Hello from northern Alberta (home of “The Northern Studio”), where the weather has been too bizarre to even keep track of, but, on the other hand, I’m told I’m missing some Nashville tornadoes.
This is the week that our new Rebel CD compilation, “Lost Souls and Free Spirits”, premieres on Bluegrass Junction‘s “Track-by-Track”. It already aired once, but it can be heard again Thursday, Jan. 26th at 9:00 PM eastern, then on Sunday, Jan. 29th at 9:00 PM eastern Sirius XM 61
To end the prolonged tease, Rebel Records is making our recent #1 single “Final Farewell” available for download this coming Tuesday, January 31st. Check back here for word one when pre-release copies of the whole CD will be available through this site. It should be very soon.
I’ll be hitting the ground running when I get back to Nashville next week. We’ll play at Music City Roots at the Loveless Cafe barn, then we’ll be at SPBGMA’s annual convention and award show on February 3rd. Then (drum roll please), we’ll hold our album release party at the Station Inn on February 9th.
All of these dates are listed on our tour dates page. Gotta run! More soon…
Happy New Year!
The Night Drivers and I have a few weeks off the road, but there’s lots going on. For one thing, our pre-release single, “Final Farewell” has hit #1 on the new weekly airplay chart published by Bluegrass Today: http://bluegrasstoday/chart Employing the hard-to-get business strategy that had made us all thousandaires, the single is unavailable right now, even for download. Truthfully, this has to do with the distributor, and we wish it was otherwise, but Rebel Records has given me assurance that it will be downloadable within a couple of weeks.
The whole album, “Lost Souls and Free Spirits”, which is a remastered “best-of” collection with some new material, will be available for purchase in hard copy form by early February, and there will be a world premiere of the whole project on Sirius XM’s Bluegrass Junction on January 25th on “Track-by-Track”.
If you check our tour dates page, we have added new dates in Minnesota and Virginia, and you’ll see that we have an album release party for the CD in Nashville at The Station Inn on February 9th.
In other news: Ned Luberecki has returned from spending the post-Christmas and New Years holidays in London, England. Check Bluegrass Junction to see if he acquired a British accent while he was there.
We celebrated the end of “The Year of Bill Monroe” with a special 6-hour “Truegrass” in his honor. Below is a photo of me broadcasting on Sirius XM, wearing a shirt that was actually owned and worn by Bill Monroe in honor of his birthday. January 6th is Earl Scruggs’ birthday (and the day of Epiphany), so I’ll have some extra music from Earl on this weekend’s “Truegrass” (Friday, 3PM eastern, Sunday, 6PM eastern).
Happy Holidays to you! The Night Drivers and I are off for the holidays, storing up strength for a busy 2012 (storing up strength is usually achieved by eating a lot of Christmas cookies.) As is the tradition, I’ll be heading to what I’m now calling “Northern Studio B” in the Peace Country of northern Alberta, spending the holidays with my in-laws on their beautiful ranch (see photo).
Quickly, the news: our single “Final Farewell” has returned to the Bluegrass Today chart and is currently back in the top 15. The official release date has been set for our collection on Rebel Records, “Lost Souls and Free Spirits”, and it’s February 28th. The album will feature the best of our Rebel material over the last 15 years, including some out-of-print material, plus new material (including “Final Farewell”) recorded by the current lineup of The Night Drivers. There will be a world premiere of the CD on Sirius XM’s Bluegrass Junction on January 25th, when I will be Kyle Cantrell’s guest on “Track-by-Track” (my turn to be on the other side of the microphone).
I’m continuing my weekly column for the Bluegrass Today web site. Here’s the link to the latest post: http://bluegrasstoday.com/34947/band-management-dress-codes/
Have a wonderful holiday season. Make time to play in the snow (unless you don’t have any), and don’t make any New Year’s resolutions I wouldn’t make.
- Chris
Hello, and welcome to our special Christmasized web site. Just another reason that I love our web designer, Lisa Jacobi (www.lisawebsites.com), who also plays with the band Steel String Session.
