Richard's Blog - Norway Cruise
Back from the land of the midnight sun in Northern Norway and continuing with my British dates. The journey to the top of the world was a truly amazing experience and I met some great people on Artemis. We saw the whales as we approached North Cape and the dolphins swam around in the wake of the ship. I would say it was my favourite cruise to date and having travelled home all day I was pretty tired when I took to the stage at The Beck Theatre in Hayes.
A few days rest and Arnie Cottrell and myself played at Worley Folk Club in Ecclesfield before moving on to the Blues Bar in Harrogate.
Took Polly to see Neil Diamond at the O2 in London and it was incredible to watch a guy, simply dressed in black suit and black shirt, knocking out thousands of people with an acoustic guitar and a catalogue of well-known songs that seemed never ending. People ask me if I get itchy feet when I watch someone else performing and the answer is no, not really. I love a night off the same as everyone else and it's a delight for me to watch a real pro going about his business.
Best wishes to you all. Richard Digance
May 2008
A few more dates before I head off for Norway. Been busy in the theatres but it's clear the credit crunch is biting us all,
so I'm pleased to introduce you to my new album, recorded at Spire Records in Fordingbridge, Hampshire and a huge reduction
on all my other albums. Hey, they're only blocking access to the garage!!
The new album is the first I haven't recorded in my own studio for over 20 years. I wanted to concentrate on playing and singing so I hired the services of Matt Watkins to produce the stuff. I also called on two of my best friends Arnie Cottrell and Vicki Hobbs to add some guitars and vocals, which they did superbly.
The object of the album was to produce a collection of songs that are media friendly and can therefore get me more radio plays than my live stuff allows. I seem to do more and more radio interviews lately but I haven't had the songs to embellish the interviews, well not the right collection of songs anyway.
Anyone who's seen the show lately will recognise some of the newer titles and the couple of older songs have been both rewritten and re-recorded.
so there you go, a brand new CD and set of songs, and believe it or not you can buy one with a good old fashioned cheque if you so wish.
April 2008
Hi everyone and welcome to the official website of yours truly. As you see from the dates page I've been on tour
since the end of January with a comprehensive set of dates that exceeds my work schedule in previous years.
It's been great to meet so many people after shows who found out where I was playing via this site.
I always get to a theatre foyer after a show to sign CD's etc and I'm really pleased everyone is enjoying the new songs
in the show for this year. There's nothing worse than going to see someone a second time and they just repeat what
they did the previous time they were in town and so I've made a huge effort to break the show into new material in
the first half and golden oldies in the second. It seems to work.
I've broken new ground this year with a few shows in the North East, Billingham, Stockton and Darlington and I'm so
pleased we managed to complete our assault on this new area with a sell-out at Darlington Arts Centre.We tour right
through this year without stopping, trying new venues as well as tried and tested theatres in strong areas and I'm
really enjoying the challenege of breaking new ground with Newcatle being the only casualty so far.Peebles up in
Scotland was a total joy and a beautiful drive along the River Tweed, right up my street, even if we did drive back
in a raging blizzard.
The other addition to my dates this year are acoustic duo gigs with my folky mate Arnie Cotterell. We go back 30 years
and I so look forward to sitting down and just playing my guitar with my mate. The gigs are small and all are invited
but be warned it won't be the comedy stuff people expect from me normally. It's just two mates playing their guitars
and singing their favourite songs.
Alderney, my third visit in four years, was a huge success and I love visiting that part of The Channel islands.
In two nights I probably played to most of the island's population who weren't too young or too old to turn out.Back in
England now I'm preparing to go away for another week as I do more gigs and record five Countdowns. Then in May I'm
in the recording studio to do my next CD which we shall have available by September.
That's it for now, keep the emails coming or visit My Space and will post another update in a few weeks when my feet
touch the floor once again.
