Bearsville Theater in Woodstock played host to Mihali, singer and songwriter known best for his work with Vermont’s Twiddle, on December 11, part of NYS Music’s Jam for Tots series. An enthralled and captive crowd filled the space in Bearsville, eager to celebrate the Mihalidaze.
Mihali’s solo project incorporates loops and layers connecting with lyrics in a mysterious, yet energetically powerful way. The use of everything from beatbox to bass juxtapose with the pure vulnerability of simply a voice and a guitar. The result is a soothing connection between crowd members among themselves, with the stage, the environment in which one experiences this music.
Experiencing Mihali at Bearsville Theater felt different than watching the home streams over the past year. The beautiful wooden circular backdrop bearing a logo with a mushroom not dissimilar in shape to the artist’s Santa hat glowed and pulsed with different colors throughout the show. The impression the backdrop gave was something like “all natural organic forest” but with some magic. The good kind. The kind with cute woodland creatures and the occasional talking fern.
The hardwood of the Bearsville theater is said to hide over 100 speakers in the ceiling of the old listening room. The way the music balanced so perfectly from every corner of the venue continued to reinforce the idea of some type of presence of a universal connection and wordless communication going on that night. Encapsulated in both wood, light and sound, there was an unspoken transfer of energy happening reflecting some type of phenomenon.
The transfer of energy between the green glow-worm-eque necklaces worn by many attendees seemed to balance out the warm salmony-pink glow of the somehow perfect number of chandeliers smiling down from above.
The spinning of Emily’s LED Poi looked to have a more dominant pastel tone as opposed to the vivd colors prevalent at many “up all night” type of festivals. The string light necklaces even looked muted when blended with the color bounding off the hard wood musical cocoon of a venue.
The complimentary nature seemed to continue right down to the colors of the clothing. The particular tint and tone of choice among fans had this young reindeer, almost fawn-like look to it. Whether boots or shirts, jackets or skirts… there was no denying the amount of earth tones out to dance that night.
It felt like an honor to be let into anyone’s home or studio during a time of universal struggle the recognize something familiar. Mihali’s intimacy in the way he communicates his music did not change from home to office and provided the perfect celebration during the holiday season.
The Bearsville Theater put the spotlight on one of Woodstock’s most famous couples, legendary musician John Sebastian and his photographer wife Catherine, at a joint all-star concert/art opening on Friday, December 3.
The concert and the photo exhibit provided a look back at the many famous musicians, like Fred Neil, Tim Hardin and Sebastian himself, who cut their teeth in the folk and jug band scene of Greenwich Village in the ‘60s before migrating to Woodstock.
Fritz Richmond, Paul Rishell, James Wormworth, Annie Raines, John Sebastian & Jimmy Vivino. Group shot during rehearsal for an appearance at the “Late Nite with Conan O’Brian” show
The evening kicked-off with an introduction to the two dozen photos in the exhibit “Catherine Sebastian at Bearsville: The Jug Band Years.” A star in her own right, Catherine’s work has graced album, book and magazine covers featuring Pete Seeger, Bonnie Raitt, Linda Ronstadt, Mick Jagger, Kathy Valentine (of The Go-Go’s), Lady Gaga, Debbie Harry, Dr. John, Paul Butterfield, Edina Menzel, Levon Helm and the RCO All-Stars and many more.
The photos date from the ‘60s through today, with many featuring John and his musical cohorts from the J-Band, a jug band formed in the ‘90s which has included Fritz Richmond, Yank Rachell, Jimmy Vivino, Paul Rishell, Annie Raines and other notables. The collection boast many classic shots of Sebastian with Tim Hardin, Happy Traum, Fred Neil, Paul Butterfield and even his father John, who was an internationally renowned harmonica virtuoso in the classical idiom. Also featured are shots of Sebastian’s J-Band in performance, at the Bearsville Theater in 1994, on Late Night with Conan O’Brien and more. Not to be missed is a shot of John inside his famous tie-dyed tent in Laurel Canyon. This is where he learned to craft the colorful fashions for the jeans and jeans jacket he wore at Woodstock ‘69. Framed and unframed prints are available for purchase at the Bearsville Theater and their website,
Annie Raines
98-8 frame 25 John Sebastian and Annie raines
Immediately before the concert commenced, John, Catherine and the musicians headed outside where Bearsville impresario Lizzie Van dedicated the recently rebuilt back porch, “The John Sebastian & Fred Neil Deck.”
“When Lizzie said she wanted to name a part of the space after Fred and me, I was kind of puzzled as to where it would be,” laughed Sebastian. “When she said it was going to be the porch, I said ‘ that’s perfect.’ Because if me and Fred were going be anywhere it would be out on the porch… smoking something we probably shouldn’t be smoking!”
