A consortium of major jazz labels has taken the unprecedented step of joining hands for Relief, an all-star compilation of previously unreleased music to be released on September 24, continuing the non-profit Jazz Foundation of America’s (JFA) ongoing efforts to aid musicians affected by the international shutdown of venues and other performance opportunities in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
All net proceeds from the Relief package – comprising studio and live tracks by top-flight jazz artists – will benefit the JFA’s Musicians’ Emergency Fund, established in the spring of 2020 after the pandemic ground the music industry to a sudden, catastrophic halt.
Relief commences with a recording that exemplifies the extreme challenges faced by musicians in the depths of the 2020 health emergency: “back to who,” a track by vocalist Esperanza Spalding and pianist Leo Genovese, recording as IRMA and LEO, was created remotely at home studios in Hillsboro, OR and Brooklyn, NY.
The compilation concludes with a live quintet performance captured at the JFA’s 2014 “A Great Night in Harlem” benefit show at New York’s historic Apollo Theater. It features pianist Herbie Hancock, trumpeter Wallace Roney, who died after contracting the coronavirus, bassist Buster Williams, drummer Albert “Tootie” Heath and tenor saxophonist Jimmy Heath, the composer of the number, who died at the age of 93 in January 2020, in a poignant version of “Gingerbread Boy.”
Offering a compact overview of jazz’s past, present, and future, Relief also presents fresh tracks from bassist Christian McBride, vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant, saxophonists Kenny Garrett, Joshua Redman, and Charles Lloyd, pianist-vocalist Jon Batiste and pianist Hiromi Uehara.
Track Listing
IRMA and LEO | “back to who” feat. Esperanza Spalding and Leo Genovese | Christian McBride | “Brother Malcolm” | Cécile McLorin Salvant | “Easy Come, Easy Go Blues” | Kenny Garrett | “Joe Hen’s Waltz” | Jon Batiste | “Sweet Lorraine” | Hiromi | “Green Tea Farm” [2020 version] | Joshua Redman | “Facts” feat. Ron Miles, Scott Colley, Brian Blade | Charles Lloyd & Kindred Spirits | “Lift Every Voice and Sing” [live] | Herbie Hancock, Wallace Roney, Jimmy Heath, Buster Williams, Albert “Tootie” Heath | “Gingerbread Boy” [live] |
Speculator has announced that they will host a summer concert series Music on The Point. The live bands will play on Osborne Point, adjacent to the Speculator Public Beach, from 6:30-8:30 PM each Wednesday beginning July 7th. The concert will be sponsored by Oak Mountain, Charlie Johns, and Spectacular Department Store.
Located in Hamilton County, Speculator has a great deal of outdoor activities to offer, leading residents to dub the town the “All-Season Vacationland”. On the shores of Lake Pleasant and a few miles from Sacandaga Lake, there are plenty of opportunities for canoeing, kayaking, and fishing among the many offerings in this small Adirondack town in the summer, with plenty of leaf peeping in the fall and scenic winter hiking.
Speculator Music on the Point Concert Series Lineup:
Live music returns to Saranac Brewery in Utica as Creative Concerts brings Blackberry Smoke on their You Hear Georgia Tour on Sunday, September 26th.
Throughout their career, Blackberry Smoke—vocalist/lead guitarist Charlie Starr, guitarist/vocalist Paul Jackson, bassist/vocalist Richard Turner, drummer Brit Turner, and keyboardist Brandon Still—has embodied Georgia’s rich musical legacy, honoring the people, places and sounds of their home state. As the band celebrates their 20th anniversary this year, their reverence for Georgia has only deepened.
On their latest album, You Hear Georgia, the follow-up to 2018’s critically acclaimed Find a Light, Blackberry Smoke is further celebrating these roots with 10 new songs that feel like Georgia, accented by the addition of Grammy-winning producer and fellow Georgia-native, Dave Cobb (Jason Isbell, Brandi Carlile). “Dave and I had spoken for the last few years about making a record,” Starr says. “Finally, it worked out, our schedule and his schedule, and we said, yes—let’s make a record.”
Blackberry Smoke worked quickly, spending just 10 days at Nashville’s famed RCA Studio A, Cobb’s home base since 2016. The band recorded live on the floor, giving You Hear Georgia a crisp, outgoing feel. Like other Blackberry Smoke efforts, this album leans into well-crafted Southern rock driven by jagged guitar riffs and rich instrumentation, as the band layers on everything from rollicking piano to funky grooves, and introspective acoustic sounds.
Saranac: F.X. Matt Brewing Company is the fourth oldest family-owned brewery in the United States, having brewed beer since 1888. They introduced the Saranac line of beverages in the mid-80s.
This is a general admission show and all ages are welcome. Tickets go on sale Friday, July 30th at 10am at CCTix.com. Tickets are $30 in advance, $35 day of show. Doors open at 6pm with music starting at 7pm. This is a rain or shine event. The brewery has limited on site parking but there is street parking available in close proximity to the venue.
After a year of silence, Newport Folk returned to Fort Adams this weekend with the first of two three-day events dubbed “Folk On.” The first notes to grace a Newport Festival Stage in two years were from the Resistance Revival Choir, appropriately singing Burt Bacharach’s “What the World Needs Now.” “Arts and culture change minds, joy is an act of resistance!” they announced from the Quad Stage. 80 hours later the weekend closed out with a surprise appearance by Chaka Khan leading almost every female artist still around in “I’m Every Woman” and a raucous and joyful dance party on and off stage. In between, music, reunion and reflection tangled together to lift up all in attendance.
Folk Past and Future
Newport has a keen knack to straddle the dangerous line between nostalgia and tradition. It remains true to it’s roots by respecting it’s past and adhering to its roots and principles, all the while pushing boundaries and always with an eye on what’ next.
Music history was on display throughout the weekend, both Newport’s and otherwise. Much of Friday played out like a blues revue, similar to how George Wein used to piece together programs in the early days of the Jazz Fest. British Duo Ida Mae ran through their new album, paying tribute via influence to many of the blues greats who graced Newport’s stages, like Son House and Fred McDowell, whom Chris Turpin cribbed solos from in “Click Click Domino.”
Celisse, in her bright flowing rainbow-colored dress, blasted some bad-ass blues riffs of her own, her pink-glittered amps just trying to keep up, her cover of Bill Withers “Use Me” highlighting her fiery set. Black Joe Lewis and Marcus King both brought a big band blues filled with horns, soul and funk.
The Busking Stage, a small pop-up tent thrown up on the edge of the lawn, hosted intimate performances buy lesser-known new talent and some surprising larger artists. The close-in space, stripped down performances, with fans sitting attentively in the grass surrounding the stage, harked back to the earliest days of the fest. One of the larger crowds at the stage occurred when Andrew Bird and Jimbo Mathis previewed their Quad Stage set on the smaller stage. Playing their old-timey fiddle and guitar tunes from their 2021 release, These 13, one could almost imagine they were back in 1959.
Easing back from nothing to full-on festival, the 2021 Folk On event, had a half-capacity crowd and a bunch of artists bringing a more stripped down set then their pre-pandemic norm, which provided a mellower vibe that felt more in tune with folk fests of yore. Grace Potter, in a set that spanned two days due to Friday ending early due to impending storms, played a solo set. Just her voice and a guitar or electric piano. Her voice was stunning throughout, but especially on “Stars.” Phosphorescent shunned dismissed his usual full band and was accompanied only by piano. Back to closing out the fest Saturday night, Jason Isbell was stripped down to an acoustic trio, with Sadler Vaden on guitar and Amanda Shires on fiddle and vocals. “What Have I Done to Help” pushed the format to it’s limit, all three jarring back and forth. Kevin Morby also went without his band, playing in various configurations with Cochemea Gastellum on saxophone and flute, Katie Crutchfield and a drummer. A duet with Cochemea on “Oh My God” was jaw-droppingly good. And in Crutchfield’s own set she was accompanied by only a drummer. Lucy Dacus played “Partners in Crime” without the usual Autotune for the first and probably only time ever, which she thought a folk fest “simply couldn’t handle.”
History was also explored through multiple tributes, as is generally the case at one of these things. Devon Gilfillian brought a full set tribute to Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On” that was surely a Folk On highlight. Multiple guests, including Joy Oladukun, Kam Franklin and Celisse, joined a big band assembled for just this purpose, that may just have been the best this music has sounded in 50 years. Sadly, Gilfillian explained, he covered the album because all these years later the country is still just beginning to get the message through.
