Billy Kemp

Greetings from Liberty. Live music is returning to public places. It certainly never left here at our home. The guitars and banjos have been picked, plucked and strummed on most days since the middle of March last year. They have helped deliver new songs, tunes and twangs. But much of the homebound music making is about to head back to public places. It’s gonna be sweet.

Sue and I went to our first in person music event last week in Murfreesboro. It was so thrilling to see a three band bill and a nearly full house, a night of old time, blues, gospel and a few dancers as well.

I’ll be making a trip up to the mid-Atlantic for two shows in mid-July.

First up, Saturday, July 18 at The Estate at Whitehall Vineyard in King George, Virginia. My good friends in Colonial Beach helped to organize this gig, and I am grateful. At past performances in Colonial Beach, I have had the opportunity to perform with Colonial Beach’s finest, the Hard To Tell band. This gig will feature an opening set by me performing songs from my latest record, The Craig Demos, as well as new songs from the archive. Then the Hard To Tell band will play a set and finally some selected songs featuring me with the band. I’ll be doing a song with the band from my Nightwaves record, “That’s What Love Will Do To You.”

Then on Tuesday, July 20, I’ll perform for The Roots Cafe Singer-Songwriter series in Baltimore at An Die Musik for a Live Stream and In-Person Concert with Geoffrey Himes. Showtime is 7 pm ET/6 pm CT/5 pm MT/4 pm PT/11 pm GMT. Here is a link to The Roots Cafe Facebook page.

This show will feature mostly song collaborations from the Billy Kemp-Geoffrey Himes song catalog. During the pandemic, I have co-written about ten songs with Geoffrey. I’m hoping to do three or four world premiers of those songs that evening. The venue is limiting the in-person audience to thirty folks in order for social distancing, so order tickets early.

Here’s a short story about my collaboration with Geoffrey. We met in 1981 in Baltimore. Geoff had reviewed my first record with The Paradise Pickers, and after we met, we started a correspondence which led to talk about songwriting. Just after we decided to collaborate, I moved to Nashville. We wrote our first song in 1982. I was in Nashville, and Geoff was in Baltimore. In those days we would send cassette tapes back and forth. We have written over one hundred songs together, and if this past year and a half is any indication, we will probably write another one hundred songs in the future.

Here is a recording of the first song that Geoff and I wrote. It was recorded at The Bluebird Cafe in Nashville on January 31, 1984. The supporting musicians are Roger Cox on drums, Pat Severs on bass and Virginia Arouh on back-up vocals.

For those of you that can’t make it to a live show, there are a few live stream and virtual concerts coming up in July and August. Here are the dates:

Daniel Boone Regional Library Zoom Concert July 15th, 2021

Richland Library’s Evening Arts Concert July 16, 2021

Enoch Pratt Free Library Tuesday Tunes Live Stream Aug 17th, 2021

That’s the latest news from Liberty. I hope you can make it to an in-person Live concert in July if you are in the area. If not, I hope you can make one of the virtual concerts in July or August.

Thanks for supporting live and recorded music…

Much Happiness,

Billy