Chris Bergson - East River Blues

Album: East River Blues
Size: 82,1 MB
Time: 35:35
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 2026
Styles: Blues/Jazz mix
Art: Front

1. Mean Disposition (5:55)
2. Little Girl Blue (6:21)
3. East River Blues (5:23)
4. Sad Strains (5:18)
5. Kindless Villain (3:28)
6. What Would I Do Without You (4:22)
7. Driftin' (4:45)

Acclaimed guitarist and singer Chris Bergson marks 30 years in New York City with East River Blues. Featuring Larry Grenadier, Herlin Riley, and Jay Collins, the album blends blues, jazz, soul and classic Blue Note influences. The album pays tribute to foundational influences including Muddy Waters and Ray Charles, as well as the soul-jazz spirit of 1960s Blue Note icons like Grant Green, Lou Donaldson, and Herbie Hancock. The result is a recording that feels timeless yet alive in the present moment.

The core of the album features Bergson in a stripped-down trio setting with master bassist Larry Grenadier and New Orleans drum great Herlin Riley. Saxophonist Jay Collins joins the group on three tracks, adding warmth and fire to the ensemble sound. The recording nearly took a different path. Originally, the drum chair was to be filled by the late Al Foster. Following Foster’s passing just weeks before the scheduled session, Bergson reached out to Herlin Riley - fresh from sharing the stage with him at a Jazz at Lincoln Center blues jam. By remarkable coincidence, Riley and Grenadier performed together the night before the Catskill recording session. What followed feels, in Bergson’s words, “meant to be.”

Chris Bergson has long been recognized as one of modern blues’ most inventive voices. Inducted into the New York Blues Hall of Fame as a Master Blues Artist, he is known for a sound that bridges blues, soul, jazz, and Americana. In addition to leading the Chris Bergson Band, he is an Associate Professor at Berklee College of Music. With East River Blues, Bergson distills three decades of experience into a record that feels grounded, honest, and deeply musical - like the river that inspired its name, constantly moving yet timeless. /Blues Magazine

Personnel: Chris Bergson (guitar, vocals); Larry Grenadier (bass); Herlin Riley (drums); Jay Collins (tenor saxophone tracks 3,6,7).

East River Blues mc
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Chris Bergson & Ellis Hooks - Live In Normandy

Size: 146,1 MB
Time: 62:45
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 2019
Styles: Electric Blues, Blues Rock
Art: Full

01. 61St & 1St (4:31)
02. Knuckles & Bones (4:10)
03. The Only One (4:42)
04. Bitter Midnight (4:48)
05. 55 Miles From Bromley (5:37)
06. Greyhound Station (5:27)
07. Somewhere There's A Girl (4:15)
08. Heavenly Grass (7:15)
09. Grits Ain't Groveries (4:24)
10. Float Your Mind (6:08)
11. Nobody's Fault But Mine (5:22)
12. Corinna (6:01)

Chris Bergson and Ellis Hooks’ new CD and DVD Live in Normandy - recorded in May 2018 at the BackStage Association’s Nuit du Blues festival - captures the magic of Bergson and Hooks, two modern soul powerhouses, in front of a stadium crowd. Bergson, "one of the most inventive songwriters in modern blues music," (All Music Guide) and Hooks, a singer whose gravel and honey voice “blends the soul croon and blues growl,” (All Music Guide) are in top form on this release, which is the result of almost a decade of collaboration and touring.

Elmore Magazine hails the Chris Bergson Band as, "one of the most talented bands playing today...From blazing rock to funk to soul to Delta blues and all that's in between." Live in Normandy captures Bergson and Hooks in concert backed by their longtime working European band. The dynamic performances reflect a synergy honed over years of touring together in Europe. Bergson estimates he’s played over 100 concerts with the top-notch rhythm team he refers to as “The French Connection” with Philippe Billoin on keyboards, Philippe Dandrimont on bass and Pat Machenaud on drums. “I’m so happy this document exists,” says Bergson as “it really captures the grooves we get into live and the joy we experience in playing together!”

