As the festival season roars into full throttle, a few band members are changing hands as bands reshuffle once again. Kenny & Amanda Smith have brought on one new full time team member, and one temporary member.

First let’s talk banjo. With Joey Cox leaving the band at the end of June, banjo legend Terry Baucom, the legendary The Duke of Drive, will be stepping up to the mic for the remainder of the summer. Recognized for his hard driving, traditionally-styled banjo playing, Terry brings a depth of experience to the stage. I spoke with Terry on the phone earlier today and he told me he was excited about the chance to pick with Kenny and Amanda for the rest of the year.

Kenny’s got the drive to his guitar playing that just makes it fun to pick the five over it! It’s gonna be a jamming good time and I can’t wait to get started.

Terry did say however, that he was already committed to a number of shows with The Mark Newton Band prior to Kenny’s call, and will be honoring that commitment. Kenny has yet to announce who will be filling those dates in Baucom’s absence. Due to his renewed dedication to teaching, recording his own solo CD, and a series of instructional DVDs, Terry will only be filling in with Kenny and Amanda for this season, and not on a permanent basis.

The Red White & Bluegrass Festival in Morganton, NC will be Terry’s first gig with the band, on July 3, 2007.

Now on to the mandolin… With the departure of Jason Robertson from the band, Kenny & Amanda called up a young local mandolin picker they thought was ready for the gig. Enter Aaron Williams. At the age of 15, Aaron is a force to be reckoned with on the mandolin, having recently won the 2007 Merlefest mandolin contest. Kenny produced a solo album for Aaron not that long ago and was so impressed at the time with Aaron’s musicianship, he Aaron that if they ever needed a mandolin player, they’d give him a call. He never expected it would be this soon.

Kenny and Amanda have been heroes of mine since I started playing, and I have long admired their music and musicianship. Amanda’s voice is just so clear and sincere, you can’t help but to believe every word. And Kenny has such a taste to what he does; everything he plays sounds perfect, like it was made for the song. They are the coolest people you could ever want to meet, and have been so good to me. I’m absolutely thrilled to be able to play in such a creative band with such great people. It’s a dream come true.

I’ve known Aaron, and picked with him on occasion, for several years here in the Southwest Virginia area. He’s a disciplined young picker whose future in bluegrass is bright. His parents home school him and have said that he will be allowed to keep playing even during the school year as long as he keeps up with his school work. Of course that means working extra hours, but I’m sure he’s up to the challenge.

Be sure to visit Kenny & Amanda Smith’s tour schedule to find a show near you where you can hear the band with the new additions.

And the bluegrass band scramble continues…

Joey Cox will be the newest member of Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver, replacing Chris Warner who stepped in briefly when Terry Baucom left the band in March. Just 24 years old, Joey has already had a stellar bluegrass career. He has toured and recorded with both Lou Reid & Carolina and BlueRidge, and was working with Kenny & Amanda Smith when the call came in from Doyle.

Lawson has seen many band members come and go over his tenure at the helm, but was especially sorry to see Chris Warner leave.

“Chris had prior commitments in Pennsylvania which made for a very difficult and draining travel schedule. I really wish that it would have worked out with Chris, as he is an outstanding person.”

Here’s an interesting perspective: Joey wasn’t even born when Doyle Lawson left The Country Gentlemen to start his own band back in 1979. For his part, Joey grew up as a young banjo picker listening to the music of Terry Baucom and Scott Vestal, and developing his style by learning their licks from Quicksilver recordings.

“I never thought it could happen. It’s a like a dream come true. When I was a kid, me and my buddies would jam on Quicksilver tunes, and now I’ll be playing them on stage with Doyle.

It’s an honor and a great opportunity for me, and I’m really grateful for the chance.”

Joey said that he is hard at work learning all the material from the most recent Quicksilver release, More Behind The Picture Than The Wall, but was already familiar with much of Doyle’s earlier music.

Joey will be on stage with the band for their July 12 show at The Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. Doyle said that he sent Joey set lists and CDs, and left him one piece of advice.

“I told him he better study hard.”

We had posted last month with news about AcuTab’s Adam Stefffey’s first-ever mandolin DVD. At the time we indicated that it would be available on June 12, but the release has been delayed until June 25.

