News

Still Wobbling

October 16, 2016

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…

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And It Happened Again

September 14, 2016

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…

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I Knew This Would Happen

July 11, 2016

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…

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“Put on Your Old Grey Bonnet” Is Ever-So-Officially Released

May 1, 2016

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…

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New Corn Potato Record + Tour Dates + Local Shows + MORE

April 13, 2016

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…

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What a Strange and Funny World This Is

February 8, 2016

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…

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More Agency Than Common Sense?

December 2, 2015

I woke up this morning around 8am, early by my standards, but maybe I had a subconscious premonition of what was to come. Around 9 I heard the rumbling and whine of a chainsaw and thought nothing of it at first. I looked out the window and noticed a tree care crew had chopped off some of the branches from the lovely tall maple tree across the street. “Oh, they’re pruning it up a bit before winter, that’s good,” I thought. But they didn’t stop there. They took the whole tree down to the ground, passed it through the wood chipper, and were on their way before 10. Later on my neighbor told me he had them cut it down because he was tired of raking the leaves and it had to happen sooner or later anyway, right? Sometimes it seems people have more agency than common sense. On the other hand, trees and houses are a tricky combination that will often lead to some kind of trouble sooner or later, right? Happy Tree Appreciation Season, everybody. In this email…

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[Aaron Jonah Lewis] “I’m a Wiener!”

September 5, 2015

What did the hot dog say after it won first place in the fiddle contest? (Scroll to the bottom to see the answer…) HELLO What a summer it’s been, friends. Lots of excitement, great music, great food, great friends, interesting weather, travel, and, you know, a lot of stuff going on! So once again I haven’t kept up with my goal of sending monthly missives, and as a result I probably have more to tell you than will fit into one email. But a guy can try, right? In this email I want to make sure and share my upcoming tour dates — We leave Monday for a seven-week tour in the UK and Ireland, during which we will record our next album (!) — Scroll down if you want to see those dates first. I’ll also share some highlights from the summer so far, including a few choice videos of yours truly on the news in various locales and other such fun type things. I am prepared to discuss ever so briefly some of the things I’ve been reading this…

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Awesome Rain Storm

June 27, 2015

just passed through the neighborhood last night. I sat on my porch for about six hours as the wind slowly picked up, the intermittent thunder and lightning became more frequent, and the rain went from a drizzle to a patter to a solid torrent, the wind whipping around in all directions and water coming down in such a volume I felt like I was a car at the drive-through car wash. Before going to bed I saw a single raindrop illuminated by a flash of lightning as it was right in front of my face before it hit the ground. It’s been about two months since my last newsletter and there’s no way I can get everything in that I want to share with you. The main thing to communicate is that I am well and busy these days, very happy with my recent tours with Luke Richardson and Ben Belcher in Germany, the UK, and the Netherlands, where I saw old friends and made some new ones and saw a lot of great bands as well. I’m also very…

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Great Big Corn Potato Tour In The USA

March 13, 2015

Howdy Friends, I got home to Detroit yesterday and while I’m catching my breath before the next tour I will take a moment to catch up with you. In this email: – How did it go? Recording in New Orleans and in Lebanon, TN, with two different groups – There’s a Corn Potato tour? When? where? TOUR DATES, yes! – That might be all because I haven’t been reading or anything. – No, wait. I’m going to add a bonus joke. I got this from my friend Lyle in New Orleans: What do you call a Tyrannosaurus Rex on the beach during Christmas time? (Answer at bottom of email…) So, the past month wasn’t always easy but we worked hard and it was well worth it. We successfully recorded eight songs to wax cylinder with Roochie Toochie & The Ragtime Shepherd Kings. In the end we recorded with Martin Fisher, our friend in Nashville who recorded our first album, because of technical difficulties in New Orleans. Still, we had a great time rehearsing in New Orleans and visiting with all the great musician friends…

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