Hi VanceFans!

Look at me. All touring about and stuff. That’s what I do. I drive and fly for a living. Interspersed with moments of music... Look at all the nice split-bills and opening acts!!:

12/18 - 8pm Concert Window Show https://www.concertwindow.com/vancegilbertLive from my & your house!!!! Tune in at 8
12/20 - St. Augustine, FL - www.originalcafe11.com BRIAN WASHBURN opens
12/21 - Tampa, FL - www.ticketfly.com/venue/17215-the-attic/ TAYLOR RAYNOR opens
1/4 - Cambridge, MA CLUB PASSIM https://www.passim.org/live-music/events/vance-gilbert-2/ JIM TRICK opens
1/5 - Centerport, NY. http://fmsh.org/events/event/vance-gilbert-guy-davis with GUY DAVIS
1/11 - Timonium, MD www.uptownconcerts.com with CHRISTINE LAVIN
1/12 - Richmond, VA www.shadygrovecoffeehouse.com

NEWZ:

New Album Fundraising - Congrats to me and you. I am 3K past my goal of 30K. I have no words for the faith you have entrusted in my music making. Thank You is a start. I will continue to raise $$ for straggler/donators and for promotion - particularly print pushers and to make a few decent videos. Your donation gets your name on the CD - no matter the amount. 1K or over gets you a fancy font as Executive Producer (at last count I believe there were 10 of those!!) Any number under $999 to a dollar gets you some nice fine Helvetica or the like. I’ll take donations/gifts right up till the day the artwork is due - ohhhh my AD Jane Hallman HATES when I do that, but there you have it…:

Vancefunder@gmail.com for PayPal
or
Vancefunder, P.O. Box 17, Arlington, MA 02474

~ I have dates open for private holiday parties. You?

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Last week I had to get a new iPhone. Boy do they get you. If someone has opened your phone - anyone other than a certified Apple repair tech, not only is your warranty voided, but they will NOT open the phone for any repair for “safety reasons” protecting their tech repair person. But they’ll take it in trade, you bet...

Anyway, as my new phone was downloading my old untrusted potentially deadly but worth $$ in trade dead phone’s info from the cloud, I was sitting in the waiting area with a few others. Hang was one of us, doing the same thing. Hang and I got to talking. He’s Chinese, a business owner, and when I told him what I did he says,

“You make recording?”

“Yes - I have a few out”.

“I can hear on Spotify?”

“Yes, Yes you can...”

I pull up Bad Dog Buffet on my own phone - I’m a dinosaur and I still sport downloaded music - hand him my old phone and with his earplugs he starts to listen.

His eyes go wide. “This you?? You voice so young!! How old are you??”

I tell him. “I’m sixty a month ago”

“You voice very youthful! This why people come see you and you have many album out!! Good lyric too. You tell good story!!”

You have to excuse my telling this without indefinite articles, pluralizations, and I am not mocking his Chinese-learned English language patterns….that is not for a minute my intent. It’s just that, I swear, he was so excited and wide-eyed that he was listening to me that he was just leaving words out for streamlining!

Other people sat at our table for phone attention. Before the maitre’d tech could attend them, Hang was on them, earphones in hand, “You have to hear this man - he Vance Gilbert!” He’d point over at me. "Many album out! Listen!!"

I swear he did that to about 4 people. Gosh, I hope he comes to Club Passim (only about 15 tix left) next month. Thank you, Hang.

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Stacey Wade showed up at the studio for what Sam and I hoped would be a great session of Hammond organ tracking with the fellow that is *Al Green’s current organist*. Yes, you heard me. A few tunes on this album are taking a decided R&B turn. I will not apologize.

After some greeting and such, this kid sat down and played some simple one hand block chord stuff as the first tune, Good Good Man, went by. I kinda said to myself “Hell, I can do that - and I play guitar…” Come the third take the magic of this young genius happened. The “stops”, along with the now familiar to him keys, got a workout like no one’s business, and he took the tunes straight to and thru church and on to elsewhere.

At one point I got brave in my role as producer and I was asking him to play something higher up in the organ’s register, less vibrato on a stop, and with a simpler right-hand approach. I halted myself and said “Man, I am so sorry to come off telling you what you should and shouldn’t do to get your sound…” He stopped me and laughed, “Vance, your music direction, compared to my boss, is lightweight by comparison." Man did we have a laugh. Man do I have great organ tracks. Here’s a bit of him working out. Thanks Stacey..:

https://www.facebook.com/vancegilbertmusic/videos/1752478008191479/?__tn__=K-R

Peace everyone xo