Chris Bergson
Chris Bergson is an internationally acclaimed American born guitarist, singer, and songwriter. “Chris Bergson plays the kind of guitar you can build a house on – it’s B.B. meets Steve Cropper meets John Scofield.” (ROLL Magazine) Hailed as “the New York street poet with a blues soul” (MOJO) and “one of the most inventive songwriters in modern blues music,” (All Music Guide) Bergson is best known as the leader of the Chris Bergson Band. Elmore Magazine calls the Chris Bergson Band “one of the most talented bands playing today,” whose soulful blend of American Roots music encompasses “blazing rock to funk to soul to Delta blues and all that’s in between.” Bergson is also an accomplished sideman who has performed with luminaries across a wide range of genres including including pop and rock (Norah Jones, Levon Helm), blues and soul (Hubert Sumlin, Bernard Purdie) and jazz (Annie Ross, Al Foster and Larry Grenadier.) The Chris Bergson Band’s 2007 album Fall Changes, recorded at Levon Helm’s studio in Woodstock, New York, was named MOJO Magazine’s Number One Blues Album of the Year in 2008. Bergson was inducted into the New York Blues Hall of Fame as a Master Blues Artist in 2015. Bergson is also an Associate Professor at Berklee College of Music in Boston where he teaches guitar and songwriting. Chris Bergson plays D’Addario Strings, McCurdy Guitars and uses MONO cases.
Chris Bergson’s latest record, East River Blues (CRS), is a reflection on 30 years of playing music in New York and pays tribute to some of Bergson’s biggest blues and jazz influences including Muddy Waters, Ray Charles as well as heroes from the classic 60s Blue Note era like Grant Green, Lou Donaldson and Herbie Hancock. The album features Bergson in trio with bassist Larry Grenadier (John Scofield), Herlin Riley (Dr. John) and on three selections, quartet with longtime bandmate saxophonist Jay Collins (Gregg Allman.) Jim Hynes of Glide Magazine calls it “as pure and unadorned an album of classic jazz and blues as has been issued recently…The tone evokes the joyous Blue Note soul-jazz of Lou Donaldson, Grant Green, and Stanley Turrentine, among others.”
Blues Matters (UK) hails East River Blues as “a record steeped in after-hours soul, jazz-club cool and the kind of hard-earned musical maturity you cannot fake. Bergson’s guitar work is masterfully understated throughout, as it is soulful, economical and deeply melodic…Bergson has crafted a blues album defined not by excess but by nuance, feel and quiet mastery. One for any music lover’s collection, this is a must buy record.”
“Chris Bergson possesses that rare ability to make the streets of New York converse with the deep history of the blues. As a guitarist, singer, songwriter, educator, sought-after sideman, and respected bandleader, he has established himself over three decades as one of the most distinctive voices on the American music scene.“ – Zicazic (France)
East River Blues – Liner Notes by Mac Randall
“For guitarist and singer Chris Bergson, the early months of 2025 were auspicious in more ways than one. In January, he completed his 30th year of living in New York City. His Big Apple residency, which started in the mid-’90s amid pre-dawn jams at Smalls, lessons with jazz guitar great Jim Hall and classes at the Manhattan School of Music, had gradually made him a professional musician, as well as a husband, father and deep explorer of the blues. He felt the need to commemorate this anniversary in the best manner he knew how—with the recording of a special album.
That same month, Bergson decided who he wanted in the studio with him: acoustic bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Al Foster. He knew that the two had a history going back more than three decades to their time in saxophonist Joe Henderson’s quartet. And in 2002, Foster and Bergson had played together for a few nights at the Fat Cat on Christopher Street, an experience that Bergson calls “life-changing. Playing with Al was the closest I’ve ever come to flying. On those trio gigs, I sang a blues in each set”—then a new development for Bergson after years of being a guitarist only—“and Al was really encouraging of my singing. It meant a lot to me.”
Calls were duly placed, schedules were calibrated, and a studio date was booked for June at NRS Recording in Catskill, NY. Then fate intervened. On May 28, three weeks before the session, Foster passed away at 82. It was a devastating blow that called everything into question. Grenadier was still up for recording, but who else could take the drum throne at short notice? Bergson performed the logistical equivalent of a hail-Mary pass, reaching out to one of New Orleans’ finest, Herlin Riley. Three months earlier, they’d shared the stage as part of a Jazz at Lincoln Center blues jam weekend. “That was the first time I’d played with him,” Bergson notes, “and he’s another absolute master.”
Amazingly, Riley had a gig in nearby Connecticut the night before the session date—a gig for which the bass player was none other than Larry Grenadier. “So he and Larry could both make the session, and they ended up playing together for the first time the night before,” Bergson recounts in disbelief. “I was like, ‘Well, this seems like it was meant to be.’”
