Joe Boyd's Blog

Hello Mailing List,

If it’s “Labor Day” in America, Andrea and I must be in Miami, Florida, where we’re starting a third promotional swing across the US for And the Roots of Rhythm Remain (with the added bonus of a week in Mexico). Labor Day, for those unfamiliar with it, was once America’s answer to May 1st, a celebration of the country’s workers and their unions, which Trump seems determined to turn into a quaint relic of a bygone era, designed primarily for gas-guzzling beach or lake jaunts ...

Dear Mailing List,

Let’s start this newsletter with some music. Our first playlist for my new book And the Roots of Rhythm Remain seemed to go down well, so Andrea and I have put together another 100-track selection of artists, songs and styles described in the book. You can find them both here. The long promised website full of clips, tracks and rabbit-holes will appear one day, but it is taking (surprise!) longer than expected.

The main event here is a return to those extended epistles o...

Dear Mailing List,

Ze Books weren’t fooling anyone on April 1st when they released the American paperback of And the Roots of Rhythm Remain. The hardcover was selling so fast (11,000 in the UK and US combined) that they had to move the paperback release forward.

For those of you residing in or around either the Big Apple or ‘the 6ix’, the final week of my months long North American tour kicks off at 7pm Wednesday April 9th with the American paperback party at the Powerhouse in ...

Dear Mailing List,

Five years without setting foot in the US came to an end last month when Andrea and I landed in New York to start a five-week promotional tour. I was on the lookout for seismic cultural shifts, but the only difference I detected was the aroma of legal marijuana wafting through the windows of our friend’s Greenwich Village apartment, morning, noon and night.

The tour took us hopping and skipping across the country, sometimes sharing the stage with luminaries such as Yosva...

Dear Mailing List,

First things first: a plug for my new Instagram (@joeboydofficial) and old Facebook accounts, with news about the book, my touring, radio and press as well as intros to characters, moments and pieces of music from And the Roots of Rhythm Remain.

Which is not to underplay the fact that And the Roots of Rhythm Remain is out now in the UK since 29 August, where it’s in the shops and available from the Faber website, and imminent in the US on September 24 and available for p...

Dear Mailing List,

After the blare of trumpets in the last newsletter about the imminent arrival of the Big Book, the publication date of And the Roots of Rhythm Remain has now been moved to the end of August. There will be launches and events on both sides of the ocean and I’ll be sure to keep you posted.

A few things that had been planned for June have now been pushed back, but I will still be appearing at the Lyse Netter Festival in Moss, Norway on June 8 and the First Light Festival in Lowes...

Dear Mailing List,

Remember me? You may recall that I used to send out newsletters fairly regularly. A few of
you even sent messages saying you missed them.

My excuse has been that I’ve been consumed by trying to finish the book I’ve been writing
for so many years. Well, I’ve finally done it! And the Roots of Rhythm Remain: a journey
through global music will be published on July 4 in the UK by Faber and on Sept 3 in the US
by Ze Books.

It’s a bit of a door-stop. Sherpas will be provided to purc...

Dear Mailing List,

Back in the forgotten mists of time, I used to send out regular newsletters… some of you older folk may remember them…   But since I’ve put on the blinkers and have caught a whiff of the stables, I’m racing to the finishing line of my book and haven’t got time for such frivolities.

I was startled out of that single-minded pursuit the other day when my wife, Andrea Goertler, summoned me to the kitchen. ‘You have to listen to this’, she said. It was Cerys Matthews on BBC 6Music ...

Dear Mailing List,

George Wein: October 3, 1925 to September 13, 2021

On a cold January day in 1964, I walked into George Wein’s office on Central Park West. He was looking for a tour manager for the Blues and Gospel Caravan featuring Muddy Waters, Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Rev Gary Davis that was booked for a UK tour that April. I was about to complete my undergraduate credits at Harvard and was itching to go to Europe where people seemed to appreciate the music I loved far more than in America...

Dear Mailing List,

As we stagger into 2021, I can suggest a couple of comforting musical crumbs.

For those of you in the UK, BBC2 is screening Aretha Franklin’s Amazing Grace this coming Saturday, January 2 at 2030 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000...). For Brits, this is, of course, free. For everyone else, the film is available on various digital platforms for a small charge. I wrote a newsletter last year about my walk-on part in getting this extraordinary performance filmed and release...