Merry Christmas y’all! And since The Townsman does not publish next week, I may as well toss in and a Happy New Year! May it be better than the last!

     Yes, it’s true, The Townsman will not be on the stands next week. It’s one of the newspaper’s rare breaks and I’m not gonna post my column online either. Jes’ gonna take a day off for the holidays.

     This, therefore, is my last column of the year and my next appearance in The Townsman will mark my one year anniversary writing this column, and now blog (at www.reservoirmusiccenter.com). It’s kind of exciting for me that I’ve been doing this for a full year. My first column appeared on January 6, 2011. My next one will be in The Townsman on January 5, 2012, and online on the Reservoir Music site on January 3, 2012, and then archived at www.thetownsman.com the following week.

     This week’s live music picks will also extend through Wednesday, January 4, 2012, and since there is so much going on for the holidaze this week and next, we’re gonna get right down to the real nitty gritty right now!

     Friday, December 23- THE JOHNNY MONSTER BAND does a rare Friday night before Christmas at American Glory BBQ in Hudson. I’ve heard the barbecue is off the hook, and The Johnny Monster Band is one of the better blues bands around.

     Monday, December 26 – Christmas is over, but it’s still a legal holiday, so that makes it a great day to drive to Manhattan and catch the DISCO BISCUITS at the Best Buy Theater. Now, I am not really familiar with this band’s music, but I’ve heard they’re really good. If in doubt, check them out on the web first.

     Tuesday, December 27 – THE FAB FAUX, the best Beatle band in the business, is at City Winery in Manhattan. Consisting of A list players from Late Night TV, The Fab Faux faithfully recreate The Beatles, often doing material that The Beatles themselves never performed live! They often do full British versions of Beatle albums for each of two sets. I’ve seen them do “Rubber Soul” for the first set and “Revolver” for the second! I’ve also seen them do “Sgt. Pepper’s”, “Abbey Road”, and singles like “I am the Walrus” and “Strawberry Fields”, and they play every instrument that was used on the original records! No synthesizers here! As the band likes to say, “It’s not a tribute, it’s a recreation”! Disco Biscuits continue at the Best Buy Theater and our own BEN ROUNDS hosts his regular Tuesday night open mike at The Catamount Restaurant in Mt. Tremper.

     Wednesday, December 28 – PHISH start a 4 night run at Madison Square Garden, culminating with New Year’s Eve. Disco Biscuits finish up at Best Buy, and ROSS RICE AND THE VERY SEXY TRIO return to The Catamount for one of their biweekly Wednesday night shows.

     Thursday, December 29 – THE PATTI SMITH GROUP kicks off their annual 3 day run at The Bowery Ballroom in Manhattan and Phish continues at The Garden.

     Friday, December 30 – Our New Year’s weekend begins in style with a multitude of shows. Patti Smith and Phish continue at their respective venues, and GOVERNMENT MULE starts their annual year end shows at The Beacon Theater in Manhattan, finishing up on Saturday night. Punk/glam rock legends THE NEW YORK DOLLS are at Irving Plaza, and, closer to home, Country-rock legends, THE NEW RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE, christen the new Orpheum Performing Arts Center in Tannersville,  THE WAILERS are at The Chance in Poughkeepsie, 3 is at The Bearsville Theater, and THE BIG TAKEOVER, the Hudson Valley’s premier Reggae band, is at The Black Swan in Tivoli.

