A change of hands (but not quite prestidigitation?)

For the first time in its 15 year history, Bruuuce.com is in the hands of someone other than Si Twining for the time being. He asked me to step in last week so please allow me a brief howdy. My name is Austin (or AJ) and I hail out of Cleveland via CSU.  That’s as interesting as I get, so in closing I’d like to say that I’m in no way replacing Si but rather keeping his seat warm which I realize is a tall order in itself. If you have any setlists or photos from the current Hornsby tour or any questions or just wanna say hi you can reach me at AJ@bruuuce.com. Maybe copy Si in also altho’ he doesn’t seem to be anywhere near his emails presently. (SI! Let me know if I’m doing this right?? – hope this is what you asked me for?) Thank you guys and Si, get well soon my friend. –AJ.

Daily Doses

Very sorry for the lack of “Daily Doses” in the last week, as Si tends to some other priorities. Those uploaded on Monday give you the full concert from 6/29. We’re working on getting some help for more regular updates.

Solo CD pre-order

You’ve all been asking – and we have the track listing and pre-order link for Bruce Hornsby – Solo Concerts ready for an August 25 release.

Bruce Does the Dead

This continues to get a ton of downloads… Bruce Hornsby performing twenty different Grateful Dead songs. Bruce Does the Dead!

Throwback Thursday: a Range concert!

With thanks to Darkstar833, here’s Bruce Hornsby and the Range in Roanoke, VA in 1988 for your downloading pleasure.

$6,454

$6,454

A message from Si Twining: TWLOHA, The Merlin Centre and the ALS Association are now an incredible $6,454 better off thanks to your wonderful generosity. You have already paid for three student leaders to attend the TWLOHA conference later this month and provide urgent counselling for their peers in Boston. Added to that, the Merlin Centre and the ALS Association have today been sent their money.

Our TWLOHA friends in Boston wanted to pass this on to you: “We are so honored and humbled by your amazing contribution. Thank you, thank you, thank you, from the bottom of our hearts! We wouldn’t have been able to do it without you!! Thanks so much for believing in this worthwhile organization. “

TWLOHA conference

I would echo that. $6,454 is an incredible amount. The three charities are all very dear to me for one reason or another, and the least I can do is continue to report back on progress. This has been an especially rewarding venture while I have been in and out of hospital and battle some new health challenges, so the end result is absolutely worth the effort. Again, thank you all for your generosity. Here’s a picture from the conference you sent three people on – you can click on it to enlarge it.

For those asking, you can still find all of the Daily Dose Day downloads in one place.

My office for the last three weeks

So… throughout the whole project we had:

• 330 songs
• 102,647 downloads by the end of Daily Dose Day
• 1 site crash (after we launched Bruce Does the Dead)
• 12 outstanding covers of Bruce’s songs on the Thick Custard cover project
• the important one: over $6,000 and counting!

I’m leaving the downloads up for a few days yet, and so we’ll continue to gratefully accept your donations during that period.

Still up for grabs even after we finished Daily Dose Day:

• the entire archive of 20 Days of Bruce – 20 different concerts from Bruce’s entire run at Yoshi’s in 1998
• all the Daily Dose Day’s doses
• a concert from Portland, OR in 2011 for download, donated by Bruce
• June 27′s concert from Black Mountain, NC also up for download
• also, please complete the famous Bruuuce.com 2014 survey. Takes ten minutes!
• your dream setlist for download – the songs you voted for, to hear live
• Bruce Does the Dead – Bruce covering 20 of the Grateful Dead’s songs
• a phone interview with Bruce – a 40 minute chat where Bruce dropped a few surprises
• the Bruuuce.com 2014 survey – please take ten minutes to complete it!

Charlie Haden 1937-2014

Sad to hear of the passing of Charlie Haden yesterday (July 11), after a long illness. Today’s Daily Dose (below right) is a version of “20/20 Vision” recorded with Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder at Cumberland this May. Bruce recorded the song with Charlie on his 2008 release “Rambling Boy”, featuring an all-star cast including Pat Metheny, Ricky Skaggs and Rosanne Cash. Charlie played bass on Bruce’s “Stander on the Mountain”.

THKCSTD

A dozen talented musicians gave you Thick Custard: Celebrating the Music of Bruce Hornsby. They’ve given their time, talents and energy for free so that you can enjoy this latest cover project, which has taken three years to put together.  I’m so proud of it, and of each contributor. Please go and visit the brand new ThickCustard.com website for 12 covers of Bruce Hornsby songs, which I promise you’ll love. And on a sidenote, if you’re able to share the link on your social media, blog, e-mail list or website, it would really help. These people deserve to be heard!

If you’re a contest winner and don’t yet have your prize, please bear with me – my health doesn’t allow me to get to the Post Office very often but I’m doing the best I can. Our winners are: Cliff Lawless correctly predicted Belgium’s 2-1 win over USA in the World Cup, and nets himself a $25 Amazon gift card. Paj78 nets the Dead giveaway – a 3CD set from the Jerry Garcia Band. Jeff Clark won the Ricky Skaggs signature package after correctly identifying Chris Thile. And the $100 Amazon gift card contest that we’ve been running went to Harry Wenkert. We asked how many CDs were in the pile – there were 245. Harry was closest and guessed 247! They join Carwyn Tywyn, who won the memorabilia contest earlier.

Against my better judgement, I’ve answered your questions… if you think that would interest you, take a look at your questions for… Si?!

All of the music is, of course, available for free. We are still gratefully accepting donations for our three very worthy causes, though:

• Use FirstGiving to donate to the ALS Association (DC, MC and VA Chapter)
• Use JustGiving to donate to the Merlin Centre for Multiple Sclerosis care
• Use the yellow PayPal “Donate” buttons on the site to donate to your choice of cause or TWLOHA, a mental health charity.

Spotlight on our three causes

• TWLOHA – To Write Love On Her Arms, for mental health care
• the Merlin Centre for Multiple Sclerosis care
• the ALS Association, in memory of Melissa.

If you have any comments, questions, requests or suggestions, please do contact Si.

Again, thank you so much for your support and overwhelming kindness once again this year. Please donate if you can!

I need to rest… but I’ll be back later in the week with an updated total.

$5,000 is a crazy amount, and I can’t thank you all enough.

sincerely,

- Si Twining.

You’ve had your retro look at The Way It Is and you can still have your say – but we thought we’d show you how the first record fared so far. And now would be a good time to cast your eye on the second and third records, Scenes from the Southside and Night on the Town.

I hope you enjoy looking around the new site and maybe discover some things which were previously hidden away. If you have any requests, suggestions or comments, please contact Si.  This site is made up of your contributions over the years, and we really rely on you. So any setlists, photographs, articles, reports or even recordings are very gratefully received.

Of course, there is always the Bruuuce.com Board to talk to others with the same tastes.

We’re already working on new updates that we couldn’t quite squeeze into the relaunch – keep coming back for more additions, and of course the Daily Dose!

Si and Bruuuce.com have chronicled the work and music of Bruce Hornsby since 1998, with great help from the thriving community that this site has built. That includes YOU!