Billy Strings also played a tribute set, to festival alum Doc Watson. Strings explained how he loves to think about Newport’s rich history, and referenced the large portrait of Watson in the green room. His quartet, seated throughout, blitzed through Watson originals and covers he made his own, like “Way Downtown,” “Summertime,” and “Shady Grove.” What the festival lacked in quantity of bluegrass was made up for in quality in this one hour set.
There were too many amazing covers to count, some highlights include: Grace Potter’s playing “White Rabbit” on her Flying V guitar; Phosphorescent boldly covering Randy Neman’s “Days of Heaven” hours before Newman took the stage himself; Joy Oladukun taking Prince’s “The Cross” for a spin, Waxahatchee working in Jason Molina’s “The Dark Don’t Hide It” with Kevin Morby; Bird and Mathis inviting Margo Price to sing on “Angels of Montgomery,” one of a few tributes paid to the late John Prine.
Any time an artist is invited to play at Newport they become a part of the Folk Family. The fans are also members of the family. With the festival on pause in 2020, this year felt like a bit of a family reunion on both sides of the stage. Some groups had matching t-shirts, some matching pins, but everyone wore beaming smiles, just happy to getting back to being amongst music lovers and music makers.
After months and months at home with literal family, artists seemed quite content to keep spending time together. The amount of related artists sharing the stage was prevalent. Ida Mae, Maggie Price and Jeremy Ivy, Jason Isbell and Amanda Shires, Kevin Morby and Katie Crutchfield. Grace Potter had her husband, producer Eric Valentine, as her “over-qualified” guitar tech, whom she also lovingly bantered about between songs.
Stronger Together
As the banner says upon arrival, “We’re stronger when we sing together.” True to it’s patriarch’s words, the Newport Folk Festival has been rife with collaborations in recent years. After a slow start to the weekend, by Sunday the normal expectation of sit-ins was back to near full throttle.
Erin Rae hosted a rotating cast of guests for a set dubbed Gentle Times, in what has become a Newport tradition. Langhorn Slim joining to lead the band in Ted Hawkins’ “Sorry You’re Sick,” Taylor Goldsmith up for “For What It’s Worth,” Nathaniel Rateliff singing on Link Wrays “Falling Rain” and around and around it went. Not too shabby for Rae’s first ever set at Newport! They were most definitely stronger together.
Singers Adia Victoria, Haley Heynderickx, Kam Franklin, Margo Price, Joy Oladukun and Nathaniel Rateliff were seemingly always within reach for a sit-in with whoever was asking. Brandi Carlisle even was available for a surprise visit or two. Celisse on the other hand couldn’t hide her impending trips to the stage when her sparkling pink amp sat atop the stage.
Caamp graduated to the main stage and fans took advantage creating an impromptu dance floor in the limited view area behind the soundboard that only grew as the set progressed. They were all stronger together.
Once and Future Sounds
The themes of the weekend all came to a head during the Sunday finale set, curated by woman-of-the-moment Allison Russell, named Once and Future Sounds. Most of the aforementioned female artists joined Russell on stage as they were invited to “join the circle.”
“We’re two crescent moons forming a full moon… our circle is unbroken since 1959 [the year of the festival’s founding] … roots, branches, it’s our time to rise.” Russell explained through an opening monologue. Caroline Randal Williams interspersed the set with performances of her poetry while Yasmin Williams and the house band laid down beautiful backing music. One line in particular connected the dots perfectly to the festival’s history, future and to the present theme of the set, “Sister Rosetta Tharpe distorted those strings because there is no man made box that can tell our story.”
Celisse joined “the circle” to bend some strings of her own in a stirring performance of “Eyes on the Prize.” Many of the women playing the festival were invited into “the circle” to add their voices too: Margo Price, Kam Franklin, Adia Victoria for Tina Turner’s take on the Beatles’ “Help,” Franklin premiering her own song, “Don’t Get Caught Sick,” Yola, Celisse, Brandi Carlisle, and Franklin paying tribute to Mavis Staples with “I’ll Take You There,” Carlisle and Russell playing Alicia Keys’ “A Beautiful Noise” … it was a soul-stirring set through and through. And just as the set seemed to be wrapping up, the surprise of surprises, as only Newport can bring them, Chaka Kahn arrived on stage to bring that dance-party we mentioned earlier.
After a two-year wait for music at the Fort, Newport Folk provided a perfect blend of past, present and future with the right amount of the expected and unexpected. As always, it just leaves us wanting and waiting for more. For some lucky fans, that’s just what they got, with the second three-day event underway. Stay tuned for our coverage from that soon.
Singer, songwriter, trumpeter, and producer Tony Glausi released his new single “The Ominous Blue,” featuring singer and saxophonist Braxton Cook. The track comes right off of Glausi’s upcoming album, Everything At Once out September 3 via Outside In Music.
Tony Glausi | Courtesy of Sofia Alvarez
Raised in Portland, Oregon but currently based in New York City,Tony Glausi is widely known for his accomplishments as a trumpet player. Now, on Everything At Once, Glausi breaks free from simply being an instrumentalist and firmly establishes his prowess as a bandleader, producer, songwriter, and singer. The new full-length album features straight-to-the-gut pop jams and R&B-influenced tunes taking inspiration from a bevy of sources all while still remaining uniquely true to Glausi’s vision as an artist. The album was announced last month alongside his singles “Lot of Enough” and “Jada Jada.”
“Writing Everything At Once I felt like the project wasn’t about me. It wasn’t about Tony, the trumpet player. I just wanted to make fucking songs… I sing on three of them, but I just wanted to produce the music and ultimately let my collaborators shine.”
Tony Glausi
Everything At Once is a cinematic full-length production brimming with confidence, introducing Tony Glausi the polymath. It is an album of places, faces, and interactions. Simply put, Tony Glausi has created a mixtape to his life, thanks, in part, to his willingness to try anything. Along with Braxton Cook, guests on Everything At Once include Latin Grammy-nominated Nana Mendoza, Brooklyn-based singer Elysse, rapper Charlemagne the Goddess, and UK vocalist Max Milner.
“Coming out of high school and studying music in college, I was pretty fixated on jazz trumpet playing, and my earlier releases were heavily oriented around improvisation and swing, but as I continue to write and explore new sounds, I feel like I get closer and closer to my true voice, one record at a time. The album is literally a two-year snapshot of my life. Each story is like a scene from a film, or I guess 10 different films”
Glausi continuing on creating‘Everything At Once’
Everything At Once will be released on September 3 through Outside In Music. Until then, fans should listen to Glausi’s latest releases, including the masterfully written and recorded Lot of Enough and Jada Jada. These songs are just snippets of the eclectic and exhilarating sound Tony Glausi has uncovered for himself with his latest album, and show why he deserves the spotlight on today’s musical stage
This is the third article in the series “Made in New York,” a historical examination of the music history of each of New York’s 62 counties, this time looking at Queens County.
New York City has a fascinating history and an immense amount of diversity within its borders, but there’s a reason why Queens is called “The World’s Borough.” That’s because its residents hail from over 120 countries and speak more than 135 different languages. As impressive as that is, the borough is also the largest of the five by area and also has the second-largest population of any county within New York State.
One of the most-asked questions about this county is: “Which particular Queen is this area named after?” While the specific member of royalty that the area was named after has been disputed for generations as no official declaration was ever made, most assume the “Queen” in question was Catherine of Braganza, who was Queen of England in 1683 when Queens County was first established.
Queens County has had the eyes of the world on it many times, especially since it had the honor of hosting not one, but two World’s Fairs in the last century. The 1939 and 1964 World’s Fair were each held at Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens and over 95 million people visited the two fairs. The first of these two events focused on “The World of Tomorrow” while the second’s theme was “Peace Through Understanding.” One of the most recognizable pieces from these Fairs is the Unisphere that was constructed for the second of these events. At 120 feet in diameter, it is the largest globe in the world. The other remaining recognizable structure from these Fairs is the New York State Pavilion, which many will remember from the movie Men in Black.
Next to the site of the Unisphere sits the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. Since 1978, it’s been the home of the US Open Grand Slam tennis tournament and boasts one of the largest tennis stadiums in the world. With a capacity of 23,771, Arthur Ashe Stadium opened in 1997 and is the main stadium for the US Open tournament.
Across the street from the tennis complex is Citi Field and the former site of the famous Shea Stadium, which opened in 1964. While most notably the home of the New York Mets and the former home of the New York Jets, it was also the site of one of the most famous concerts ever performed. When the Beatles performed at Shea Stadium on August 15, 1965, it was the largest crowd the band had played to at that time. Over 55,000 fans packed themselves into the stadium and the ensuing crowd noise famously resulted in the band not being able to hear much of anything they were playing.