To atone for the delay, AcuTab is offering a special offer for the first 300 orders, a free autographed Adam Steffey poster. This offer is only for direct orders through AcuTab, and they say that the posters will be shipped rolled in a tube to prevent damage in transit.

The new DVD is titled, Adam Steffey - My Approach To Bluegrass Mandolin, and includes 2 DVDs and a printed booklet. Between the two discs, the set runs for nearly four and half hours with instructional, tips and tunes from this 5 time winner of the IBMA Mandolin Player of the Year award.

The first DVD set offers purely instructional information, while the second has Adam teaching seven solos from his time as a member of Lonesome River Band, Alison Krauss & Union Station, and Mountain Heart.

From the AcuTab site:

Topics covered on Disk 1 note spacing pick attack tone and volume practicing building speed rhythm creating solos

Songs taught on Disk 2 East Tennessee Blues Cluck Old Hen Liza Jane Everytime You Say Goodbye No Place To Hide Daybreak In Dixie #6 Barn Dance

More details are available on the AcuTab web site, including several screen shots and a number of brief sample video clips, plus a larger image of the Steffey poster. Orders are being accepted now, shipping the week of June 25.

We received two fine CDs recently, from artists whose music may not be familiar to a wide listening audience. Both projects have their roots in the rich, fertile “bluegrass crescent” that encircles eastern Kentucky and Tennessee along with western Virginia and North Carolina.

Tim Carter, along with his brother Danny, has been performing as The Carter Brothers since 2001. These Carters claim a distant relation to the legendary Carter Family, and bring their traditional music roots to their more eclectic, blues/rock/bluegrass show. Brother Tim now has his own solo releases, and he steps forward as the bluegrass part of the band’s equation. Ten songs, all but on written or co-written by Carter, feature Tim as a fine instrumentalist and a vocalist as well. Guests include Tim Stafford, both on guitar and as co-writer on several tracks, plus Rob Ickes on dobro, Casey Driessen on fiddle and Alison Brown on second banjo on a tune she and Tim wrote together.

Tim’s compositions for banjo tend towards the progressive realm, but his songs have a very traditional feel to them. The mix provides the artistic tension for Bang Bang, and makes for a very enjoyable listen.

Audio samples can be found on Tim’s MySpace page, and ordering is enabled on The Carter Brothers site and on CD Baby.

Tommy Webb’s new CD is entitled Eastern Kentucky, and he has called on some of the heavy hitters from that region of the country to assist him. Banjo legend JD Crowe supplies some words of praise on the back cover, and while his touring band of Chris Goble (banjo), Tadd Huff (bass) and Kenny O’Quinn (mandolin) supports him on a few cuts, the bulk of the recording features one of my very favorite bluegrass bands - Ron Stewart and Harold Nixon.

Ron supplies banjo, mandolin and fiddle on most of the tracks, and adds his guitar and resonator guitar to a few others. His New South bandmate Nixon provides bass on these same tracks, and the effect is quite powerful. I’ve suggested here in the past that Stewart is the most accomplished bluegrass musician of his generation, and those abilities are clearly on display here. He also produced and recorded this project, which has his sparkle all over it.

But Ron’s wizardry is not the main focus here, it’s Webb’s hardcore bluegrass singing and songwriting. A highlight is his grassified reworking of Clinton Gregory’s country hit, (If It Weren’t For Country Music) I’d Go Crazy, which reemerges as If It Weren’t For Bluegrass Music I’d Go Crazy. If you are familiar with the original, the clever retooling of the lyrics will be especially enjoyable.

Audio for Eastern Kentucky is also available on both MySpace and CD Baby.

This weekend those that are able should make plans to attend the ROMP 2007 event in Owensboro, KY. ROMP is the music festival sponsored by the International Bluegrass Music Museum (IBMM), and features a line up that will make you want to be there.

There are over 30 artists scheduled to perform at this year’s event, including Marty Stuart, Del McCoury, Jesse McRynolds, Byron Berline, Dan Crary, Doyle Lawson, Tim O’Brien, The Grascals, Michael Cleveland, and more.

In addition to all the great performances you can expect from this line up, there are other events worth noting. The festival will once again host the Bluegrass Masters Film Festival, Bluegrass Legends Concert, new exhibit openings at the museum, Bluegrass Hall of Honor plaque unveilings, instrument workshops, and a Sunday open house at the museum.

