“A blithe hillbilly swing fiddle on jaunty “Trouble’s Hard to Find” opens this charm- ing neo-trad disc. Next Georgia-based duo Little Country Giants’ Russell Cook and his country angel-voiced wife Cameron Cook turn to Louvin Brothers-like harmonies on the tender “Bed of You.” Their writing on this varied yet cohesive CD often recalls the classics without being overly imitative – namely, “Weary Worn Wanderers” has vestiges of “Satisfied Mind.” Nashville Bluegrass Band’s ace mandolinist Mike Compton is among the acoustic sidemen here.”

A few chances comin’ up to catch LCG in action. Tune in to WRFG Radio Free Georgia 89.3fm tonight @ 9pm (or stream it here online). Also see ‘em live at The Mountain Music & Medicine Show in downtown Dahlonega this Saturday, September 4th @ 8pm.

Adam and Gabriel Mintz are on tour in the southeast now, so check the tour dates to cath their shows this week in Johnson City (TN), Winston Salem (NC) , Chapel Hill (NC), Columbia (SC), and Athens (GA).

On Saturday Aug. 28th, Justin Evans and Timber will be playing at Max Canada, while Adam & Gabe are at the Flicker. So you can hop back and forth between venues (next door to one another) to get your fill of Cowboy Angel acts this weekend!

Expect updates and news on Cowboy Angel artists shortly..

New show added in New York at Banjo Jim’s (Ave C & 9th St.) in ‘Alphabet City’ for Thursday, August 12th @ 8pm. That’ll be my first show back from India and Raphael McGregor will be on hand playing lap steel and guitar. Followed by a tour with Gabriel Mintz in the southeast in 20s of August. Check out the tour dates for more info.

Thanks for checking in. My next record, Wounded Electric Youth, will be available at all shows beginning in mid-August. Official release date to be announced.

See y’all soon,
adam

Friday, June 25th:
Justin Evans @ Little Kings, 10pm
Timber @ Little Kings, 1am (Friday night)

Sunday, June 27th:
The Granfalloons @ Jittery Joe’s Roaster, 4pm (unofficial AthFest party)
Kaitlin Jones & The County Fair @ Lumpkin Outdoor Stage, 5:20pm

Praise and airplay’s been coming in for Timber’s Scrawled! Check out fine reviews at The Fire Note and AltCountryForum.nl (Dutch). Taproot Radio, Americana OK, Dutch Roots Radio, Inner FM in Melbourne, Australia, Roots Revival (June Playlist) and others have been playing this great collection of songs. Thanks for sending these out on the airwaves y’all.

Nutria’s Permanent Reminder of a Temporary Emotion is out! Approval’s trickling in. Here’s The Cosmic American on the seven song EP gem. We can expect reviews and radio for Nutria and The Granfalloons throughout the summer.

Speaking of which, Adam’s off to India to group lead for a service learning program until mid-August. Back in action with a southeastern tour in 20s of August with Seattle’s one and only Gabriel Mintz. Look for occasional updates here, perhaps, in the next six weeks. Otherwise, we’ll be bringin’ the good Cowboy Angel news and cheer come mid-August. Soak in the sun and records..

Don’t miss Nutria’s CD release show:
Thursday, June 3rd @ the fabulous 40 Watt Club in Athens. Doors @ 9pm, Music starts @ 10pm. Daniel Aaron of Timber and Adam Klein & friends will also perform. Come celebrate! Here’s the line-up, in order of appearance:

Daniel Aaron (Timber)
NUTRIA
Moses Gunn (new project featuring members of Corduroy Road!)
Adam Klein & friends

The CDs are in! Purchase the album on iTunes or CD Baby for now. It will be available on other sites shortly.

Athens Banner Herald chimes in on Nutria and the new album, PROATE. Check it out here. And how ’bout Nutria’s new website? Have a look at www.nutriaworld.net. Also, tune in to WUGA 91.7fm (stream it online here) for a live interview with Nutria and hear some tracks from the record on Wednesday, June 2nd, at 4pm EST.