Four years later, Shea Stadium would have the world’s eyes on it once again as the New York Mets would defeat the Baltimore Orioles in the 1969 World Series. The team would win one more World Series in 1986 when they defeated the Boston Red Sox in seven games. Shea was demolished in 2009 and is now the site of additional parking for the Mets current home, Citi Field. You can still find the locations of the former plates and pitchers mound memorialized in Parking Lot D of Citi Field.
Another world-famous music venue in Queens is the Forest Hills Stadium, which is located inside the West Side Tennis Club. The stadium started hosting concerts in the 1960s and boasts a capacity of over 13,000. Over the years, the venue has hosted bands such as The Beatles, The Who, Jimi Hendrix and Frank Sinatra. A decade ago, the venue had fallen into disrepair and thankfully avoided being razed to build housing. Since it re-opened in 2013, it has hosted annual concerts each summer from bands such as Mumford and Sons, My Morning Jacket, Jamiroquai and Dolly Parton.
Queens is also the home to New York City’s two main airports, LaGuardia and JFK International. LGA opened in 1939 and is the twentieth busiest airport in the US. JFK opened in 1948 and was originally named New York International Airport. Renamed in 1963 after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, it is now the sixth busiest airport in the US.
This county has a tremendous amount of history over its 338 years of growth and expansion, but more impressive is the sheer number of musicians and musical genres that have been born within its borders. Likewise, tons of small businesses have started throughout the borough, one of them being SingleCut Beersmiths in Astoria.
SingleCut Beersmiths was founded by Queens-born, music-obsessed, brewer Rich Buceta, whose life-long passions led to a place where hops and vinyl could shine side by side. After years of homebrewing and professional stints around NYC, Rich was true to his dream, diving headfirst into the brewing world. “My obsession is creating original hop-driven beer, distinguished by a firm respect and admiration for West Coast pioneers, and bending that to our East Coast / NYC interpretation.”
Since opening in 2012, and with the help of an equally talented and devoted team, SingleCut has gained a loyal following throughout the East-Coast’s most respected markets. With his steadfast determination for the perfect pint, Rich penned “Mastery Knows No Shortcut” as the SingleCut mission statement. “It boils down to always demanding greatness, never compromising, and always play it at maximum volume.” Visit the Astoria location of SingleCut at 19-33 37th Street or schedule in house pick up or delivery, as well as apparal and mail order throughout New York. Visit them on Facebook and Instagram.
And now, a look at the greatest musicians to rise from Queens County.
A TRIBE CALLED QUEST
Queens is in the house, represent represent. A Tribe Called Quest represent represent
Hailing from the St. Albans neighborhood in Queens, A Tribe Called Quest found its roots within Kamaal Fareed and Malik Taylor, childhood friends who went by the names ‘Q-Tip’ and ‘Phife Dawg’. It was through Q-Tip’s days as a battle rapper in high school that he would team up with his friend Ali Shaheed Muhammad as his DJ. Once they later added their neighborhood friend Jarobi White to the mix, the foursome started calling themselves “Crush Connection” before landing on the name “Quest”. The group’s current name came to be thanks to another hip hop trio from their high school named Jungle Brothers.
Tribe’s debut album, People’s Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm, was released in 1990 and was met with immediate acclaim. The Source gave the release it’s first ever “5-mic’s” rating and the album went Gold in 1996. This record was followed by 1991’s Low End Theory which went Platinum five years later. In 1993, the group released Midnight Marauders, one of their most popular albums which contained their highest charting single, “Award Tour.”
These three albums would solidify Tribe’s status as hip hop greats and they would continue their classic jazz-hip hop fusion sound with their fourth release. Beats, Rhymes and Life would debut at #1 on the Billboard 200 and less than a year later, the group would contribute a track to the the soundtrack to Men In Black. Leading up to the release of their fifth album, A Tribe Called Quest announced that The Love Movement would be their final record.
Over the next seven years, the members of Tribe would each work on solo projects until the group reunited in 2006 to help Phife pay for his increasing medical bills. In 2015, after performing on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, the group decided to start recording a new album in secret. Phife Dawg sadly passed away on March 22, 2016 as a result of complications with his diabetes. Their latest album hadn’t been completed when he passed away, so the remaining members continued work on it until it was released on November 11, 2016. Tribe appeared on SNL the day after it was released and performed tracks from We Got It From Here… Thank You 4 Your Service in front of a mural of Phife Dawg. The album went gold within a year of its release.
THE RAMONES
The Ramones all originate from Forest Hills and kids who grew up there either became musicians, degenerates or dentists. The Ramones are a little of each.
Tommy Ramone
1-2-3-4! There is no band that represents Queens more than The Ramones. Known throughout the world as the first true punk rock band, The Ramones pummeled the music industry with their pseudonyms, short songs and thousands of concerts over their 22 year career.
All of the original members met in the Forest Hills neighborhood of Queens and while it took a bit for the roles to be properly assigned, it was Douglas Colvin who first adopted the “Ramones” name when he began to call himself Dee Dee Ramone. Jeffrey Hyman became Joey Ramone and John Cummings became Johnny Ramone. Johnny’s former bandmate Thomas Erdelyi was planning to become the Ramones manager but soon took on the role of the band’s drummer, taking on the name Tommy Ramone.
Their first gig occurred at Performance Studios in March of 1974 and more famously, the band made their debut at the fabled CBGB in August of the same year, playing 74 times at CBGB before the end of the year. Ramones, their debut album, was released in February 1976 and was met with glowing reviews despite not being a commercial success. The Ramones went on to release six albums in the next half-decade and 14 albums throughout their career.
Throughout their tenure, the band had a number of different drummers, with each adding a member to the Ramones family. Marky, Richie and Elvis Ramone each had a place in the history of Ramones drummers and throughout the 90s, Dee Dee was replaced with C. J. Ramone on bass. In 1996, following their appearance in the sixth Lollapalooza festival. The Ramones played their final show at The Palace in Hollywood. The last time all four original members would be seen together was an autograph signing in New York City on July 20,1999.
The legacy of The Ramones can be seen in their many accolades, recognizable songs and influence on countless bands over the last few decades. They were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in their first eligible year in 2002 and in 2016, the intersection in front of Forest Hills High School was officially named The Ramones Way. To this day, when hits like “Blitzkrieg Bop,” “I Wanna Be Sedated,” “Rock ’n’ Roll High School” or “Rockaway Beach” come on, you will no doubt see folks banging their head and stomping their feet to the frenetic and iconic beat that The Ramones made their own.
PAUL SIMON
No artist has embodied the diversity of Queens quite like Paul Simon has. He was born in Newark, New Jersey in 1941 but his family moved to Flushing, Queens when he was four years old. His musical career would begin at age 11 when he met a student named Art Garfunkel during a production of Alice in Wonderland. At the age of 16, their song “Hey, Schoolgirl” reached number 49 on the pop charts under the name ‘Tom & Jerry.’
After finishing college and recording songs under a number of pseudonyms, Paul reunited with Art and they were signed by Columbia Records, who changed the duo’s name to Simon and Garfunkel. Their debut album, Wednesday Morning, 3AM, was initially unsuccessful and it wasn’t until radio stations in the US started receiving request for ‘The Sound of Silence’ that it began to garner attention. That track eventually went on to become a number-1 hit on the charts and allowed the duo to record four more albums together. Sounds of Silence, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme, Bookends and Bridge Over Troubled Water were all successful and the band also contributed to the soundtrack to the 1967 film The Graduate.
Despite the commercial success of Bridge Over Troubled Water, the duo broke up in 1970 and Paul released his self-titled solo album in 1972, receiving acclaim and generating two popular singles: “Mother and Child Reunion” and “Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard”. This album was followed by the pop-folk release of There Goes Rhymin’ Simon which features “Kodachrome” and “Loves Me Like A Rock.”
Three years later, Simon would be awarded two Grammy awards for his release of Still Crazy After All These Year, which gave us the hit “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover.” In the first half of the 1980s, he released One-Trick Pony and Hearts and Bones, which did not receive as much acclaim as his previous solo releases, and made me him feel like he had lost his inspiration as an artist. While driving his car in 1984, he threw on the cassette tape of Gumboots: Accordion Jive Volume IIand the unusual sound interested him in a way he hadn’t felt before. He traveled to South Africa to record the album that would become his most popular and most successful solo album, Graceland.
