Happy Interdependence Day

Thank you with all my heart to the people of Finland, Italy, Switzerland and France for a great last pre-baby European Tour! It has been so wonderful to see many of my now, long time friends traveling from all over Europe to join me.

It's also been great to rock out with Jon, Walter & Piero again, as well bringing some new blood to the stage, like Nicola Venturini and Marco Galiero.After a couple of great days off at the lake and zoo in Zurich, CH, I made a quick stop in the gorgeous, medieval city of Avignon, FR, Then I took a little vacation, aka Babymoon, back in Italy on the Tyrrhenian Sea near Piero Perelli's home town of Lucca! 

Me and the boys ended our stay in Italy on July 5th, with a homemade pizza party courtesy of Papa Perelli, followed by a full band jam at The Perelli's beautiful, Tuscan home!

Next, I headed to Ekenäs, Finland where I just did a live appearance on Radio Nostalgia in Helsinki.

I'm doing more press Friday and then we will rock our last European show at 

BossaNova Blues and Rock Festival on Saturday July 9th.

My welcome back to gorgeous Finland was a gourmet dinner prepared by our host and festival organizer, Chef Kristian Karnell at his impeccable lakeside restaurant, Bossa Nova, with his wife Sara and father Kurt joining us. Kristian's theme for the fest is, "no junk food" and they're setting up champagne and wine tents!

 
 

Lastly, I'm headed back home to the USA for the final state-side shows before Mama-hood! 

07-14-16 Callahan’s Music Hall – Auburn Hills, MI USA - Show 7:30pm Tickets

07-15-16 Bluesfest Windsor – Windsor, ON Canada - Show 11:25pm Tickets

07-16-16 Peter’s Players – Gravenhurst, ON Canada - Show 8:00pm Tickets

07-17-16 Belle Bash – Mayville, NY USA - Show 8:00pm Tickets

07-27-16 Iridium – New York, NY USA - Show 8:00pm Tickets

I'm so sorry that I had to let go of the August dates but it was doctor's orders not to be performing away from home just two weeks before my due date! I guess I was being overly ambitious and it certainly didn't help my case that the doctor watched my videos on YouTube ;-)

It's been almost surreal to travel through Europe for another summer, something I've done now every year since 2009, but this time with the company of my unborn baby boy, who's growing in me rapidly and kicking up a storm.

Knowing he's with me has been quite comforting on this tour, especially the late nights alone where I lie awake from jet-lag missing my recently departed mother, father and brothers so profoundly. Especially my mother. It's so strange not to share all of my travel details with her and not to be sending her photos on this tour.
But now, I imagine someday, I'll get to share these experiences with my child. I'm already starting to see the world a bit differently as I project it through his future perspective and his experiences yet to come. Such feelings of wonder, fear, beauty, excitement and at times sadness, all crowd my heart. How interesting that this myriad of feelings all culminate into a sort of peaceful calm which I haven't quite known before. Likely, because I have no idea what the near or distant future holds. Actually, I never did, it's just now even more apparent that I have no control and no clue...what a relief! :-)

Thank you all for helping me keep my chin up and my heart open through such a bizarre journey of love, loss and life. A journey we all take. How wonderful to take it together with you. 

I'm forever grateful and my heart is deeply moved by the notion of sharing with my son the stories of my great journey with all of you. Most definitely to be continued...

Now time for Chapter Two.

Love, Joy and Immense Gratitude,

Dana

TAKING TIME OFF...FOR LIFE!

“Electric word life , that means forever - and that’s a mighty long time.  But I’m here to tell you..there’s something else..."  Prince Rogers Nelson (June 7, 1958 – April 21, 2016) 

A BABY!  That’s right I’m taking time off for “life,” not as in forever, but as in a baby boy, whom I’ll be bringing into this world come September.

As many of you know, over the past 5 years I’ve been forced to cancel a lot of shows due to a series off losses that began years ago with my sister Donna and subsequently back to back deaths of my brother Don, followed by my father, followed by my brother Dan and just last month, my beloved mother.  So here I am just losing a mother while becoming one.  So deeply strange and beautiful.