The 12-track CD and DVD includes a new Bergson and Hooks original, “55 Miles from Bromley,” a swampy, funky groove where Hooks looks back at the small farm town where he grew up in Alabama. Live in Normandy also includes crackling live versions of Bergson and Hooks originals such as “Knuckles & Bones” and “Bitter Midnight” along with a searing, extended version of “Heavenly Grass.” The genesis of this song was a Tennessee Williams poem Bergson set to a Delta blues groove. It’s a standout performance from Bergson, where he clearly pays tribute to two of his biggest guitar influences - Hubert Sumlin, with whom Bergson performed in his later years, and the great Freddie King. Live in Normandy also features blazing versions of Bergson originals “Greyhound Station” and “Float Your Mind,” and Bergson and Hooks put their indelible stamp on covers of Sam Cooke’s “Somewhere There’s a Girl,” Little Milton’s “Grits Ain’t Groceries,” and Otis Redding’s “Nobody’s Fault But Mine.”

Live In Normandy

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Chris Bergson Band - 2 albums: Bitter Midnight / Live At the Jazz Standard

Album: Bitter Midnight
Bitrate: MP3@320K/s
Time: 43:04
Size: 98.6 MB
Styles: Electric blues
Year: 2017
Art: Front

[2:56] 1. Pedal Tones
[3:42] 2. 5 20
[3:14] 3. Just Before The Storm
[3:38] 4. Knuckles & Bones
[3:42] 5. Explode Or Contain
[3:26] 6. Lullaby
[4:05] 7. 61st & 1st
[4:57] 8. Blues For Dave
[3:45] 9. Small Trouble
[5:14] 10. Another Day
[4:20] 11. Bitter Midnight

The Chris Bergson Band’s new release Bitter Midnight is the band’s first studio album since 2011’s critically acclaimed Imitate the Sun. Bitter Midnight showcases the band’s “gut-busting, horn-bedecked NY blues”

(MOJO) with eleven original songs all recorded to two-inch tape at Brooklyn’s Mighty Toad Recording Studio. New York Blues Hall of Fame guitarist/singer Chris Bergson "...one of the most inventive songwriters in modern blues music" (All Music Guide ) is joined on the album by soul singer Ellis Hooks (Steve Cropper), baritone saxophonist Jay Collins (Gregg Allman), trumpeter Steven Bernstein (Levon Helm), drummers Aaron Comess (Spin Doctors), Tony Mason (Darlene Love), bassists Andy Hess (Gov’t Mule), Richard Hammond (Joan Osborne), Matt Clohesy (Patti Austin), and keyboardist/tenor saxophonist Craig Dreyer (Dispatch).

“It was great to record with some of my favorite musicians,“ says Bergson. “Some of the guys, like Richard Hammond, Aaron Comess, and Tony Mason, I’ve been playing with for years but had never recorded with before, so it was nice to finally document the rapport we’ve developed over many gigs.”

“I got it - just drums and clav on the intro!” And with that impromptu suggestion in the studio from drummer Aaron Comess, so begins “Pedal Tones,” the album’s opening track which Bergson penned with one of his most frequent collaborators, co-lyricist Kate Ross. With Comess’ opening snare drum fill leading to a funky clavinet riff from Craig Dreyer, the swampy groove keeps percolating with the addition of Jay Collins’ cowbell in this rumination on absence and loss. Many of the songs on the record were inspired by Bergson’s recent European tours that have included performances in France, Spain, Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, Slovenia, Ireland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia. As Bergson explains, “One of my favorite things to do when I get a day off on the road is to get out and explore.” “5:20,” written with co-lyricist Kate Ross, was inspired by a visit to the Musée d’Orsay in Paris. “I kept returning to this one Monet painting - it captured a beautiful sadness I couldn’t turn away from…Standing in front of the painting, I heard echoes of Hank Williams and Robert Johnson and thought of all the great American train songs.”