The concert that followed had the intimate and casual feeling of a living room session, with Sebastian greeting the hometown audience with a boisterous “Good evening, my town.” He began solo with a few selections from Fred Neil, with whom he recorded and toured for two years before forming the Lovin’ Spoonful. The highlight here was his ambling version of “Other Side of This Life” from Neil’s classic 1965 debut album, “Bleecker and McDougal.”
Sebastian then turned his tales and musical talents to another friend, Tim Hardin. Sebastian lovingly joked: “Timmy was really not the cuddly guy who wrote Misty Roses. But the coolest guy of all of us, someone best known by listening to his early nasty tunes!” Sebastian followed with a solo performance of one of these, the knotty blues You Got A Reputation. He then brought on longtime J-Band member, Paul Rishell, for a solo on one of Hardin’s most covered compositions, “Reason to Believe.”
Sebastian’s cohorts in the J-Band and another aggregation, The Black Italians, then came to the stage. Guitarist Jimmy Vivino and the always smiling drummer/washboard whiz James Wormworth, joined by Lovin’ Spoonful bass man Steve Boone, partook a spirited run through the Lovin’ Spoonful’s Lovin You. Next up came another Woodstock legend, Cindy Cashdollar, who added her slithering, bluesy dobro runs to another nugget from early in John’s career, The Even Dozen Jug Band’s All Worn Out.
The energy was upped when another harmonica virtuoso, Annie Raines, joined for Sebastian’s Jug Band Music and You’ve Been A Good Old Wagon But You’ve Done Broke Down. The latter is a blues composed in 1895 and popularized in the 1920s by Bessie Smith, to which Raines added wailing harp and throaty vocals.
After a trip through the traditional Fair Thee Well and Jimmie Rodgers’ Miss the Mississippi and You, blues great Joe Louis Walker came onstage for a high-energy romp through Viola Lee Blues, with Sebastian on harp. John’s playing proved his mastery of the blues’ most portable instrument, and why he has been called upon to play it on classic tunes by the likes of Crosby Stills and Nash, The Doors and many others. His still stellar chops were further evidenced on the following, a two-harp duet with the equally fierce Raines.
Sebastian saluted important friends and mentors, the blues greats Sleepy John Estes and Yank Rachell, with soulful covers of their Milk Cow Blues (Leaving Trunk) and Tap That Thing respectively, with the latter featuring contributions on the jug and stage banter from John’s son Ben. Sebastian also performed the wonderful jazzy ballad to a love lost, My Passing Fantasy, from his 2014 duet disc with David Grisman. He then donned a harmonica holder and banjo to round out the set taking the all-star band through a rollicking rendition of K.C. Moan, a 1929 classic from the Memphis Jug Band.
After a well-deserved standing ovation, Sebastian and crew returned to perform two of his best loved Lovin’ Spoonful hits, Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind and You Didn’t Have to Be So Nice. With Cashdollar’s swirling dobro, Vivino’s smooth guitar licks and Wormworth’s percolating washboard and ever-present smile, these tunes sent John’s audience off into the wintery Woodstock night winter with very warm feelings indeed.
Prog rockers are not a group known for their sense of humor. But there is one towering prog godhead who is top of the heap as an instrumental virtuoso and teller of ridiculously entertaining tales, ones featured in his surprisingly stupendous memoir, Grumpy Old Rock Star. It’s Rick Wakeman, the keyboard wizard whose riffs can be heard on some of the most memorable works of Yes, The Strawbs, David Bowie, Cat Stevens, T. Rex, Al Stewart and a boatload of his symphonic solo albums.
Wakeman brought his massive chops and incredibly funny tales to Woodstock’s beautifully outfitted Bearsville Theater on November 1. It was the last stop on the first swing of his “Even Grumpier Old Rock Star Tour.” The evening was equal parts baroque instrumental brilliance and Borsch Belt humor. And it was all the more enjoyable for it.
Dressed in a knee-length black morning jacket, Wakeman manned a duo of Korg Nautilus synths and a Yamaha grand piano to take the audience on a 14-song retrospective of his career as session man, bandmate and solo artist. There was a similar cache of stories, as well as a Q&A session, where the keyboardist reeled off hilarious anecdotes with punchlines as well-oiled as his arpeggios.
