There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story.
— Frank Herbert (author of the DUNE series)

Dear friends and fans:

Dead Men’s Hollow began in 2001, just some pals from Northern Virginia playing around with stringed instruments and country songs, lubricated by beer, awash in free time.

In the years that followed the band would go places none of us ever imagined in those early days. We’d go on to play (in 2005, at a tribute to The Band) for an audience of thousands — and, one deeply humbling night in Alexandria, for an audience of one. Poor guy; we all sang to and stared at him for the duration. But, he did buy two CDs, so all was not lost.

There would also be gigs in bars in Glover Park, on a sidewalk in Dupont Circle, at Hains Point steps from the Anacostia River for the Marine Corps Marathon. We played a church in Ohio, a 1960s-era bandshell in Maryland, a folk festival in Delaware, an army base in Kansas, and dozens of living rooms and movie theaters and dives and backyards in the Old Dominion.

Along the way, with former members Bob and Belinda, we played our ‘acoustic Americana’ in coffee shops, cemeteries, house concerts in Hyattsville and on the shores of Lake Anna, Jammin Java, the National Portrait Gallery, the Mansion at Strathmore, Gypsy Sally’s, the Kennedy Center, the Birchmere. Thanks to the Web, deejays in Japan, Sweden, Bulgaria, Ireland and across the US played our stuff. We were commissioned to write songs for one play (HOOTENANNY) and by Pinky Swear Productions to serve as the pit band for OVER HER DEAD BODY. We worked with Guillotine Theatre to create and present CIVIL WAR SONGS & LETTERS, to some acclaim. And we recorded five CDs, earning rave reviews from The Washington Post, No Depression and other publications.

In our songs and in our own lives, there was heartbreak and there was happiness. Our kids grew up at gigs and practices; our spouses have been endlessly supportive. And always there was the music: originals, traditionals, a few good covers — all of it woven together in one beautiful, flawed, unique tapestry with threads of bluegrass, folk, old-time, country and pop. “The Carter Family meets the Andrews Sisters,” as one reviewer put it long ago: we kinda dug that.

Welp…

After 17 years together, Dead Men’s Hollow will disband this summer, as life takes us in new directions.

(We are planning multiple farewell shows: at Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage, Congressional Cemetery and Epicure Cafe. Lots more to come on these final performances.)

For now, **thank you** for making the journey to Dead Men’s Hollow with us all these years.

Thank you for showing up at our gigs, some of you from day one. For telling us what our music meant to you. For buying our CDs and downloading our tracks. For listening to all we had to say.

With endless gratitude and with great love,

Amy
Caryn
Jared
Marcy
Mike