• September 5th
  Vacaville, CA
  USA
• September 11th
  Venice, CA
  USA
• more dates

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The European tour originally scheduled for November 2010 has been postponed to early 2011. New dates will be posted as soon as they are confirmed.

Video is available until Saturday, July 31 and only in the UK

Audio is avaiable worldwide until Saturday, July 31

Podcast is downloadable worldwide

Gretchen will be a guest on Terry Wogan's Weekend Wogan tomorrow (Sunday) 25 July at 11:00AM UK time. The show is broadcast on Radio 2 in front of a live audience, and is also filmed for the Radio 2 Weekend Wogan website. Unfortunately the video is restricted to UK users, so US fans will not be able to watch, but will still be able to hear the show live and on demand, and download the podcast. You can listen to the programme live on Sunday morning, then for the following seven days on-demand. Gretchen will be performing 3 songs in the first hour, between 11AM and noon UK time.

Gretchen is one of the artists who participated in NPR's latest "Hey Ladies" music project - in which NPR asked hundreds of working women musicians to describe what it's like right now: the good, the bad and the same as it ever was. To read more about the project and see the responses, click here. To read Gretchen's full questionaire, click here. Gretchen's responses are also featured in the collections "The First Time" and "Old School/New School", "Advice", and "Gear".

By popular demand, we're bringing back the Secret Of Life coffee mugs we sold on the road a few years ago. But they're sorely in need of a style update. A fan on Twitter suggested that instead of using a professional artist, we ask you to come up with a design - what a great idea! So all of you who are talented artists, designers or dabblers in things graphic, please send us your ideas!

The Fine Print: Your design should be one color, sized for a standard diner mug. It should contain the phrase "The secret of life is a good cup of coffee". Please send only high res JPGs, TIFFs, or GIFs. By entering this contest you are giving us the right to reproduce your design on a commercially available mug for no financial consideration. If a winning design is chosen, winner will receive a personalized, autographed copy of the CD of his or her choice, and a pair of mugs. Winner will also receive gratitude, kudos, virtual high-fives, and his or her photo (if desired) in a future newsletter.

Email your entry!

To all our friends from the UK who donated money during the recent Circus Girl - Without A Net tour, I want to pass along this thank-you from The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee:

Dear Gretchen -

Thanks for helping to organize this collection of funds for The Community Foundation's flood relief efforts.  We are so appreciative!
 
The money raised while on tour in the U.K. has been donated to The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee, a non-profit organization in Nashville, TN that is working with the community to address its immediate and long-term needs from the May 2010 floods.  The Community Foundation is collecting donations and making grants to non-profit organizations working on the frontlines who are providing direct services and have established systems in place to assess needs and get help to the people who need it.
 
Please pass along our thanks to Gretchen's fans for their generosity!
 
Best,
Jennifer
 
Jennifer Schwartzenberg
The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee

Gretchen and Barry Walsh will be appearing on Bill Cody's WSM-AM morning show at 9AM Thursday morning. You can listen here: WSM-AM

Gretchen's session with Ricky Ross on "Another Country" airs tonight on BBC Radio Scotland.

Someone sent me this YouTube video and I thought it was great. Enjoy.

"Summer People" is featured in The Alternate Root's "Endless Summer" sampler. It's a free download - click on the link to get all 24 tracks.

For this latest and very welcomed UK tour, the Nashville-based singer and her keyboardist and backing vocalist partner Barry Walsh came up with a simple but very clever solution.

They asked her fans to compile the set list by leaving suggestions on her websites as to the songs she should sing at each gig...

To read the full review, click here

"Summer People" has been selected as a finalist in The Alternate Root's Endless Summer Reader's Poll. To vote, go to The Alternate Root's Songs of Summer. Finalists will be included on the free summer sampler.