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Album: Live At Jazz Standard
Bitrate: MP3@320K/s
Time: 62:48
Size: 143.8 MB
Styles: Electric blues
Year: 2014
Art: Front

[4:19] 1. Greyhound Station
[3:36] 2. Mr. Jackson
[3:57] 3. The Only One
[5:59] 4. Heavenly Grass
[5:21] 5. High Above The Morning
[3:41] 6. 61st & 1st 2
[4:38] 7. Bluemner
[4:21] 8. Chloe's Song
[3:01] 9. Corinna
[3:03] 10. Baby, I Love You
[3:04] 11. Just Before The Storm
[4:22] 12. Sometimes It's You
[4:55] 13. Christmastime In Bethlehem, Pa
[3:04] 14. The Bungler
[5:18] 15. Gowanus Heights

"Another bulletin from the New York street poet with a blues soul. Bergson has little to do with received blues repertoire (here there's just a steely reading of Corinna), and he's too enquiring a musician to want to walk very often with a 12-bar guide rope, but like its predecessors, this is an album that draws much of its power from a blues source. Sometimes the connections spark with a familiar flash, like the resonant slide guitar of Bluemner, the Stax-sax snap of The Only One or the Muddy Waters line that embeds Tennessee Williams's poem Heavenly Grass. However, this is mostly another tour of Bergson's world, an urban landscape of shadowed streets and the off-kilter characters who skulk or strut in them. The lean quartet format of the early albums is muscled-up with a three-piece horn section; the music is as tight as a hangman's knot." ~Tony Russell

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Chris Bergson Band - Fall Changes

Size: 103,4 MB
Time: 45:08
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 2007
Styles: Modern Electric Blues, Blues Rock
Art: Front

01. Gowanus Heights (3:27)
02. Float Your Mind (3:41)
03. Fall Changes (4:08)
04. Sanctuary (3:49)
05. Latitude (4:16)
06. When I Paint My Masterpiece (3:46)
07. Rain Beatin' Down (3:56)
08. The Engine (4:16)
09. The Bungler (3:04)
10. Are You Experienced? (5:10)
11. Drown In My Own Tears (5:29)

Back when Cream disbanded, Eric Clapton said he wanted to be a part of a group where songs, not jamming, were the focus. The Band was mentioned as the type of collective he was attracted to, but Clapton never worked with The Band, at least at that time. Blues/roots guitarist Chris Bergson seems to lean in a similar direction, yet instead of joining an existing act, he just started his own. The helping hand of Band member Levon Helm has provided a career lift for the up-and-coming guitarist with encouragement, and perhaps more importantly, by letting him record this album in his Woodstock, New York studio. Inevitably, there is a strong Band feel to much of this, not just in the soulful, song-based playing, but in the arrangements and overall homespun feel of the music. There's a good bit of soloing by Bergson but nearly as much by his tenor player Jay Collins, and both keep their leads tight, succinct, and within the song structures. Bergson has a gutsy, R&B-styled voice -- gritty yet appealing -- that falls somewhere between Dr. John, Gregg Allman, and The Band's Richard Manuel. There is a tough jazz feel to many of these arrangements, not unusual since Bergson's background is as a sideman to jazz singers such as Norah Jones and Sasha Dobson. Covers of Bob Dylan's "When I Paint My Masterpiece" and Charles' "Drown in My Own Tears" further cement the Band/Manuel connections. Standup bassist Chris Berger's supple accompaniment masterfully strides the blues, jazz, and soul genres, and is integral to Bergson's overall sound. Helm's daughter Amy, a member of Ollabelle, adds vocals to a few tunes, most impressively on "Rain Beatin' Down," arguably the album's most rootsy moment with elements of Delta blues in Bergson's sharp slide work. Some songs, such as "The Engine," creatively take what might have been a straightforward, riff-based blues-rocker in others' hands and skew them toward jazz with nods to Steely Dan and chord changes that don't go where you expect. Collins' sax work, which almost moves to avant-garde territory but stops just short, helps bring a unique element to Bergson's slant. A thoroughly distinctive cover of Hendrix's "Are You Experienced?" that injects a jazz/R&B edge to the song further proves that Bergson can lay his stamp on other's material without losing the intent of the original. It makes for an invigorating and challenging album that indicates a bright future for this talented musician who has corralled his diverse influences to create an identifiable sound. ~Review by Hal Horowitz

