{"id":24273,"date":"2022-12-19T05:30:09","date_gmt":"2022-12-19T10:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=24273"},"modified":"2022-12-20T07:28:39","modified_gmt":"2022-12-20T12:28:39","slug":"its-beginning-to-look-a-lot-like-christmas-jam-part-1-of-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2022\/12\/19\/its-beginning-to-look-a-lot-like-christmas-jam-part-1-of-3\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s beginning to look a lot like Christmas (Jam), Part 1 of 3"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Note:<\/span><\/b> My cover story in the Nov. 30 issue of Asheville, N.C. altweekly Mountain Xpress<\/i> explored the beginnings and development of the long-running Warren Haynes Presents Christmas Jam, which made its return after a three-year absence.<\/span><\/p>\n

As an Asheville-based music journalist, I\u2019ve been fortunate to interview Warren Haynes on many occasions. The first was for a 2016 cover story\/profile in WNC Magazine<\/i>; the second was for stories in Atlanta and Tampa altweeklies, during his \u201cLast Waltz 40\u201d commemorative tour in 2017. We spoke again (for a Mountain Xpress<\/i> story) ahead of the 30th<\/sup> Christmas Jam in 2018, and then in 2019 for Metro Silicon Valley<\/i>, discussing the latest Gov\u2019t Mule album release. He\u2019s always a forthright and engaging interviewee, so I looked forward to our recent chat.<\/span><\/p>\n

Today, Asheville-born Haynes is a household name in the music world. But back in the early \u201870s, Haynes was merely a gifted and hard-working local guitar player hoping to find success in a competitive music scene.<\/p>\n

Even then, he was part of Asheville\u2019s closely-knit local community of musicians. Close friend, fellow guitarist and former bandmate Mike Barnes has known Haynes since childhood. They took part in informal musical get-togethers long before even the first official Jam. \u201cWe’d always get together and jam around Christmastime,\u201d Barnes recalls, \u201ceither at my house or [drummer] Chipper Lunsford’s house.\u201d<\/p>\n

The rest of the time, local musicians played at one of several North Asheville music spots. With a lighted dance floor and mirrored walls, the Cosmic Ballroom was one of Asheville\u2019s hippest night spots. It was situated in the space occupied today by Rye Not, under the now-abandoned Stein Mart (then Rose\u2019s). The bands that Barnes and Haynes led in the mid- and later \u201870s \u2013 Blue Sky, then Total Eclipse \u2013 played there often. They also landed frequent gigs at the Brass Tap (at the northeast corner of Merrimon Avenue and Edgewood Road) and Doc\u2019s Rock Shop (today the parking lot of the North Asheville Ingles). Looking back, it\u2019s remarkable to realize that the Asheville of those days \u2013 with a population one-quarter of what it is now \u2013 could support so many live rock venues.<\/p>\n

In 1988, the embryonic Christmas Jam got its official start at 45 Cherry. And as Haynes\u2019 career blossomed, the local music scene continued to change and grow. Live music moved from North Asheville to downtown. Be Here Now \u2013 the Jam\u2019s second long-term home \u2013 was a center of activity. Other venues opened; today Vincent\u2019s Ear, Gatsby\u2019s, Stella Blue, Asheville Music Zone, The Garage, New Mountain, The Mothlight, Ambrose West and The Altamont are all the stuff of local musical legend.<\/p>\n

And the local music scene continues to thrive. Whether it\u2019s touring acts playing at the Civic Center or Thomas Wolfe Auditorium or artists playing whispered-about sets at West Asheville house concerts, live music in Asheville remains alive and well in 2022. And with the return of Warren Haynes Presents Christmas Jam, one of Asheville\u2019s favorite sons is doing what he\u2019s done for more than three decades: bringing it all back home again.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the story…<\/strong><\/i><\/p>\n

A thirty-year streak ended when the annual Warren Haynes Presents Christmas Jam was canceled in 2019. And a global pandemic meant that the all-star concert fundraising event wouldn\u2019t happen in 2020 or 2021, either. But now the wildly popular event (advance tickets sold out in minutes) returns to Harrah\u2019s Cherokee Center. With a bill that includes Phil Lesh & Friends, Tyler Childers, Gov\u2019t Mule, Brothers Osborne, Dinosaur Jr. and more, the 31st Jam happened December 10.<\/p>\n

Early Jams<\/b>
\nThe annual event \u2013 today branded as Warren Haynes Presents Christmas Jam \u2013 sprang from humble beginnings in 1988. But even at its start, when it was billed as \u201cThe Christmas Jam: Musician\u2019s X-Mas Reunion,\u201d the gathering combined having a good time with trying to do good. \u201cIt started in a small club, 45 Cherry,\u201d Haynes recalls. (Today the site of the long-shuttered venue is a parking lot just north of the Asheville Skatepark).<\/p>\n

The concert was an opportunity for Asheville-based musicians to get together informally during the one time of the year when they weren\u2019t busy with live dates and\/or tours. Haynes doesn\u2019t recall what the ticket price was. \u201cProbably $6 or something,\u201d he says with a laugh.<\/p>\n

Click here to continue<\/a>\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Note: My cover story in the Nov. 30 issue of Asheville, N.C. altweekly Mountain Xpress explored the beginnings and development of the long-running Warren Haynes Presents Christmas Jam, which made […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24569,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,44,62],"tags":[237,2851,2347],"class_list":["post-24273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-live-shows","category-rawk","tag-asheville","tag-christmas-jam","tag-warren-haynes","cat-41-id","cat-44-id","cat-62-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24273"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24574,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24273\/revisions\/24574"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}