3rd January 2017

Hi all, It’s been a while but here we are again…a brand new year, with lots of new things happening. I know there are many of us who are happy to see the back of 2016. At home we had Brexit to contend with and in the USA Trump arrived. I lost some good friends and we all lost some favourite musicians, but good things happened too.

On the personal front I ended the year with a beautiful new grand daughter.

I played a whole lot of European shows in the Spring and made made two trips to the USA . After ten years working together I parted company with my booking agent, but I’m delighted to be starting 2017 with new energy and ideas in partnership with 3Dog Entertainment in Dortmund. The transition will mean a natural lull in my live activities but look out for new releases and more touring later in the year.

I taught a ten week series of songwriting classes near home in Somerset, finished up the year with a guest appearance at McCabes in Santa Monica with Richard Thompson (a fundraiser for dear friend Jerry Donahue who is in hospital after a stroke) and with my German friend Wolfgang Niedecken at a sold-out pre-Christmas show in Cologne. I am also delighted to be embarking on a fantastic new book project (details to be announced soon) and to have another production job in the Spring.

The times are certainly challenging, but I’m amazed and grateful to hitting my 40th year as a musician, still healthy and still full of plans and ideas and, as always,  I look forward to meeting up with the friends I’ve made over the years at live shows to come.

Happy New Year to everyone,

Julian, Somerset