After the gorgeous symphonic double synth-driven opener “Seahorses,” Wakeman moved over to the piano. Here he told the story of one of his most memorable dates as a session man on Cat Stevens’ classic “Morning Has Broken.” According to the piano man, it wasn’t really all that much of a song, just 40 seconds or so, when they first ran through it. Stevens’ producer Paul Samuel-Smith asked his to lengthen it with a piano intro, a gorgeous one that is as memorable as Matthew Fisher’s Bachesque organ on “Whiter Shade of Pale.” The producer and Cat liked it so much that they asked him to return to it several times, in the middle of the tune and for a coda, to bring the tune to single length. Wakeman also recalls Stevens sitting in a corner chain smoking, all to muster the proper grit to commit his vocal to tape. He also remembers not getting paid, until 37 years later, the 12 British Pound session fee (about $120 is today’s dollars)!
Wakeman then set up a medley of two tunes from his classic The Six Wives of Henry the VIII album by observing that “the King’s life was prophetic of my own.” Like Henry, Rick had multiple marriages, one reason being “that I really liked cake.” But where Henry “chopped off his wives’ heads,” Wakeman observes he “gave my wives houses.” After the laughs died down, Wakeman gave sharp, articulated performances of “Catherine of Aragon” and “Catherine Howard.”
Rick Wakeman – photo by Neil Segal
Before heading into a medley of Yes, a mashup of “The Meeting,” “And You and I” and “Wonderous Stories,” Rick told an anecdote about a clever putdown he launched at a know-nothing TV interviewer in Los Angeles. When asked where his bandmate Trevor Rabin was when he wrote Yes’ biggest hit “Owner of A Lonely Heart,” Wakeman said he was “did it on the toilet.” And that it “was the first time someone wrote a #1 while doing a #2!” Naturally, the interview ended right there.
In the Q&A that followed, Rick answered 25 fan queries. He shared a host of trivia about his career, his love for his fellow prog keyboard titan, the late Keith Emerson, and that, yes, his long blonde hair was all his. He then returned to the synths for “The Dance of a Thousand Lights” from his 1999 disc, Return to the Centre of the Earth.
The creative and emotional high point of the evening came with Wakeman’s memories and medley of David Bowie, a giant whose last residence was a stone’s throw from Bearsville.
Rick Wakeman – photo by Neil Segal
Rick was the pianist featured on two of Bowie’s greatest works, his career-making “Space Oddity” and “Life on Mars.” Before launching into the tunes, Rick recalled their days of neighbors in the U.K and various chance meetings while on tour. He also credited Bowie and his producer Tony Visconti as sources of knowledge in the area of record production that proved so vital in his career.
Rick Wakeman then told another humorous tale about Emerson and Deep Purple’s Jon Lord, before dedicating the next medley to them, wildly original covers of The Beatles “Help!” and “Eleanor Rigby.” Repeating an exercise he learned during his days at the Royal College of Music, he covered these in the styles of classical composers. The standout was his reinvention of “Eleanor Rigby” in the hyper style of Sergei Prokofiev. It was blur of rapid arpeggios and pianistic filagree which could’ve been complemented by a horde of dancing Cossacks… if Rick could still afford the overkill of his infamous stage productions of the 1970s.
After a standing ovation and thunderous applause from the near sell-out crowd, Wakeman returned for a crowd-pleasing encore of story and sound. First came another scatological tale about a “dodgy vindaloo” and being asked to autograph an album while on the toilet! This was followed by yet another instrumental dazzler, the super syncopated “Merlin the Magician” from 1975 album, The Myths and Legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.
Wakeman’s concert is a model for what classic-era artists can bring to their audiences. It had musicianship that showed he hadn’t lost a step to time and his formerly wild rocker lifestyle. It also had all the tall tales and trivia that die-hard fans have an inexhaustible hunger for.
Bearsville Theater enlisted a new talent buyer after it’s recent renovations which will help make Bearsville a key hotspot for music in the Catskills and north of NYC.
Edward Maier has been appointed the new talent buyer for Bearsville Center including the historic Bearsville Theater and the Utopia Sound Studios by the owner of the Bearsville Center, Lizzie Vann. Maier is known for his work with ElmThree Productions. The hope is he will be able to bring his extensive contacts and experience to help create Bearsville Theater into the hotspot it can be.
Bearsville Theater and The Bearsville Center are located in Woodstock NY. The center was created during the musical revolution during the ‘60s. Albert Grossman who was the founder of the center and was known as one of the most important managers of artists at that time, envisioned a 15-acre complex to provide an imaginative rustic oasis, where artists could create, rehearse, perform, record and promote their music. He built housing, a recording and video studios, a formidable record label and 3 restaurants. His final project was the acoustically planned 8,000 sq. ft 400-seater Bearsville Theater. The Mission of Bearsville under the current ownership is to nurture and Inspire future generations. Today, the theater acts as a stimulus for creativity and enjoyment. The theater embarked on extensive renovation over the last two years and have finally come to the time where they can focus their energy on up-and-coming new bands.
