus several people just off the boat from the Legendary blues cruise.

After Florida we headed north to Virgina where we hung out with Mike and Jane Aronson. Copious amounts of red wine, fine cheese and large steaks were consumed. The next day we presented a didgeridoo workshop at the Jefferson Center Music Lab in Roanoke, Virginia followed by an evening show at Blue 5. We were surprised to see our former keyboard player James and drummer Scott at the show. it was great to catch up. We were urged by the locals to leave town that night to avoid the huge winter storm that was coming through the next day. So after the show we drove through the night to Camden, South Carolina narrowly missing the snowmaggedon and arriving at about 5.30am. We checked into the first hotel that had an open sign on. Later we discovered that we had checked in the crack hotel central. Its hard to see at night- especially when you're tired, but no harm was done. We had a great show at The Venue on Broad then we headed south to Charleston for the Low Country Blues Fesitval. We got to hang out with the Kyla Burrell Band for a bit at the first show, then later Steve Simon, Keith & T at The Mill Lounge.

Some bad news just to hand. We have decided to cancel our upcoming UK tour, due to the down turn in the world economy. This has forced us to cut back on our international touring schedule for this year. But the good news is that we picked up some other US festivals during the same time frame. The new CD through Blind Pig is due to be released on May 11- can't wait ! Hope to see you all out on the road.


Peace,

Harper & Midwest Kind

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www.blindpigrecords.com (for CD orders & downloads)