Wanna see the show flyer? Sure ya do. Check it out on CAM friend Jason Harwell’s site!

Members of the Cowboy Angel family have been nominated for the 2010 Flagpole Music Awards! Please click on this link, enter your contact info at the top of page, scroll down, and vote for Timber for best Americana act and Kaitlin Jones & The County Fair for Country/Southern Rock! Congratulations to all the nominees (Cowboy Angel is a friend and fan of them all) and way to go, Timber & Kaitlin!

Speaking of Timber, Daniel Aaron recently stopped by WUGA 91.7fm in Athens to discuss Scrawled with JoE Silva, host of the “Just Off the Radar” program. Check out the interview session here! It will be up and live soon.

Athens’ new web show, ‘Live from the Classic City’, features video of Adam Klein performing three new songs, “Come so Far” from the upcoming Dugu Wolo album recorded in Bamako, Mali, as well as “Jesse’s Mind” and “Wishing Wells”, two tracks which will be on a future acoustic EP (likely to be released in 2011). Have a look!

We’ve got some shows this month in the southeast. Come say hey:
Adam Klein will be touring with the great folksinger/songwriter Ben Bedford, the pride of Illinois, this week!
Tuesday, May 4th- Eddie’s Attic (Decatur, GA), 7:30pm
(Adam and Ben will swap songs as opening set for Larkin Poe, formerly The Lovell Sisters).
Wednesday, May 5th- Little Kings (Athens, GA), 10:30pm
(Nutria trio opens; Adam will be joined by the good men of his band)
Thursday, May 6th- WDVX ‘Blue Plate’ Special (Knoxville, TN), 12pm.
Stream it live on wdvx.com
Thursday, May 6th- The Acoustic Coffeehouse (Johnson City, TN), 8pm
Friday, May 7th- Guadalupe Cafe (Sylva, NC), 9pm
Saturday, May 8th- Sentient Bean (Savannah, GA), 7:30pm
(w/ Dare Dukes!)

Justin Evans will be at Little Kings THURSDAY, MAY 6th @ 8pm w/ our friend Kate Morrissey!

Little Country Giants have a few shows in the southeast in latter half of May, with visits to Nashville, Asheville, and Atl, plus a show at Crimson Moon in Dahlonega w/ Curley Maple! Check ‘em out at some of the finest venues in the southeast:
Tuesday, May 18th- Dino’s (Nasheville, TN), 8pm
Saturday, May 22nd- Crimson Moon Cafe (Dahlonega, GA), 8pm
Thursday, May 27th- Red Light Cafe (Atlanta, GA), 9pm
Saturday, May 29th- Westville Pub (Asheville, NC), 8pm

Cowboy Angel friend and community organizer Janet Geddis is opening an independent bookshop in the heart of Athens in late 2010! The community needs it, and it will be a space for the promotion and discussion of literature, literacy programs, live music, and more. Please support Avid Bookshop. Throughout May, Vote for Avid in the Pepsi Refresh Everything Project grant contest EVERY DAY to help our new community center receive the $50,000 award! Thanks for helping to enhance Athens with a single, simple click (each day)..

Athens Americana is almost here! This will be the 3rd annual event, organized by Cowboy Angel Music and Justin Evans. Check out the Athens Americana website for the line-up and info. This year’s event will include a closing party at the Jittery Joe’s Roaster on E. Broad St. (also the kickoff to their ‘Pickin’ on the Porch’ Concert series) w/ Redneck Greece & other guests on Sunday, April 18th @ 4pm, plus raffles featuring New West Records prize packages, studio time at AJ Adams’ Troubadour Den recording studio, gift certificates to Clocked and other local restaurants, and more. Join us Thursday April 15th- Sunday April 18th for the festivities and nearly twenty-five excellent local roots, acoustic, and Americana music acts.

