September/October 2010

Remember, our first ever "Christmas In August" website sale ends at midnight on Tuesday, August 31st.

While it's too early to tell yet, it's looking like the website sale raised a net of at least seven thousand dollars for the Pearl Foundation. Nice going, folks!! In addition to that, as promised, Pat and I will be making a donation-in-kind to Nashville Public Television for every NPT Living Room Concert sold, and since we sold out, that's a good thing!!!

Special thanks go to Joan Maute, who handmade all the LRC DVD's as well as our Master Class in St. Augustine sets. From artwork to packaging, these "homemade" items have been a roaring success, and we hope to offer more of the LRC disks around the winter holiday season.

Special thanks also to Kyser Capos and Planet Waves Tuners, both of which will be sold out by the time we revert over to the regular Shopping Mall.

About those tour schedule postponements and changes... Back when I first started performing again, around 1990, I injured my left hand pretty badly while on tour in Japan. Unfortunately, it took the better part of a year for the doctors to really find out what was going on, and the injury left me with permanent problems. Many of you know that I stopped playing piano onstage due to my inability to stretch the fingers on that hand, and the danger of re-injury if I forgot myself and really bore down. Even with the guitar, I have ice packs in the dressing room and at the signing table so I can "cool it down" after a show.

When I developed "trigger finger" in the middle finger recently, I was going to ignore it, until my friend Michael Johnson said he'd done that and his finger had "locked down" on him mid-tour, in the middle of nowhere. Based on that and my surgeon's concern that disregarding it might result in further injury - not to mention my pain level - I decided to go ahead with surgery last month, trusting that I'd be able to play a full show by September. Unfortunately, my surgeon discovered on the day that not one, but two of my fingers were affected. While the surgery went well, recovery has been much slower than any of us had anticipated, necessitating daily physical therapy and severe limitations in what I can do with that hand right now - including playing. I have a great team, and I have every confidence that I'll soon be right as rain, but in the meanwhile, I had to blow out six weeks' worth of obligations. While most could be re-scheduled, several could not, including the Iowa Women's Festival. As heartsick as I am about that, there's nothing else I could do, and I hope I have your patience and understanding.

In my entire 45-year career, I've cancelled less than ten shows, all because I was hospitalized at the time. I'd hoped to finish my career with that "record" intact, but apparently, it's not to be. I know many of you can sympathize with how frustrating this is to me, whose playing is integral to her writing, performing, and being.

But. Life goes on. As I keep reminding myself, it could be much worse. And I have every confidence I'll be seeing you all later this fall, when my hand no longer looks like the Pillsbury Dough Boy's and I'm playing my heart out again!

Thanks for being a part of the sale, and for all your support.

Janis

P.S. Check out Angela Aki's fantastic job - first time singing it in public, too! - on our recent piece "Every Woman's Song"!! And you can find the lyrics here.

• Previous Updates
• March 1, 2014
• November 15, 2013
• September 8, 2013
• August 1, 2013
• May 28, 2013
• February 20, 2013
• December 1, 2012
• October 5, 2012
• July 12, 2012
• May 8, 2012
• April 6, 2012
• January 10, 2012
• December 2, 2011
• November 15, 2011
• July 28, 2011
• July 1, 2011
• May 18, 2011
• February 18, 2011
• End Of Year 2010
• November 2010
• September 2010
• August 2010
• April 1, 2008
• August 2003
• July 2003