     Saturday, December 31, New Year’s Eve – The Master, CHUCK BERRY, makes a rare appearance at B.B. King’s in Manhattan. Phish, Patti, and Government Mule finish up at their respective venues. Local favorites, THE FELICE BROTHERS are at Club Helsinki in Hudson; Ramble veteran, ALEXIS P. SUTER is at The Falcon in Marlborough; The LINDSEY WEBSTER BAND is at The Bearsville Theater; The best band in the Hudson Valley, PITCHFORK MILITIA, is at the new BSP in Kingston (with Johnny Monster Band opening); ROBERT BURKE WARREN is having a busy New Year’s Eve by playing an afternoon family show at The Bearsville Theater as UNCLE ROCK, then growing up by nightfall to play a New Year’s Eve Dance Party with THE CATSKILL 45’S at The Kleinert Center in Woodstock; and I don’t know who’s at Harmony in Woodstock, but it’ll probably be good and owner, Sha Wu will probably lay out a scrumptious buffet for his loyal patrons, so at least stop there for a nightcap. Happy New Year!

     Monday, January 2, 2012 – LITTLE FEAT returns to The City Winery in Manhattan, though sadly without their MONSTER DRUMMER, Richie Hayward, who lost his battle with liver cancer last year. Tonight is the first night of a three night run, which concludes Wednesday, January 4.

     Have a Merry Christmas, a Happy Hannukah, a lovely Kwanza, a Happy New Year, and a festive Festivus! See you next year!

     Greetings, y’all, and welcome to another edition of Reservoir Music Notes. Sadly, we lost a trio of very important people this week. Fifteen minutes after my deadline for last week’s column, I learned of the death of the legendary guitarist, Hubert Sumlin, Howlin’ Wolf’s guitar player. Sumlin was one of the most influential guitarists who ever lived and was worshipped by the likes of Keith Richard, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Jimi Hendrix, and Billy Gibbons, so much so that Mick Jagger and Keith Richard insisted on paying 100% of his funeral expenses!

     Hubert was Keith to Wolf’s Mick. He played on the original versions of all of Howlin’ Wolf’s songs that were later made famous by The Stones, Hendrix, The Doors, Jeff Beck Group, The Electric Flag, The Grateful Dead, Cream, The Yardbirds, and so many others. Songs like “Smokestack Lightning”, “Back Door Man”, “I Ain’t Superstitious”, “Spoonful”, “Killing Floor”, “Built for Comfort”, “Little Red Rooster”, “Goin’ Down Slow”, and “”Wand Dang Doodle”! Songs that have become staples of every rock and blues band in the world for the last fifty years, and Hubert Sumlin played on them all! Amazingly, he also found the time to spend six months playing in Muddy Waters band!

     Born in Greenwood, Mississippi in 1931, and raised in Arkansas, Sumlin made his first recordings in 1953 at Sun Studios with the legendary Sam Phillips producing! His first meeting with Howlin’ Wolf took place when Hubert was 10! Sneaking out of his mother’s house to go see Wolf at an Arkansas juke joint, (the kind of place that Levon Helm named his Midnight Rambles after) Hubert, who was too young to get in, was standing on some Coca Cola crates trying to look into the room, when the crates shifted and young Hubert fell through the window, landing on the 6 foot 6, 230 pound Wolf, who then gave him a place of honor on the stage, and afterwards drove him home and convinced his mother not to punish him for sneaking out!

     The recipient of four Grammy awards and numerous Blues Music awards, Mister Sumlin was also a member of the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame and was recently named #43 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the One Hundred Greatest Guitarists of All Time! When Howlin’ Wolf went to London to record an album with an all star crew of young British musicians who were influenced by and exponents of his music, Eric Clapton refused to participate in the sessions if Hubert wasn’t there! The Stones brought him on stage at Madison Square Garden in 2003 to sit in with them and he also was a frequent guest at Woodstock’s own, Levon Helm’s.

     Mister Sumlin also recorded more than a dozen albums as an artist in his own right, often with guests like Keith Richard, Eric Clapton, Levon, and David Johansen guesting! There’s even an unreleased Blues album that Keith conceived and produced with Hubert and many of the aforementioned guests that, hopefully, will be unleashed on the waiting Blues community and fans one day soon!

     I was privileged to see the man perform quite a few times, and there was really no one like him!

