Leaning Into Spring

Hi All,

Man, what’s with this winter. Everyone can’t wait for it to be gone and none more than me. While Nashville can’t boast the misery of the north east of the States, we’ve had a good dose of ice, frozen rain, sleet and snow just this past month. Temps down in the single digits and grey skies and plenty of both. Although we’re in the middle of a week of rain the mercury has risen to the mid-50s, so at least it is mild again. I hope this is a coming attraction of spring even though we’re not there yet on the calendar.

Beside complaining about the weather I’ve been doing some session work here and there but mainly busy finishing an album I’ve produced for Iris DeMent that we began last June. Iris got busy with touring and we’ve only worked on it occasionally since then. Anyway, it’s heading to completion now and I’m very proud of it.

The other project that’s kept me busy is completing my own new record and I can now say it is finished, mixed, mastered and will be available middle to late April. It’s called Contrary Cocktail and was recorded at a studio called Alex The Great with Brad Jones engineering and co-producing.  As soon as it is available to purchase I’ll let you know here on this page. In the meantime I’ve done an interview regarding the making of the record that you can find here: http://fansite.richard-bennett.com/p/contrary-cocktail-interview.html Henk Quintelier who runs this site came up with a bunch of good questions and I tried to answer them without resorting to lies, hyperbole or self- aggrandisement. Scattered throughout the interview are some swell pictures of the studio taken by the swell Pieta Brown.

I’ve had a guitar in hand and my George Van Eps Guitar Method book in front of me lately.  Getting my chops in shape for the Mark Knopfler rehearsals that will commence the end of April leading up to the tour that will go through October 2015.  Running these Van Eps chord sequences is like going to the gym for you hands and mind.

You’ll be hearing from me sooner than later as soon as Contrary Cocktail is out.

Richard