Graceland propelled Simon back into the spotlight and he received Grammy awards for Album of the Year and Record of the Year for his work. The album also contained numerous hits, including “You Can Call Me Al,” “Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes” and “The Boy in the Bubble.” After the success of this release, he followed it up with 1990’s The Rhythm of the Saints and, as a result of these two records, he was primed to play again to another crowd in Central Park. On August 15, 1991, a reported 750,000 people gathered to witness his solo performance in front of one of the largest concert audiences of all time.
Paul Simon has embarked on a number of notable tours since then, playing with Bob Dylan in 1999 and Sting in 2014. In 2018, Simon announced he’d be retiring from touring and appropriately capped off his final tour with a concert in Flushing Meadows’ Corona Park. Simon has received a total of 12 Grammy awards throughout his career, but more famously he has appeared on Saturday Night Live as a either a guest or host 14 times. Most recently, he performed on the show in 2018 on his 77th birthday.
TONY BENNETT
Anthony Dominick Benedetto was born in Long Island City, Queens in 1926 and began performing after the Great Depression ended at age 13 as a singing waiter throughout Queens. He attended the New York School of Industrial Art to study music and painting, but dropped out to support his family and then was drafted into the Army at 18 towards the end of World War II. After fighting on the front lines in Germany and France, he was discharged from the Army and returned back to the States in 1946 where he studied at the American Theater Wing and learned the bel canto singing style.
In 1949, Bob Hope took Anthony on the road with him and simplified his name to Tony Bennett. Tony was signed by Columbia Records and his first hit, “Because of You,” sold over a million copies and before long he was playing seven shows a day at the Paramount Theater in New York. He released his first album, Cloud 7, in 1955 and built up his nightclub act over the next many years. In 1962, he performed a heavily-promoted concert at Carnegie Hall and also sang on the initial broadcast of The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.
That same year, Bennett would release his most popular track to this day, “I Left My Heart in San Francisco,” which earned him two Grammy awards and would become his signature song. Over the next two decades, Tony would see less success with his new record company and his lackluster releases, and it would take a near-fatal overdose and the help of his sons to get him back on track and shake his “Vegas image.”
Throughout the 90s, he introduced a new generation to his original style, appearance and song catalog and was regularly booked on Late Night with David Letterman, Late Night with Conan O’Brien and other popular shows. In 1994, he appeared on MTV Unplugged and the resulting album from this performance went Platinum and gained two additional Grammy awards for Bennett.
In 2006, Tony’s highest charting album, Duets: An American Classic was released. The album featured duets with Stevie Wonder, Paul McCartney, Billy Joel and more and gained him another two Grammy awards. This was followed up by the 2011 release of Duets II which featured one of the last recording of Amy Winehouse before her untimely death. With this release, Tony became the oldest artist to have an album debut at number one on the Billboard 200 chart when it was released.
Tony also has the honor of having two World Records according to Guinness. The first was in 2014 for the album Cheek to Cheek which he recorded with Lady Gaga, for which he was awarded the record for “oldest person to reach No.1 on the US Album Chart with a newly recorded album.” In 2018, Tony re-recorded the song “Fascinating Rhythm” which he first sang in 1949. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, this became the “longest time between the release of an original recording and a re-recording of the same single by the same artist”
MOBB DEEP
East Coast hip hop had its renaissance in the 1990s and one of the duos that helped establish its historical dominance was Mobb Deep. This duo formed when Kejuan Muchita and Albert Johnson met at the High School of Art and Design in Manhattan. Each hailing from neighborhoods in Queens, Kejuan adopted the name Havoc and Albert took Prodigy and the two originally made a demo tape under the name “Poetical Prophets.” Their tactic was to bring a cassette player to the address of record labels they’d find and play their tape to any artists passing by.
Famously, the only artist who stopped to listen to their music was Q-Tip from A Tribe Called Quest, who introduced the duo to people in the Def Jam office. Prodigy got a solo deal and had an uncredited appearance on the Boyz n the Hood soundtrack, but when The Source wrote a feature about their demo tape, the two changed their name to Mobb Deep and got signed by 4th & B’way Records. Their debut, Juvenile Hell, was released in 1993 and due to its failure to achieve success, they were dropped by the label.
That same summer, Loud Records was looking for another hip-hop group to sign after their success from releasing Wu-Tang’s “Protect Ya Neck.” They signed Mobb Deep who worked on developing a new sound over the next two years as they worked on their second album, The Infamous. This album peaked at number 15 on the Billboard 200 and was certified Gold two months after its release.
In the eighteen months between album releases, the East Coast vs West Coast hip hop feud was at its height and a number of tracks on their next release, Hell on Earth, were seen as dis tracks towards 2Pac and others. Despite the rivalry, Havoc publicly said that he was “happy… they were saying our names.” Their three releases over the next nine years did not find as much success as their previous albums and the group briefly signed with G-Unit Records. During these G-Unit years, Mobb Deep became the first American hip hop duo to perform in India.
The 2010’s would see the duo break-up due to a falling out on Twitter, but they would reunite the following year. In 2014, the group would release The Infamous Mobb Deep, containing new music and unreleased tracks from The Infamous sessions. This would sadly be the final album they would release together as Prodigy passed away on June 20, 2017. The band’s legacy lives in through the countless acts these two inspired with their novel sampling, hardcore delivery and production style which summarized their lives in Queens.
ACTION BRONSON
Action Bronson is known for the two loves in his life, music and food. Born Ariyan Arslani in Flushing, Queens, Bronson first was a gourmet chef in New York City and had an online cooking show titled Action in the Kitchen. At the time, rapping was just a hobby of his, but he began to fully concentrate on his music career after breaking his leg while working.
Action’s debut album, Dr. Lecter, was released in 2011 only on his website and he released a number of mixtapes over the next few years while collaborating with countless other artists. His big break came in 2014 when he released his second album and starred in his own monthly web series. The album, Mr. Wonderful, and the show, Fuck… That’s Delicious garnered him popularity around the world.
Bronson has released two additional albums since then and has starred in The Irishman and The King of Staten Island. His show has since left the Vice network and gone independent and Action now focuses the episodes on his fitness lifestyle and cooking at home, rather than exploring restaurants around the world.
NIKKI MINAJ
This borough is famously named after royalty so it’s only appropriate that it’s the home of Nikki Minaj. Known the world over as the Queen of Hip Hop, she has sold over 137 million records and has had over 100 entries on the Hot 100 Chart.
Onika Tanya Maraj-Perry was born in Trinidad and Tobago in 1982 but moved to South Jamaica, Queens when she was five years old. In 2004, she recorded music with the Brooklyn group Full Force and began to upload songs to her MySpace profile after leaving the group. She released three mixtapes between 2007 and 2009 before being discovered by Lil Wayne, who signed her to Young Money Entertainment. Her debut album, Pink Friday, was released in 2010, has since gone triple-platinum and featured the hit-song “Super Bass.”
Over the next few years, Nikki would continue to release music and appear in other media as well. She voiced a character in 2012’s Ice Age: Continental Drift and also released her second album as well. Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded was comprised half of hip hop tracks and half of dance-pop tracks. For her third album, Minaj wanted to take things back to her hip hop roots and released The Pinkprint in 2013. It’s hit track, “Anaconda” became the first music video for a female rap song to hit 1 billion views.
The second half of the decade had Minaj continuing her success. She was featured in the third Barbershop movie, Barbershop: The Next Cut, and released her fourth album, Queen, in 2018. She performed the lead single “Chun-Li” on Saturday Night Live and also started her own Beats 1 radio show. Since this 2018 release, she has performed on countless other projects including BTS, Karol G and Doja Cat.
Well my name is DMC, the all time great I bust the most rhymes in New York State
Few groups in history can claim to have influenced more than an entire generation of musicians. Run DMC did all that and had a slew of firsts throughout their career. They were the first hip hop ground to achieve a Gold record, achieve a Platinum record and have an album go multi-platinum. They also were the first hip hop group to appear on MTV or American Bandstand, perform at Live Aid, be on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine or be nominated for a Grammy. Simply put, this was always Run’s House.
Joseph Simmons and Darryl McDaniels each grew up in Hollis, Queens and had dipped their toes into the burgeoning hip hop scene in NY by the time they were teenagers. Simmons older brother Russell had managed Kurtis Blow and was finally convinced to let them record as a duo. They brought their friend Jason Mizell, who went by the name Jam Master Jay, on as their DJ and the trio was born. Simmons was already rapping under the name DJ Run, but his brother made Darryl change his name to DMC, after his favorite car company. And with this, Run DMC was born.
The group’s debut album, Run-DMC, was released to the world in 1984 and the hit track, “Rock Box,” was the first video of its genre to appear on MTV. The video showed the group wearing black Kangol hats, black jeans and t-shirts, gold chains and Adidas sneakers. This look would define the band and influence fashion within the music industry for decades. Their following album, King of Rock, was released the following year.
