A couple of years ago, I offered to the Herd list a B&P of a show Steve Andrews had given me. One of those who responded was a guy name Brian Reid, who along with his blank discs sent me a xerox of a photo he'd taken of Donna the Buffalo at the Clearwater Hudson River Revival from 6/16/02. I was blown away not just because he had unknowningly sent me a photo from my first Donna show, but also because it was an extremely high-quality image.

In June 2004, I did another B&P for Brian (Jeb, Jim, Tara, Jed, and Richie Stearns doing a set of Old Time music, 9/30/01 Harvest Fest, Fairburn, GA), and he sent me more photocopies of some of his photos. They were from the show at South Street Seaport, 7/11/03--another show I was at--and again they were excellent.

In August, I finally met Brian at Donna's return to South Street Seaport. Turns out we had seen each other at shows before but didn't know one another. Brain was again shooting photos, and this time he emailed me a few electronic images from this show. I emailed to thank him, and wrote "You should put together a web site to show these off--I bet people would enjoy them."

A few months later, it was my wedding anniversary, and my wife asked me what I'd like as a gift. I had seen Rand and Carol's recently launched, most excellent site haveyouherd.com and thought it would be cool to build a little Donna site of my own, so asked her to "buy" me a domain name and hosting. I planned to create a very simple, text-based site consisting of reviews I'd write of all of the Donna shows I've seen. I picked Ipower as a host based on the recommendation of a friend of a friend, and so far have been happy with their service, though I've yet to actually have any direct contact with them.

I emailed Brain to ask him if he'd like to send me a few images to use for the site, which I eventually decided to call DonnaFans.com (herd.com was taken--check it out). When the CD Brian put together arrived a few days later with dozens of his best images, I realized this could be a halfway decent little site after all.

So thanks to Brain, without whom this site wouldn't have gotten off the ground, to all of you who've contributed photos so far, and also to my wife, who not only paid for hosting but also designed the logo and navigation graphics, and gave me invaluable advice on its layout and design. It's nothing fancy, but hey, I'm an editor, not an IT geek or web designer. Thanks also to all of the generous tapers and traders who've hooked me up with shows, and of course to Donna the Buffalo for making the music that makes my day.

I created this site mostly for myself and friends who also like Donna, but if anyone else wants to contribute reviews or photos, I'd be happy to host them, and all 50 of the people who visit this site regularly will see your byline/photo credit. You can reach me at fans@donnafans.com.

Peace,
Jeff