Allow me for a moment to share with you a story that has inspired me, our band, hundreds of our friends, co-workers,  and countless others.  Our friend Julie K. Shaw who, with every word has encouraged us to “cherish every day”, has been fighting tooth and nail with stage IV colon and liver cancer for 18+ months. Most of the DejaBlue Grass Band and many of Julie’s friends were living it up on the tarps of the Telluride Bluegrass Festival with not a care in the world in June 2010,  when we were rocked by the devastating news of Julie’s diagnosis.

Several times hence have I and my friends visited with Julie, and each time, when asked how she’s doing, she has never responded with anything less than “I’m doing fine”, far more concerned with the needs of those asking the question than for herself.

One day in late 2010, while Susan and I were talking about Julie, Tim, and their family, this song came to me, nearly whole cloth.  I had every intention of recording it in earnest and giving it to her and Tim as my gift.  I had grandiose ideas of how it might sound with cello, perhaps pedal steel guitar, and accompanied by sweet harmony to make it a song worthy of the inspiration Julie has infused us with.  But alas, we never got further than it’s current form:  a one-take raw recording of me, my guitar, and a microphone with no effects, harmony, accompaniment, or vocal altering.  I recorded it at Cody Marshall Studios, just a scratch recording intended to get levels right, and for the producer to begin thinking about what accompaniment might be right for the song.  However, we found out this weekend that she is now in the care of hospice.  Perhaps the song is more fitting this way, anyhow…callow and rough with all it’s imperfections, yet a sweet sentiment…such is life.   And if Julie has taught us anything, it’s to be yourself, love one another, and always let your light shine no matter how it comes out.

Julie, I hope you get a chance to hear this. The song is called “I’m Doing Fine (Julie’s Song)” and I hope you and Tim receive it with the spirit from which it was written: in veneration of your grace and courage through this fight, of your ability to stand strong no matter what you are beset with, and to show love and deference to others when our hearts are breaking.   God bless you, Julie. We love you.

Click here for “I’m Doing Fine (Julie’s Song)“

Edit (1/12/12): Julie passed in the middle of the night last night. I have been so moved by the thousands of people who visited this site in the past couple of days, heard her song, and those who have taken time to share their own story of what it means to them. Anyone of the thousands of her friends could have written this song, because she moved us all in a similar way. I was just lucky and blessed to be the one He chose to pull it out of the universe and pen it. I mean that sincerely.

Many of you have called or sent me an email requesting to own a copy of the song. We are working on a way to finalize it and make it available for her friends in a way that will benefit Julie’s family and all those who she has inspired. Details to follow.

Warning…5 guys in a van with 4 hours to kill ain’t exactly material for a Disney family feature (doesn’t exactly bring out the best in a fella, if you know what I mean) but we had a helluva good time cackling like a bunch 12 year olds at a slumber party…’specially on the way home. The following represents the top 5 video selections.  See if you can guess which video matches which band member.

Selection #1: The Honey Badger….figure we’d start with one that most everybody has seen. And if you haven’t, well…

Selection#2: Guy on a Buffalo…and be sure to enjoy all 4 episodes

Selection #4:  Charlie the Unicorn…..Charrrrrllleeeeeee

Selection#4: Old Gregg

Selection #5: Louis CK…Everything’s amazing, nobody’s happy?

Hope you’ll join us!

DjBGB

The DejaBlue Grass Band is once again happy to help our friends from Theater on the Square in Marietta with their annual Pony Up!  Polo fundraiser this year at Chukkar Farm & Polo Club in Alpharetta on Sunday, May 15th.  It’s a beautiful horse farm that rivals the outskirts of Lexington.  The DjBGB plays from 1PM-4PM.  It’s a great chance to support the arts…and if you’ve never seen Polo live you’re in for a treat!

For tickets and infomation click this link. 

We’re kickin’ into high gear this weekend!!

April 17th, 4PM:  Sweetwater 420 Festival, Candler Park, Atlanta. This has quickly grown into one of the best festivals in the city and this year sports a fantastic line-up of music all weekend highlighted by Galactic,  Railroad Earth, Arrested Development, GreenSky Bluegrass and others! We’re on the Gas South stage at 4PM.

Man, the ol’ groundhog wasn’t foolin’ around, was he? Soon as he popped up to take a look around, we started having the prettiest Feb I can remember in a long time. Hope that plays right on into March and April because The DejaBlue Grass Band is getting cranked up with a couple new dates to kick off the season! Before you get too busy, take a look at your calendar and leave a little wiggle room to come wiggle with the DjBGB. We’re working on several new tunes that we think you’ll like.

WRFG’s Peach Blossom Festival, April 2, 2011. Lotta good friends we’ve made over the years at the PeachBlossom.   The new venue at the Clarkston Community Center is much better than the one in previous years when it was down at the Ga Farmer’s Market.   Looking forward to seeing our friends Cedar Hill, Whoa Nelly, Johnny Roquemore, and really looking forward to seeing the Mosier Brothers Band and Counterpoint, among others.

Sweetwater 420 Fest, April 17th, 2011. We played Candler Park’s Fall Festival and we are thrilled to be invited to play this year’s Sweetwater 420.   It’s a festival we’ve attended many times, and it’s an honor for us to play it this year.   Word has it that Greensky Bluegrass and Railroad Earth will be the main attractions.  We will be playing on the auxiliary stage.

DjBGB, in a warmer time, at the Candler Park Fall Festival,  2010

Yes,  always looking for cheeky “grass” references whenever possible…bad boys that we are. So both the Punxsutawny prognosticator AND Beauregard Lee predict an early Spring, and I hope those varmits are right, by god, because we are ready! It’s colder than a gobler’s knob. The DjBGB is busting at the seams to get out in some warm weather and play some bluegrass.  ‘Course if we don’t stop  packing on the winter poundage, we might bust’em anyway… but fear not, we’ll be in Speedo shape soon enough. Ladies, contain yourselves.