Maier started his career in the music business back in the late ‘90’s with booking local acts in Burlington Vermont. Over the years he moved onto working for touring bands and site co-coordinating national tours with Jay- Z/Beyoncé and Eminem/Rihanna. In 2007 he moved into talent buying, and since then has purchased and produced over 1000 shows. Elm Three Productions is Talent Buyer for: Madison Marquette, Paramount Theatre, the Convention Hall, The Wonder Bar and Stone Pony along with the popular series – Jams On The Sand and AC Jams and the Daydream Farm Concert Series.
Between Maier’s years of experience and the legacy of Bearsville Theater and it’s new renovations it will definitely be a venue to keep an eye on.
Woodstock’s Tony and Pete Levin bring their Levin Brothers Vaccinating Rhythm tour to the Bearsville Theater on June 26, 2021, as part of a select tour of shows. The duo was founded by Pete and Tony Levin in 2013, after 5 decades of performing and recording with the titans of music in jazz, fusion, rock, pop, and world music.Now, they are set to tour New York alongside an outstanding supporting jazz lineup at the Bearsville Theater.
After guesting on each other’s projects, the Levin Brothers finally decided to create their own jazz band. To date, the Levin Brothers have released 2 albums – the self-titled first album in 2014, and the follow-up live album Special Delivery in 2017. The band has toured all over the USA, Mexico, El Salvador, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, and Japan.
Since graduating from the Eastman School of Music, Tony Levin, one of the most recorded bassists in the history of music, has become bass and Chapman Stick voice for Peter Gabriel and King Crimson. He has played on notable recordings for icons John Lennon, Pink Floyd, Lou Reed, Alice Cooper, Carly Simon, Buddy Rich, Gary Burton, and Chuck Mangione. Currently, tours and records with Stick Men, Levin Brothers, King Crimson, and Peter Gabriel.
After graduating from the Julliard School, Pete Levin became a synthesizer specialist among New York City recording studio scene. Over the years, he has graced hundreds of jazz and pop recordings, performing with many artists including the following: Gil Evans, Jimmy Giuffre, David Sanborn, Annie Lennox, Charles Mingus, Jaco Pastorius, Lenny White, and Paul Simon.
A veteran of the New York Jazz scene, Jeff ‘Siege’ Siegel has become a who’s-who of jazz artists. A member of Sir Roland Hanna’s Trio from 1994 to 1999, he has performed and recorded with jazz legends including Ron Carter, Kenny Burrell, Lee Shaw, Jack DeJohnette, Benny Golson, Frank Foster, Helen Merrill, and Mose Allison.
Additionally, contemporary Jazz guitarist Jeff Ciampa has recorded and toured with some of the most well-known jazz, pop, and rock stars, including the following: Harry Belafonte, Jon Lucien, Dave Matthews, Mark Egan, Bill Evans, Al MacDowell, Ornette Coleman, Lew Soloff, and Lenny White.
All tickets are $50 General Admission in advance and $55.00 general admission at the door. Doors open at 6:30 PM ET and the show begins at 8:00 PM ET. For tickets, visit www.bearsvilletheater.com
Bearsville Theater’s Jazz Brunch lineup
For the finest jazz, food, and drink in the Catskills, experience the Bearsville Theater’s Jazz Brunch every Sunday through Labor Day with the following artists:
6/20 – Pete Levin 6/27 – Christine and Elliott Spero 7/04 – The Peter Einhorn Trio 7/11 – Elliott Spero 7/18 – Chris Milletari 7/25 – Ken McGloin and Jim Curtain 8/01 – The Peter Eiinhorn Trio 8/8 – Pete Levin 8/15 – Marrotta Trio 8/22 – Baron Raymonde and Bennett Hiscox 8/29 – Perry Beekman 9/05 – The Peter Einhorn Trio
Continuing NYS Music’s look at the venues of New York State, we are now more than a year since music venues were forced to shut down, and signs of life are visible everywhere this spring.
While venues await relief from the Small Business Administration (SBA), who administer Shuttered Venue Operators Grant to eligible entities, there are some venues that have returned to live music. Restrictions are lifting, allowing for greater capacity at venues, as well as Drive-In shows and socially distanced concerts continuing well into August.
Once New York State has 70% of the population receiving one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, most remaining restrictions will be lifted, based on a statement from Gov. Cuomo last week.
Our March installment of ‘This Darkness Has Got to Give’ showed venues across New York State that started to come back to life with socially distanced shows. Now in June, we have crowds returning to venues, a summer of live music ahead in various arrays and a brighter 2021 in the making.