     He is survived by his second wife, Evelyn, a son, three daughters, and two sisters. Another son predeceased Hubert. The world is now a poorer place! RIP Mister Hubert Sumlin. You will be missed, but your music will live on as long as the human race survives, and maybe longer!

     We also lost the great soul singer, Dobie Gray, most famous for his rendering of the classic song, “Drift Away” (which, by the way, The Stones also recorded, but never released), and his smash hit from the 60’s, “The In Crowd”, a great record if there ever was one! In his later years, Mister Gray moved to Nashville and focused on songwriting, penning hits for artists as diverse as Ray Charles, George Jones, Julio Iglesias, and Charley Pride! Strangely, nobody seems to know Dobie’s birth name, birth place, or birth date, but by most accounts, he was 69, 70, or 71! Really!

     And tragically, Barbara Orbison, Roy’s wife, lost her battle with cancer on the 23rd anniversary of her husband’s death, December 6, at the age of 60.

     Perhaps not coincidentally, or perhaps because it’s the week before Christmas, but this is a fairly barren week for live music. Here’s all I’ve got for you.

     Thursday, December 15 – The great CHRIS ISAAK stops by the Tarrytown Music Hall tonight. Highly recommended.

     Friday, December 16 – DONNA THE BUFFALO is at the Bearsville Theater. Bearer of one of the strangest names of any band ever, I haven’t really heard their music, but they did make an album with my buddy, Jim Lauderdale, and that’s good enough for me!

     Saturday, December 17 – The highly acclaimed JOHNNY MONSTER BAND returns to the Bearsville Theater for a free show, CHRIS ROBINSON of The Black Crows pulls into Irving Plaza in Manhattan, and DAVID KRAAI AND THE SADDLE TRAMPS continue to carry the torch for Cosmic American Music at The High Falls Cafe.

     Monday, December 19 – British Ska masters, THE ENGLISH BEAT make an appearance at Irving Plaza in Manhattan.

     Some of you may remember my column of March 17, 2011, in which I picked my top ten artists who should be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but aren’t. Well, this year’s inductees have just been announced, and of the 6 new inductees, three of them were on my list! In addition, the great and immortal Tom Dowd, who I’ve advocated for induction for the past ten years or so, was also in this year’s class! It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

     Have a great week!

     Tonight I’ve got comebacks on my mind.  For my money, the greatest comeback in the history of show business is the one Aerosmith pulled off in the 80’s. Drug use and the internal squabbling it produced succeeded in bringing down the once stadium filling band’s career to the point where, just before they turned it around, they had to cancel a show at New York’s Ritz for lack of ticket sales! The Ritz held about a thousand to fifteen hundred people! Pretty pathetic for a band that could, at their height, sell out venues like Madison Square Garden with no problem!

     The story’s been told many times. Bad drugs create bad times, and every time history repeats itself, the lesson gets more expensive! A story comes to mind that I heard a long time ago about Eric Clapton. Clapton was strung out and recording the Derek and The Dominoes album in Miami, and it was not going well! Ahmet Ertegun, a legend in the business, and the last great music man in the music business, flew to Miami to talk to Eric about his drug use, which was out of control, only to hear Eric defend his addiction, saying he had it under control and it was actually helping his music! Ahmet thought about all the other music legends that he had heard the same rap from, going all the way back to Charlie ‘Bird’ Parker, and it always ended badly! Clapton remained unconvinced, but, well, they did manage to get through that album, and it turned out pretty well, but I saw Derek and The Dominoes live, and it was awful! One of the worst concerts I’ve ever seen. At the time, I couldn’t understand how they could be so bad live, after recording what I considered, and still consider, one of the greatest albums of all time! But now I understand. It was the drugs, specifically, heroin and cocaine! Eric’s career took off pretty well after he got clean and sober, but ironically, his music suffered. By any measure, he lost his edge and his passion for the music, and he’ll freely admit this!