John Boy - Brad Mehldau

Rainy Night In Georgia - Hem

Early Morning Rain - Eva Cassidy

I'm On A Roll - Over The Rhine

Oh Cumberland - Matraca Berg

Without Jesus Here With Me - Holly Williams

The Ballad Of El Goodo - Big Star

Buckets Of Rain - Neko Case

Every Time It Rains - Randy Newman

Box Of Rain - Grateful Dead

Why Does It Always Rain On Me - Travis

Dreamville - Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers

We’re Gonna Pull Through - Over The Rhine

Still Learning How To Fly - Rodney Crowell

Birds - Holly Williams

Let Him Fly - Patty Griffin

As you may have already heard, a major flood this past weekend has devastated Nashville. 52 counties in Tennessee have been declared disaster areas and need help. Shelters are at capacity, missing people are unaccounted for, homes and businesses are under water, there's a water conservation emergency, and much of the Midstate's economic base is threatened by flood damage. So far,  the national media has woefully underreported this. US Army Corps of Engineers has called this a "1000 year flood" - it is a major disaster. PLEASE donate what you can to the Red Cross (link below) or text 'REDCROSS' to 90999 to donate $10 to disaster relief.

In addition, we will be setting up a tip jar at our upcoming UK shows for our British friends who want to help. I've spoken to so many fans in the UK who love Nashville and either have visited or dream of visiting one day. This is a chance for them to help a city which has given so much music to the world.

We look forward to seeing all of you "across the pond", and hope we can come back with a nice gift for the Middle Tennessee Red Cross.

x

Gretchen

Minton Sparks contributed a few paragraphs in Marshall Chapman's latest newsletter about our recent collaboration, "The Killer Next Door". Click on the link to read her entry and hear the song.

Click on the link to read the feature. Also includes a free download of the track "Ghost".

PureHMV have exclusively been given access to a selection of gigs where a pure member and guest will meet Gretchen before she performs, receive VIP tickets and have their favourite Gretchen Peters song dedicated to them!

Five rewards are available for five separate concerts:

GLASGOW - KING TUTS on 14th May 2010

LONDON - THE TABERNACLE on 19th May 2010

WAVENDON - THE STABLES on 22nd May 2010

BRISTOL - THE TUNNELS on 23rd May 2010

CAMBRIDGE - JUNCTION on 25th May 2010

Before redeeming your reward, please be sure you have selected the correct show in the correct city! Reward not available for all shows.

Click here to see this morning's performance on Fox Good Day Atlanta.

I'll be appearing on the Fox Network's Good Day Xtra show this Thursday morning at 9AM EDT. If you're in the Atlanta area, tune into Fox 5, or click here for the Good Day Xtra website.

From the TuneCore blog: In this week’s COREnered, we trade verses with Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Gretchen Peters. Peters’s gift for flawlessly merging notes and lyrics results in stories that continue to touch fans and fellow artists around the world. Read on to find out about her unusual dream collaboration, and why she considers music her “comfort food.”

Our good friend Brian Clough, of euVue, The North East’s Multimedia Showbiz and Entertainment Magazine, is running a contest on his radio show, and the prize is a pair of tickets to the show on 17 May at The Sage in Gateshead. Go to the euVue page, and click on the arrow to iisten to the show.

Information about the competition is 7-8 minutes into the show, and the competition is featured approximately 30 minutes later. Contest closes at the end of April.

Next month I'll be heading back to the UK for a tour that's been in the works for almost a year. The idea for the "Circus Girl - Without A Net" tour grew out of many conversations after shows that began something like: "Great show, but I wish you'd sung ______", or "________ is my favorite song, why don't you ever play it anymore?" When you have a new album out, it's natural to want to showcase it, and introduce everyone to the new songs. With "Circus Girl", we're going to look back and revisit some of the overlooked ones, and some that just fell off the list along the way. In that spirit, this will be an all-request tour - you will make up the set list. I'll begin taking your requests on April 1 via this website, Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace. Or if you prefer you can just email me.

Please keep a few things in mind:

- specify the particular show (venue, date and city) that you will be attending. We don't want to do your request without you there.

- give us your name, and any other information you'd like to share - where you're from, how long you've been a fan, a personal anecdote, dedication, reminiscence or just your thoughts on the song you want to hear most.

- please limit your requests to songs that I've either written or recorded. No "Free Bird"!

Given the retrospective nature of this tour I thought it would be fun to add a visual component, too, so I'll be spicing up the set with some slides and photographs - along with the stories behind the songs, behind the scenes, and sometimes behind the stars...

It's going to be a lot of fun for us, and hopefully for you, too. All the tour dates are now confirmed and listed on the Tour page at gretchenpeters.com. We can't wait to see you out there.

Alex Chilton, the Memphis singer and songwriter and founder of the bands The Box Tops and Big Star has died. Barry Walsh has played with Alex as a touring member of the Box Tops for the past nine years.

