Hello hello hello! Here’s the big news — My live album with Ben Belcher is now officially released and available from CDBaby as well as all other digital media outlets (iTunes, Spotify, etc.). And here’s the back story: In 2012 we joined Thomas Dolby for a month-long North American tour. Ben and I played an opening set each night and I joined Thomas Dolby’s band for a few songs. Sean Haney, the sound engineer, recorded some of the shows and was gracious enough to let me release them. In preparation for our Home Routes tour last April Ben and I finally got around to listening through the old recordings, picking out the best ones, and adding a few home recordings we made at Ben’s house in Alabama of some classic banjo duets. Speaking of Ben, here is a link to the GoFundMe campaign that is raising funds to support him and his wife as they are going through some serious medical issues with their son. Also, Crazy Cats is now available as a FREE DOWNLOAD. I’m hitting the road again…

I took the plastic off the windows and opened up the house today. It’s not especially warm but it’s sunny and a fresh breeze is blowing through. It’s almost time for ice cream!   I’ve been home for almost two weeks and the time is flying by. I’m so grateful to have a lot going on. Between gigs and rehearsals with an array of local musicians (check out Escaping Pavement, whose new single I played on, Nick Adams & The Aral Sea Divers, The Flutter & Wow, David Simon), getting the new Corn Potato record into production as well as a couple more albums that will be released soon, getting ready for the American Banjo Fraternity rally in a couple weeks, and plenty of other more mundane tasks, I’m happy to say that I am staying well busy. Howdy Friends, In this email I will to tell you about  – New releases — You’re the first to hear about these new albums!  – Upcoming tour dates  – Highlights from the Home Routes tour  – Some books and records I’m currently enjoying  – One new video we made NEW RELEASES The…

I just spent 48 hours in a room at the Ramada Inn in Birmingham, Alabama with Corn Potato Ben, his wife, and their three-month-old boy, and boy, did I learn a lot. I learned even more than I already knew about How To Calm A Crying Baby With Norwegian Black Metal (in our particular case, mostly Mayhem and some Slayer). I learned, from the hotel TV, all about Britney Spears’ story, her struggles and achievements. I also learned that I have more sympathy and respect for her than I could have imagined. I guess that Lifetime dramatization of her life followed by real-life documentary about the making of her new show in Vegas had its intended effect. And of course I learned the unspeakable joy that comes from playing twin banjos as the baby drifts off to sleep and stays asleep for hours… Now I’m back in Opelika, Alabama, where Ben lives. Why did we spend 48 hours in Birmingham? The honest answer is that Ben’s wife, Annie Campbell, is a ceramic sculpture artist and professor at Auburn University, and…

Hello Everybody! We have a light dusting of snow here in Detroit, ‘seasonal music’ is playing everywhere, and a certain feeling is in the air. This will be a short email as I don’t have a lot to announce, nor do I have a lot on my mind… Here’s what I have coming up: – Sunday, Dec. 18, at Tom’s Tavern with Corn Potato Duo (me and Lindsay).– Saturday, Dec. 31, at First Night Raleigh in Raleigh, NC – Jan. 5, 7, and 8, in NYC with Wild Hog, shows at Jalopy on the 5th, 68 Jay St. Bar the 7th, and Superfine brunch on the 8th. – Saturday, Jan. 28, Ann Arbor Folk Festival with Corn Potato String Band – Get your tickets HERE – Lineup includes Kiefer Sutherland, Indigo Girls, us, and much much more – Sunday, Jan. 29, Detroit Square Dance Society potluck and dance at the Gaelic League, with special guest caller Sean Fen and guest fiddler Henry Barnes, all the way from Columbus, Ohio. Whoopee! So you may be wondering what I’m doing if I’m not touring or playing lots of shows at home, or even teaching hardly at all, for that matter.…

Hello Everybody, I’m home from tour now, no big travel plans in the foreseeable future (with just a few exceptions, see below), and I am really enjoying the autumn in Michigan. I’m going to catch you up on some of my recent activities and upcoming plans, but first I have to say how much I’m enjoying drinks. Most people who know me pretty well know how much I love drinks. I don’t mean exclusively alcoholic drinks, although those are of course included, but I’ve been getting excited about making (nonalcoholic) ginger beer and drinking lots of tea as the weather finally cools off. In February of 2015 my dear friend Ed Hicks came to visit me in Detroit and road trip with us to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. He brought with him a few years’ supply of great English tea, black tea, what you call ‘ordinary’ tea, but of course he brought us the best. We even had a tea tasting, which was illuminating, to say the least. Another drink I’m excited about is sake, Japanese rice wine. I got some…