You can now hear the happy results on East River Blues. Grenadier and Riley’s solid, empathetic support of Bergson’s guitar and voice is apparent from the second they enter the album’s opening cut, a down-and-dirty run through Muddy Waters’ Mean Disposition. Playing without a pick, Bergson coaxes strikingly vocal timbres from his Ric McCurdy thinline Tele-style axe, while his own unpretentious growl is at times reminiscent of his former employer, the late great Levon Helm.
For Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart’s Little Girl Blue, Bergson switches to a Gibson ES 335, and his luscious unaccompanied chord-solo arrangement of the verse quickly indicates that we’ve moved into jazzier territory. His smoke-infused vocal harks back to classic Ray Charles. “I don’t think Ray ever recorded this tune,” Bergson comments, “but if he had, how might he have interpreted it? That was my way in, which was helpful.”
Funky instrumental East River Blues is the first selection of three to feature saxophonist Jay Collins, with whom Bergson spars in a playful lick-trading section. “I love boogaloos,” the tune’s author says, “like the stuff on Lou Donaldson’s Midnight Creeper, where blues and funk and jazz and soul come together. I wanted to write a new tune like that. I love the way Larry and Herlin play on this—the groove is really special. And that was a first take. I don’t think we did more than three takes of anything.”
Sad Strains is a fetching jazz waltz that Bergson composed back in his college days. “That was one of my dad’s favorite tunes,” he reports, “and he passed away in March, so I’m thinking about him. Larry takes an amazing solo here.” Kindless Villain is an archetypal shuffle co-written with Bergson’s wife Kate Ross. As Bergson puts it, “A classic blues shuffle should feel like an ass-whooping. Some jazz drummers don’t get that feel right; they’re too busy. But Herlin’s feel is just ridiculous. I knew I had to play a shuffle with him on this album.”
Mission accomplished, Bergson cranks the tremolo on his vintage Fender Vibrolux, invites Jay Collins back in, and leads a soulful take on one of his all-time favorites, Brother Ray’s What Would I Do Without You. The full quartet then reconvenes for Herbie Hancock’s Driftin’, giving it a hard-swinging treatment. In the spring of ’25, Bergson had been looking forward to playing this tune with Al Foster. Such was sadly not to be, but Riley more than holds his own, and the album that almost wasn’t has become a vibrant reality, exemplifying creative flow. Much like the East River.” —Mac Randall, December 2025
Born in New York City in 1976, Chris Bergson moved with his family to Boston when he was three years old and returned to New York City in 1995 at the age of eighteen. Bergson’s love and affinity for music started early, as writer Kay Cordtz details in her profile of Bergson for ROLL Magazine:
On Chris Bergson’s tenth birthday, his parents gave the young guitar prodigy a pile of record albums. They included Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf’s Muddy and the Wolf, the Waters, Mike Bloomfield, Paul Butterfield and Otis Spann collaboration, Fathers and Sons, a Thelonious Monk disc and a couple of albums by Miles Davis. Bergson, who started taking classical guitar lessons at the age of seven, had just learned the blues scale so he could play along with Muddy and copy some Bloomfield riffs. “Hearing all that music at the same time had a really powerful effect on me,” he said.
If you listen to Bergson’s CDs such as Fall Changes and Imitate the Sun, it’s obvious that he learned his lessons from the masters well – both those he heard on vinyl and those he had the privilege to know and play alongside. But you also hear a musician with the fire and intelligence to chart his own path and resist being classified as any one particular genre. (Kay Cordtz, Roll Magazine, “Chris Bergson: Singer/Songwriter, Guitarist, Husband, Father Is Living His Dream)
Bergson began his professional career at the age of thirteen playing in Boston area rock clubs. In 1995, Bergson returned to New York City and studied with jazz guitar master Jim Hall. While attending Manhattan School of Music, Bergson began freelancing as a guitarist on the New York jazz scene. In 1996, Bergson recorded his debut album Blues For Some Friends of Mine (Juniper Records) featuring bassist Dwayne Burno and drummer Greg Bandy. “With his first release, Bergson proves himself ready for the big time,” Jim Fisch wrote in 20th Century Guitar Magazine. In 1997, he recorded with legendary jazz vocalist Annie Ross on her album Cool For Kids (Juniper Records.)
In the Spring of 1999, Bergson graduated from Manhattan School of Music with a Bachelor of Music degree and landed a steady gig at Vintage, a lounge in Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen, where he led a trio two nights a week backing up singers including Norah Jones, Sasha Dobson, and Dena DeRose.
