Hello friends of HP,

08 has disappeared and here we are entering our 23rd year of existence. All in all it was a very good year and yet another year that saw some changes. If you haven’t seen us for a while, we have two new members that have brought a great deal of talent with them.

Tom Fatten has joined us on trumpet and Jim Boitos is now our tenor player. Our friend Jim Kozak had been with us for 15 years and felt that it was time for him to leave us and spend more quality time with his family. There is always that sense of dread when things like that occur; however, we have been friends with Tom and Jim for so many years that they seemed to be natural fits into the HP family.

Tom came with us as our keyboard player when last we traveled to Washington DC and Jim sat in with us years ago while the band was still in its infancy – his wife Sarah still holds the “only female member of HP” designation – so in short we have collectively and individually known them for ever. There is a new energy and the sound is…well come out and see us soon and find out for yourselves.

We are recording this winter and will have a new project ready this year. Please note that we have a new place to play in Peoria. When we started to play our first set at the Contemporary Arts Center on Water Street it was like “old home week” meets “I thought you guys were dead” as so many folks hadn’t seen hide nor hair of us in at least 5 years. Well, they know we are alive and kickin’ and that we’ll be back there soon. We are hopeful we can perhaps find our way back to a blues festival or to the riverfront there as Peoria was at one time our home court so to speak and we had a great fan base there.

Please keep an eye on the website for gigs and we look forward to seeing you all soon.

Peace

Marc