News
October 2007
The Band has just released a new 4 track CD called 4Trax which has been produced to provide a brief taste of what the John Richards Band is doing now.
It includes three new songs from John plus The Deserter which although twenty years old sadly continues to grow in poignancy.
2007 has been an exciting year so far for John and the band.
Following last year’s release of Walls of Hope the band were booked at a number of summer festivals for this year and have had excellent feedback from all of them. One member of a festival audience emailed via the website to say
“It was brilliant – there wasn’t one piece that we didn’t enjoy.
Your music was inspirational.”
Lisa Hargreaves (Holmfirth festival)
Another member of the audience at the Holmfirth Folk Festival asked the band if they would like to play in Hampshire, which they did recently, where a member of that audience asked if the band would play in Bristol and so the reputation continues to grow.
Following the Hampshire gig the organiser emailed to say
“Thank you John, to you and your mighty band for another brilliant evening’s entertainment.”
Kevin Wilding (St Mary Bourne, Hampshire)
In late September the band plays once again at Vicky’s Unicorn Folk Club at the Bradford Arms on the A5 (details on the gig list) and the following day returns to Holmfirth to play a concert at the Old Bridge Hotel following its success at the festival last May.
On October 12th the band arrives for its annual gig at the excellent Woodman Folk Club in Kingswinford and then gigs cease for a while as preparations for the recording of some more new songs start in earnest.
It has also been an excellent year in respect of John’s songs. Bram Taylor has recorded If You Can Walk You Can Dance for his CD Song Singer and Tom McConville has confirmed that he will be recording Shine On for his new CD.
In early September John got a call to tell him one of his songs was being played on the Mike Harding Show. Mike announced it as “A beautiful version of a great song.” It turned out to be The Deserter which had been recorded by Michael Black, brother of Mary and Frances and a member of The Black Family. The CD is called Michael Black and it’s the debut solo CD by Michael on Compass Records of Nashville.
Michael lives in San Francisco and the song is getting plenty of exposure on American radio stations that run Celtic programmes. It’s all excellent PR for John and the band and John continues to add to his reputation as “A Master of his craft” (Taplas).