“hard times ain’t gonna rule my mind”
“hard times ain’t gonna rule my mind” -
Gillian Welch
Well ... not forever anyway.... maybe for a minute. After our tour with The Wood Brothers was canceled halfway through in Oregon, we got home and watched all of our spring tour dates into June disappear…the indefinite reality of this thing started to sink in and we... got a little dark there for a minute. We moped. We drank a fair amount of whiskey.and wine. We - well one of us, it doesn’t matter who - may or may not have watched all the seasons of Ozark in 48 hrs… the thing about moping is, as long as you do it for a finite amount of time, it has great physiological and spiritual benefits. We had our little pity funk, and then we came to. We deep cleaned the house, began to homeschool our six year old daughter, we moved our dear sister Yola permanently in and recorded an #inmyroom Rolling Stone Session with her,and our other dear sister and housemate Awna Teixeira.
We actually unpacked our suitcases entirely for the first time in 3 years.
It felt good.
We know how extraordinarily blessed we are to have a home and a family to come back to, and to be riding out this quarantine in good health, when so many are suffering terribly...
And we remembered what we’re here to do: write songs and sing them for you. As of this weekend, we are very much back at it. It’s always been about real connection, and, to make the obvious point, we need connection now more than ever. We will be playing our first full hour live streaming concert on Sunday April 5th at 8pm EST for #theparlorroomhomesessions presented by Signature Sounds, finally, getting our Patreon page up, and exploring new modes of maintaining and growing the community around this music. Alli will also be participating in an #OurNativeDaughters takeover of #shutinandsing, with her sisters, Rhiannon Giddens, Leyla McCalla, and Amythyst Kiah on April 22nd. And today we’ll be making a 20 min cameo appearance (remotely of course) on NorthStar Church of the Arts’ and The Pinhook’s “What-The Hell-A-Thon” fundraiser for #durhamartistsrelieffund.
It’s on all of us to keep our lamps trimmed and burning; we are gonna make sure we cover our end of the bargain. We love each and every one of you truly and powerfully, and while we will keep this remote party line as hot and humming as we can, we certainly won’t take it for granted the next time we get to see your faces again...Stay safe, stay home if you can, till we get on over to the other side of this,
Your Birds