I’m as shocked as probably some of you are.  By now, I sort of figured I’d live a life without children and was feeling ok with that.  Yet,as death came knocking again too soon for another dear loved one, life too, was fighting to prevail.  To be honest, my first thought was “what awful timing” until my dear Italian friend and agent Luisa Parelli so beautifully wrote to me,  “You could do nothing better than life to battle death, and having a kid is simply finding one of the reasons we come to this world which is not so clear often!!!!!”  (Thanks for that Luisa).

That said, I’m absolutely terrified and now even more ready to come see so many of my dear friends and homes all over the world one more time before “the end of the world as I know it!”  So, as I list the last shows of the year below, please consider coming to bless this new little life that’s tagging along in my belly, and to celebrate ALL LIFE, past, present and future together in our Rock and Roll Church of Love.

Fear not, I plan to spend the most likely sleepless, downtime this autumn and winter making a new body of music that’s been brewing in me all year.  Then, I plan to bring this wee one all over the world (within healthy reason of course) to see the many beautiful places and meet the many incredible people I’ve been so very fortunate to have encountered.  

Until then, I’ll look forward to seeing you all this June, July and August.  My dear friend and clothing designer, Gayatri Jolly is making my big-belly shirts right now, while still devoting her time to the women in the slums of India teaching them to sew and be self-sufficient.

(What a Goddess!)

Thank you all for allowing me to share yet another of life’s twists & turns through sadness and joy with you.

I look forward to seeing you soon starting in the USA next weekend and then back to Europe starting with a “home” I haven’t been to in a while, which was my very first foreign country to ever visit and will now officially be the first foreign country for my baby boy, ITALY!!!  

So here’s where to find me, Y’all…..I sure hope you will.  

Love, Dana

BAREFOOT AND PREGNANT TOUR 2016

(click links for tickets)

MAY 2016

05-22-16    Chesapeake Bay Blues Festival - Annapolis, MD USA 1:25pm

JUNE 2016

06-11-16    The Levoy Theater  - Millville, NJ USA with Devon Allman!  8:00pm 

06-12-16    B.B. King’s  - New York, NY USA 8:00pm 

06-16-16    Mexicali Live - Teaneck, NJ  USA with Peter Diamond!  8:00pm 

06-24-16    Piazza Matteotti - Torrita di Siena, Italy 10:00pm 

06-25-16    Bergamo Italy - Time TBA

06-26-16    Sconfinart Music - Suzzara Mantova, Italy 10:00pm

06-27-16    New Orleans Meets Zofingen Festival - Zofingen, Switzerland 5:00pm  

06-28-16    Z7 Konzertfabrik  - Pratteln, Switzerland 8:00pm

JULY 2016

07-02-16    La Nuit du Blues de Cabanes - Les Arènes Municipales de Cabanes, France 10:30pm

07-04-16    Grosseto Music Festival - Grosseto, Italy 9:30pm

07-09-16    Bossa Nova Blues & Rock Festival - Ekenäs, Finland 8:00pm

07-14-16    Callahan’s Music Hall - Auburn Hills, MI USA  7:30pm

07-15-16    Bluesfest Windsor  - Windsor, ON Canada  11:25pm

07-16-16    Peter’s Players  - Gravenhurst, ON Canada  8:00pm 

AUGUST 2016

08-13-16   Ram’s Head - Annapolis, MD USA 1:15pm

08-13-16   Sellersville Theater - Sellersville, PA USA 9:00pm 

08-14-16   Heritage Music BluesFest - Wheeling, WV USA Time TBA

Never Buy Green Bananas: A Reflection of Grief and Gratitude

First, I want to thank all of you for the incredibly inspiring, loving and comforting notes and posts with your condolences.  I wanted to wait to post again until I’d read every last one of them.  What struck me most is how many of you have also been down the road of such loss and grief.  It was so connective and healing to read of your experiences and I'm beyond grateful to you all for sharing.  There’s a Buddhist meditation called, “Taking and Giving,” where we take the pain we are experiencing and we imagine the countless other beings going through a similar pain and situation, thereby taking on their suffering, and imagining that we are emitting back waves of love and compassion to them.  It’s so powerful to connect in this way, much the same as the posts from those of you who had gone through the loss of a mother. I was able to focus on love and compassion for us all rather than the grief of just my own loss.  That is what comforts me to sleep every night.

