Co-founding Special C member Marc Edelstein has organized a benefit concert in the Chicago area to help our musician friends in Nashville who were unfortunate victims of the recent flooding. The concert will be tonight, July 28, in the Side-Bar at FitzGerald's, 6615 W. Roosevelt Rd., Berwyn, IL. The show begins at 8:00pm and will feature four acts: The Western Elstons, Robbie Fulks, the Possum Hollow Boys and The Special C Alumni Band (which will include Greg and many band alums who reside in the Chicago area - Marc, Don Stiernberg, Chirs Walz, Colby Maddox, Keith Baumann and more).   

We have been notified that The Special C Signs recording is officially designated an "International Top 10" recording by The International Association of Independent Recording Artists: 
The International Association of Independent Recording Artists, IAIRA, recognizes and honors artistic achievement, technical proficiency, and overall excellence in sound recording by monitoring chart activity as published in various reporting charts from around the world. According to our research, on 07/09/2010 the above referenced release; Signs, by Special Consensus, had attained The Number 6 Position on at least one of the charts monitored and verified by IAIRA. On the basis of that research, IAIRA has qualified the aforementioned release as eligible for Certification as an International 'Top 10'.
On behalf of the entire IAIRA staff and the Recording Arts Community at
large, please accept our most sincere Congratulations and Best Wishes for your continued success!  

We are excited that we finally have the long-awaited new T-shirts. They feature the Special C "35" logo from our new Compass Records release in white on black shirts and in black on ash shirts in sizes M, L, XL and XXL. Finally!

We are very pleased to announce that The Special C will once again be included on the Rhonda Vincent Bluegrass Cruise in 2011. The newly revised arrangements are with the Royal Caribbean line. The ship will depart from Port Canaveral, FL on February 20 and will visit ports in Grand Cayman, Haiti, Jamaica and Cozumel, returning to Port Canaveral at 8:00am February 28. We had a fabulous time on the cruise in 2007 and look forward to this adventure; there are concerts, jam sessions and workshops throughout the week on the ship and plenty of good sightseeing in the port cities. Make reservations soon as there are only 300 tickets for this cruise. www.bluegrasscruise.com  800/953-8803

October 23, 2010 has been set as the date for the 35th Anniversary/Reunion concert at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago and will feature performances of songs from The Special C repertoire with the current band members along with numerous Special C alums that have appeared on band recordings. Other Special C news is that the band began a new agency representation with Maria Nadauld’s California-based Above the Bay Booking agency in January; we already very much enjoy working with Maria, who booked our January 2010 tour of California.

The Special C welcomes Faris Family Bluegrass Band veteran musician Rick Faris on mandolin and vocals. Rick has toured throughout the US and Canada singing and playing guitar and dobro with the family band since 1998. The Faris Family band won several SPBGMA awards over the years and Rick was awarded SPBGMA Midwest Guitar Player of the Year in 2005 and 2008. He is also an excellent luthier, building guitars, dobros and mandolins when not on the road. We are very proud to have such a consummate musician joining our ranks and look forward to working with Rick in the New Year.

Our tour of Denmark, Sweden, Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany and Czech Republic was very successful and enjoyable; we played to very enthusiastic audiences, made music with many of the European musicians and enjoyed the cuisines and company of all our friends and fans in these countries. However, we stayed out far too late in Jicin, CZ, after our last performance of the tour, slept through the alarm clock the next morning and actually missed our flight home from Frankfort on Monday! This was definitely a "first" and (hopefully) will be the "last" for that to happen - it was quite costly to rebook flights, rent hotel rooms and keep the rental car an extra day but we finally made it home Tuesday evening.

Special C guitar player/vocalist Ryan Roberts won his fifth concurrent Songwriter of the Year Award and first Best Bluegrass Album of the Year Award at the Eastern Canada Awards last week. We are so fortunate to have Ryan in the band and look forward to recording with him very soon. Go Ryan!!!