All For Love's Sake Honored by No Depression

We are honored and excited to announce that Ruth’s song All For Love’s Sake is currently being featured in the music player on the main page of the No Depression Community Site. This website is an extension of the new online version of No Depression Magazine, for years a leading voice in the world of roots music. You can go to this URL:

http://community.nodepression.com/

and look for the music player in the left hand column to listen to it and the other artists being featured including David Wilcox, Justin Townes Earle, and Mars Arizona.

Studio Time

We spent some time in the studio this week.
All 12 origianl tracks for the new CD have the bass tracks done! The plan is to get the extra musicians into the studio in May and have the recording completed by June. Colleen Rocky is onboard to design the packaging!

In the meantime, we have gigs to play and a return trip to France to plan. So join us as we travel Michigan in May. If you should happen to take any photos while you are at our shows and you would like to share them, please email them to us. You never know you might see one right here on the blog!

New Band Picture

The Ruth and Max Bloomquist Band

Howdy folks. We just want to take a few minutes to introduce you to some very good friends of ours who will be playing a number of shows with us this summer and, hopefully, into the more distant future as well.

The gentleman holding the guitar in this new band photo is John "Sky" King. John’s love of music has led him to a long career of playing in bands, studios, and as a sideman on a variety of instruments. Known as a “string bender”, John and his unusual approach to the acoustic guitar create a sound that is often reminiscent of a pedal steel, making it particularly complementary to Ruth’s song writing and vocal style. John has appeared with us at the IBMA World Of Bluegrass in Nashville and at the North American Folk Alliance conference in Memphis.

Dan Seabolt is not only one of the finest fiddlers we know, he is a much sought after bow maker and builder of fine upright basses and mandolins. He has played with many great Michigan bands including the Oat Bran Boys (along with John), the Missing Lynx, and Free Wheelin’. We are proud to have Dan on stage with us anywhere.

We are particularly pleased that John and Dan will be with us for two brand new festivals this summer. On July 19 be sure to check out the Saugatuck Green Food Bluegrass Festival to be held at the Felt Mansion between Holland and Saugatuck, MI. Then, on August 1, don't miss Bluegrass On The Lakeshore at the Muskegon, MI County Fairgrounds. Both of these new festivals will go all day and well into the night with all the great music, food, friends, and jamming that anyone would want. Be sure to come up and say, "HI".

More information on these and other opportunities to come out and see us is available at our website: " http://www.ruthbloomquist.com/ "

Thanks for stopping by!

Alley Door Club 4/10/09

We just got home from playing the Alley Door Club in Muskegon Michigan's beautiful Frauenthal Center for the Performing Arts. Set up on the third floor in a large rehearsal hall, it's a great place to play. The cash bar, free munchies, and BBQ for sale help to make the atmosphere friendly. The sound crew lead by Mark Gorter does a fabulous job.

We shared the bill with Eric Glatz and Mike Snell. Eric is a wonderful Travis style guitar picker, tending toward the jazzier side of the tracks. His renditions of San Antonio Rose, Walk Don't Run, and his original music knocked us out. Mike is a fine singer and song writer. We love his original stuff and were also struck by his cover of the Paul Koss tune Last Of The Leelanau Schooners.

We had a wonderful time during our set. The crowd of around 150 seemed very receptive and several shouted out requests for Specific Ruth penned songs. Naturally, we made mention of the two brand new bluegrass festivals coming to West Michigan this summer, Green Food Bluegrass Festival on July 19 and Bluegrass On The Lakeshore on August 1. The crowd clapped and cheered at the idea of bluegrass in west Michigan! YES!

We called Eric up to join us for the Willy Nelson song, Crazy, and Mike led us in a rousing version of John Denver's Country Roads. Mike is a big Denver fan and even sounds a bit like him. Ruth followed that with her tribute song, I Remember John. Mike helped us out with his great 12-string picking on that one. We finished the set with Ruth's I Know Love, Sometimes, the great Clare Lynch tune He Don't like to Talk About It, and Ruth's Merlefest winning gospel song By The River. For the encore we did Ruth's Put Down That Beer And Dance. By that time the bar was closed and the wonderful crowd cleared out pretty quick with quite a few stopping by the CD table for a chat.

Many thanks to the Alley Door Club for having us in and to our many friends and fans that came out to the show. We hope you had as good time as we did.