     In the Aerosmith case, however, they came roaring back with some of the most exciting music they had ever made! After a few albums, they too began phoning it in, but for a five year period, they were back stronger than ever, thanks to being clean and sober!

     I’m not preaching here, and there are exceptions to every rule (The Rolling Stones come to mind), but generally speaking, hard drug use brings about a hard fall in the music business. The irony is that some amazing music often gets produced before the fall. Some people consider this a worthwhile tradeoff! The jury is still out on that one.

     There is a ton of great live music this week, so let’s get to it.

     Thursday, December 8 – SHARON JONES AND THE DAP-KINGS at The Tarrytown Music Hall. This is the band who are spearheading the neo-soul revival. The Dap-Kings were the backing band on Amy Winehouse’s amazing “Back to Black” album, and they are great!

     Friday, December 9 – The sheer number of talented artists who are playing on this one night is enough to make your head spin! At The Tarrytown Music Hall, SOUTHSIDE JOHNNY AND THE ASBURY JUKES make a rare appearance, and these guys carried the torch for soul and R & B for many years before The Dap-Kings came along. They’ve got a catalog of great songs, and I’d bet they can still pull them off with style!

At the Turning Point in Piermont, DAVID JOHANSEN, lead singer of the very influential New York Dolls, Buster Poindexter (in another incarnation), and blues singer extraordinaire, will rock the house.

JUSTIN TOWNES EARLE, Steve Earle’s son, will bring his Americana tinged music to Club Helsinki in Hudson.

Levon’s guitarist, and former member of The Band, JIM WEIDER, will be stopping by The Falcon in Marlboro with his PROJECT PERCOLATOR.

Former permanent Midnight Ramble opening act, ALEXIS P. SUTER is at The Bearsville Theater for a Holiday concert, and HOT TUNA begins the first night of a two day stand at The Beacon Theater.

     Saturday, December 10 – HOT TUNA continues their two day run at The Beacon, PROFESSOR LOUIE AND THE CHROMATICS pull into The Falcon, MURALI CORYELL is at The Catamount in Mount Tremper, and JUDY COLLINS and ARLO GUTHRIE are at Tarrytown Music Hall, for all you folkies out there.

     Sunday, December 11 – The immortal DARLENE LOVE returns to B.B. King’s in Manhattan to belt out her catalog of classics.

     Tuesday, December 13 – BEN ROUNDS hosts his regular Tuesday night open mic at The Catamount, and SHARON JONES AND THE DAP-KINGS open a two day engagement at The Bowery Ballroom in Manhattan.

     Wednesday, December 14 – SHARON JONES finishes up at The Bowery Ballroom and ROSS RICE AND THE VERY SEXY TRIO return to The Catamount.

     Have a great week.

     Greetings y’all! Hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving. The Townsman didn’t publish last week, due to the holiday, but I wrote my column just the same, and posted it online at www.reservoirmusiccenter.com. If you’d like to read it, go there and click on “blog”.

     As some of you may know, I’ve got a new favorite radio station. It’s 98.9 on your FM dial, and 1220 on the AM dial. The format is called Fox Oldies, and what it is, is basically what used to be called “Top 40” when I was growing up, only they weren’t oldies then! When Top 40 dominated the airwaves, we couldn’t wait for it to go away! When FM Rock appeared on the scene, everybody loved it, because no longer would we have to listen to Engelbert Humperdinck with our Beatles, Stones, Dylan, and Airplane. (No offense to Engelbert. “Release Me” is a great country song, but you get the idea.) Top 40 mixed rock and roll hits with country, R & B , easy listening, pop, and, well, whatever was a hit. You could hear Johnny Cash, followed by The Dave Clark Five, followed by The Four Tops, followed by Mr. Acker Bilk, followed by The Beatles, followed by Marty Robbins, Sam and Dave, Tom Jones, The Stones, and on and on. Listeners were exposed to great music of all types.

