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Our year started out great - relaxing after the long tours of last year in a cabin by a lake in British Columbia, planning a new album and a new show for tours later in the year...

However, just when we were getting used to not traveling, unexpected developments concerning Laurel's work permit for Canada suddenly separated us to our respective countries of citizenship.

Our consultations with lawyers over the last few weeks have given us hope that we WILL be able to play music together again, and hopefully with less stress and uncertainty than being a Canadian-American music duo booking all our own tours and trying to understand legal issues has created in our lives so far!

Unfortunately, it seems that without spending many more thousands of dollars than we have to spend, it will be impossible to remedy this situation for the tours planned this year. Because we spent such a large part of 2013 touring the United States we were focusing our booking efforts more heavily on Canada this year, and it's frustrating that we won't be able to play for you as a duo.

We've decided to postpone or cancel some concerts, while others Dan will be performing solo, as he did for many years, including a month long tour of western Canada starting in less than two weeks. For that tour, Dan has just recorded a new album, "Genuine Heart", to be released February 11th, 2014. In the spirit of this necessary return to solo touring, Dan has chosen songs that reflect a going back to his harmonica/solo acoustic guitar roots after rambling through several genres in his past releases such as blues, bluegrass, reggae, latin, folk-rock. Of the new album he states, "These days I sound more like me than ever before. In the past I was paying homage to all the music I love and can play. This album nails what I was doing pre-internet. I have a feeling this is the kind of album fans have been waiting for all along." Laurel gives the new release a big thumbs up and encourages you to spread the word, come out to a concert, buy a CD, and give Dan a warm show of support.

Dan will also have copies of our 2013 release "Dan & Laurel" for those of you who were looking forward to getting a copy when we toured through.

We are very sad to have been forced to apart, but we are changing gears as best we can and hope to make the most of the year given these enforced limitations. We'll be focusing on our individual teaching studios and working on projects we've had on the back burner, including a violin method book and video series Laurel has been working on. We are also hoping to still find a way to write and record a new album together for release in late 2014 or early 2015.

Our story has just begun.


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