The entire event will be recorded by a joint effort of Kentucky Educational Television (KET) and Rounder Records. The recording will then be televised as part of KET’s Jubilee series and released to DVD in the near future by Rounder.

ROMP takes place June 21-22-23, 2007, in three Owensboro venues.

Indoor performances and exhibits are held at the museum, 117 Daviess Street.

The Legends Concert takes place June 21 next door at the RiverPark Center’s Cannon Hall, 101 Daviess Street.

All outdoor performances are held at Yellow Creek Park, 5710 Highway 144.

Tickets for the three day event are $60 for adults and $35 for seniors and students, and may be purchased online at RiverofMusic.org or by calling 888-MY-BANJO. Single day passes will be available at the event for $25.

All proceeds from the festival are used to fund the IBMM’s Video Oral History Project (VOHP).

This post comes from our semi-regular correspondent, Richard F. Thompson. He writes from England, where he is also a longstanding contributor to British Bluegrass News, a quarterly print publication where he also briefly served as editor.

Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder are to play some dates in the UK at the end of July through to early August. This tour will be immediately preceded with a show in the Republic of Ireland.

The anchor date for this forthcoming tour is Skaggs’s appearance at the BBC Radio 2-sponsored Cambridge Folk Festival, in the Cherry Hinton Hall Grounds, Cambridge, on July 29.

The other dates are as follows …

While in Europe the twelve-times Grammy Award winner and eight-times IBMA Instrumental Group Of The Year Award winners will play a date in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic, on July 27 at Music In The Park in Stromovka Park, Prague.

The venues vary from a 17th century Irish castle, 45 miles from Dublin, to a new 2,350 capacity purpose-built music venue in Greenwich, London, and the grounds of a late Tudor style hall, to a civic hall named after the 10th century founder of a Black Country city.

Ricky Skaggs is a familiar visitor to the UK, as he reminds interviewer Alan Cackett in the July edition of Maverick magazine:

“We came over with Reba McIntire about eight years ago, and that was fun. We have ploughed some pretty deep ground in the UK in the mid-1980s.” Those early tours opened up a new market and have really paid off for him. Skaggs adds, “I love playing in the UK, so much of the music originated in the Celtic regions. I feel like it is part of returning home with some of its music and we have tried to get over there as often as we can.”

“It is going to be a tight ten days of work, but it is going to be a really good tour. It should be fun to play for our friends and neighbours!”

The all-star line-up of Kentucky Thunder includes Andy Leftwich (fiddle), Cody Kilby (lead guitar), Mark Fain (bass), Darrin Vincent (baritone vocals, rhythm guitar), Paul Brewster (tenor vocals, rhythm guitar) and Jim Mills (banjo).

Skaggs’s latest albums are the eponymous collaboration with Bruce Hornsby (Sony/Legacy) and Instrumentals (Skaggs Family).

Earlier this week, our eagle-eyed British correspondent, Richard Thompson, wrote a piece about the erroneous performance credits in the recent Folkways CD reissue of the Country Gentlemen’s live album from 1973, Going Back To The Blue Ridge Mountains. Richard noted that the CD notes show indicate that the recording was from the “classic Country Gentlemen,” with Tom Gray on bass, when it fact the recording was from a later edition of the band, with Ed Ferris on upright.

We wondered at the time whether any readers might have a copy of the original LP, and could let us know how the band is listed there. No luck there, but Richard found the original Bluegrass Unlimited review of Going Back To The Blue Ridge Mountains, and BU editor Sharon McGraw has graciously agreed to allow us to repost it here.

It shows that Ferris is on bass, and I think that modern readers will get a kick out od reading the 1973 review, written by George B. McCeney.

