What are Red Wine up to?

Quite a lot, as can be seen from their summer schedule; three weeks ago our friends from Genoa (or, as they will have it, 'Genova') played at the big La Roche Bluegrass Festival in France, and they have six dates in the present month.

Red Wine have played more than once in the past at the Appalachian and Bluegrass Music Festival at the Ulster American Folk Park, Omagh, Co. Tyrone. Unfortunately for us, that's not possible this year - they've also toured regularly in the USA since 1995, and when the 24th Omagh festival is on (4-6 Sept.) they'll be playing at the Delaware Valley Bluegrass Festival in Woodstown, NJ, as part of a US tour lasting a further week. Read this preview on Ted Lehmann's 'Bluegrass, books, and brainstorms' blog.

A fine photo of them with the legendary Peter Rowan heads the new EBMA website. Mandolinist and lead singer Martino Coppo is on the EBMA board of directors, with special care for the awards system; and banjoist/luthier Silvio Ferretti remains (for the BIB editor's money) one of the best and funniest writers in English anywhere in the world on bluegrass music. Silvio's son Marco Ferretti, guitarist in RW, also plays banjo in 0039 - Bluegrass Made In Italy, where one of his bandmates is Luca Bartolini, the previous RW guitarist.