Jimmy has been busy this year compiling and producing The Ribbon of Highway, Endless Skyway, A Tribute in the Spirit of Woody Guthrie.
We also got our non-profit 501 c 3 status for the Ribbon of Highway Organization, which will allow us to keep Woody’s music and memory alive, and fund projects that will use music as a way to learn about one America’s greatest folk heros. One of these projects is with Nora Guthrie, who presented to Jimmy a packet of lyrics culled from the Archives written by Woody Guthrie. This gives Jimmy the opportunity to match lyrics with artists and write music to them. It's a record project that will be a two year effort that we are just into the beginning stages of. The lyrics will be given to musicians and recorded on a project with a 2005 release date. The Newport Folk Festival also recorded the Woody Guthrie Tribute Tour last summer at their festival, that included Slaid Cleaves, Eliza Gilkyson, Ellis Paul and Sarah Lee and Johnny Irion, Michael Fracasso, and Jimmy LaFave, and is narrated by Bob Childers.

The tapes are finally in Austin at Cedar Creek Recording Studio and Jimmy will begin to compile the Ribbon of Highway CD for a 2004/2005 release. LaFave has also been writing and will begin to work on his first studio record in 4 years in 2004. In addition Jimmy has also begun to compile new out takes for a Trail Vol. 2 for release sometime in 2005. This past year was one of Jimmy's busiest with a European tour, and producing the Ribbon of Highway Tour with stops at The Ryman in Nashville, Chicago's Old Town School of Music, The Palladium Theater in Tampa, The Westport Arts Center, Not Strictly Bluegrass, Newport Folk Festival, as well as the Somerville Theater. Check out the Ribbon of Highway~Endless Skyway website for more updates, or go to Jimmy's own webpage




This year has been a busy one for Tom and Andy. The release of Modern Art ( Hightone Records) brought lots of publicity and an appearance on David Letterman show. The record features some of Tom’s newest material including 2 duets with Nancy Griffith. They have toured all the coasts, and many miles between, including 3 trips to Europe, and 4 tours to Canada. Not even a year later Tom has now released Indians, Cowboys Horse, Dogs on Hightone Records with rave reviews. The album also featured Tom’s ability as an artist with his original art work on the CD. Tom continues to write and has also begun a book/CD project on Woman and Ranching in CA. Tom and Andrew sold out the "Folk Train " a four day trip aboard a luxury train going from Vancouver to Toronto, Along on the journey in addition to Tom and Andrew will be, Hot Club in Cowtown, and Pulp Country as his musical guests. The journey will roll through one of the most beautiful trains rides in the world, and guests will be entertained by Tom Russell and his friends. Check out Tom's site for more updates and other trains scheduled for the future.

Eliza will spend the summer playing mostly festivals (Falcon Ridge, Kerrville Folk Festival, Live Oak, Phildelphia, Kate Wolf, and Sisters Folk Festival) along with several others yet to be announced. She will also spend part of June and July on tour with Patty Griffin as well as a few dates with Mary Chapin Carpenter.

In March, Red House Records released Eliza Gilkyson’s new album, Land of Milk and Honey.
The CD is her third album for Red House, following the critically acclaimed Lost and Found, released in 2002. The album features a collection of eight original songs and two covers -- one of which is a previously unrecorded Woody Guthrie song, “Peace Call.” Singing with Gilkyson on the special track, which closes the album, are Patty Griffin, Mary Chapin Carpenter and Iris DeMent.

Guthrie wrote “Peace Call” sometime between 1951 and 1953 and then sent the song to a publisher. The song didn’t again see the light of day until 1963 when it appeared in a Woody Guthrie songbook. Last summer, over forty years after the song was published, Eliza and her guitar player discovered the song in the now out-of-print book they’d borrowed from the Guthrie archives (loaned to them by Woody’s daughter Nora) while on the Woody Guthrie Tribute Tour. “The fact that such a powerful peace anthem had yet to be recorded is really staggering, especially when you consider it was written by one of the most revered and studied songwriters in the history of folk music,” says Gilkyson about discovering the song. Nora Guthrie, who heads the Guthrie Archives in New York City, noted " what made this song work is that there are all these women's voices, and it always seems like over the years it's been women's voices at the center of the peace movement. Eliza is in touch with something special on this song.”
Thematically, the album is decidedly socio/political in nature, from the Iraq war awareness plea, "Hiway 9", to the call for peace in Woody Guthrie's previously unrecorded and timely peace anthem, "Peace Call", Gilkyson doesn’t pull any punches. “This is music for a generation that won’t stand idly by while its vision for improving the quality of life on earth seems ever clouded by a dust-storm of politics, power, greed and global unrest,” notes Gilkyson. The image used for the album cover, shot by highly regarded Newsweek photojournalist Charles Ommaney in 1991, is a photo of a young boy diving in to smelting plant waste pool for a swim on the Northern Albania/Kosovo border. “This photo, behind the title ‘Land of Milk and Honey’, is symbolic of the discrepancy between the unsettling reality of life on earth and the promised land that is our greatest hope,” she adds. After seeing the photo, Eliza immediately sat down and wrote the stirring mother's prayer, "Tender Mercies", with background harmonies by Eliza's son Cisco and daughter Delia. Throughout the album, Gilkyson's lush and passionate voice wraps itself around the major themes of her generation, with topics ranging from the peace movement, to abusive relationships ("Ballad of Yvonne Johnson"), to personal relationships ("Separated"), and coming to terms with the folly of man ("Milk and Honey"). Through all these weighty topics, Eliza never loses sight of her sense of optmism ("Wonderland") and her hopes for humanity.

There's even more info at Eliza's web page.