Annual reminder that I exist, hoping that you do too...
Every Fall I drink a few gallons of coffee and try to cram this piece of paper with whatever I can think of and send it out to all of you, hoping that 1) you have not changed your address recently 2) you won’t toss it in the trash instantly and 3) you will go “Oh yeah-- I remember this guy- I wonder how he is doing...”
I have been doing the independent musician thing since 1974, and in spite of the significant crumbling of the big-time music industry, there is still no real way for “less-than-famous” people to get much “ink” in the mainstream press without committing multiple felonies or winning American Idol. The “King of Pop” is dead, so long live the “Unking of Unpop.” Maybe that will be my new moniker...
I have mostly good news to report: with the economy in dire straits, my little world of coffeehouses and “under the radar” music is doing just fine. People need inexpensive entertainment probably more than when they had money, and even though the music industry is falling apart, music itself has not lost its ability to affect people. My mail-order sales, CD sales at gigs and attendance at shows have all been quite good. I still believe in what I do, and that music is a valid focus of one’s life. My family and I are healthy and have enough to eat, so I am not tirading or complaining, except that I never seem to have enough time or energy and I can’t keep in better touch with all the friends I have made over the years.
Stay warm, but be cool,
Harvey Reid

HEAVY GUITAR... Mugging at the music trade show in Nashville with a guitar made out of a real cinderblock. If it had been an acoustic guitar I might have been more at home.

Blues & Branches is my 21st; the first solo CD I have made since my autoharp album in ‘05, and the first one to be mostly guitar in 9 years. It’s available on CD as well as on iTunes and other digital services. So far a number of people say it is my best ever. It is going to be featured in the February 2010 issue of Guitar Player Magazine.

Folk Radio Legend John Weingart said: “the album gives me answers to two questions I have been asked from time to time: Which Harvey Reid album would you suggest I buy and, more generally, if you had to pick one album to introduce someone to the vibrancy and scope of folk music in the early 21st century, what would it be?”)

As you might guess, it focuses on the bluesier side of my music, with a lot of slide guitar. It’s mostly songs, though there are some cool instrumental pieces. There are also 2 autoharp cuts, including a blues song and a smokin’ version of an old train song. I did an extended 6-string banjo frailing blues, plus some nice 12-string, lap Dobro, and probably my best lap steel work ever. I used 11 different guitars on the 7 trad, 7 original and 2 covers.

The Pork Chop Slap (Reid), Raleigh & Spencer (Trad.), Let Your Light Shine On Me (Trad.), One Kind Favor (Trad.), From Where I Stand (Reid), Sly Damsel Serenade (Reid), Fishing Pond Blues (Reid), Fool Me Twice Blues (Reid), St. James Infirmary (Trad.), Cryderville Jail (Trad.), The Year Clayton Delaney Died (Hall), Walk Through A Graveyard (Reid), The Train That Carried My Girl From Town (Trad.), Paddy’s Green Shamrock Shore (Trad.), Try Mine (Goldman), Hollywood (Reid)CD’s.

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