New album out! Plus Baton Rouge, and all over Texas, and dumplings with compadres.

Feb 25, 2025

As always, scroll down to see my upcoming album release shows in Baton Rouge and all over Texas! Get the info from the links below, check my website, or follow my Bandsintown.

Join my patreon for new unreleased music every month and much more! patreon.com/jeffplankenhorn (previewed of a song earlier this month from my unreleased album recorded in The Netherlands in October!!!)

For now you are going to have to go to one of my gigs to hear and/or purchase The Bend. Solo voice with guitar, lap slide, or piano; one of my best pieces of work thus far. Thank you to Coastal Bend Music John Macy, Craig Griffin, and Jules Taylor for helping make it happen! (don’t forget the Dutch full-band album won’t be out until late July/early August)

Folk Alliance International 2025 was one heck of a time. I’m not usually one for this kind of thing, but maybe that is changing with age. I’m not there to try to get gigs, so any gigs I get from attending are what I like to call “gravy.”

A wild and wonderful festival of hotel rooms full of folkies, promoters, and industry peeps I was able to really connect with old friends and make many new. Was I bitter before my modest career had become what I always hoped it would? Probably not, but some sort of weight has been lifted for me and my contemporaries and our ability to sometimes mentor and/or “pay it forward (for what that is worth) makes it all the sweeter. I have told my self in the past that I can really only handle these things once every four or five years, but I am really considering New Orleans (where it will be held next time) in 2026. Although it may be better for me to hit one of the MANY other festivals of this kind for other kinds of music (i.e. blues and such) or one of the regional festivals instead. Thanks to all at FAI, the city of Montreal, and The Sheraton for dealing with hours into the night of elevators being unavailable (even the service elevators!). No one gets paid enough these days if you aren’t a billionaire. Especially not in industries such as the hotel business. The workers were saints. They were always cheerful and helpful.

So maybe next year I’ll attend again. I have a lot of friends in NOLA — we’ll see.

The tickets for Red Dragon Listening Room in Baton Rouge, LA are moving quite a bit faster than they had a week ago. So get your tickets early.

A question for my avid music lovers and my fellow vagabonds; do you find that more and more people are buying tickets the same week as the show? let me know in the comments. It worries us as artists and makes us think we are going to have a low turnout! If you have the presence of mind, and are sure you are going, get your tickets in advance and save the money, and save your musician a little stress. If however you can’t make the financial decision until you are closer to the show, by all means I would rather have you wait, and have you there.

Early April I’ll be in southern and eastern Ontario. Late April I’ll be playing Old Settlers Festival in Texas with a band show main stage on Friday night and a solo acoustic show Saturday. May with be the month I’ll be heading to California. The wheels of this lovely life keep turning.

a quick story…

Last night before we left Montreal today and boarded planes for our respective homes and/or upcoming gigs, two o my favorite songwriters invited me on an mini-adventure Uber-ing to find a dumpling house. Our first stop only served takeout at the late hour we were arriving, but just a few doors down we found another restaurant that looked (and smelled) equally promising. We ate, we laughed our butts off and told stories of the many great and a few bad gigs. Enough time has passed that in each of our cases the “booking coups” as Ray Wylie used to call them had become great learning experiences, and another reason to learn to love to occasionally reply to a performance offer with a grateful but resounding, “no thank you.” It was a wonderful end to the week. I am grateful for their camaraderie as well as their insight. If you don’t know the music of Nathan Hamilton or Matt The Electrician I highly recommend checking them out. Do it now. Better yet, go to one of their shows. Then you can thank me later.