THE COUNTRY GENTLEMEN VOL. 4 - GOING BACK TO THE BLUE RIDGE MOUNTAINS
FOLKWAYS FTS 31031
(Rechanneled stereo)

Going Back To The Blue Ridge Mountains/Going To the races/Dark As A Dungeon/Copper Kettle/Billy In The Low Ground/I Saw The Light/Tom Dooley #2/Brown Mountain Light/Electricity/Daybreak In Dixie/Mary Dear/Sad And Lonesome/Cripple Creek/Don’t This Road Look Rough And Rocky/Muleskinner Blues

Charlie Waller-guitar; John Duffey-mandolin; Eddie Adcock-banjo; Ed Ferris-bass

Today in a time when numerous bluegrass bands are launching out in various directions to establish their uniqueness, it is interesting to reconsider what the Country Gentlemen were during the mid 1960’s, almost ten years ago. This latest Folkways album, and probably the last in a series, gives us some idea. From simply perusing the titles of the songs presented here, one might surmise, if he did not already know the Country Gentlemen, that they were a very traditional bluegrass group. And of course in some respects he would be right, at least as far as the selection of material is concerned. But it is the treatment of the material that sets off the Country Gentlemen from other groups of their day. (Now as well as then.) The instrumental work of John Duffey on “Billy In The Low Ground” or Eddie Adcock on “Azzuro Campana (Blue Bell) could hardly be characterised as “traditional” even though the material is in many cases old. What the Country Gentlemen managed to do rather successfully ten years ago was to take strong traditional material, draw out the essence of its appeal, and then present it to a new bluegrass audience in a form that they could understand. In short they managed to capture the best of both worlds, excellent material presented through flawless instrumental and vocal execution. This “live performance” (there must be a more definitive expression) from sometime in 1964 or 1965 at a folk club attests to what the Country Gentlemen were able to achieve, an accomplishment almost now forgotten in the rush of folk-rock crush at some recent festivals. the Country Gentlemen had a great deal to tell us about the spread of good bluegrass, but it might be distilled down to playing the best material better than anyone else. (Folkways Records, 701 7th Avenue, New York, New York 10036) GBMcC

Review by George B. McCeney Reprinted by permission Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine, Inc. All rights reserved. Copyright September 1973. 1-800-BLU-GRAS. www.bluegrassmusic.com

UPDATE 6/17: Richard Thompson asked us to point out that it was Tom Gray who mentioned to him that he was wrongly credited on the CD reissue, and also that Joe Ross had located the BU review and sent him a copy. We send our thanks to them all.

UPDATE II 6/17: We received the following from a reader, Keith Edwards, who has a copy of the original LP:

I have the original Folkways album that has been discussed for release on CD. The album does not list the band members per se but has the following written on the bottom right hand corner:

“THE COUNTRY GENTLEMEN: Winner of the bulk of the 1972 Muleskinne News Bluegrass Awards, including: Band of the Year, Best Bluegras Singer (Charlie Waller), Best Vocal Group, Best Album of the Year. Folkways presents the original group with Charlie Waller, John Duffey, & Tom Gray (now members of the Seldom Scene), Eddie Adcock (now member of 2nd Generation), and Pete Roberts.”

To me, this explains the error in credits on the CD as information was probably used from the back of the original album cover to create the credits for the reissue.

A lot has been said recently about the increase in performance royalty rates for internet radio webcasters, and during the discussions it was mentioned that traditional broadcast radio is not currently subject to any sort of artist performance royalty. A new group called musicFIRST has coalesced with the stated goal of changing that.

musicFIRST is composed of artists and organizations (SoundExchange and the RIAA are both members) that stand to profit from such a royalty. The royalty in question would be similar to that paid by webcasters, which pays the owner of the sound recording (label) and the performers (artists, bands, and musicians). This would be in addition to the copyright royalty currently being paid to songwriters and publishers.

On this side of the argument, musicFIRST states that the radio industry makes millions of dollars annually from the sale of advertisements to listeners who are tuning in to hear the music, and the stations should not be allowed to build a business on someone else’s product without compensating them.

On the other side, the National Association of Broadcasters argues that radio serves an important role as a marketing avenue for music artists, and that the artists and labels have made millions because people heard them on the radio and decided to purchase a recording. They say the artists and labels should look at is as free promotion and advertising for their product. (more…)

The AT&T blueroom is offering a live video stream from the Bonnaroo festival this weekend (6/15/17) online. You can see the performance schedule they will carry on the Bonnaroo site.

This isn’t a bluegrass event by any stretch, but a number of acts are slated to appear who may be of interest to our readers.

Uncle Earl kicks things off on Friday afternoon at 1:30 p.m. (EDT) with a show from Gillian Welch later this evening. Saturday has Old Crow Medicine Show and String Cheese Incident.

Catch the stream at www.blueroom.att.com.

