Well where shall we start, firstly apologies from Glyn & I for our very low profile since November 08 to date, the last six months have been a traumatic, deeply personal time for our family.

The week we landed back from WOMEX 08 full of beans after a great week in Seville, hundreds of CD’s to work our way through, memories of some great Showcase bands, oodles of new friends made, all ready to let rip and get stuck in with hundreds of hours of work preparing and finishing the new World Music main site ready for it’s Spring Launch.

To find that our father Barry (Jazz player) had been rushed back into hospital with secondary infections due to his earlier diagnosis  as having PULMONARY FIBROSIS in Summer 2007 after recurring shortage of breath since Autumn 2006. We knew that this was a non-reversible disease (i.e. terminal) - most patients die within 5 years following diagnosis, but consultants were originally sure he had quite some years left.

Hooked up to oxygen mask, masses of various drugs to stabilise his condition we were told he may not survive the week, we were stunned, speechless, our father had been part of life for nearly 50 years, anyway to cut a long story short he got through the first 2 weeks, and they managed to stabilise him to the point where they said he might make Xmas so we converted the ground floor of his and our mothers home into a full nursing suite, and brought him home with us, his family, to at least allow him to share what ever months he had left with us , he battled on till March 09 and died quietly one Spring morning with the sun coming up over the Herefordshire landscape, then we had to organise what turned out to be a massive funeral ( a special musical one), for the hundreds of musicians and friends who had been friends, we had Jazz, Gospel, Blues, Flamenco, Gypsy, he would have been so chuffed with his last final gig.

So here are Glyn & I this week trying to pick up the pieces, and move forward.

Our apologies for the shortness of replies over the last few months but as we are sure you will understand, sometimes you have to put your family first.

We have just moved the site back to our regular hosting company, we are working on a new cool gallery system, we have literally hundreds of photos, cd’s and  articles to process, plus all the original project of raising the profile of UK and World based musicians, shining a light on all the smaller artistes from the smaller labels that never seem to get a mention, plus loads of  fun things in the pipeline.

So for now, thank you all those who wrote in who knew what we were going through with your kind words of support, it was very appreciated.

D’Bro & Glyn Phillips (editor)

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May 22 2009