JPJ: holiday message

[Steve Thomson <zeppelin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Here's JPJ's latest message on his web site at: 
http://www.johnpauljones.com/home.html. Nothing startling but nice to 
see he's enjoying making music.

Enjoy,
Steve.
************************
So it’s Christmas, and it seems like only yesterday since I wrote the 
last message! The main focus for the past year seems to have been 
acoustic music. In March I produced an album for Uncle Earl, an old-time 
stringband (www.uncleearl.net <http://www.uncleearl.net/>). I had the 
best time ever with this record, the girls are great musicians and 
brilliant fun to work with. We started pre-production at banjoist Béla 
Fleck’s house, then went up to Seattle and Tacoma where the g’earls were 
playing at Rockygrass. This is a big bluegrass festival in a hotel in 
Tacoma and it was totally amazing. There were hundreds of musicians 
everywhere, in the lobby, in the rooms, in the elevators, anywhere there 
was a space, and concerts thru the days and evenings. After that there 
were jam sessions in peoples rooms on every floor till the early hours. 
Madness! I met many friends there and also got to play acoustic bass 
guitar on stage with Mike Marshall and Hamilton di Hollanda (see pics in 
the news section).

We then went back down to Nashville and moved to Karian studio in 
Hendersonville, about 35 miles north of Nashville. It was then a few 
weeks of acoustic heaven before mixing at Sound Emporium in Nashville 
with our ace engineer Dave Sinko. Apart from getting a load of work down 
I basically spent the whole month laughing, it doesn’t get much better! 
The record will be out in the US March 13 on Rounder records.

I also attended Sore Fingers, a bluegrass camp in the UK as a mandolin 
student! John Moore was the teacher, he taught Chris Thile mandolin and 
Sean Watkins guitar, a chance I couldn’t pass up. Rayna (from Uncle 
Earl) was also teaching old-time fiddle there, and we had many great 
jams together. Now I’ve caught the fiddle bug… I’ve also been playing 
with Robyn Hitchcock and sat in with Glenn Phillips (Toad the Wet 
Sprocket, MAS) at the Troubador.

The autumn saw us in Lunel, and I ended up playing with Italian 
bluegrass musicians, Venezuelan traditional players and Hamilton di 
Hollanda’s Brasillian band, I guess I should stop having so much fun...

Ok, so the album is coming slowly, but it’s coming!

Wishing you all Happy Holidays
John Paul
December 2006