What's New in Woodpecker Records Web site?

HR photo Still Going Strong After 25 years at Woodpecker Records!

This Web site is created and maintained by Woodpecker Records, and its focus is the music and life of a Modern Minstrel, singer-songwriter & acoustic multi-instrumentalist Harvey Reid. It contains a great deal of information about him-- his music, his writings, tunings, lyrics, interviews, instruments & gear- even some CD's he likes. In an entertainment world dominated by huge multi-national corporations, where page space, air-time and ink are carefully rationed and controlled, we are pleased to take advantage of the new possibilities of the Internet, and to be able share with you the life and work of an interesting and productive musician, without having to condense, edit and worry about the cost of printing and mailing.

Reid has produced 20 recordings and played nearly 5000 concerts in his 33-year career. He has chosen to not participate in the music industry, lives in a small town in Maine, and has never signed to a record label. Due to the centralized nature of the music business, he has never received widespread publicity and attention, and due to the way record distribution works, information about him and his highly-acclaimed recordings is not easily found.

Harvey has assembled and arranged most of this information himself, from his personal archive of clippings, reviews, art, writings, photos and recordings, and we think this Web site is a fine example of how the Internet can give a more obscure yet deserving artist's work a chance to be placed along side those artists who have the much larger name recognition brought about by their association with large entertainment corporations. So plunge in...

We purposely do not have all the latest Java, frames, video, Flash, sound, and overly fancy graphics because we are aware that many of you do not have the fastest connections and the latest software. The purpose of the internet is to be inclusionary and to make sure as many of you as possible can access this information, (including those with text-only browsers and black &white screens...) This should be a public forum and information source, and not a place to show off computer skills unnecessarily.

A message from Harvey Reid: "Woodpecker Records is a small, folk-music record label, and the Internet is a vital part in our plan to continue to bring you handcrafted music direct from me to you. We have kept a mailing list for over 20 years, and have never sold or traded our customer information with anyone. We absolutely will not secretly gather any information about you during your visit to our web site, or compromise any information we might obtain in dealing with you over the Internet, and your customer information will only be used by us to give you better service. If you buy a recording from us, your name will go into our mailing list, which means that I will send you a newsletter about once a year, and an occasional postcard when I might be performing in your area. That's about it. We are now doing e-mailings to save postage and printing costs, and encourage you to join our e-mailing list to be informed of new recordings and concerts in your area.

Internet security is a big new issue. The big companies or hackers may do sleazy things with your information, but I will offer my personal assurance that nothing of the sort will happen when you deal with us. You have a lot more to fear when your credit card is used at a restaurant than you do ordering by e-mail from me. Information security is worth worrying about, and I will promise you that you don't have to worry about Woodpecker Records abusing yours.

Thank you for your support, for listening to my recordings, and helping me continue to survive as an independent artist."

Harvey Reid

What's new here?

Harvey and Joyce Andersen have been working for 9 months on a landmark recording, titled "The Song Train" slated for release at the end of 2007 or early 2008. It will be a boxed-set with 4 CD's (of new material-- not a compilation) with an 80-page color hardback book.

Since the first posting of this site in January 96, we added many features and a lot of new information . Latest additions include:

An on-line order form for ordering CD's and tapes etc directly from us. No more phone messages and waiting for letters to arrive. It's faster and more accurate.
Some Recent Photos and scrapbook pics. There will be more soon.
Harvey's 2006-2007 E-Newsletter is now on the site here.

Custom CD's. Finally get to hear some of the out-of-print music from Harvey's first 2 LP's, plus some unreleased live cuts, alternate takes and out-takes. A number (currently 69 songs) of these were made available in late February 2002 for order on the web site on a song-by-song basis. There will likely be more songs added as we find them.
The Woodpecker Download Page, where you can access photos, documents, sheet music and sound.
Photos of Harvey Reid for downloading, in case you are are a journalist or promoter who needs something better than internet quality. There are JPEG, Mac and PC TIFF files, and PDF format. (Many of them are several meg in size and bigger, so be careful.)
MP3 music files. 12 songs from Harvey's CD's in 2 levels of quality. Download some of Harvey's music, and read Harvey's position on MP3.
The Musichound Folk Book has come out, and appears to be a complete reference source about folk music, and it includes a paragraph of information about Harvey, much of which is completely incorrect, including his year of birth, which was off by 3 years, and discography, which does not mention his last 5 recordings.The catalog information and address are 5 years out-of-date. Don't believe everything you read, no matter how authoritative it looks.
We are running some Internet Specials, which includes discounted regular items, plus discontinued, rare and collectibles from the warehouse.It's easier for us when you order over the internet, so we are offering some incentives.

Harvey has now included the track sheets from some of Harvey's more recent road tapes, for those who are curious about finding some good new music or finding out what he listens to on the road.
Some new essays and interviews are added constantly.
complete list of Harvey's guitar tunings and partial capo configurations which includes all recorded songs
complete song-by-song discopraphy of recorded songs
alphabetical index of song lyrics, with all recorded songs now included
complete listing of his stage and recording gear
concert & record reviews and many in-depth interviews
much new art (being added periodically) Most of the good stuff was created by Eileen Healy, at Urchin Graphics in Salem MA. She does free-lance work-- contact her at ehealy@kpmg.com
many new articles and essays
information about the Third Hand Capo The Third Hand site has moved to its own URL at http://www.thirdhandcapo.com

Enjoy your visit here, and let us know if you have comments or questions, and we will do our best to answer you. If you would like to join our mailing list (for e-mail or postal mail), send us your address, and you will get a postcard when Harvey performs in your area, and a once-a-year newsletter in the Fall. We do not share names or data with other mailing lists, and will not do secret tracking, abuse or misuse your information.