Cowboy Angel is pleased to have three acts performing at this year’s Atlanta Dogwood Festival in Piedmont Park (April 17th and 18th). Don’t miss Little Country Giants (Saturday, April 17th, 6pm), The Granfalloons (Sunday, April 18th, 12pm), and Adam Klein & friends (Sunday, April 18th, 1pm).

Timber CDs are in! The beautiful digipak with artwork by CAM friend, multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and artist Thayer Sarrano is available at CD Baby, AthensMusic.net, and record stores in Athens now.

Timber’s hauntingly gorgeous song, “Sad & Scrawled”, will be featured on the 2010 AthFest CD (Athens Music festival) alongside tracks by The Whigs, Modern Skirts, Packway Handle Band, Hope for Agoldensummer, and more, on Ghostmeat Records.

Justin Evans‘ The Owls & The Hounds and Little Country Giants‘ Fists of Foam & Fury have garnered critical acclaim and radio airplay worldwide! Both records have been featured on The Miller Tales Her Tale and AmericanaOK (Streaming Playlist, March 2010) in the UK, Freight Train Boogie podcast (CA), Folk & Roots (Australia), Roots Revival in Belgium (Playlist, March 2010), Hillbilly Rockhouse (Germany), and a number of Dutch Roots Radio stations!

Check out reviews for LCG at Twangville (”like a country dance under the Georgia moon”), Americana UK (”lofty guardians of the vernacular traditions of American music”), Kindamuzik (for you Dutch readers), Call it Folk, and Cosmic American!

Our favorite husky-voiced singer, Justin Evans, is receiving high praise from DJs and outlets in Europe, including 4* reviews on Ctrl.Alt.Country (Belgium) and Altcountry.nl (Netherlands). Stomp & Stammer writes: “Justin Evans does cowboy-hat-and-whiskey-glass country & western music, starkly and God fearin’, free of the sheen of modern-day Nashville and with an odd dash of Waits.” Gotta love a nice dash of Waits!

Check out an interview with Justin on Taproot Radio out of Chapel Hill, NC, featuring his ode to post-Katrina New Orleans, “The Heart of New Orleans”. Plus a fine review on The Basement Rug.

And Adam Klein’s back from Mali, West Africa, with a Malian Mande album in tow and fantastic film footage compliments of Jason Miller of Eikon Productions which should become a documentary film in the next year or so (yeah, takes a while). Mixing and mastering will take place in the coming months for the Mande album, tentatively titled Dugu Wolo, for a fall release. Adam took the controls at University of Georgia’s WUOG 90.5FM for a one-hour interview/dj session on the weekly Afrika show in early March. Check it out and hear rough mixes of a few of the songs from Dugu Wolo here. (Thanks to William Kennedy and DJ Willenium.)

Don’t miss the Cowboy Angel Music showcase night at The Fabulous 40 Watt Club on Saturday, February 27th! The Granfalloons, Little Country Giants, Nutria, and Adam Klein & friends will perform. Doors @ 9pm. Ticket price tba. Expect another CAM showcase a few months later featuring the other fantastic Cowboy Angel artists!

Here’s a treat for the Georgians: The Madison Morgan Cultural Center is holding a special three-day program, From Mali to Madison: The Roots of the Blues, March 4th-6th, in Madison. Don’t miss this series:

Thursday, March 4th: From Mali to Memphis film screening w/ Panel Q & A discussion (featuring Adam!), 7pm

Friday, March 5th: Malian music sensation and genre-bending songwriter, Habib Koite! Adam Klein opens, 8pm

Saturday, March 6th: Acclaimed Atlanta-based blues singer Francine Reed, 8pm.

Visit the MMCC site above for directions, info, etc.

And.. Work is underway planning the 3rd annual Athens Americana festival @ Little Kings Shuffle Club! Mark your calendar for Thursday, April 15th- Saturday, April 17th, along with a closing party on Sunday afternoon, April 18th. Details and schedule forthcoming in early March.

See below for info on the Mande Sessions and how you can offer a tax deductible donation to the film project today!

