A half-century ago, at a time when rock’n’roll was treated like a redheaded stepchild by Syracuse’s mainstream media, the Syracuse New Times burst upon the scene and gleefully embraced the music of the Woodstock Nation. It’s more than appropriate that this final print edition ever pays homage to the blues: the three-chord, hyper-rhythmic genre that birthed rock’n’roll. After a band called Triple Shot got the ball rolling and passed it to The Kingsnakes, when Big Tom Townsley started blowing his harp and hosted the Sunday Night Blues radio show on WAER-FM, as Kelly James and Roosevelt Dean reminded us of the ebony origins of the blues, the Syracuse New…
Author: Russ Tarby
Each of the three compact discs reviewed here were deservedly nominated for 2019 Syracuse Area Music Awards (Sammys) in three different categories. Only one took home a trophy this year, attesting to the overall high quality of Sammys’ submissions. Joe Davoli. Golden Rule (independent). Scan the names of the top 20 finalists every year at Nashville’s Grand Master Fiddler Championship and you’ll rarely see a contestant from our own Empire State. Most of those fiery fiddlers hail from Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Texas, Tennessee and West Virginia. Regardless, Central New York is home to a downright dynamic fiddler working in the Irish tradition, and Golden Rule shows him…
The movie Bolden, about the ill-fated New Orleans cornetist Charles “Buddy” Bolden, who pioneered jazz circa 1900, was originally scheduled for release in 2008. Six years later, the film lost its titular star and had to recast that primary role and reshoot countless scenes. In 2010, director Dan Pritzker hoped to have the flick in theaters in 2011. But Bolden remained mired in post-production for more than a decade. Along the way, the fledgling film director — an heir to the family fortunes of the Pritzker clan which owns Hyatt Hotels — released a 70-minute black-and-white silent feature called Louis…
The 2019 Syracuse Area Music Awards honored and praised local musicians, new and old, for their contribution to the area art scene.
You might not know it, but if you live in Central New York, Scott Allyn may have changed your life. The curly-headed scion of the Skaneateles Welch-Allyn medical-equipment empire may have treated your family during his two decades as a family physician. If not, you might have attended stage shows and concerts at the Redhouse, the arts center which he and his then-wife, actress Laura Austin, established in 2004 on the outskirts of Armory Square. “We just thought that downtown Syracuse needed a good theater,” he says now. He continues to serve on the Redhouse’s board of directors, although his…
Maria Muldaur’s “Don’t You Feel My Leg: The Naughty Bawdy Blues of Blue Lu Barker” has been nominated for a 2019 Grammy Award.
Two gifted wordsmiths with ties to Syracuse University’s creative writing program have come out with new books. Mary Karr, author of a series of best-selling memoirs, and Tom Townsley, best known locally as a tasty blues harmonica player and songwriter, each have new volumes gracing their bookshelves. Karr’s collection of poetry riffs righteously on topics as disparate as basketball and “broken beloveds.” Meanwhile, Townsley’s paperback bounces carefreely between verse and straight, but often surreal, narratives dealing with dreams, doppelgängers and dialectics. Karr Puts it Plainly In Tropic of Squalor (Harper Collins, New York City; 76 pages; $22.99/hardcover), her fifth book…
On the day after Christmas, tuck that High John the Conqueror root in your jeans, wrap a lodestone in a $2 bill, stash your trick bag in your jacket and sashay down to Eastwood’s Palace Theater, 2384 James St. That’s where two dozen of the area’s best barroom musicians will get their mojos workin’ at the Great Salt City Blues Concert 3 on Wednesday, Dec. 26, 7:30 p.m. Staged by Greg Spencer’s Blue Wave Productions, the Boxing Day blues bash will host three harmonious homecomings featuring singer Kim Lembo, guitarist Austin Jimmy Murphy and The Hi-Jivers. Advance tickets are $25,…
