It is pretty safe to say that this was the most exciting summer yet for Roosevelt Diggs. We kicked it all off with the annual Buses by the Beach Benefit and followed it up with shows at the Buttermilk Jamboree, Reed City's Music in the Park, Tip Top Bar and Grill, Earthworks Harvest Gathering, The Intersection, and monthly shows at Rockford Brewing Company. We met lots of wonderful people along the way and we are all looking forward to next year's festival season.

Now that the fall season is upon us, we are shifting our focus to our next studio album. It is hard to believe that it has been almost two years since we recorded American Folklore. The response to that album has been very positive and now it's time for our second effort. We have some new material we've been working on and we're excited to get back into the studio. We are hoping to start this next project in January. Stay tuned for more updates.

We want to thank everyone who came out to see us this summer. We can't tell you how much we appreciate your support. It is so amazing to look out into a crowd and see the familiar faces of our friends and families. We also want to remind everyone that we are still playing at Rockford Brewing Company every month. The dates vary a little through the end of the year due to the holidays, but we would love to see you. It's a great time at a great place so check out our show dates and put them on your calendar. Keep in mind that we won't be playing at RBC in January or February due to our upcoming studio sessions so get in there and see us before the end of the year!

Thanks again for your love and support and we hope to see you all soon.

Roosevelt Diggs

This past May was arguably one of our finest months in Roosevelt Diggs history.  We kicked it off by playing a really great show at Rockford Brewing;  these monthly shows at the Rockford Brewery are priceless for us.  It gives us the ability to play out on some new tunes and  pushes us to grow our setlist and change it up each month.  It is a great place, run and staffed by some excellent people; not to mention great beer and environment.
We were part of a great Bob Dylan Tribute night and played our first show at Founders Brewing!  It was an amazing night and we were honored to share the stage with a great bunch of amazing musicians, all honoring the finest songwriter in history.

Late in the month, we took part in the annual Buses By the Beach -Bus Benefit.  It is great to be a part of this awesome benefit to help raise money for the Phoenix Burn Society.  This years benefit was especially memorable as our whole band was around all weekend to camp together, enjoy all the amazing bands, reconnect with old friends, and make new ones.  The Bus Benefit is always one of our yearly highlights.  With this being our 5th year playing, the energy and excitement of this event is unmatched as we are honored to get to play music for our dear friends and some of our favorite people in the world.   
We capped off our month with a really fun show at Meadow Ridge Elementary school in Rockford.  This was an event to honor the kids and families for their Title 1 reading group.  The dance floor was on fire and a good time was had by all as we told stories and sang songs from our American Folklore collection.  
The finale for May was an invite to play at this year's Earthwork Harvest Gathering.  For anyone who has experienced this fall gathering, you will understand our excitement to be invited.  We are literally counting the days.  
The upcoming month of June is another busy month and we are excited for what's ahead.

n April we played the first of what will be many shows focused specifically on the American Folklore theme.We played a really cool, intimate show at the Spring Lake Public Library during National Library Week.  We slowed down and focused in on as much storytelling as we did the music and songs.  It was a fun and different type of show than the high energy shows we focus on and are used to.  
We recently had a really nice write up on our American Folklore Album. Check it out here:
http://listentothemitten.com/Album-detail/roosevelt-diggs-american-folklore/
We also played another great show at Rockford Brewery.  We couldn’t be happier to be playing a monthly show as such a cool place.  We are excited and gearing up for the busy spring / early summer we have ahead of us.  Michigan Festival Season, here we come!!

Bob Dylan.  We are a part of a really great show in May in celebration of Bob Dylan's 72nd Birthday. 5 bands will play an evening of all Bob Dylan covers.  We spent a good part of March diving into our selection of a few of Bob's songs.  We started off picking songs that were similar to our style and that we intended to play as pretty straight forward covers.  As we dove into the music, we unintentionally took the songs and made them our own.  As a band who focuses our energies on original music, it was a really fun experience to take on 6 of someone else's songs to arrange.  We are looking forward to our busy spring of shows coming up. 

We spent the month of January prepping for upcoming shows and working on some new songs that we are really excited about.  Some opportunities were presented to us in the upcoming months that we are really excited about.  We were invited to be a part of the annual Bob Dylan tribute show at Founders Brewing in May which we honored to be a part of.  Also, our American Folklore song collection will be the focus of several shows this spring – one at the Spring Lake Public Library and a few in Rockford based around the Rockford Reading Festival.  Booking has begun for many of Michigan’s summer festivals and we are hoping to play a few. We’ve been booking more shows almost weekly. Hope to see a lot of friends in the next few months and make a few new ones.   

We had a great December.  We played a really fun house show at Sangha early in the month. The night was a furry of energy and was a beautifully intimate occation.   We were also blessed and humbled with 5 Jammie nominations from 88.1 WYCE for our American Folklore album.(Tune in and request some music from the greatest little radio station on earth.)
We finished off the last few hours of 2012 playing music in the newly opened Rockford Brewery and shared a great night of music with the amazingly tanlented Fauxgrass Quartet. A great month and great year for Roosevelt Diggs! Thanks to all our friends, families and supporters in 2012.

After a busy summer, September rolled in and gave us a bit of a well deserved break.  This summer was our busiest yet and with the cooler air of fall upon us, it gave us the ability to slow down and spend some time to re-gear up. We spent some time writing and jamming on some new songs which we are super excited about. We hope to be playing these new tunes out live very soon.
These past few weeks WYCE has been playing our American Folklore album in pretty high rotation. It's been exciting for us, our friends, and families to hear our music on the radio. The WYCE weekly charts has had our American Follore album as high as #54 for most played album!
This past Friday we ended off this month with one of the most fun shows we've ever played.  We were honored to support the Ragbirds at the Pyramid Scheme in Grand Rapids for their cd release party.  The Ragbirds put on an awesome show and Nicholas James and Bandwagon played a beautiful set as well. Nick joined us on stage to jam out some harmonica on our song Pecos Bill. 
The next few weeks we will be gearing up to provide the music for a wedding reception which should provide for a great time. Thanks again to everyone who came to show, requested our tunes, or chatted with us after our sets.

What a wonderful August it has been.  We were blessed with some pretty great opportunities this month.  It started with playing the "Cowpie Festival" at  Shagbark Farms in ALaska MI.  This festival had been a long standing Blues festival that made the change this year.  We opened up the Festival on Saturday and really enjoyed ourselves.  Next on our agenda was the 10th annual Hoxeyville Music Festival.  We had been wanting to play this festival for a  while now and were honored when asked to perform.  We played Sunday morning on  the Mitten stage and had one of our better sets.  The crowd was enthusiastic and the whole weekend was full of great music and love.
We finished  out our August sessions playing at Billy's Lounge in GR.  Opening up for  Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band.  We had a blast!!!!!  His bass amp took a  little surprise time off for re-wiring that evening so...... He borrowed my new  eden rig that I just picked up that morning and it sounded awesome. 

Thank you to all who traveled, supported and made our month of August one we will never forget.