Later this month, I will be traveling to Mali, West Africa, to record an album of self-composed original Malian Mande music with some top notch Malian musicians, including Baru Diallo (Ali Farka Toure, Afel Bocoum), members of Oumou Samgare’s band, and other guests.

In addition to the music album, tentatively titled The Mande Sessions, I will produce a ‘making of the album’ documentary film featuring footage of the sessions and the sensational Bamako, Mali, music scene, and offering glimpses into the lives of some of my close Malian friends. The Mande Sessions film is not only one man’s story of music and friendship and an insight into the spirit of a struggling African nation, but a picture of West Africa told through an intimate understanding of Mande life and culture.

This film project is a labor-of-love inspired by my drive to share Mali’s vibrant culture and music as well as my personal experience and relationships in Mali. As you can imagine, there are significant expenses required to make this film. These include travel (filmmaker, sound engineer, photographer, potential second camera-person), film permit, equipment insurance, vehicle rental/on-the-ground transportation, Translator for crew, filmmaker and editorial fees, and more.

Along with filmmaker Jason Miller, I invite your contributions to this project. There are two ways to donate:

You may direct contributions to African Sky, a wonderful 501(c)3 organization doing grassroots sustainable development work in rural Mali (building schools, repairing wells, supporting artisans in making fair trade medical scrubs and other products, arts programs, and more). Visit the African Sky homepage to learn more about its work, and visit the organization’s Causes page on Facebook to make your tax deductible donation online. Please indicate your donation is for “Adam Klein” and the funds will channel through African Sky to The Mande Sessions film project. African Sky’s Tax ID # is 20-1761327.

Prefer sending a check? Please make the check out to African Sky, indicating “Adam Klein” in the memo line, and mail to:
African Sky
P.O. Box 203
Munroe Falls, Ohio 44262

Or… Donate online at Fractured Atlas:
The Mande Sessions’ Documentary Film is also a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Contributions in behalf of ‘The Mande Sessions’ Documentary Film may be made payable to Fractured Atlas and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.

Click here to make a tax-deductible contribution online at Fractured Atlas. Your valued support is only a click away:

I am seeking in-kind donations as well in the form of Buddy Passes and Sky Miles.

I’ll be discussing the project on Athens, Georgia NPR-affiliate WUGA’s (91.7fm) “African Perpectives” program on Monday, January 11th, 4:30pm. Tune in or listen online here.

Please note: I feel extremely grateful for the support shown by friends, family, and others on behalf of my musical endeavors, including The Mande Sessions music album. The opportunity to make a documentary film and share my deep love for Mali with others is invaluable and extraordinary. The process of filming, post-production, submitting and screening the film on the festival circuit, etc. is quite lengthy and expensive. For these reasons I am asking all supporters, Mali fans, world music lovers, etc. to join me in making this film a reality. Didn’t get a chance to donate to the music project on Kickstarter? Here’s a chance to become a part of these exciting efforts! All donors will receive a credit listed at the end of the film, and as the process continues I may develop additional rewards such as t-shirts, a copy of the DVD, etc. I do not intend, however, to initiate further public fundraising campaigns in the near future for my musical and artistic endeavors.

With my great thanks for your support,
Adam Klein

Songwriter Daniel Aaron and band have initiated a funding drive via creative online platform Kickstarter.com to help fund the manufacture of the album as a finely packaged digipak CD. Remember, tons of people still love holding and owning the physical artistic package of a vinyl record or compact disc! Please consider supporting Timber’s project as they prepare to release the excellent new record and get cool rewards in return (t-shirts, CDs, etc.).

Some words on the Scrawled: The record contains a certain quirkiness and timelessness channeled through Aaron’s impassioned, jumpy voice, reminiscent of early R.E.M. and the perfect touch of acoustic string-band grit beside its subtle beauty. One may hear early Uncle Tupelo, Bonnie Prince Billy, and Nashville Skyline-era Dylan in Scrawled, but its character is clearly its own.

More info available on Timber via the Artists page soon. For now, visit Kickstarter and help bring Scrawled to the masses.