In 2002, Bergson was appointed a Jazz Ambassador of the USA by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and he toured eight countries in West Africa with his trio. His subsequent album Blues (2003) reflected his immersion in the Blues tradition, while adding roots and soul influences. The album was recorded live at NYC’s Smoke Jazz Club with organist Brian Charette and drummer Matt Wilson. Incidentally, Matt Wilson coined the name for Bergson’s independent record label, 2 Shirts Records, saying “Man, you sweat so much, you gotta bring two shirts to every gig – one for each set!” Anyone who’s ever attended a Bergson live show can attest to the soulful intensity – and the sweat – that pours out of him in every performance.
In 2004, the Chris Bergson Band were featured as Artists-In-Residence at NYC’s Jazz Standard performing every Monday night that Fall. The band featured saxophonist Jay Collins (Gregg Allman), bassist Chris Berger, and drummers Matt Wilson or Tony Mason. “We were able to really develop as a band and that’s when I really started writing,” Bergson explained to writer Kay Cordtz, ”We recorded the album Another Day right at the end of our residency. It documented the tunes we’d been playing every week, and that was really the start of the Chris Bergson Band.” Bergson credits the influence of The Band’s music for inspiring “High Above the Morning,” the first of seven original songs he wrote for Another Day.” (Kay Cordtz, ROLL Magazine.)
Fittingly, the Chris Bergson Band recorded their next album, the widely acclaimed Fall Changes (2007) at The Band drummer Levon Helm’s Woodstock studio. The band included Jay Collins, keyboardist Bruce Katz and drummer Tony Leone with Helm’s daughter, singer Amy Helm, guesting on a few tunes. The sessions led to Bergson being personally invited to perform at the famed drummer’s Midnight Rambles while opening the way for more stateside festivals and subsequent tours of Europe. Bergson is one of the artists included in photographer Paul LaRaia’s book, The Levon Helm Midnight Ramble.
Fall Changes (2 Shirts Records/Bertus Distribution) was released in October 2007 to rave reviews and established Bergson as an eloquent, evocative and lyrical songwriter with a sharp urban vision. Living Blues magazine called him “a serious talent” and Blues scholar Tony Russell wrote in his four star review of the album for MOJO:
One of the major themes in blues is a sense of place and this band lay down their local credentials in the opening track about a Brooklyn neighborhood, Gowanus Heights. The catchy melody, stabbing horns and fervent vocal also establish that these guys could strip down the engine of a soulbluesmobile and put it back together blindfold.
Fall Changes went on to be named MOJO’s Number One Blues Album of the Year in 2008 by Tony Russell, the first of Bergson’s five consecutive albums to be named on MOJO’s year-end list of the Best Blues Albums.
Bergson performed in Europe for the first time in 2008 in the UK at England’s Leicester Blues Festival. Over the next decade, Bergson’s international tours became more and more frequent, expanding his European fanbase with performances in twelve countries including Holland, Belgium, France, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Spain, Ireland, Norway, Denmark, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Russia.
Notable European festival performances include Cognac Blues Passions (France), Vallemaggia Magic Blues (Switzerland), Trasimeno Blues (Italy), Moulin Blues (Holland), Groningen Rhythm and Blues Night (Holland), Harvest Time Blues (Ireland), Blues in Hell (Norway), Salaise Blues Festival (France), Cahors Blues Festival (France), Ingolstadt Bluesfest (Germany), Gevarenwnkel Festival (Belgium), Swing Wespelaar (Belgium) and the Burlada Blues Festival (Spain.)
In 2013, Bergson began performing and writing songs with acclaimed soul singer Ellis Hooks. Born in Bromley, Alabama, All Music Guide calls Hooks “the true continuum in the celebrated Southern traditions of soul, blues, and gospel.” Bergson and Hooks met in 2004 when they were sharing a bill at NYC’s Joe’s Pub. Their collaboration over the next decade would find them selling out shows at top NYC venues like Jazz Standard and City Winery and headlining festivals in Europe including France’s oldest Blues festival, the Cahors Blues Festival.
Ellis Hooks appeared as a guest on Bergson’s 2014 release Live at Jazz Standard which included the debut of their original Stax-inspired modern soul classic “The Only One.” With a three-piece horn section led by saxophonist Ian Hendrickson-Smith (The Roots/Late Night With Jimmy Fallon), Live at Jazz Standard captured the Chris Bergson Band’s “gut-busting, horn-bedecked NY blues” (MOJO) and was named one of MOJO’s Best Blues Albums of 2014. Just days after the two nights of recording live at Bergson’s favorite NYC club, the Chris Bergson Band performed at the Saratoga Jazz Festival in Saratoga Springs, New York, playing right before Tony Bennett and Buddy Guy. In 2014, the Chris Bergson Band performed at the largest Blues festival in North America, the Waterfront Blues Festival in Portland, Oregon.
