The electric blues of Albert Cummings

12:00AM / Wednesday, July 31, 2002Print Story | Email Story

Slowly itâ€™s working. One step at a time, Albert Cummings IV, of Williamstown, is inching his way to national stardom as an electric blues guitarist. Like his father, Albert â€œBuckyâ€ Cummings III, heâ€™s a builder by trade. And like his father, heâ€™s a musician. He even started off playing country music and bluegrass, like Bucky. But somewhere in there, the similarities have to end, and for Albert, it happened when he discovered the blues. â€œI was just country all the way. I never even knew there was a type of music called blues,â€ he said. â€œI never even knew who Eric Clapton was until I was in 11th or 12th grade in school. I was pretty behind the times.â€ He was known locally as something of a child prodigy on the banjo, enough to make it through several rounds of a televised Boston talent show. In high school, he traded his banjo in for a guitar. But the blues bug didnâ€™t bite him for another ten years or so, and until then he never took the instrument too seriously. Sometime in the late 80s, however, he caught a Stevie Ray Vaughn show, and heâ€™s never looked back. He formed a band, The Swamp Yankees, with bassist Phil Remillard and drummer Bill Pommy. â€œThe Swamp Yankees were the first band I was ever in,â€ he said. They enjoyed some local and regional notoriety, even opening for Kansas at the Night Shift CafÃ© at MASS MoCA. Since those days, the band has been through several personnel changes, although Cummings has always been the lead guitarist and singer, and writes most of their original material. The current iteration has Ryan Lack on bass, Conor Meehan on drums and Robert Kelly on keyboard, and they now go by the name The Albert Cummings Band. Opening for Kansas was the first of many exciting steps for Cummings. He and his band have also opened for such blues luminaries as Buddy Guy, John Hammond and Charlie Musselwhite. But two things that occurred in the past year were the best experiences so far â€” Cummings got to open for blues legend BB King (sixteen times) and he made an album with the late Stevie Ray Vaughnâ€™s backup band, Double Trouble. â€œEvery BB King show that Iâ€™ve ever done is a special memory to me,â€ he said. Heâ€™ll be opening for King again at the BB King Blues Fest at SPAC in Saratoga on August 30, and playing at the BB King Club at Foxwoods Resort and Casino in Connecticut in October and November. Cummings newest album, From The Heart, was produced by Chris Layton, Tommy Shannon and Reese Wynans, otherwise known as Double Trouble. Cummings met Double Trouble, one of the most famous backup bands in rock and blues, when they backed him for a pair of concerts in the Albany area. After the shows, they told him they wanted to produce his next album, as well as play on it. â€œI was so blown away I missed 3 exits on the Northway on my way home,â€ he said. The CD, released in February of this year, features eight Cummings originals, a Double Trouble original and two blues standards. It recently went into national distribution, according to Cummings, and should be on the shelves in most chain and independent record stores. â€œIt worked out great. I got a great friendship out of the deal with those guys and just learned a lot of stuff about music and when to play and when not to play,â€ Cummings said. â€œAnd I learned a lot about recording â€” how itâ€™s done and how engineers work.â€ Cummings will soon be featured on Dan Ackroydâ€™s House of Blues Radio Hour â€” he said they will be doing the interview sometime in August. And he recently started to work with a management agency. Step by step, heâ€™s moving from the regional-artist-to-watch list to the cracking-the-national-scene list. â€œWhen Garth Brooks and Clapton open for me, then Iâ€™ll think Iâ€™ve finally made it. That hasnâ€™t quite happened yet,â€ he said with a laugh. Itâ€™s a pretty lofty goal, but step by step . . . â€ More information on Albert Cummings and his upcoming appearances is available at www.albertcummings.net

North Adams Double Murder Case Continued to March

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
02:00PM / Monday, December 29, 2025

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The case of a city man charged with killing his parents was continued to March on Monday.

Darius Hazard, 44, was scheduled for a detention hearing on Monday in Northern Berkshire District Court.

Prior to the start of the court's business, the clerk announced that Hazard's case was continued to Monday, March 2.

Hazard is charged with two counts of first-degree murder and one count of arson in connection with the Nov. 24 fire that claimed the lives of Donald Hazard, 83, and Venture Hazard, 76.

Police say Hazard confessed to the killings and starting the fire and fled the Francis Street home where he lived with his parents.