In 1986, the trio teamed up with producer Rick Rubin to produce their third album, Raising Hell, which would go on to become one of the top-selling hip hop albums of all time. Just before the completion of the record, Rubin suggested that a rock cover would appeal to another audience. This led to the infamous cover of “Walk This Way” which featured both Steven Tyler and Joe Perry from Aerosmith on the track and would become one of the most famous songs from the 80s. This same album featured the hit track “My Adidas” which led to a monumental endorsement deal with the brand.
The 1988 release of Tougher Than Leather introduced the world to “Run’s House.” This was followed up over the next few years with Back From Hell and Down with the King. In 2002, they released their last album before the untimely passing of Jam Master Jay. The group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2009.
KOOL G RAP
When hip hop was on its initial rise, it had its share of artists whose legacy and fame would last to this day. Notorious BIG, Jay-Z, Eminem and more still cite Kool G Rap as one of their biggest influences and his skills as an MC stands the test of time. He was one of the first rappers to incorporate mob content into his lyrics and his storytelling rivals that of Slick Rick.
Born in 1968 in Corona, Queens, Nathaniel Thomas Wilson grew up with legendary DJ Erik B who introduced him to DJ Polo. They got the opportunity record their first demo “It’s a Demo” thanks to Queen’s DJ Marley Marl who immediately added the two as Juice Crew members after the recording. Kool G Rap appeared on Juice Crew’s “The Symphony” in 1988 before releasing he and DJ Polo’s debut album in 1989. Road to the Riches is on The Source’s ‘100 Best Rap Albums’ list and the song “Men At Work” is the song that initially brought the member of The Roots together.
1990 and 1992 saw the release of both Wanted: Dead or Alive and Live and Let Die, which are each considered classic hip hop albums. In 1993, Kool G Rap chose a solo career and released his first solo album, 4,5,6 in 1995. Over the next two decades, Kool G Rap would release five additional solo albums and three other collaboration albums. He may be considered one of the most influential rappers from hip hop’s Golden Age, but he certainly never overstayed his welcome.
ERIK B
Eric Barrier is one of half of the hip hop duo Erik B & Rakim, one of the greatest DJ/MC combos in history. The beats and samples that he used during his mixing resulted in Paid in Full still being recognized as one of the greatest hip hop albums of all time.
Eric was born in East Elhurst, Queens in 1963 and he started DJ’ing with his brother and friends at a local roller rink. He originally was paving the way for a basketball career until he decided that music was going to be the priority in his life. While DJ’ing for a local radio station, a promoter in Queens introduced him to a rapper that would shape the course of his life forever, William Griffin, who went by the moniker Rakim.
The two’s first release was the 1986 single “Eric B is President,” which would catch the ear of Def Jam’s Russel Simmons. Simmons would sign the two to Island Records and in 1987, they would start work on their debut album, Paid in Full. The record was completed in one week and was certified Platinum eight years after its release. Two of the singles, “Paid in Full” and “I Ain’t No Joke,” became instant classics within the genre. On two separate occasions, Rolling Stone magazine has named the album number 51 on the list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.
One year later, the two released their follow-up record, Follow The Leader. This album went Gold as did their 1990 release of Let the Rhythm Hit ‘Em. As the 90s began, they had a track on the soundtrack for House Party 2 and they also wrote the theme for the 1992 film, Juice. Both of these tracks were featured on the groups final album, Don’t Sweat The Technique. After this final release, the duo split-up due to contract-related disputes. However, in 2017, Erik B & Rakim reunited at the Apollo Theater in NYC before going on an American tour the following year.
CYNDI LAUPER
Although she was born in Brooklyn, Cyndi Lauper’s time in Ozone Park, Queens from age 4 to 17 made her who she is today. When she graduated from sixth grade, she was given her older sister’s acoustic guitar, which kicked off her love of music. It was also around this time that she started wearing colorful hair and clothing, which would become her image for the following decades.
Throughout the 1970s, Cyndi would begin her musical career as a singer in a number of cover bands. She found that she loved singing on stage, but was becoming increasingly unhappy singing only cover songs. She met a saxophone player named John Turi and in 1978, the two of them formed a band named Blue Angel. The manager for The Allman Brothers Band heard their demo and bought out their contract, all because he loved Lauper’s voice.
Blue Angel only had one release but it was unfortunately not well received. The band broke up after this and Lauper started waitressing and singing in small clubs around New York. She met David Wolff at one of these club performances and in 1981, he took over as her manager. Before long, she had recorded her first album as a solo artist and in 1983, her debut record was released to the world. She’s So Unusual had a total of six singles off of it, with “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” and “Time After Time” becoming instant classics. She received the award for Best New Artist at the 1985 Grammy Awards and she also won the first ever Best Female Video award at the 1984 MTV Video Music Awards.
1985 was just as busy for Lauper as she was part of the USA for Africa song “We Are the World” and was also featured on the soundtrack for The Goonies. The following year she appeared on the Billy Joel album The Bridge and also sang the theme song for the Pee-Wee’s Playhouse tv show. Her second album, True Colors, came out the same year and was followed up in 1989 by A Night to Remember.
Over the next 23 years, Cyndi would release eight additional albums and appear on dozens of television shows. She won an Emmy for her appearance on Mad About You and won both a Grammy and a Tony Award for her work on the hit musical Kinky Boots.
LL COOL J
I represent Queens, she was raised out of Brooklyn
Would James Todd Smith be as popular as he is if he went with his original pick for a name? J-Ski rolls off the tongue, but James wanted to avoid a name that could be associated with the rampant cocaine epidemic spreading across the country. For that reason, we all know that everyone may like Cool James, but the Ladies Love Cool James.
Smith grew up in Queens and his love for the group The Treacherous Three got him to start rapping at the age of 10. At the age of 16, his family saw his love for music and bought him the equipment he needed to further his passion. With turntables, a mixer, drum machine and amplifier in hand, he was recording demo tapes in his grandparents basement and sending them to record companies around NYC.
One of these record companies was Def Jam, who signed LL Cool J in 1984. That same year, he released the single “I Need A Beat” and sold over 100,000 copies of the 12-inch record. The following year, Def Jam released his debut full-length album and Radio sold a half million copies in its first five months. He would open for Run-DMC and the Beastie Boys on their Raising Hell tour and would go on to be the first hip hop artist to perform on American Bandstand.
One of LL Cool J’s most popular albums would follow in 1987 when Bigger and Deffer was released. This success led to 1989’s Walking with a Panther, which sold well but was criticized for straying from his original sound. Fans would only have wait another year for LL’s fifth album to return to its roots. Mama Said Knock You Out earned him a Grammy for the title track and would go on to become the best selling album of his career.
The beginning of the ’90s would allow LL to star in big screen roles and saw the release of 14 Shots to the Dome in 1993 and Mr. Smith in 1995. The latter featured “Doin It” and “Hey Lover” as singles and are still two of his more popular tracks to this day. Over the next 26 years, LL would go on to release seven more albums, star in many movies as well as the hit show NCIS: Los Angeles and would host the show Lip Sync Battle. This year, LL Cool J will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for the Musical Excellence Award.
Louis Armstrong
If anybody was a master, it was Louis Armstrong. He was and will continue to be the embodiment of jazz.
Duke Ellington, 1971
With his gravelly voice and impressive trumpeting, Louis Armstrong is still considered to be one of the greatest jazz musicians of all time. Born in New Orleans in 1901, Louis was surrounded by the early sounds of jazz throughout his childhood. He was taught how to play the cornet at the age of 11 by Peter Davis who later chose the 13 year old Louis as his bandleader. He learned to sight read while playing on riverboats in the area until 1922 when he moved to Chicago to play in King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band.
It makes perfect sense that the irrepressible Ronnie James Dio would be the one to tell his life story in a book completed and released 11 years after his death! If there’s one thing this book demonstrates, it’s that the tiny but mighty Dio had the gumption to power through obstacle after obstacle in the pursuit of his many dreams. It was that tenacity married with a singular talent that has made him the most iconic and imitated voice in heavy metal – an indispensable ingredient in the mega-success of Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow, Black Sabbath and, finally, his globe-conquering namesake band, DIO.
Co-written with British music journalist Mick Wall and Dio’s widow and longtime manager Wendy, Rainbow In the Dark: The Autobiography follows the metal maven from his childhood in a close knit Italian-American family in upstate New York to the pinnacle of his solo band’s success, their Madison Square Garden debut in June 1986.
