Thanks, Stuart! "Boatsman" is more on the old-time hillbilly side than the country blues side, but we do have a cool version of the Mississippi Sheiks "River Bottom Blues" as well as some nice raggy instrumentals. We're reached the 2/3 mark as of today! Here's an update:
As summer looms, we are excited to announce that our Kickstarter campaign for our new ?Boatsman? CD has reached the two-thirds mark! We have just 21 days to go to make our goal, but we need every pledge to fill in the gap to fully funded. Please consider pre-ordering your own copy of ?Boatsman?, and if you?re able to contribute a little more, we have some cool rewards: admission to an exclusive backers-only house concert, posters from past years of the Berkeley Old Time Music Convention, delicious candied citrus peel handmade by Allegra, private music lessons, and more! Some reward categories are running low ? only 12 seats left at the backers-only house concert! The complete BOTMC poster collection has been snapped up, but you can still snag a favorite one at the $60 level.
Our heartfelt thanks to all of you who have already contributed - without you,this would not be possible. Spread the word if you can--the finish line is on the horizon!
Here?s a link to our Kickstarter page (you can hear a bit of the title cut - just a rough mix - under the video)
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/327952999/boatsman-an-old-time-music-cd-from-thompsoniaThe new CD is called ?Boatsman?, after a beautiful contemplative fiddle tune from North Carolina fiddler Marcus Martin. In April, over the course of four days, we recorded eleven songs and tunes with origins we can trace back to the earliest days of recorded music, most of which are not widely known today. Some of our material comes from other families that played Old Time music together, including the Poplins, the Kimbles, and the Carters. We also recorded songs from string bands like the Mississippi Sheiks and Taylor-Griggs Louisiana Melody Makers, and some from even more obscure sources: Hezekiah Jenkins, Lew Childre, and Hiter Colvin. There?s lots of harmony singing, Eric?s guitar picking and Suzy?s fiddling, with old-time rhythms ranging from blues to polka to ragtime to breakdown.
We still have to finish up the CD, including mixing, design work, etc. which we will do in the next few months. We?re excited to be doing a shoot with legendary photographer Irene Young for the cover. And also excited that Thompsonia producer Jody Stecher will be returning to lend his peerless ears to the mixing process, assisted by the fabulous engineers at 25th Street Studios. ?Official? release date will be January, 2018, but we expect to have CDs for pre-release well before that.
Whether or not you're able to contribute, we hope you'll share this campaign with friends. We're so excited to launch BOATSMAN--help us set sail!
Our heartfelt thanks for your support,
Eric, Suzy and Allegra Thompson, aka ?Thompsonia?