Dinosaur Bar-B-Que co-founder John Stage has outplayed the George Soros conglomerate. Or at least he outlasted it. Last month, as he celebrated the 30th anniversary of Syracuse’s sauciest restaurant, which he co-founded here, Stage announced that he’d amicably ended a nearly decade-long partnership with Soros Strategic Partners, part of Soros Fund Management, LLC, an investment management firm said to be worth $30 billion, making it one of the most profitable companies in the hedge-fund industry. “I feel like I’m back in the game,” Stage told the Syracuse New Times. “Something went right with the universe.” Stage now owns about 56…
When your repertoire boasts more than 1,000 tunes, you never know what you’re going to play next. “That’s kind of true,” says Ithaca guitarist Doug Robinson, co-leader of Johnny Russo’s East Hill Classic Jazz Band. And that’s part of the attraction for Russo, a multi-instrumentalist who also vocalizes and waxes eloquent about the origins of his tunes, many of which he wrote himself. A versatile brassman, Russo started out in classical music, but found himself drawn to the freedom of jazz improvisation. Now he has chronicled his long, strange trip from symphonic strictures to unrestrained jazz sessions in a new…
Over the past several decades, Syracuse-born songwriter and electric bassist Rick Cua has emerged as a shining star of the Christian rock scene. Cua, 69, now lives in Franklin, Tennessee, where he and his wife, Diana, are on staff at Grace Chapel. When the talented bassist first dipped his toes into the music biz, however, he was playing at somewhat less-hallowed venues, such as North Syracuse’s Red Rooster and Erie Boulevard’s Soo-Lin. “After a short but fun season with a band called Those Guys – Victor Sansone, Vito Iudice, John Searles and myself – The Campus Walkers was my first…
Despite a furious nor’easter that dumped a foot of snow on Central New York last week, more than 600 die-hard music fans shoveled out their cars and trudged across a slush-packed James Street to attend the 25th annual Syracuse Area Music Awards (Sammys) on Friday, March 2, at Eastwood’s Palace Theatre. The silver anniversary marked 25 years since the first-ever Sammys ceremony was staged in 1993. Yet the 2018 awards show was actually the 19th staged over those years. The awards were not presented in 1995, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2003 and 2012. This year’s show came off without a hitch,…
Jukin’ Bone has crossed the big one off its bucket list. Long considered the top live band to come out of Central New York, the hard-rockin’ outfit — John DeMaso, Mark Doyle, George Egosarian, and Joe Whiting — reunited last year to finally record the album they were unable to create. Unfinished Business (Free Will Records) offers 10 tracks of gripping rock’n’roll characterized by craftsman-like composition, passionate, pitch-perfect performances, meticulous mixing and the propulsive percussion of guest drummer Josh Dekaney. The new disc vividly spotlights Jukin’ Bone’s varied talents, a spotlight that famously dimmed after the band’s major-label signing in…
Maybe the guy had a few too many. Or maybe he just didn’t quite know how to express himself. Anyhow, he took a stab at it, awkwardly attempting to compliment Syracuse songwriter Jane Zell just after she’d performed one of her own tunes at a nightclub. “Wow!” he gushed. “That almost sounds like a real song!” Good songwriters know a good line when they hear one. Zell turned the backhanded praise into the title of the Zelltones’ new album, Almost Real. Then she doubled down by opening the disc with the swingin’ song “Feels Real.” For three decades, Zell has…
The progressive Bad Beat Jackpot at the Turning Stone Resort and Casino Poker Room stood at an all-time high of $507,277 on Monday, Nov. 27, when two men playing a $2-to-$4 limit Texas Hold ’Em game each drew four of a kind. It was the luckiest loss of John Kelly’s life. His quad 6s suffered the bad beat when Paul Jones turned over quad 8s, and the nine players at the table rejoiced. More than a half-million dollars was split among the nine players, with Kelly — a resident of Rochester — awarded the largest share of the payout at…