I just got home last night from two weeks in Ireland and France, the end of my summer’s travels, ALMOST. Yes, I spent all my time on the road since I last sent one of these newsletters out, and yes, I am going out on the road again tomorrow so I have very little time to write this and edit it or even read it over before I send it out. BUT I just have too much coming up that I can’t not tell you about it. This one will again be pretty brief and I hope some time next month when things start to slow down I’ll be able to ramble in print a bit more and on the road a bit less. So I’m going to tell you about what’s coming up FIRST, and then maybe a bit about what I’ve been doing since I last wrote, and that will be all. WHAT’S COMING UP – see www.cornpotato.com/live or aaronjonahlewis.com/calendar for more infos Corn Potato Tour Dates: Tomorrow! In Toledo! House concert at 7pm. Check the website for…

I would get home from a truly excellent tour and once again have to face responsibility for more than being on tour (although there is plenty to deal with on tour, it’s just different and I could probably write a whole essay about it. For now I will spare you…) I have a big pile of things to catch up on, so for now I will keep this very short and some time soon (maybe when the summer is finished?) I will be able to share a bunch of fun things to look at and remember your Corn Potato friends by… And I won’t send an email that only contains upcoming gigs — Here’s the best joke I heard on the tour (thanks to Paul in Hawick): Two wind turbines are in a field. One says to the other, “What kind of music are you into?” The other says, — (scroll to the bottom for the rest of the joke!) Upcoming gigs! I am happy to report that I will stay quite busy all summer. I am leaving home again…

Dear Friends, Folks, and Family, I know it hasn’t been that long since my last newsletter but it’s probably going to be a long time until the next one, and I have a lot of great news for you! What I would like to do here is give you all the big news first and then save my rambling reflections on life for the end. I’ll also give you the punchline to this joke, a recent favorite I got from our local auto mechanic. I’ve been telling everyone I meet: “What’s the best thing about Switzerland?” (Scroll down to the end for the punchline.) THE BIGGEST NEWS FIRST – NEW CORN POTATO STRING BAND ALBUM IS OUT NOW!!! That’s right, and you heard it here (or on Facebook) first. There’s not much more for me to say, except to please check it out. Listen for free on CDBaby, buy physical copies (Christmas is just around the corner!) and downloads from CDBaby, or stream/buy from our website and tell the world how much you love it. I really considered spending a…

Aloha Friends! You know when you haven’t heard from me in a while it’s either because I’m terribly busy or somewhat depressed, never both. In this case I’ve been quite busy! Preparing a new Corn Potato album for release, setting up Corn Potato tours in the US and in the UK (tour dates below), organizing and playing square dances in Detroit, and playing with a bunch of great local bands, plus occasionally teaching lessons, these are some of the things I’ve been doing. Last night I got back from Arkansas, where I spent a week and a half with Carole Anne Rose, of The Old 78s, on her beautiful farm, Sweden Creek Farm, eating lots of delicious organic shiitake mushrooms, which she grows, and playing music with her and with other great people in the area, such as Aviva and Roy of the Ozark Highballers, Clarke R. Buehling, and Allison Williams of Maybell Music, to name a few. The weather was perfect. I got to do some hiking and I even got to explore the ancient bluff dwellings on Carole Anne’s property, where people were living some 8,000 years ago… I…

What a strange and funny world this is, I sometimes think. Then I think, Maybe it’s not a strange and funny world, maybe I just have a lot of strange and funny thoughts… Here we are in the depths of winter. It’s the mildest winter Detroit has seen in years but it’s still pretty cold. I’m starting to enjoy this place a bit more, I’m finding more people to play with, more local gigs, but I am still adjusting to this place. Lots of great people here but no acoustic music scene. So I started a weekly series at my house with a fiddle and a banjo workshop once a month each, and two potluck jams per month. Last month I had my first guest teacher for the fiddle workshop, the one and only Erynn Marshall and her wonderful collaborator and husband, Carl Jones, and that was fantastic. The Detroit Square Dance Society events at the Gaelic League have generated a lot of interest, too. The last one we had was so crowded it was almost too crowded, but it worked and…