Thank you for making me happy for so much of my life, David Bowie and Glenn Frey

I took my time thinking what I wanted to say about the passing of David Bowie. So many folks jumped right in to give this master musician his just due. He deserved every word, photograph, screen roll. I wanted to get it right. The man born 10 years before me held my attention from the…

Irv Lyons delivers his songs with love

Irv Lyons Jr., , Wonderland Syracuse guitarist and singer Irv Lyons Jr. obviously put his heart and soul into his new album Wonderland. The 10-song collection bursts with love songs touched with his rich guitar work, innermost lyrical poetry and plenty of help from his Syracuse music community friends. The veteran member of standout blues…

Joey Alexander has the world at his fingers

Joey Alexander is great, period, the music critic from New York City told the 60 Minutes reporter Anderson Cooper. Not just for a 12-year-old. Indeed, I thought, as my dear wife Karen and I watched this stunning piece Sunday night on CBS, this is a jazz artist that can flat-out play. Cooper did a nice…

Rapper Powder Jay finally feels at ease after his Sammys song ignites a storm

Jamie Cheeseman is ready to turn the page of his calendar, he says. Bring on 2016, says the Syracuse rapper who goes by Powder Jay. The controversy of 2015 took much out of him. His depression started when he wrote and released a song about what he perceived as a snub by the judging panel…

Syracuse celebrates with the Kingsnakes for Blue Wave’s 30th anniversary

Greg Spencer threw a party to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the union of the record label he started from his home in Baldwinsville and a pretty impressive band from the city of Syracuse, and the Syracuse showed up to party in a big way Sunday night at The Palace Theatre on James Street. “My…

The Sammys wants your best work

‘Tis the season to think about awards shows. Organizers are asking for the best work from Syracuse-area musicians and producers again. The Syracuse Area Music Awards has put out its annual application for submissions for the 2016 edition of the show that’s affectionately called the Sammys. The impressive black trophies will be handed out March…

Simon and Garfunkel looked a bit tense back as old friends in Central Park

Where was I on Sept. 19, 1981, when all those people crammed into Central Park to see Simon & Garfunkel get back together on stage? Big night, indeed, I could tell as my dear wife Karen and I watched on the wide-screen in the living room of our Little Bitty in the Syracuse city neighborhood…

Sinatra’s still special 100 years later, but his CBS show was a tad lacking

I tuned in to the CBS tribute Sinatra 100 Sunday night with great anticipation. A fan of Frank Sinatra my whole life — or at since my father Frank introduced me to the music of the man known as both Ol’ Blue Eyes and The Chairman of the Board before I even went to kindergarten…

Jason Bean goes deep, Eddie Z digs it stripped down

Jason Bean, Mudfish Records Black Then Blue Then Gray Syracuse singer-songwriter Jason Bean thought he’d had emptied that musical well after he’d written, recorded and released his fourth album, Twenty Seven, in 2012. “My songwriting had become so personal, and in some cases, personal, that I walked away,” Bean says. A people person, he got…

Sing it cool, Eli

It’s always comforting to see Eli Harris out in the Syracuse elements playing his music. The singer and guitarists knows the Syracuse University athletic schedule. Carrier Dome patrons are serenaded, sweetly, regularly, through cold and sometimes really cold. Elijah Harris and I go way back, to my decades as the music writer for the big…