Today is my mother’s birthday and I was supposed to be in Florida celebrating her life with family.  Instead, I flew down weeks ago last minute and spent the last 11 days of her life next to her in the intensive care unit.  We still shared stories, meals, tears and laughter.  However, I never guessed “this was it."  We never do, for ourselves or our loved ones.  One of the things she said to me in the hospital laughing was, "Never buy green bananas.”

I knew exactly what she meant, yet I was still determined to throw her that birthday party, determined to get her home, where she was so determined to be.  Her sheer will had her up and walking to show the doctors she was ready, just hours before she left us.

I often say on stage that home is where the heart truly is. By that, I mean it’s about bringing our heart to every person, place and situation we encounter.  Well, the days following my mom’s passing we spent cleaning out her home, the home she raised her six children in. The home she was so determined to get back to. The home that had, stashed in every drawer and closet, every card her children ever sent or made, every school art project, every award.  Seeing it so empty without a visible trace of those years certainly took a huge piece of my heart, that will remain there frozen in a time of the past, before life’s tragedies stepped in claiming her eldest daughter, her two eldest sons and the only love of her life for 60 years, my father.  The home that will someday have the life of another family and their story imprinting itself upon those walls.

Now my mother’s home is in my heart forever.  On some level, I feel that she’s able to be with me even more than her physical restrictions would ever allow these past few years.  I try to take comfort in that.  In fact, when I finally came home after the longest few weeks of my life, I stepped into my NYC apt and gave her a tour, even officially introducing her to my kitties whom she always loved hearing about and seeing in the pictures I shared.  (Of course they all just looked at me puzzled, meowing for their tin of Fancy Feast to be opened.)

To sum it all up, my mother was by far the most selfless person I’ve ever known.  Sometimes to a fault, but never selfishly selfless, just selfless.  I will be forever grateful to her for the the endless memories of late night talks, Scrabble games, movie dates, roller skating dates, baking lessons, patching my clothes, making ridiculous punk rock outfits for me, all the creative made-up children’s stories, (which she later wrote down and I just found) and of course, her unconditional love and support.  The kind only a mother can really give.

My mother had nothing “valuable” per se in the house, so my brothers and I each took keepsakes.  For me, it was her teenage diary, love letters to my father, photos of her youth and this wacky rocking chair that she rocked all of her six children in, with me being the last.  :-)  I also kept her wedding band, which she gave to me in the hospital as her fingers began to swell with fluid.  I immediately put it on the chain next to the heart she had given me for my birthday this year.  Now, a symbol to me that our hearts are locked together in all eternity for countless lifetimes to come.  

I thank you all for allowing me to share this unbelievable life journey with you and for sharingyours with me.  

While I’ve lately felt it seems impossible to ever get on stage again, I also know that this is who I am and what I do, and exactly what my mother would expect of me.  She so loved hearing my stories of travel throughout the world and even met some of you who made a pilgrimage to meet her in person, (from as far away as Germany) and those of you who became pen pals.  It was such an honor to share this part of my life with her.  
She was proud of me and all of you are a huge part of my mother’s pride.  What a gift you are.

So today, I still grieve, but I also feel so much gratitude.  I will look forward to resuming my show commitments starting in late May, after some much needed quiet time.  I will look forward to connecting our hearts ever more deeply as I see you and bring my mother to finally meet you.

Of course, we never really know who of us will actually be here by then or even for another day, so let’s be sure to remember that with everyone we encounter, especially our loved ones.  

And by the way, I've never had the patience to buy green bananas anyway.  ;-)

With My Most Committed and Connected Heart of Love,

Dana

Taking My Chances In The Wild West!