Takeharu Kunimoto is a popular personality in Japan, where he performs on the shamisen in the traditional rokyoku style, and  works as an actor, storyteller and narrator for children’s movies. He is also an accomplished bluegrass musician, both on the mandolin and on the shamisen.

The shamisen is a somewhat banjo-like instrument, native to Japanese culture, with three strings stretched across a small skin head. Takeharu has developed a fascinating style which draws heavily on Earl Scruggs’ banjo playing, though using a flatpick rather than fingers. He traveled to the US in 2003 to study in the bluegrass music program at East Tennessee State University, which is where he first attracted some attention in this country.

This next two weeks, he is again visiting in the United States, and touring with the bluegrass band from ETSU, The Last Frontier. Takeharu joins the band on shamisen, on a blend of familiar bluegrass songs and his own unique bluegrass instrumentals. They have shows in New Jersey this weekend, and in Virginia, Georgia and Tennessee next week before heading to Japan for two weeks of performances there.

This morning’s edition of The Roanoke Times has a story about him and this tour which can be accessed online.

Kunimoto heard bluegrass on a Japanese radio station as a teenager in 1973, and he saw the genre’s progenitor, Bill Monroe, during a tour of Japan the next year. Bluegrass has a small but passionate following in Japan, where several festivals bring as many as 100 Japanese bluegrass bands together.

You can find their tour schedule on Takeharu’s MySpace page, along with audio samples of his “Japanese banjo” playing. The shows are sure to be lively and entertaining, and worth your time if you live near one of their tour stops.

Grasstowne will be featured on today’s (6/15) edition of The Blue Plate Special on WDVX FM. The show airs at noon, eastern time, and runs for an hour.

They will be performing songs from their debut CD, The Road Headin’ Home, due for release on Pinecastle Records August 7. It has recently shipped to radio, so you may have started hearing tracks from this project already if you listen to bluegrass broadcasts. The CD can be purchased now from the band, but will not be available in stores until August.

As we’ve mentioned before when bluegrass acts have appeared, WDVX broadcasts from Knoxville, TN at 89.9 FM, and listeners worldwide can catch the show via live streaming from the WDVX web site. The station does not archive these live shows, so be sure to tune in when it airs later today at noon.

Just Us, from Etowah, TN, will also appear on today’s show.

The latest issue of The Fretboard Journal is in stores now, and should be arriving in subscribers mailboxes as well. This is the Summer 2007 issue from the quarterly publication.

This issue’s cover story is B.B. King, but there are several other stories that will be of interest to us bluegrass fans. One of which is the tale of the founding of the David Grisman Quintet. There is also a story, replete with photos, of Pete Ross’ gourd banjos, a story about the creation of Martin’s OM model, and a piece about how Tommy Ramone traded in his drum sticks for a mandolin. This is just a sampling of the many articles and interviews included in the magazine, but these are probably the ones of most interest to the bluegrass community.

The Fretboard Journal is a coffee table quality magazine with glossy pages and stellar photos. If you’ve never seen a copy, I suggest you head over to your favorite bookstore/magazine rack and check out this latest issue.

The Grascals will be part of a Friday broadcast on GAC TV, captured live at the CMA Music Fest in Nashville.

The band’s web site says that the show is on at 8:00 and 11:00 p.m. on June 15, but the GAC site shows 10:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. It may repeat the same show again at 8:00. GAC should be running promos that clarify the schedule, and the show in question is the one that also features The Road Hammers.

All times shown are eastern.

What better way for a bluegrass fan to celebrate Father’s Day than with the music of the Father of Bluegrass, Bill Monroe?

That’s exactly what the folks at Sirius Satellite radio’s bluegrass channel (65) think. They will feature wall-to-wall Monroe music from Saturday (6/16) at 9:00 a.m. until Sunday (6/17) at 9:00 p.m. Both his own recordings, and other artists’ interpretations of the music of Bill Monroe will be included, along with background and commentary from the channels hosts, Chris Jones and Ned Luberecki.

As they say on their site:

No Bill, No Bluegrass. Know Bill, Know Bluegrass!

The newest set of live performance and interview videos added at CMT.com’s Studio 330 Sessions features Chris Thile. He performs alone, minus his crack band, The Tensions Mountain Boys.