Fall Changes

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Chris Bergson Band - Live At Jazz Standard

Size: 147,0 MB
Time: 62:45
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 2014
Styles: Modern Electric Blues, Blues Soul, Blues Rock
Art: Front

01. Greyhound Station (4:19)
02. Mr. Jackson (3:35)
03. The Only One (3:57)
04. Heavenly Grass (5:59)
05. High Above The Morning (5:21)
06. 61St & 1St (3:40)
07. Bluemner (4:37)
08. Chloe's Song (4:21)
09. Corinna (3:02)
10. Baby, I Love You (3:03)
11. Just Before The Storm (3:06)
12. Sometimes It's You (4:23)
13. Christmastime In Bethlehem (4:55)
14. The Bungler (3:04)
15. Gowanus Heights (5:16)

Live at Jazz Standard, the highly anticipated release from the Chris Bergson Band, was recorded live over two nights at NYC's Jazz Standard in June 2013.

The fifteen song CD contains eight brand new original songs from New York guitarist/singer Chris Bergson "...one of the most inventive songwriters in modern blues music." (All Music Guide) as well as new arrangements of five older originals from the band's back catalog. The album captures all the intensity, sweat and soul of a typical club set from the Chris Bergson Band featuring organist Craig Dreyer (Dispatch), first-call NY bassist Matt Clohesy and drummer Tony Leone (Phil Lesh and Friends).

Special guests include soul singer Ellis Hooks and a three piece horn section featuring baritone saxophonist Ian Hendrickson-Smith (Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings), tenor saxophonist David Luther (Bettye LaVette) and Grammy Award-winning trumpeter Freddie Hendrix performing horn arrangements by Jay Collins (Gregg Allman).

Jazz Standard has been a musical home for the Chris Bergson Band for the past ten years and provided an ideal venue for their first live record. The album was recorded and co-produced by award-winning producer/engineer Roman Klun whose credits include albums by the Spin Doctors, Joan Osborne and the Holmes Brothers.

With MOJO Magazine’s #1 Blues Album of 2008, Fall Changes, and #2 Blues Album of 2011, Imitate the Sun, New York guitarist/singer Chris Bergson has established himself as “one of the most inventive songwriters in modern blues music” (Richard Skelly, All Music Guide), creating his own blend of blues, roots and soul. Chris Bergson has performed and/or shared the stage with Hubert Sumlin, Levon Helm, B.B. King, Norah Jones, John Hammond, Etta James, and Bettye LaVette, to name just a few.
Born in New York City and raised in Somerville, Massachusetts, Chris Bergson returned to Manhattan in 1995. While backing jazz singers Annie Ross, Dena DeRose, Sasha Dobson and Norah Jones, he released Blues for Some Friends of Mine and Wait for Spring on Juniper Records in 1997 and 2000, respectively. In 2002 Bergson was appointed Jazz Ambassador of the USA by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and he toured Africa with his trio. Evolving to further embrace the blues while also adding pop influences, he followed up with Blues (2003), Another Day (2005) and his triumphant artistic breakthrough, the widely acclaimed Fall Changes (2007) – MOJO’s #1 Blues Album of 2008 — that established him as an eloquent, evocative and lyrical songwriter with a sharp urban vision. Recorded at Levon Helm’s Woodstock studio, it led to Bergson being personally invited to perform at the famed drummer’s Midnight Rambles while paving the way for more stateside festivals and subsequent tours of Europe.
Notable past performances include: Blues in Hell (Norway), Harvest Time Blues (Ireland), Groningen Rhythm and Blues Night (Holland), Moulin Blues (Holland), Noct en Blues (Chaumont, France), Leicester Blues Festival (UK), River to River Festival (NYC), Joe’s Pub (NYC), The Blue Note (NYC), Jazz Standard (NYC), John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (DC), Saratoga Jazz Festival (NY), SXSW, Levon Helm’s Midnight Rambles (Woodstock, NY) and opening for B.B. King at B.B. King’s Blues Club (NYC).

Live At Jazz Standard

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