For me, the most interesting chapters in most musician biographies come from their striving days, and Dio has a tale of failures, tragedies and restarts that is hard to match.
His musical life began with the trumpet, inspired by big band icon Harry James. It was an instrument his father made him practice four hours a day starting at age 6, the axe with which he would soon begin his non-stop gigging lifestyle playing at school and social events. His love of popular music then led him to forsake the brass for the bass, then vocals, in his pursuit of a professional career. Talk about failure? His first serious band, Ronnie and the Prophets, scored 10 flop singles between 1962 and 1965. A later band, the Electric Elves, hatched three more duds. An overnight sensation, he was not.
The road has taken the life of many musicians and Dio had his share of close calls. In his pre-fame days, there were three crashes he recounts in dramatic detail. The first was when his band’s car was totaled in a collision with a mule! Far worse was the second which took the life of his guitarist Nick Pantas, his closest friend and musical partner in several early bands. A third destroyed his band’s equipment. This was when a just-hired roadie named Igor was trusted with and promptly crashed their new truck on its inaugural run.
Things finally started to turn up in 1972 when Dio’s band Elf was signed by Purple Records, a label headed by Deep Purple’s Ian Paice and Roger Glover. This led to opening slots on huge tours for the likes of Alice Cooper and Deep Purple. When the latter band’s masterful and mercurial guitarist Ritchie Blackmore decided to go solo, it was with most of Elf’s members, including Ronnie on vocals and as co-songwriter/lyricist. Together, Blackmore and Dio would pioneer a fusion of hard rock, heavy classical and fantasy lyricism that would define a most popular style of metal.
Some of the more entertaining parts of the book are Dio’s memories of the prickly Mr. Blackmore. This includes him ordering the diminutive Dio to “sit on a pillow” as he is meeting, for the first time, his wife- and manager-to-be Wendy at The Rainbow, the L.A. rocker haunt from which the band would take its name. Also detailed are some spooky seances led by Blackmore when the band was recording in France at Château d’Hérouville. At these, he reportedly summoned the spirit of Mozart (who appeared in a mirror), Thor (who made it thunder) and the pagan god Baal (who wiped some sessions from their 24-track tapes). For all their success in recording, co-composing and sell-out touring, Dio’s time with Blackmore ends badly – with him broke, without his due royalties and stranded in L.A.
It is through Wendy’s friendship with Sharon Osborne that Dio came to the attention of Black Sabbath leader/guitarist Tony Iommi. With Ozzy out of Sabbath and the band in limbo, Iommi was considering a solo project. He met with Dio for a jam which morphed into a miraculously writing session that produced the iconic “Children of the Sea.” Together, Iommi and Dio would go on to write much of what would become Black Sabbath’s career-revitalizing album, 1980’s Heaven and Hell. It was a platinum-seller that triggered a rebirth of not only the band but the heavy metal genre as a whole.
In the book, we also learn how Ronnie’s Sicilian grandmother helped give birth to “the Devil’s Horns,” the now ubiquitous hand signal of heavy metal brotherhood, one usually deployed along with a firm headbang! His grandmother called this ancient Sicilian symbol “the Maloik” and said it would protect young Dio from “the Evil Eye” and other ill omens. Dio started flashing it at Black Sabbath shows, as his answer to the peace symbol former front man Ozzy waved. It caught on not only at Sabbath shows but across and beyond the world of heavy metal fandom.
Dio goes on to describe the highs and lows of his time with Sabbath and in working with Iommi, another genius but often intractable guitar god. This portion provides the most VH-1 Behind the Music-styled dish on drugs and egos and how it finally led Dio to take the plunge and start his own band, in partnership with his wife/manager Wendy and Sabbath drummer Vinnie Appice. Once again, Dio shows how his singular commitment and personal sacrifice, now aided by his wife’s business smarts, created one of the most loved and enduring marquee acts of 1980s. Dio then goes on to the many peaks and valleys of his own namesake band, from its debut album featuring the classic “Rainbow in the Dark” through various personnel changes, breakups, reformations to their 10th and final album, 2004’s Master of the Moon.
Ronnie began writing this manuscript several years before being diagnosed with stomach cancer in 2009. To bring the book to completion, Wendy fleshed out unfinished sections and added some of her own observations, from her decades knowing and working with Ronnie. Journalist Mick Wall had interviewed Dio countless times and was brought in to add more detail and finalize the manuscript. With all that, the book has a casual, conversational tone that is all Ronnie.
Not covered in this book are Dio’s later years and his inspirational battle with cancer. While there are no solid plans for a second installment, Ronnie left Wendy notes for many stories that he wanted to tell about the years beyond where this book leaves off and his final struggle with can.
To celebrate the publication of the book, Wendy Dio will participate in an hour-long LiveSigning.com event produced by Premiere Collectibles on Wednesday, July 28 beginning at 3:00PM (Eastern time). Those who have pre-ordered the book here will have the opportunity to submit questions in advance for Wendy to answer during the event, which will stream live via the Ronnie James Dio Facebook page.
It was the Summer of 1973, the ‘Hippie movement’ of the 1960’s still existed, but only in isolated pockets, tucked way in the dusty cobwebbed corners of the counterculture. Groups like the Grateful Dead, Allman Brothers Band, and The Band were still playing to crowds that held tightly to the ideals of the mid 1960’s, which the groups themselves still carried on through their music. The bands were also undergoing personal changes reflected back at them through their audience. All three bands and more than 600,000 of their fans would descend on Watkins Glen for one of the largest concerts in recorded history, Summer Jam.
The genesis for 1973’s Summer Jam began as a brain storm by promoters Shelly Finkel and Jim Koplik who had discussed and planned on setting a line up for the ages. After seeing members of the Allman Brothers Band sit in with the Grateful Dead at a Summer 1972 concert at Roosevelt Stadium the seed was planted to bring together an astronomical set of musicians for a gathering to rival even Woodstock, boy, would they be surprised.
The decision to bring The Band on board came by the promoters asking the Dead and Allman’s which artist they would most like to have join them on the bill, the decision was easy and unanimous. Plans were put in place and and set in motion. Roughly 150,000 tickets were sold at $10.00 a piece for the show, large by any standard of measurement. To everyone’s surprise, by the evening prior to the concert that number of intrepid travelers had already showed up to the festival site. By show time on July 28 the number would exceed an estimated 600,000 fans.
Often overshadowed by other festivals in the annals of rock history, the show became something different than originally planned, but ended up being remembered fondly by all participants. The concert also seemed to signal the end of an era, ushering in a time where festivals became corporate interests instead of private excursions into the unknown. Soon to be gone were the days of Monterey, Woodstock, and the Isle of Wight, properly concluding with the biggest of them all ‘Summer Jam,’ situated smack dab in the middle of New York State. Two of the principal performing artists, The Grateful Dead and Allman Brothers had recently lost founding members, Pigpen for the Dead in March of 1973, and Duane Allman and Barry Oakley for the Allmans in 1971 and 1972 respectively. These deaths caused a restructure and reassessment of both bands musical futures which at this point seemed somewhat uncertain for both groups.
The Band on the other hand was also hanging by a thread because of personal issues regarding publishing, as well as substance abuse seeping into the fabric of the group. The ‘Summer Jam’ acts as a celebration of the recent past for the artists involved, as well as a signpost to an unknown future. For the Grateful Dead, the festival featured one of their usual blistering 1973 sets, in addition to an perfectly encapsulated instrumental journey tagged as one of their finest, hailing in true Grateful Dead fashion from the sound check. The Allmans played an extended and crisply executed set featuring new songs from their retooled line up and fiery soloing from Dickey Betts. Robbie Robertson has often been quoted that the Watkins Glen set was one of the legendary performing moments by the boys, and will go down in history as one of their best.
In spite of prior planning by the promoters and authorities leading up to the evening of the concert, roads and highways were still backed up for a hundred miles, stores in Watkins Glen and surrounding areas were wiped of groceries and beer, and over 150,000 folks were waiting at the 95 acre concert site a night early. Routes 14 and 17 were gridlocked, and even secret back road entries were congested with abandoned cars, forgotten ground scores and backpacking travelers making their way to the festival site.
The day of July 27 found all three bands arriving, scoping out the situation, and standing slack jawed at the amount of people already at the festival site. Legend tells us that when Robbie Robertson guitarist of The Band inquired about a sound check in preparation for the expansive outdoor venue, all three bands decided to do the same thing that evening and make it a mini performance. What happened next is the stuff legends are made of. All three bands played beautiful sets to the lucky early arrivals. The Band ran through a couple of their well know classics as well as jamming on a few unique instrumental grooves that harkened back to their days as The Hawks, when they were still playing Toronto bars and clubs.
