February - Storms and Awards

Hi from the terribly snowy South Shore.  Old Man Winter blew through here over the last couple of days and left us pretty well buried, although we didn't suffer as badly as some of our friends down the shore in Shelburne and Yarmouth.  Today it's bright and sunny as usually happens after a nasty storm so I guess we should be grateful for small mercies.

As you may know if you've been following the Blog and my FB page,  Wires Rosewood & Roots made the first cut for a couple of Zone Music Reporter Awards. The voting has been tallied from the qualification round and I am beyond excited to report that Wires has been nominated for Instrumental Album of the Year - Acoustic.  In essence, all the people who listen, play, review and generally report on instrumental music think it's one of the five best acoustic instrumental albums of 2012.  Of course, it would be a fabulous honour to win the award but it's fantastic achievement just to be nominated.  Given the calibre (and the quantity) of instrumental music being released, to be considered one of the five best in class is beyond my wildest dreams.

The awards will be handed out on May 11 at the ZMR Awards Show - which is kinda like the Grammys for independent artists (and without so much industry hype and warnings from CBS about what's appropriate to wear on TV).

Producer David Findlay was very confident that we had made a good record and a great debt of gratitude is owed to David for both his playing and production as well as to my friends Kev Corbett and Alyssa Wright who added their musical talents to the album.  Thanks are also due to Ed and Stacey Bonk of LAZZ Promotions.  Ed and Stacey took me under their wing and did a fabulous job of promoting Wires when it first hit the street.

Thank you to everyone who has been playing Wires on the radio, in your CD players and on your iPods.  Thank you to all the people who come out to my live performances.  It's a treat to play for an audience and (as all my musician friends will attest) without the audience there isn't as much point to what we do.

Last and by no means least a particular thank you to all the people who voted for Wires Rosewood & Roots during the first round.  Without your support, we could not have achieved the success that we've done.  Oh yeah, a plug for your continued support on the next round.  I'll shamelessly ask for your vote one more time because I truly would love for Wires to win but if it doesn't, we'll continue making music - soon as we finish digging out from under the snow.

Cheers, Bob