Harvey Reid Newsletter 2008-2009

Yikes! it’s been another year- time for another newsletter
In case you don’t recognize the pictures or the name-- this is the 18th Harvey Reid newsletter, that goes out once a year to people on my mailing list. Once again there are too many pics of the kids...
Those of you who live in areas where I have been performing for years may have noticed my absence-- In 37 years I have never stayed home this much. Changed more diapers than guitar strings this year, that’s for sure. I got a lot of time with my kids (yes, kids plural! We had (<––) another boy this year...) but now their hungry little mouths need food, and I am refueling and ramping up for another long stretch of touring & performing.
For almost 4 years I have not been able to book festivals & future tours (many of them book 9 months ahead) and instead have been planning the new family. Now I plan to re-energize a lot of the music in my repertoire from the past, and also to find, write and record another big chunk of new music to add to the pile.
As usual, I have no plans to chase markets or re-invent myself, which you don’t have to do when you play “unpopular” or “unpop” music. I am so happy in my personal life that it’s good I am not a full-time bluesman. Otherwise I could be liable for some kind of malpractice lawsuit– imagine if people bought tickets to hear a bluesman who did not have the blues, and smiled all night...
Thanks to all of you for your understanding and support. CD’s still work well and sound great. Don’t stop buying them.

Chordally yours,
Harvey Reid

More Big News... Meet Levi, who arrived safely in May of ‘08. He is showing what appears to be a lot of genuine interest in Papa’s guitar strings. More pics inside of the little guys.

* * N E W S B R I E F S * *

I finally have some videos on YouTube, and some songs for sale on iTunes, with more of both coming soon!

I am 200 pages into a major book project that will be printed in 2009. It’s a comprehensive handbook all about the partial capo, and it will cover all the ways to use this on a guitar. After 32 years using one and pioneering the idea, I am pretty certain that I know more about this idea than anyone, and that it is time to finally put it all in one place.

At the rate you folks are changing e-mail addresses (to avoid spam and to switch providers...) I may have no e-mail list left in a couple more years. My once-Utopian vision of not having to lick stamps, and just sending e-mail announcements to my mailing list, has dissolved in a sea of spam. Help me update my mailing list!!

My Wind and Water CD in 1988 was probably the first “Indie” (independent) CD made in the country, and it is also likely that my 1980 book “A New Frontier in Guitar” (about the partial capo) was the first desktop-published book. It was done on a Xerox Alto computer, which was the experimental computer that led to the Apple Macintosh in 1984. I used the first desktop publishing software (Scribe) and printed the output on the prototype Diablo printer which became the first laser printer. A printer then made 1000 books. Maybe they are collectible.

I returned to the Mountain Laurel Autoharp Gathering in June ‘08 and brought the whole family, including 3-week-old Levi and 2-year-old Otto. Somehow with the help of the whole village, Joyce and I survived the 4-day event, 1000-mile road trip, and managed to play our shows and do our workshops. (See photo below..) Thanks, autoharpers, for your help and support. It did teach us that it is too hard to travel and perform as a duo with the boys so young.

I only added one instrument this year, a carbon fiber stage guitar (above) from CA (Composite Acoustics) Guitars. It’s tough, stylish, sweet and not too big to travel easily. Baby drool doesn’t hurt it.

I suspected that if I bragged about never failing to make it to a gig in 35 years that it might jinx me and I would fail. That and having two small kids. Luckily it was a local tavern gig and not a major concert. I forgot what day it was. I promise to be more aware of what day it is.

More Wind & Water

My 4th recording and first CD, “Of Wind and Water” was released in the Fall of 1988. It may well have been the first “indie CD” released in the U.S. and has been out of print for a number of years. Now on its 20th anniversary I thought it would be a good time to re-master it, re-package it, and re-release it.
I had entertained the idea of changing some things, but the music sounded great to me when I went to work on it, and I decided it was fine the way it is. We did a little EQ, cleaned a few tiny noises out, and gave it a volume boost. Old CD’s (and in particular uncompressed acoustic CD’s) sound very quiet alongside modern recordings, which are now almost universally a lot louder than they were in the early years of CD’s.

I plan to perform some of the songs on it that have fallen out of the set list, and hope to bring out the 12-string for some shows where I don’t have to fly, since it was a big part of the sound of this CD.

$16.95 + $2 shipping as always ORDER ONE!
Off To Adventure, Silver Blue, Maggots in the Sheepshide/Flowers of Edinburgh, The Lakes of Pontchartrain, The Keeper of the Light, Pieces of Eight, Show Me the Road, Midnight on the Water, Dance: The Storm Is Over, The Boatman, Southwind, April Rain, Crown the Queen, To the Western Wind, Waltz of the Waves, Candlelight, A Windy Grave.


Born May 26, 2008, 8 lbs 4 oz. Happy and healthy and a very peaceful soul, though loud as a fire engine when he gets upset.	All babies look like Winston Churchill for a while. Levi sort of looks like a baby wrestler, and it appears that he will be a large dude. He skipped size 1 and 2 diapers and went right to #3’s. Won’t be long till he’s grabbing hamburgers off my plate when I turn my back.
Trying Levi out in Papa’s guitar case. Just barely fits at 10 weeks old.
DON’T TELL HIM... that the world is a mess– he’s happy! The longer he doesn’t know what the Dow Jones is and the longer he flashes those big smiles and exudes all that baby joy the happier we will all be. He’s got perfect little turkey legs and double chins, sleeps well, is starting to drool and babble,	and we have a few more weeks till he gets the self-propulsion thing going. Then it’s going to be a new ball game. And please remember to cut Joyce and me some slack if we forget to pay you or call you back or do some other thing that properly rested and careful people have no trouble with...