I think the entire city of Atlanta is ready for some warm weather and we oughta have a great spring full of festivals and music in the city. Matter of fact, we’re kicking around some opportunities right now as we come out of hybernation,.  We should have some new gigs up on our website soon.  New tunes, too. I hope y’all’ll come out and join us!

Whether you’ve never heard us, or heard us a hundred times, we ask you in earnest to please grab a friend or 3 and join us on one special night for one special little boy.  This Friday night, October 8th, at the Red Light Cafe in Midtown Atlanta, the DejaBlue Grass Band welcomes home 8-year old Alfred Real, who is returning to Atlanta after many weeks of TLC from the amazing professionals at Shriner’s Hospital in Cincinnati.  Alfred was badly burned over 80% of his body in an accident several months back.  You may have seen his story on Fox 5 news.  The Real Family are neighbors and friends of our bassist Todd Cliatt, and his wife Christine, who made us aware of Alfred’s accident. We were all so moved by his story, particularly since each member of the band has at least one son and three of us have a son very near Alfred’s age, and we wanted to show our support for him and his family.  He arrives home  this week, so we want to PACK the place and show him love and support.   PLEASE come support this young man.  We’ve got a special deal for you if you do:  $10 cover or $15 and you get a copy of our album “Bucket Full of Rain”.  100% of any money we raise on cover charge will go to Alfred and his family.    You can follow his story below.  Please share this on Facebook, Twitter, email, etc. with your friends. Thanks for supporting young Alfred,  thanks to Bill and the good folks at the Red Light for letting us host this special night, and we hope to see you on Friday night!!!

Sorry for so long between blog updates.  With the advent of Facebook (and if you haven’t “fan”ed us or “friended” us already, please do) we just don’t update this as much as we should.  Most of our gig infomation is disseminated through social media these days…sign of the times, I ‘spose.

We’ve added 3 new festival dates this fall, beginning Labor Day weekend, when the band and our families trek down to do a little pickin’ on the Panhandle in Port St. Joe, FL at the PoJo Music Festival.  We also picked up a gig on Saturday night at a place called The Thirsty Goat (I should make a list of all-world pub and tavern names…this might make the list). For both gigs we have the honor to welcome as our special guest, Ms. Leah Calvert from the Dappled Grays on fiddle and vocals.   We are all big fans of Leah so it’ll be quite a treat to play and sing with her for two dates.

Interesting story about how we got the gig….After playing the Decatur Barbecue Blues and Bluegrass Festival on Saturday, August 21,  JB received a text from the Tourism Director down in Port St. Joe.  He heard us that night,  liked us, offered us the gig in Port St. Joe, we checked with all the band members, made some quick arrangements to stay, signed the deal and voila! Within about a 36 hour period we’d gone from a lazy Labor day at home to being locked and loaded for a weekend at the beach.   (I love this band!!)

After jetting off to St. Louis for a very special gig in late September (Did I mention I love this band??), we’ll be back in Atlanta for Hotoberfest, in the Glenwood Park Community in Atlanta on October 2nd.  It’s Atlanta’s great craft beer Fall festival (isn’t it a great time to be a beer drinker?  I mean seriously, world-class killer handcrafted beer all within crawling distance of one another in October in Atlanta…doesn’t get any better).  There’s a stellar musical line-up and it’s in a very cool vintage new neighborhood near East Atlanta.

In late October, Sunday the 24th, we’ll play right in JB‘s neighborhood at the Candler Park Fall Festival in Candler Park.   We’re back to back with our friends Olde Dog and other fine musical groups worthy of this cool family friendly festival.   All five of us really love to do some good gospel harmony, and Sunday at the Candler Park Fall Festival, we have a special set of easy Sunday gospel that’ll fill yo’ heart and ease yo’ troubled mind.    Don’t you worry ’bout a thing.

After a couple of months of gigging like crazy, we are back in the studio.  MJ and Joey laid down lead vocals on Thursday for two songs (“Mountain Man”, and “Gold Paper Sides”) and MJ and I finished up the harmony vocals and the mando solos this weekend.  MJ is working his can off on this thing, engineering, mixing, recording, producing…That’s two in the can, finished…aside from the mastering process.  One of the things we find after gigging a bunch is that some songs we originally laid down in the studio are no longer exactly what we’d like them to be now that the they have a little road wear.  So next steps will be to tweak some stuff and possibly re-record some songs to reflect more accurately where we are with them currently.  Unlike a full time band, who writes material, rehearses, lays down an album, and THEN tour, we have to do it a little backwards.  We write, rehearse, then play them live to get the kinks worked out, and THEN record them.  The album will be special to us because it’s our own material, but if you’ve seen us live a few times in the last several months, chances are you have heard some of the “new” stuff that will be on the CD.   Life of a workin’ man band.

The release of “Bucket Full of Rain” in ’08 was a good exercise and it gave us an air of confidence and legitimacy to festival promoters and people who have never heard us before, and now we hope that the new album with all original material will take that to another level.   There are so many bands who are much better musicians than we are, but one of the things I love about this band is that we set goals, speak them into existence, and stick to them.  ’08-”cut a CD” – done (Bucket Full of Rain) .  ’08 “Play the mainstage at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival” – done (2nd place, new band competition @ TBF).  ’09 “Play a major east coast festival” – done (Asheville Brewgrass Festival).  ’10 “Cut a CD of all original material.”….We think we’ve got enough legitimate original material now that we hope to get a shot at some bigger festivals, and as one of the songs on the new album says “I wanna be on the radio”.

Now if we can just get this album finished!….