     But, as I said, FM Rock entered the scene, and all the easy listening pop stuff went away, which we all cheered, but little did we know what it would lead to. In the current radio universe, everything is formatted, and all music played must fit into that format. We’ve had several generations now who’ve never been exposed to anything outside of their personal comfort zones, and this is where radio has let us all down! When I was growing up, and even beyond my formative years, you could listen to the radio to be exposed to new and innovative music. I’m talking about Jimi, The Who, Pink Floyd, The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Traffic, unreleased tracks by The Beatles, Stones, and Dylan, and more. Now that’s a format – Classic Rock. Like nothing has happened since then. Most of my White friends think they hate Hip Hop, but I guarantee you, I could put together a 2 hour Hip Hop show that would blow their minds, if they could lose their preconceived notions for a while! The same goes for Hip Hop fans who think they hate Rock n Roll! And Hard Rock fans who think they hate Country! How would they know? They’ve never heard real Country music! It’s not played on the radio anymore! What they call Country music now is a mix of Pop and 70’s Rock. Barbra Streisand meets Bob Seger, if you will.  A Country song is not about how happy you are and how much you love your girlfriend!

     But, I digress! The point is, radio has failed the music listening public by being too restricted and too narrowly focused. This, in turn, has caused the record companies to react in kind, and finally, this restrictive atmosphere has trickled down to artists and music fans, which has created the current state of affairs in the music business, which is to say, there ain’t no music biz no more! And when multi platinum record producers tell me that, and they do, it’s true! And I put the blame squarely on the shoulders of radio and radio programmers. Did you know that 98% of all terrestrial radio stations are programmed by professional programmers from LA, New York, or somewhere where the station isn’t, which has killed the regional breakout hit and the regional DJ’s who used to bring variety and local flavor to their broadcasts. I believe the only local exception to this is WKZE, which from what I’ve heard, does give their DJ’s a bit more freedom, but only a bit. WDST DJ’s have no freedom to spin what they want, and neither do any other radio stations in our area!

     If this situation was in place for the last forty years of music history, The Beatles, Stones, Dylan, Blondie, Ramones, et al. would never have made it in the music business! And there’s more, lots more. Open the airwaves, open the record companies, open your minds! We’re all missing a lot of great music today!

     But if you go to some of this week’s live music picks, you can hear some great music this week! Here ‘tis!

     Thursday, December 1 – The aforementioned BOB SEGER returns to Madison Square Garden for one night. A lot of great songs! So many that you’ve gotta like at least some of them!

     Friday, December 2 – My Pick of the Week is PATTI SMITH AT The Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center. She’s a rocker and a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, although I don’t know if this is a solo gig, or it’s The Patti Smith Group. My guess is the latter, but she could just be reading her poetry or her book, which would be good too, but would not warrant the Pick of the Week status. Call ahead to find out.

     Also tonight, is a special Ramble at LEVON HELM’S with the immortal DR. RALPH STANLEY, the last living link to the beginnings of bluegrass music.

     And also, tonight is the first night of a two day engagement with STRING CHEESE INCIDENT at Reverend Ike’s former church, The United Palace, on Broadway and 175th Street in Manhattan. This place is so far uptown that you barely have to enter Manhattan to get there, and you can be back in Kingston in just over an hour.

     Saturday, December 3 – String Cheese finish up at Rev. Ike’s and DAVID BROMBERG stops by The Bearsville Theater.

     Sunday, December 4 – The fabulously entertaining MIKE AND RUTHY are at the lovely Empire State Railroad Museum in Phoenicia. Actually, the museum is also fabulously entertaining! A great place to enjoy music.

     Tuesday, December 6 – RYAN ADAMS brings his Americana based brand of Rock n Roll into what is definitely one of New York’s, or anywhere’s, most divine musical venues, Carnegie Hall. This should be well worth the price of admission.

     Alright, that’s it! I’m out! Have a great week!