The songs included are all from his latest release, How To Grow A Woman From The Ground: Stay Away, Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground, Wayside (Back In Time) and The Beekeeper.

Chris also talks about several of the songs in detail, how the CD was recorded, and the now familiar story of the future of Nickel Creek.

Watch it all at the Studio 360 Sessions site - unless you are on a Mac, which is not supported at CMT.com.

UPDATE 6/15: We understand from some readers who have been able to watch this video that it does, indeed, feature The Tensions Mountain Boys after all.

The Early Show on CBS is sponsoring a series of six concerts this summer with different artists. It’s all part of the Great American Vacation series. The six artists booked for the concert series are quite disparate and include such rock stars as Hootie & the Blowfish, and country outlaws Big & Rich. Add to that, bluegrass legend Ricky Skaggs in collaboration with pianist Bruce Hornsby.

Skaggs and Hornsby take the stage for CBS on July 13th in Raleigh, NC. The pair will be backed by Skaggs’ band Kentucky Thunder, and will perform songs from their self-titled duet album which we’ve told you about previously.

The duo is on a west coast tour for the remainder of this month, but after June they only have the CBS show and one other for the remainder of the summer. They will go back out together later this fall for another tour, and I’m told they already have more dates booked together for 2008.

Skaggs’ schedule shows him and Kentucky Thunder with a full line up of bluegrass festivals and shows for the summer period between the two Hornsby tours. So if you need a Kentucky Thunder bluegrass fix you should be able to find it this summer.

The Infamous Stringdusters will soon start offering live show audio downloads from their MySpace page, and are asking fans to help them decide which tracks to include.

You can post a comment on their MySpace blog to suggest a song, which bass man Travis Book says will be showing up any day now.

Travis says that they will pick the top 2 or 3 songs based on fan input, which will only be available as downloads for a few days after being posted. Keep an eye on www.myspace.com/stringdusters for their appearance.

The European Bluegrass Music Association has released some numbers on their recent European World Of Bluegrass events, which took place May 17-19 in Voorthuizen, the Netherlands. In this, their tenth annual festival, ticket sales were up by 20% over 2006, with similar impressive gate increases at other European bluegrass festivals during the month of May.

The official post-event press release from EBMA lists several otehr newsworthy items about EWOB ‘07, many of which have already been reported here on The Bluegrass Blog.

They also show the dates for the 2008 festival as being May 1-3, again in Voorthuizen.

You can access the rest of the details on the EBMA site.

Virginia based bluegrass band Nothin’ Fancy will be performing at the grand opening of a new attraction at Shenandoah Caverns. On Fathers Day, June 17, 2007, Shenandoah Caverns opens The Yellow Barn.

The Yellow Barn will feature restored antique farm wagons, equipment, carriages and vehicles, an indoor bee hive, a mineral cave, a wine shop, and a country store gift shop featuring Virginia arts and crafts. The attraction is designed to give visitors a glimpse of the historically rich agricultural and rural life of Virginia.

It seems appropriate then, that a bluegrass band would be on hand to entertain visitors on the opening day. Nothin’ Fancy will perform two concerts, one at 12:30 PM and another at 4 PM. The shows will be on a large 24 foot rotating stage in the center of the 15,000 square foot building. Tickets for the shows are $15 each and can be purchased online through JamBaseTickets.com.

The annual IBMA convention is right around the corner and people from all over the world are starting to make their plans to attend this year’s event.

We recently received news of an Australian radio DJ who will be attending on a grant from IBMA’s International Outreach Program. Geoff Morris, from Bendigo, Australia, hosts a weekly bluegrass radio show in his native Australia. Last year Morris applied for the IBMA grant to attend the week long World of Bluegrass event, but he was not awarded a grant. He came anyway with the help of some supporters, but due to a fall, ended up in the emergency room in Nashville and missed much of the event.

Morris applied again this year, and received a grant from IBMA to attend. Normally the grant would probably be sufficient to cover expenses, but Geoff Morris is blind and requires additional funds to help cover the costs of an assistant and seeing eye dog while traveling. He’s also hoping to extend his stay in the states to take in some other bluegrass events and opportunities.

Hope River Entertainment is coordinating an effort to assist Geoff with these expenses. You can find more information about Geoff and how you can help by visiting HopeRiverEntertainment.com.