Packing and Detailing

We're getting close now. A busy couple of days! Genuine white stripe tour jackets are here. Hwy 61 t-shirts, Libby Rae's new cd... I've got four new Michelin tires on the Lincoln, new ball joints, and a rock steady alignment. This Town Car, and this Tour are ready to eat up the road! On Sunday, I'll fire it up and point it east. I'm going to roll out of Toronto, and set the cruise control for Halifax International Airport. I'll pick up Libby Rae on Tuesday night. We're all papered up and legal, too. My pal Dale Schimpf, of the East Coast Blues Society, is going to meet us and see that we are well looked after.

There are a whole lot of great blues players on Canada's east coast. It's a mature blues scene, probably dating back 50 or 60 years. Halifax was, and is, a port town, well connected to route shows from New York and Boston. Africville, from which some families trace their roots into the early 1700's, was certainly well established by the mid-1800's. It's destruction by the City of Halifax is another story, but suffice to say there have been plenty of blues- and plenty of blues players- here for a long time. The other side of the coin is the Acadian connection. Many of the older families here are still in touch with descendants of their relatives who were deported to Louisiana. It's a good mix of older, veteran musicians, and the younger players they mentor. Libby Rae and I are looking forward to hanging out with Joe Murphy! The accents are different, but the Maritimes have much in common with the coastal southern states.

Posters have been mailed to everybody up the line into late October- as far as Regina, Saskatchewan. Points west will ship in a couple more weeks time. Media releases have had their first and second rounds. I went down to visit my pals at Long & McQuade Music in Toronto this morning and picked out a nice little Yorkville PA. I'll be doing masterclasses at Long & McQuade locations across Canada again this year. I don't often get the PA out of the car– but when I do, it works– and sometimes covers my you know what. Out of 100 shows there will always be a couple where the contracted, in house sound will not do what it needs to do. And I can run the whole thing on a DC/AC converter if I have to. Just run outside and pull the car battery. I'm pretty loud anyway, but I do have back-up!

But for a house concert that just cancelled on zip notice, the first leg of the Tour is looking great! I love Maritime Canada, and it's been very good to me over the past few years. It will be a real treat to have Libby Rae along for the first three weeks of shows. I've got her watching Canadian cultural programs like Trailer Park Boys, so she'll have an idea of what to expect when she gets here...

In the morning I'll print the Tour Book, clean up the car, and get packed. So many guitars, so little time.  Still, three and a half months of shows and open road is a pretty good life. They always bomb the middle east on my fall/winter tours. I'm going to spend what- $5000, $6000 on gasoline? Damn, need to put bums in seats!