TOverby

The blues cover is a song called The Things That I Used To Do. It was written by Guitar Slim who has become a blues legend much like Robert Johnson and for all the same reasons -live fast die very young- he died in 1959 at age 32– only leaving behind about 30 or so recordings, which have been repackaged several times. Slim was legendary for wearing bright colorful suits and with hair sometimes dyed to match and also using a guitar cord estimated at 350 feet- long enough so he that he would finish the shows by leading the audience out to the parking lot and continue playing the whole time. With his master showmanship and flamboyance and unique ahead of his time guitar sound I’ve often thought of the Prince of his time. I can highly recommend his albums The Things That I Used To Do -The Complete Specialty Recordings or The Atco Sessions which he recorded for after he left Specialty. While they contain many of the same songs these two records cover pretty much everything he recorded.

DIm Fu –I have to say that your little tidbits of knowledge and insight are really Obi-Wantastic. But please allow me to make a couple of corrections etc. to you the Dishonorable One Who Truth Eludes. First I would like to congratulate Ray on his successful shows in Portland Maine. In these difficult times in the country and the music biz it’s great to see anyone having success-and of course its great to see people going out to shows. That’s good for everybody. And I don’t want at all to take anything away from Ray but you did fail to mention that these are his hometown shows, so I think any comparison you are trying to make with Lucinda’s sales is just a bit skewed (she’s not from Concord) and the deduction you make from it (“so much about the economy being a problem”) even more so. Also -just for the sake of the facts the Merrill in Portland holds 1900 not the 3000 you quoted. Missed it by that much i guess. Also since you started this comparison thing I checked Ray’s other shows and he is playing many of the same venues Lucinda plays and they are not sold out either- and for the record, with the couple I checked his ticket prices were higher. In fact the only shows that are sold out are the Portland ones.
I’m only pointing this out because you continue to come here and manipulate the truth and condescend and put down others all the while you’re shaking your David Byrne (or now Ray Lamontagne) pom-poms. And you claim to be a fan of Lucinda’s even though as you said in you’re own words, you don’t go to the shows, you don’t buy,like or listen to the records (but you do hang out on the website). That’s the equivalent of saying to your wife, yes honey I do really still love you, I just don’t want to talk to you, listen to you or be seen with you. I mean you try so hard to come up with this skewed evidence -or simply create it when it doesn’t exist -that all is bad with Lucinda. I mean, a few months ago you took a review that wasn’t really even a bad one and claimed it was. You are like the Negative Network –all negative all the time. I’m not trying to be mean or vicious or attack you or anything so I sincerely hope you don’t take it that way.
I just want to know.
Why?
It’s almost like you have some agenda.
What is it?
Do you think that if you can prove and offer up all this evidence that Lucinda’s career is failing that it will bring back the old Lucinda that you love?
Or, Tattoo, as you said recently, is all of this just Fantasy Island to you and this is just how you get your jollies?
So if you can muster up just a little bit of truth just this once— and not give me this blather about being the voice of the dialed-in ears counterbalance viewpoint blah blah blah, I simply want to know–as David Letterman asked Rod Blagocevich the other night on his show
“Why in the hell are you here?”

While nothing is close to being locked in yet, we are looking seriously at being in Europe in July –possibly starting with a performance at Roskilde Festival.

Tom– I typed this a couple of days ago and then lost it and retyped. Anyway, we were discussing this topic the other night in Nashville but we didn’t get a chance to finish before I got pulled away. I think the poll is an interesting idea and an example of the potential positives that can come from an this forum. So I’d like to add a some things that we didn’t have chance to talk about the other night. In addition maybe I can provide a look behind the scenes and some additional food for thought. First, this is not just a Lucinda problem. It is happening to everyone, and from what i’ve heard in many cases its far worse than what we are seeing. I talk to Lucinda’s booking agent nearly everyday -and i get feedback from the local promoters who are doing our shows. What I have been hearing is consistent and it is that things were already difficult but that about 4-5 weeks ago, roughly the same time as the Wall St/economic meltdown and unfortunately about the same time we started the tour, ticket sales just fell off the table everywhere. And that’s exactly what we saw -many of the shows started out strong and then ticket sales just froze in a lot of places. So it’s very apparent that economy has hurt ticket sales. Another telling thing is that our shows in Canada are doing great -with a couple of them selling out quickly -even though we played all the same markets a year ago and to be honest in one of those cities the show last year was not one I felt was one of the better ones. In Toronto we played to the largest audience so far on this tour outside of NY. I find all that pretty interesting.