Ringtones are now available for your mobile phone at Thumbplay. We've got a small selection of songs and more coming - click here to download ringtones.

New York Women in Film & TV has put me up for auction! If you would like to win two VIP tickets & backstage passes to the London show on 19 May PLUS an autographed, handwritten lyric to the song of your choice, now's your chance to bid.

Gretchen, Matraca Berg and Suzy Bogguss' (Wine, Women & Song) appearance on Amanda Holden's Fantasy Lives can now be viewed on YouTube.

Sam Gazdziak from the respected country music blog The 9513 was at Eddie's Attic in Decatur, GA on Wednesday night and wrote this review of the show.

The Colon Cancer Alliance (CCA) is happy to announce the 2nd Annual Stars Go Blue for Colon Cancer benefit concert to be held on March 23, 2010 at 7:00pm at the Loveless Barn in Nashville, TN. The concert will feature intimate and rare acoustic performances by some of Country Music’s elite songwriters; Rodney Crowell, Gretchen Peters, Mike Reid, Barry Walsh and Peter Cooper.
Tickets are $35 each with front row tables for 4 available for $500. 50% of the net proceeds from the Stars Go Blue for Colon Cancer concert will be donated directly to the Blue Note Fund.  The Blue Note Fund gives small monetary gifts to colon cancer patients in need.  Food and drinks will be available for purchase at the event. Tickets can be purchased online.

Voting has ended for the The Alternate Root's Valentine Sampler, and "The Way You Move Me" has made the final cut. The complete sampler, with cover art, can be downloaded from The Alternate Root website now. Thanks for voting!

Gretchen appeared with Suzy Bogguss and Matraca Berg on ITV's prime time show "Amanda Holden's Fantasy Lives" tonight. UK residents can watch the episode here (Gretchen appears approximately 5 minutes in). Sorry, video link does not work outside of the UK.

Interactive roots/Americana magazine The Alternate Root is putting together a Valentine's Day sampler; songs donated by artists for free download by readers. There were over 500 submissions for the Valentine's Day Sampler and the folks at The Alternate Root narrowed it to 33 songs as finalists - and "The Way You Move Me" is one of the finalists! The FREE sampler will contain the 24 most popular songs as voted by the readers. You must create a user account and login in order to vote. The songs are available for listening in the player on the website and the ballot is just below the player. The 24 songs with the most votes will be on the FREE sampler and the artist with the most votes will be featured in the March issue of The Alternate Root Magazine. 

Last Saturday night's benefit for Planned Parenthood of Middle & East Tennessee, which was cancelled due to the snowstorm in Nashville, has been rescheduled for March 25th. See the event page for details.

The "Evening of Stories and Storytellers" show with Minton Sparks and Marshall Chapman scheduled for 1/30/10 at the Rutledge has been cancelled due to inclement weather. We will be rescheduling the show some time in March and will post the new date as soon as it's confirmed.

Gretchen has donated an exclusive track to Songs For Haiti, Paste Magazine's campaign to raise funds for Haiti's earthquake victims. Simply make a donation at the Paste website, and receive music as a thank-you from Paste Magazine and the artists who have made their music available for free. Gretchen's track is a live version of Tom Russell's song "Guadalupe", from their album One To The Heart, One To The Head, recorded at the Maverick Saloon in Santa Ynez, CA on 9/9/09.

One To The Heart, One To The Head has made an appearance on Country Universe's Best Country Albums of 2009 alongside albums by Kris Kristofferson and George Strait, among others.

I'll be online for a live chat on January 9th, 2010! Laura217 is hosting the live chat at her fansite. I'll be there to answer questions, let you know how the songwriting is coming, quash rumors (and start some!), and find out how you are all doing. We'll start at 3PM Central US time - early enough for those in the UK and Europe to participate. See you there!

Gretchen's conversation with Art Of The Song's Vivian Nesbitt and John Dillon about songwriting and creativity will be broadcast on KUNM-FM on January 30. You can listen online.

The Wine, Women & Song (Gretchen Peters, Matraca Berg & Suzy Bogguss) appearance on Another Country has made BBC Radio Scotland's Best of 2009 broadcast. Listen here.