“Over the past decade, Chris Bergson has become one of the most interesting blues-inspired songwriters,” wrote Tony Russell in his review of Live at Jazz Standard for the UK’s Blues Magazine. “He describes the streetscapes and nightscapes of city life, painting small, memorable pictures, a kind of Edward Hopper of the blues.”
Ellis Hooks co-wrote three songs and appeared as a guest vocalist on the Chris Bergson Band’s 2017 studio album Bitter Midnight (2 Shirts Records/Continental Blue Heaven.) Recorded to two-inch tape at Brooklyn’s Mighty Toad Studio, Bergson was joined on the album by baritone saxophonist Jay Collins, trumpeter Steven Bernstein (Levon Helm), drummers Aaron Comess (Spin Doctors), Tony Mason (Darlene Love), bassists Andy Hess (Gov’t Mule), Richard Hammond (Santana), Matt Clohesy (Patti Austin) and keyboardist/tenor saxophonist Craig Dreyer (Dispatch). “It was great to record with some of favorite musicians,” said 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.”
Released in Europe on the Continental Blue Heaven label, Bitter Midnight was featured as “Album of the Month” in Holland’s Gitarist Magazine and France’s Soul Bag Magazine. Gitarist’s Kevin Passman wrote, “As we’ve come to expect from Bergson, Bitter Midnight is full of tasty, intuitive guitar work and passionate vocals but besides that, the album is also a triumph for his qualities as a composer. An absolute must for fans of blues, soul and southern rock.”
In 2018, Bergson and Hooks toured together in Europe for the first time playing festivals in Denmark, Germany and France. Their performance in Normandy for the Nuit du Blues festival, held at a stadium, the Zénith de Caen, was filmed and recorded and released on CD/DVD in 2019 as Chris Bergson & Ellis Hooks – Live in Normandy (2 Shirts Records/Continental Blue Heaven.)
Live in Normandy captures Bergson and Hooks backed by their longtime working European band. 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. “Live albums don’t get any better than this,” wrote Jim Hynes in Glide Magazine, “Bergson and Hooks have become a blues-infused modern-day Sam and Dave, bringing a similar kind of gritty, rousing blues that is chill-inducing, whether vocally or via Bergson’s stinging, piercing solos (check out “Bitter Midnight”) …Bergson’s guitar lines echo two of his heroes, Hubert Sumlin (with whom he performed in his later years) and Freddie King.”
Soul Bag Magazine’s Marc Loison wrote, “Far from blues-rock clichés and guitar demonstrations in vertiginous pyrotechnics, here are 12 twelve live tracks as additional proof of the vitality and authenticity of a major artist on the New York scene. In perfect harmony with the splendid vocalist Ellis Hooks, guitarist-singer Chris Bergson is accompanied by a “French connection” of choice…Superb!” Jos Verhagen wrote in his review of the album for Holland’s Blues Magazine, “The music of Chris Bergson and Ellis Hooks is genuine Delta soul blues…The soulful voice of Hooks is reminiscent of the great soul men like Sam Cooke and Otis [Redding], and together with Chris, he turns it into a true party.”
Notable past performances include:
Cognac Blues Passions (France), Vallemaggia Magic Blues (Switzerland), Trasimeno Blues (Italy), Moulin Blues (Holland), Groningen Rhythm & Blues Night (Holland), Cahors Blues Festival (France), Salaise Blues Festival (France), Talant International Blues Festival (France), GeVarenwinkel Festival (Belgium), Swing Wespelaar (Belgium), Southern Holland Blues Night (NL), Burlada Blues Festival (Spain), Harvest Time Blues (Ireland), Blues in Hell (Norway), Leicester Blues Festival (UK), Waterfront Blues Festival (Portland, OR), Saratoga Jazz Festival (NY), Levon Helm’s Midnight Rambles (Woodstock, NY), Jazz at Lincoln Center (NYC), River to River Festival (NYC), Joe’s Pub (NYC), City Winery (NYC), Brooklyn Bowl (Brooklyn, NY) The Blue Note (NYC), Jazz Standard (NYC), John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (DC), SXSW (Austin, TX), and opening for B.B. King and Etta James at B.B. King’s Blues Club (NYC).
Chris Bergson is an Associate Professor in the guitar department at Berklee College of Music in Boston.
Bergson plays D’Addario Strings (NYXL), McCurdy Guitars and uses MONO cases.