A crushing ‘The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down’ opens the ‘rehearsal’ and is answered by encouraging crowd feedback. The instrumental groove the group break into following ‘Dixie’ is jump started by Danko’s smooth fretless bass flourishes and the rest of the band falling in line with a jumpy Levon Helm swing. Robertson’s Stratocaster draws blood with its stinging ring cutting through the somewhat marginal sound quality. Another jewel of the practice session is the rare Danko sung version of ‘Raining in My Heart,’ a bit jagged, but oh so charming.
The Allman’s followed and also ran through a rough and ready sound check that was made up of a few songs planned for the next evening including ‘Ramblin Man’ and ‘One Way Out,’ short but sweet when compared to what would follow. When the Grateful Dead approached the stage for their ‘rehearsal’ segment little did the band or assembled throng know what they were in for.
The Grateful Dead’s ‘soundcheck’ appeared as two sets lasted an hour and a half, but according to many opinions and in true Grateful Dead fashion possibly outshines the next day’s ‘official’ performance. The bonus being the performance circulates in pristine quality unlike songs from the other participants of the concert. The unique improvised instrumental jam that preceded ‘Wharf Rat’ is an anomalous display, never to recreated, and is one of those magical Grateful Dead moments made for the time in which it was born. The jam appeared years later on the official release box set So Many Roads, proof of its distinguished standing in the Dead’s long and varied history.
Prior to the sound checks first highlight ‘Bird Song,’ Phil Lesh states ‘This whole thing is a fraud, we’re really clever androids,’ as they band prepares to levitate off of the ground. ‘Bird Song’ comes skipping in, riding with Kreutzmann on the humid Summer evening breeze. Succulent and patient Garcia and Lesh probe the soft cloudy edges of the jam, floating in space. Expansive yet slightly tentative, the ‘Bird Song’ jams wings are lifted by the gusts of inspiration starting to stir.
After polished and well played versions of various first set classics, including a big fat ‘Tennessee Jed’, the band finds itself in one of those sacred spaces, where the music eventually plays the band, and all bets are off. The unnamed jam grows from silence, quietly, pensively, with light cymbal hits and the guitarists peeking around corners probing into darkness. Lesh increases the intensity with some fuzzy chording; Weir gives the musical drift a tangible shape with perfectly timed strums. Lesh then begins to drone and detonate, the band turns into particles and star dust, breaking apart, and then coagulating as a Garcia led jam rises from nothingness. Billy K catches on, Garcia sets the rhythm and the band achieves lift off. Slick, smooth and jazzy, the band improvises idea after idea. Weir strikes out with nervous lush rhythmic ideas, Phil hides and seeks, and Garcia peels off layer after layer of juicy skin revealing the jam’s plump and succulent center. The band sinks their teeth deep into the music creating one of their finest moments in front of the lucky crowd who descended early upon Watkins Glen that Summer night of 1973.
An endless stream of collaborative ideas pours from the group like the icy waters raging through the shady tree lined Watkins Glen only a few short miles away. Some of the melodies are familiar, some are brand new, some mix and match like oil and water, some blend like paints on an artists pallet. One of the finest musical moments in the Grateful Dead’s long and storied history has just occurred, thankfully captured for posterity. An audacious beginning to a concert event that hasn’t even ‘started’ yet! The jam eventually dissolves into a fitting and lucid ‘Wharf Rat,’ the previous journey to arrive there filled with drama and intrigue.
The Dead portion of the soundcheck concludes with a solid but anticlimactic ‘Around and Around’, that leaves the assembled throng looking to find a place to sleep, and prepare for the following days awe inspiring display of music, stamina, and mother nature, that would extend to extravagant lengths. The following day would start at 10:00 AM and conclude very early on the morning of July 30th; history was going to be made.
As the morning of July 28, 1973 revealed itself, the ground beneath the Watkins Glen, New York State Summer Jam concert site was preparing to hold the weight of 600,000 musical travelers ready to rock and roll. The largest gathering for a rock festival was about to take place with a legendary bill of bands that would play extended and legendary sets. After the previous evenings ‘warm up’, the groups as well as the crowd were primed for an all day event. Pleasant but humid New York Summer festival weather settled hazily across the bronzed crown of hippies slightly threatening summer storms. The awe inspiring event about to take place would make history in not only musical but social ways, the smoky remnants of that afternoon still smoldering in the annals of rock history.
The Grateful Dead took the stage promptly at noon to an introduction by Bill Graham who exclaimed, ‘From Marin County to Watkins Glen, the Grateful Dead!’ Blasting into an excitable ‘Bertha’ the Dead ran through a typical, that is to say, well played and amazing set of first set classics. The set is brimming with a typical East coast high energy, building to then detonating on a psychedelic pinnacle with the set closing ‘Playing in the Band’. Slithering through the some of the more familiar themes of the era, by half way into the jam Lesh and Garcia are exchanging husky scrubs and bombs, while the rest of the band is tied into a kinetic and electric fast paced groove. While not reaching the extravagant peaks of the jam from the night before, this is a thick and gooey ‘Playin in the Band’ from an era with many stand outs.
Following a marathon ‘China/Rider of epic proportions comes ‘Eyes of the World’, the peak of the second set and of the Dead’s performance for me; the post verse jam contains a plethora of melodic statements from Garcia, with the song morphing into a swelling and pulsating improvised drift. From fifteen minutes on, Garcia plays like a man possessed and hits on several syncopated grooves that band responds to in kind touching on the delicate spaces explored during the previous day’s sound check, before falling back into the recognizable ‘Stronger That Dirt’ theme. Garcia then deliciously liquefies the band into Weir’s well timed and well placed ‘Sugar Magnolia’. Observed as an entire piece of work the Grateful Dead played an amazing two days of music at Watkins Glen, a testament to their constant journey to strive for the golden note.
The Band’s set started at 6:00 PM after the Dead’s extended four and a half display concluded and became an amazing cross section of their legendary career, peppered with unique instrumental interludes specific to the Watkins Glen performance. Opening and romping joyously through ‘Goin Back To Memphis’, the Band’s music captured the feel of the festival perfectly through its pastoral imagery and down home instrumentation.
This is rock and roll, country blues distilled to its very essence; it doesn’t get much better than this! During these early moments of the Band set, the low point of the festival weekend occurred as a skydiver unfortunately missed their intended mark and perished on the grounds. As an addendum, there was a supposed ‘official’ release of the Band’s set from Watkins released in 1995, but after inspection and discussion it was revealed that this collection was/is a fraud and contains only two actual tracks from the event. The only way to hear the performance as it was is to hunt down one of the circulating audience recordings that exist in decent quality.
This concert takes place in the middle of a year of rest and uncertainty for the Band. Looked at historically, the concert is a towering peak in the landscape of the Band’s performing career. The songs are tight, dynamic and rise and fall like a high speed run down a country gravel road. Garth Hudson is especially on his game laying down a plethora of breezy and inspirational keyboard flourishes that would culminate with his divergent solo spot “Too Wet Too Work’. Danko and Helm are locked in tight, and the vocals of Manuel, Danko, and Helm wrap around one another like a snaky gospel revival. After rocketing through a series of exciting high tempo tracks including ‘Loving You Is Sweeter That Ever’, and a drunken romp through ‘The Shape I’m In’, the group is eventually forced to leave the stage for twenty minutes because of threatening inclement weather. During the jam on ‘Endless Highway’ prior to their leaving, the crowd can be heard on the recording discussing and preparing for the incoming thunder storm. The ‘fly on the wall’ aspect of this field recording is especially entertaining.
Levon Helm’s remembrance of this moment in his autobiography is that the group left the stage as the weather descended, gulped some Glenfiddich whiskey and watched Hudson return to his keyboard for his orchestral spotlight, ‘Genetic Method’ in this case driving away the rain in the process of the extended solo. Titled ‘Too Wet To Work’ in the case of this performance, Garth traveled through numerous musical landscapes, teasing dynamically, improvising, until the weather dissipated and the Band returned to the stage, slamming into a celebratory ‘Chest Fever’, that in Helm’s words would be forever ‘burned into his memory’. The crowd claps in time with the musical waves, a highpoint of the afternoon. The remainder of the Band set burns through an aggressive and elastic instrumental and then momentous and extended versions of smoldering rock classics like ‘Holy Cow’ and ‘Saved’, as well as crowd pleasing renditions of ‘Cripple Creek’ and ‘Life Is A Carnival.’ Absolutely legendary, the monumental nature of the day as well as joy emanating from the stage translates well to the field recording I am enjoying.