As you can see we do have a Christmas single out, available in the download form only (that pretty much ruins it as a stocking stuffer idea, but we’re keeping up with the times and it reduces clutter on Christmas Day!). It’s a song that I co-wrote with songwriting legends Dixie and Tom T. Hall called “Kentucky Noel“.
Meanwhile, our new CD collection on Rebel Records, Lost Souls and Free Spirits, is due out at the end of February, with CDs going out to radio stations at the end of January. We won’t have any for sale on line until then, but you have a one-time only chance to buy an advance copy of the CD coming up on December 8th. We will have some on hand for our last show of 2011 at The Whippoorwill in Gallatin, TN next Thursday, December 8th. It’s our first time to play there as a band, and we hear it’s a great place for music. It came highly recommended by Donna Ulisse, who has played there often, and Ned Luberecki has played there with Stephen Mougin, and he agreed. So come on out if you can. Details are on the tour dates page. Our next show will not be until we play Music City Roots on February 1st.
Speaking of Music City Roots scanning through some pictures of the past year, I came across this one of the whole cast of that show the night we played the first time, including Claire Lynch and band, Jim Lauderdale, and Ned Luberecki doing his banjo balancing act.
Have a great holiday season, and don’t forget to take time out of the busy season to smell the egg nog.
- Chris P.S. Here’s the link to my latest Bluegrass Today column.
I want to wish all of our friends, fans and family a very happy Thanksgiving weekend. I’ve timed things badly again this year missing both Canadian and U.S. Thanksgivings by being in the wrong country at the wrong time. As a consequence, I’m celebrating U.S. Thanksgiving in Canada by going to see Gordon Lightfoot in concert in Dawson Creek, BC. What this means is that you can justify that second helping of turkey and sweet potatoes because you’re just having my portion for me!
We’re excited to report that our new single, “Final Farewell” has rocketed into the Bluegrass Today top 5! We want to thank DJs and radio programmers around the country and around the world for that support.
In other news, we are very pleased with our new association with Roe Entertainment. We have recently added a bunch of new tour dates which are now posted on our tour dates page. Roe Entertainment also has new contact info and a redesigned web site. Just click on the “For Bookings” page to link to that.
Last but certainly not least, a new Night Driver baby was born this month. Mark, Mary and Finn Stoffel welcomed young Oliver James Stoffel into their family (see very cute photo below). I’m certain that Olie will be a very polite child, since he patiently waited until after our recent Station Inn show to enter the world. Thanks, Olie, and welcome to the family! Congratulations, Mark and Mary!
Oliver James Stoffel
We have returned from a short but good tour of Italy and Switzerland. Mark Stoffel wasn’t able to go, so we called on the outstanding services of Red Wine’s Martino Coppo on mandolin. Martino was also very kind in offering hospitality and acting as tour guide while we were in his home town of Genoa. Some pictures are below and more can be found on my Facebook page (see link on home page).
Single update: Our brand new advance single, “Final Farewell” from our forthcoming Rebel collection CD, Lost Souls and Free Spirits, is already getting airplay around the country and around the world. If you’re a radio broadcaster and don’t yet have a copy, there’s a direct link to it on Airplay Direct on the home page or right here:
http://airplaydirect.com/music/ChrisJonesandtheNightDrivers/
Any DJs who would like some short audio clips of me talking about the song, please email me at chris@chrisjonesmusic.com, and I can send the files to you.
I’m in northern Alberta at the moment, but I’ll be returning soon to Nashville, where we’ll be playing The Station Inn this coming Thursday, November 3rd. It’s our first time there in quite a while, and our first “in town” appearance since September. Come on out of you’re anywhere nearby.
Our new agent, Jim Roe, of Roe Entertainment is doing a great job. I’ve posted some of our new dates for 2012 just this week.
3 Night Drivers on the streets of downtown Genoa, Italy