 

In my home country, I'm often asked, "Why do you tour more in Europe than you do in The United States?"  The simple answer is because Europe sort of 'found and embraced' me first, and has since kept calling on me, year after year, a lot of times offering tour dates a year in advance!  That's humbling to me and a real honor and privilege in this biz! 

The European audience took a chance on me, allowing me to really "grow up" on stage in front of them. With each growing audience, I feel I've grown a little more as an artist and as a human being.  I still most certainly have a long way to go, but that's become the truly meaningful part of this road life.  People of Europe, I remain eternally grateful to you for your undying love and support.  I will be back soon enough with a new album and a whole new story to share! Stay tuned! 

Now it's time for me to take a chance here in my own back yard per se and I sure hope I can count on all of you here at home to take a chance on me too!  

That's why, this winter and spring, I took a break from some of my favorite European people and places to take that leap back home again on the West Coast of the USA. 

It was almost exactly one year ago that I had the pleasure of playing Los Angeles for only the second time in my life, then I got to play in other great cities, such as, San Francisco, Seattle, Yakima, Portland and Tacoma for the very first time.  That tour happened just weeks after the shocking loss of my dear brother Daniel, which absolutely wrecked me.  

But the reception was such a wonderful, empowering surprise to me.  I figured that so many of you would have no idea who I was, and yet I was so delighted and surprised by how many of you actually DID!  I lit up when I saw so many of you singing along with my songs and even wearing my out-of-print t-shirts at each show!   

Be still a girl's happy, humbled heart!  What a way to heal. 

Now, here I go again on this still rocky road of unfamiliar terrain, believing with all my heart that I made the right call taking a chance on my own great country and coming back to you beautiful West Coast souls!

So here's where to find me and I look forward to rocking your soul and embracing you again, or meeting you for the first time!  

USA West Coast Tour – TICKETS FOR ALL SHOWS ON SALE NOW!

03-09-16 The Coach House - San Juan Capistrano, CA Doors 6pm / Show 8pm Tickets

03-10-16 Sainte Rocke - Hermosa Beach, CA Doors 6pm / Show 8pm Tickets

03-11-16 Biscuits and Blues  - San Francisco, CA Doors 9pm / Show 10pm Tickets

03-12-16 Biscuits and Blues - San Francisco, CA Doors 9pm / Show 10pm Tickets

03-13-16 Sutter Creek Theater - Sutter Creek, CA Doors 6pm / Show 7pm Tickets

03-15-16 Jazz Alley - Seattle, WA Doors 6pm / Show 7:30pm Tickets

03-16-16 Jazz Alley - Seattle, WA Doors 6pm / Show 7:30pm Tickets

03-17-16 The Birk - Birkenfeld, OR Doors 5pm / Show 7pm Tickets

03-19-16 Coeur d’Alene Blues Festival  - Coeur d’Alene, ID 4:30pm - 12am! Tickets  

There's no me without YOU! That means all of you! USA, Europe and the rest of you beautiful people in the rest of this beautiful world who I can't wait to meet! 

All My Love & Gratitude, 

Dana

Dana Fuchs "Broken Down" Tour Important Announcement!

I am so very sorry to say that I have to end the European tour early with the last show being on October 20.

As many of you know, my family and I have been through a lot of tragic loss very recently and now I need to take some time off to deal with some pressing matters of heart and health.  

Please know that it PAINS me to cancel.  I have pushed through each loss and continued touring each time, but this time I truly cannot.  I'm so sorry.

When the dates are rescheduled, you all will be the first to know.  Meanwhile, I do hope to see many of you on the tour now in Norway, Denmark, Switzerland and at my last two German shows (for a while.) 

Please join me on October 19th in Aschaffenburg, DE at Colos-Saal and October 20th in Bensheim, DE at Musiktheater Rex to continue to celebrate our very precious human lives together and end the year stompin' and sweating in our Church of Love and Music!