By the time Allman Brothers Band hit the stage at 10:00 PM, the almost one hundred acre concert site had become a swamp, and the happily soaked crowd swelled with anticipation for the upcoming musical onslaught. Opening with the recent for the time ‘Wasted Words’, the band is cooking from the get go with Betts and Allman dueling through vocals and slide guitar over the syncopated groove. The band receives a second introduction after the opener because Bill Graham wanted to make sure every band had each individual member introduced to the crowd. The Allman’s then swagger through beautifully crafted versions of ‘Come and Go Blues’ (featured on official release ‘Wipe the Windows, Check the Oil, Dollar Gas’) ‘Blue Sky’, ‘Jessica’, ‘You Don’t Love Me’, among others. Recent additions Chuck Leavell and Lamar Williams fill in admirably on keys and bass respectively. Leavell and Betts especially have developed an intense chemistry, bouncing hearty melodic ideas off each other throughout the show, with their interplay on ‘Blue Sky’ being a highpoint worth of inspection.
The centerpiece of the Allman’s extended set is the mammoth performance of ‘Les Brers In A Minor’ which bookends a pulsating and dynamic drum duet by Jaimoe and Butch Trucks, the second of the performance following an aggressive ‘You Don’t Love Me’ duet. Each member gets a chance to express themselves as ‘Les Brers’ like its distant cousins ‘Jessica’, and ‘Liz Reed’ navigates a series of death defying twists and turns while solving a series of delicate melodic mysteries. Rock and Roll veteran Chuck Leavell’s extended dance with the black and whites is a pleasure to behold and spreads out a plush carpet in which the band uses to step into drums. This song represents a powerful and confident jam by the retooled group, asserting their ability to move forward while still respecting their past brothers Duane and Barry. Betts guitar lines range from syrupy amber licks to sharp stinging fly bys, the central pole in which the group revolves.
The Allman Brothers set concludes with ‘Whipping Post’, hoped for, expected, and played like a runaway freight train headed down a dark track. Peak after peak is reached the crowd is astonished, amazed and taken to a unique place by the music played. The weekend ends bombastically, well past midnight following the Allman’s set when members from all three groups return to the stage for Summer Jam. Sincerely sloppy, and at moments stunningly brilliant the music continues into the dawn. Rick Danko appears first to drunkenly croon into the mic momentarily and quite endearingly, soon to be joined by Garcia, then Manuel and eventually Betts, Lesh, Allman and others for some more lengthy jamming to conclude the massive weekend of music to the crowds delight.
The music drifting from the stage meanders for a bit before falling into the highlights, ‘Not Fade Away’, ‘Mountain Jam’, and’ Johnny B Goode’, a momentous and special way to conclude the Summer Jam. The ‘Not Fade Away’ is pleasant enough, but the twenty plus minute ‘Mountain Jam’ the follows elicits speeding clouds, percolating rivers, and joyous wilderness romping. Garcia is especially active, intertwining and responding to everyone on stage. Betts and Garcia together create richly constructed summits during their journey, pausing at scenic overlooks that dance with collaborative playing by all of the principals on stage. The musical movement comes as a defining musical statement for the weekend, an instrumental climax, a joining of ideas and people and a perfect example of the magic available through collaborative musical interplay and willing participants.
Watkins Glen, Summer Jam 1973 is not only notable for its collection of an amazing group of musicians, but for its eclectic collection of fans. The collaboration between the two of these principals combined for a historic and alchemic weekend combining music and experience. The encapsulated moment in time for this weekend will never be recreated, but fortunately forever enshrined on recordings and in the memories of the participants.
On Saturday, July 24th, The Sun Ra Arkestra returned to Capital One City Parks Foundation SummerStage for their fifth stint at the concert series. Still led by Sun Ra himself at the time, the band headlined the festival’s first ever concert back in 1986 at the old Central Park Bandshell. After Sun Ra’s death in 1993, the band continued on as The Sun Ra Arkestra, remaining quite active under the leadership of Marshall Allen who has been performing with the group since 1958. At 97 years young, Allen and The Arkestra were as tight as ever in Central Park.
The Sun Ra Arkestra at SummerStage, 7/24/2021. Photo by: Buscar Photo
Opening the night was Chicago based trio Sistazz of The Nitty Gritty. The group consists of vocalist/clarinetist Angel Bat Dawid, pianist/vocalist Anaiet and bassist Brooklynn Skye Scott. The performance was a mixture of spoken word poetry, jazz fusion, and Dadaist collages of piano, bass, vocals and clarinet. Heavily influenced by The Arkestra’s signature sounds, the trio injects their own modern edge into avant-garde jazz. The incredibly talented band is surely one to watch as they continue to explore their music.
Sistazz of The Nitty Gritty at SummerStage, 7/24/2021. Photo by Buscar Photo
As the 23-member Arkestra began to file on stage, the once seated audience sprung to their feet to embrace the band’s return to SummerStage. A Sun Ra performance is always more than a musical experience. The band is accompanied by dancers who graced the front of the stage from the start with interpretative, meditative dance routines. This shifted off to the side of the stage and Allen took his place front and center.
Marshall Allen at SummerStage, 7/24/2021. Photo by Buscar Photo
The band played a generally continuous set, stopping every so often to reset, but with a band this size there is always music being played. Throughout the show, Allen would survey the band, and point someone out in particular to stand, and take the lead. One-by-one, everyone took their turn, either stepping up for a musical lead or interpretative dance at the center of the stage. This continued throughout the 90-minute set, creating a vividly engaging experience for the audience as there was no way to know where the music was heading. The Arkestra closed to a thunderous ovation from the audience that echoed through Central Park – a second home for the band for so many years.
The Sun Ra Arkestra at SummerStage, 7/24/2021. Photo by: Buscar Photo
The Capital One City Parks Foundation SummerStage festival continues, with upcoming performances from The Originals, Marc Rebillet, Antibalas, Armand Hammer & The Alchemist (featuring Moor Mother), and many more – check out the full lineup HERE.
On July 23rd, The Palace Theater in Albany played host to A Midsummer Slay. This drag show was originally to be hosted by Lady Bunny, but a sudden illness meant that none other than Mrs. Kasha Davis (RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 7) would need to strap on her high heels and come warm up the crowd as this was a spectacular not seen in the Capitol Region for some time. The stage was set for an incredible night of dancing and booty-shaking and the crowd was ready and roaring.
Midsummer Slay – Mrs. Kasha Davis / Photo by Zach Culver
Morgan McMichaels (RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 5, and All-stars Season 2) was the first dancer to grace her stage with almost nothing but a reinstoned jacket and nipple pasties. In her best ‘Pink’ wig she got the fans moving as she rocked the stage to the Diva’s “Call Your Girlfriend” When the crowd was fully charged, Morgan kicked it up a notch as she jumped out into the crowd and gave one lucky fan a vigorous lap dance.
Midsummer Slay – Morgan McMichaels / Photo by Zach Culver
Mrs. Davis came back out, (after a quick costume change of course), and kept the energy up, cracking jokes at everyone’s expense, including herself. A’Keria Davenport was introduced next, coming out to Cardi B’s “Up” in a technicolor outfit that would have made the Drag Race judges gasp. Stripping down to her fishnets and equally excellent undergarments, she strutted that stage like the queen she is, before coming out into the crowd and showing the screaming crowd what her mama gave her, (and maybe paid for). You couldn’t tell that she had just been voted off RuPaul’s Drag Race All-stars the night before as she was in her element.
Midsummer Slay – A’Keria C. Davenport / Photo by Zach Culver
Coco Montrese (RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 5, All-stars Season 2) strolled out in a sparkly red number showing a lot of leg. TikTok sensation Doja Cat’s “Say So” played as fans rushed the stage to dole out singles like a strip club to the more than willing Coco.
As Coco was finishing talking with Kasha Davis, a stage director ran out with a powerful fan which could only mean one thing, it was time to introduce the TikTok and Instagram superstar, Plastique Tiara (RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 11). Plastique can only be described as drop dead gorgeous and that’s all she needs. No dancing was necessary as she simply stood in front of the fan and listened as the crowd went wild.
Midsummer Slay – Plastique Tiara / Photo by Zach Culver
The night would have an entire second set with even more dancing, twerking, and cash being thrown from every direction. Midsummer Slay, like all drag shows, celebrated our right to do whatever the hell we want, looking however we want. You can still see A’keria on the current season of RuPaul’s Drag Race All-stars Season 5. She was just voted off but there is a “Game within a game” the audience is still waiting for.