I'll be online for a live chat on January 9th, 2010! Laura217, whom many of you know from the forum at www.gretchenpeters.com, created a chat room for last year's Circus Girl webcast back in August of 2009. It was such a success that we've decided to try another chat, only this time I'm going to be in the chat room too, instead of on the stage. Laura has organized the live chat at her fansite for January 9th. I'll be there to answer questions, let you know how the songwriting is coming, quash rumors (and start some!), and find out how you are all doing. We'll start at 3PM Central US time, so as to allow for our friends in the UK and Europe to participate. Pull up a chair, make a cup of tea and come chat with us at Laura's site on Saturday Jan. 9th - see you there!

One To The Heart, One To The Head, the western-themed album coproduced by Gretchen Peters and Tom Russell has made several year-end lists so far, including the alt-country blog Country California and the longtime folk DJ/journalist Mike Regenstreif.

Wine, Women & Song (Gretchen Peters, Suzy Bogguss & Matraca Berg) will be making 2 US appearances in February - February 6th in Columbus, OH, and February 24th at Eddie's Attic in Decatur, GA! See the Tour page for details.

Watch a clip of Gretchen and Barry Walsh playing "Sunday Morning" on BBC Radio Ulster with Gerry Anderson.

Listen to Gretchen live in the studio on Ralph McLean Country this Friday night at 8PM GMT.

Listen to an in-studio session with Gretchen & Barry Walsh on the Dutch Radio 6 program NPS Roots between 8-9PM CET.

Wine, Women & Song (Gretchen Peters, Suzy Bogguss & Matraca Berg) will be doing their first US show outside of Nashville on February 24 at Eddie's Attic in Decatur, GA. One show only - tickets on sale now!

The UK double CD compilation "Bandaged Together", a fundraiser for the UK charity Children In Need, was released today and includes a track by Gretchen. It can be found at all major Tesco stores in the UK, ordered online here, or downloaded from iTunes. Gretchen recorded the song "When You Wish Upon A Star" with Viktor Krauss on bass, Christine Bougie on lap steel, and Barry Walsh on glockenspiel.

Gretchen has a track on the new Bandaged Together CD, a compilation for the UK charity Children In Need. She has recorded the classic Disney song "When You Wish Upon A Star", by Ned Washington and Leigh Harline, with Viktor Krauss on bass, Barry Walsh on glockenspiel, and Christine Bougie on lap steel. The CD can be ordered here starting 9 November. £6.50 from the sale of each CD will benefit The BBC Children in Need Appeal. Many thanks to Terry Wogan, Hellen Bach and Norman Macintosh for making it happen.

New video posted - The Cowboy Train with Tom Russell, Paul Zarzyski, Wylie Gustafson, Sourdough Slim, Barry Walsh & Thad Beckman.

Gretchen's report on the Cowboy Train for BBC Radio 4's "Front Row" with Kirsty Lang can be heard here.

A little bit of video from the Silverton-Durango train with the awesome Sourdough Slim.

Listen to a Voice Of America interview with Gretchen about Mary Travers of Peter, Paul & Mary.

Gretchen will be playing live on KPIG's "Please Stand By" at 10AM Sunday morning, Sept. 6. You can listen live at KPIG.

Last night the Just Plain Folks Awards were held at the Wildhorse Saloon in Nashville, TN. The judges for these indie awards screened over 42,000 albums and 560,000 songs, making these the largest music awards of any kind in world history. Gretchen was nominated in ten categories (a record) and won the following awards:

Best Holiday Album: Northern Lights
Best Country Album: Burnt Toast & Offerings
Best Live Album: Trio
Songwriter of the Year

Gretchen also performed on the show; closing the night out with "To Say Goodbye" and "Independence Day".

Gretchen has received an amazing 10 nominations for the Just Plain Folks awards this year. The judges for these indie awards screened over 42,000 albums and 560,000 songs, making these the largest music awards of any kind in world history. The awards take place tonight in Nashville. Gretchen's nominations are as follows:

country album of the year: Burnt Toast & Offerings
holiday album of the year: Northern Lights
live album of the year: Trio
contemporary song of the year: "Breakfast At Our House" & "This Town"
country song of the year: "Ghost"
holiday song of the year: "Northern Lights" & "Waitin' On Mary"
traditional holiday song of the year: "(Charlie's) Angels" & "Christmas Time Is Here"