On what may seem to be a separate note, but I assure you is not, after I say a heartfelt thank you to all of you for getting me through such dark days and continuing to celebrate life with me these past few years, I also feel tremendously compelled to say thank you to author Katherine Boo, for her doctrine into a realm of human suffering I have been only loftily aware of, and for the most part shielded from, which is so starkly depicted in her beautiful and tragic book, "Behind The Beautiful Forevers".

I discovered this book 2 years ago thanks to a woman who reads this blog, in particular an entry I wrote about my week in Mumbai and my 5 days visiting the Annawadi Slum that Katherine Boo writes about.  A slum only minutes from my luxury hotel.  A hotel that so many of the slum dwellers only dream of being given, at best, the opportunity to fold napkins and steal garbage from the many dumpsters.  

The lessons from that trip were just a small whetting of my appetite to "know sufferings," yet I've still found myself feeling a seemingly fortunate sense of separation from what such a hell realm must really feel like.  

Katherine Boo so generously and dutifully covers this particular slum without even changing the names of her precious characters, like Asha, Adbul and Sunil, and I keep peeling back more layers of the indelible mark it has left on me and the ways in which it manifests that force me, at least for a fraction of a second, to recognize the preciousness of my own human life.  

Starting with the smallest things, like not wanting to just "toss" the extra condiments or utensils from my take out supper, because I know now that little Sunil, the 12 yr old malnourished orphan whose biggest hope is to grow a few inches taller and stay alive by scavenging this "trash" from treacherously death-defying and revolting places so he can sell it for maybe 50¢ a day to those only marginally more fortunate, would simply never have the luxury of such carelessness.  One person's trash is indeed another person's treasure.

I am now taking a series of flights and long drives on a tour that I've had to almost cut in half and I'm feeling the pressure of disappointed agents and promoters, the financial loss that impacts mostly me and my band and to all of you who have faithfully bought tickets and told your friends to come and planned for the dates!  I'm so sorry.  

All of this is reeling through my head as I sit stuffed in a tiny narrow coach class seat, poor me because I didn't get my upgrade, while under-appreciating the vegetarian pasta that I would normally call "pathetic" but now have the almost inconvenient awareness of how Sunil would likely give his life to have just one "rich person experience," as the slum kids call flying and this meal would be a FEAST for him and his entire family, so I stop my mind from going to this selfish luxury of dissatisfaction.  

Ok I know, we have all heard and rolled our eyes over the whole, "eat all of your dinner because children are starving in Africa" speech.  But the fact is, by now we all know that humans and animals ARE starving and suffering grave conditions everywhere. 

What if we stopped to contemplate this in a way that takes it from "an old cliche" that we've heard again and again and instead begin to check in with ourselves to see if it has really sufficiently moved our heart in a way that evokes and inspires change?  Small change, like asking the restaurant to hold the condiments and utensils.  Wasting less and appreciating more.  Patiently accepting life's "curve balls" knowing that for many of us, they are almost always "luxury problems."  

Can we make room in our hearts, not by dismissing our own suffering, but rather through our own suffering, can we contemplate ways to find empathy for everyone's suffering?

I can't help but wonder what impact this would have if we all just tried a tiny bit more to be conscious of that for all living beings.  

"Behind the Beautiful Forevers" keeps reminding me of just how much truth there is in the phrase, "a little goes a long way."

Anyway, as I am forced to cancel the last few weeks of this tour in order to be present for the "suffering" of others, my heart is moved with gratitude that I have the blessing of choice.

Lastly, I have released a new album.  Advance copies are available at my online store by clicking here.

The title says it all, "Broken Down". It is not only reflective of how the songs are recorded but also speaks to the heartache and perseverance of the last two decades of my music career. 

A career that thanks to you all, has steadily built over these recent years of touring non-stop and gives me a place to let it all out!  The album has been officially dedicated to my late family members and to all of you who celebrate life with me at every show.

Thank you all for not only being a part of my story but helping me to create it and for your unending love and support.  

I look forward to continuing to celebrate life, love, pain and joy with you.

Love,

Dana