What happened with the Nashville show is a microcosm of the challenge we are dealing with right now. When we put that show on sale it was decided to put it on sale as standing GA on the floor and seated GA up in the balcony, and the promoter suggested the tickets on the floor to be slightly more ($5 I believe). After the first couple of weeks the sales of tickets in the balcony were far beyond what had been sold on the floor. Enough so that the promoter suggested that we needed to change the floor back to seated GA. By doing that we also had to give back some of the show guarantee. There really wasn’t a decision because you can’t have a show with everybody up in the balcony and nobody on the floor. I made the original decision to have it be a standing floor because that is what Lucinda prefers, and that show completely exemplified why. For the first 2/3 of the show the audience was seated and while they were great, everything changed when Lucinda told everybody it was ok to get up and come down to the front. The energy in the whole place just completely turned, and Lucinda just fed off it which she mentioned from the stage, and the rest of the show was just elevated. I guess you’d call that a conundrum.
I’ve seen the suggestion of playing clubs, and while we are doing that in Mpls, Seattle and San Francisco, most cities either don’t have a big enough club or couldn’t support two nights. Clubs are also an issue on the business end because many have ticket ceilings, and the ticket price has to not only support our 17 people but the cost to the promoter of putting on the show- advertising, security, rent etc.
I saw one suggestion of co-headlining a small theater. Now you’re supporting two infrastructures and tickets would have to be $80.

But it would be foolish to say the economy. I don’t take anything for granted. I am always looking at the things we are doing. It is an advantage to be able be on the road and see what is happening night after night. I try to talk as much as i can every night to fans. Its also one of the reasons I value this forum, and am involved with it. If I get one idea or one suggestion that improves what we do it is invaluable. For instance, I have considered that maybe we were hurt when the album release date got bumped, as it caused us to go out longer before it came out. That’s hard to gauge. Maybe that’s another question for your poll -if the album had been out before the show would you have been more likely to go? One thing I do know is that it doesn’t have anything to do with setlists etc. That is nonsense and I have the hard facts to back it up but will respond to that separately.

One of the other things that I am becoming increasingly aware of is that it there is a growing split in the preferences of Lucinda’s fans. There is a group that would not go to a club show and there is another group doesn’t go the bigger theaters for various reasons. The only real answer is first and foremost to keep putting Lucinda in venues where she enjoys it and gets the energy of the audience. Ironically, as I was watching the show in St. Louis the other night I was thinking that the venue, The Pageant, was almost the template venue for her right now -standing area down front and intimate seats up top –and as someone joked last night–a bar.

While things are certainly challenging right now, Lucinda is doing great. She is enjoying playing live more than she ever has, she feels more confident on stage and feels she has the best band she’s ever had. The band is really playing great and there is a real rapport with Lucinda. A lot of the things that are happening are out of our control but the one thing we do have control over is playing the best show we can. As long as the shows are great all is good. And the feedback on this tour from both fans and press has been virtually unanimous. After the NY show i talked to an A&R person who had scouted Lucinda way back when she was a young lass, and he said “I’ve been seeing Lucinda for 28 years and this was by far the best she has ever been-on so many levels”. The people that are coming out to the shows have been fantastic and Little Honey debuted in the Top 10, That would be a first for her and after all these years, a fantastic accomplishment. She’s worked very very hard for that but none of it could have happened without the amazing fan support she has had–now and always. Someone told me recently “take care of her -she is an American treasure”. My bias and interest are obvious, but she is a treasure, and I think she’s never been better night after night and I hope everyone can come out and see that.

Yes -that is odd- must’ve been a data entry mistake on their part. They will definitely ship to arrive on street date-otherwise they would lose a big percentage of pre-orders.