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100 Front St., Fifth Floor Worcester, MA 01608 worcestermag.com Editorial (508) 767.9535 WMeditor@gatehousemedia.com Sales (508) 767.9530 WMSales@gatehousemedia.com VP, Sales & Strategy Andrew Chernoff Executive Editor David Nordman Editor Nancy Campbell Content Editor Victor D. Infante Reporters Richard Duckett, Veer Mudambi Contributing Writers Stephanie Campbell, Sarah Connell Sanders, Gari De Ramos, Robert Duguay, Liz Fay, Jason Greenough, Janice Harvey, Barbara Houle, Jim Keogh, Jim Perry, Craig S. Semon, Matthew Tota Multi Media Sales Executives Deirdre Baldwin, Debbie Bilodeau, Kate Carr, Diane Galipeau, Sammi Iacovone, Kathy Puffer, Jody Ryan, Regina Stillings Sales Support Jackie Buck, Yanet Ramirez Senior Operations Manager Gary Barth Operations Manager John Cofske Worcester Magazine is a news weekly covering Central Massachusetts. We accept no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts. The Publisher has the right to refuse any advertisement. Legals/Public Notices please call 888-254-3466, email classifieds@gatehousemedia.com, or mail to Central Mass Classifieds, 100 Front St., 5th Floor, Worcester, MA 01608 Distribution Worcester Magazine is inserted into the Telegram & Gazette on Fridays and is also available for free at more than 400 locations in the Worcester area. Unauthorized bulk removal of Worcester Magazine from any public location, or any other tampering with Worcester Magazine’s distribution including unauthorized inserts, is a criminal offense and may be prosecuted under the law. Subscriptions First class mail, $156 for one year. Send orders and subscription correspondence to GateHouse Media, 100 Front St., Worcester, MA 01608. Advertising To place an order for display advertising or to inquire, please call (508) 767.9530. Worcester Magazine (ISSN 0191-4960) is a weekly publication of Gannett. All contents copyright 2021 by Gannett. All rights reserved. Worcester Magazine is not liable for typographical errors in advertisements.

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Featured ..............................................................................4

Screen Time........................................................................9

Cover Story .......................................................................10 City Voices ........................................................................14 Artist Spotlight ................................................................15 Table Hoppin’...................................................................22 Adoption Option .............................................................28 Classifieds ........................................................................29

Games................................................................................30

Last Call .............................................................................31

On the cover

Warm coats and gift cards topped the list of what local charities need this year. PIXABAY

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FEATURED

Music legend Jim Messina enjoying logging more time out on the road

Richard Duckett

Worcester Magazine USA TODAY NETWORK

Musician, songwriter, singer, guitarist, recording engineer and record producer Jim Messina has plenty of music from his career to draw on when he returns to the The Bull Run Restaurant in Shirley for a performance on Nov. 20.

There’s the whole catalog of Loggins and Messina, when he was in a duo with Kenny Loggins from 1971-76 and recorded six studio albums which he produced along with live and compilation albums that have now exceeded over 20 million in sales.

Prior to that, Messina, 73, was a founder of the countryrock band Poco and was with them for for their first three albums, which he also produced. He was also a member of the legendary Buffalo Springfield in its final days, and performed on its final album, “Last Time Around,” as well as producing it.

Messina has his own solo stuff too, and it will all be in the mix he when performs with his five-member band Nov. 20.

“What I try to do is reproduce my arrangements as close as I can,” Messina said during a recent telephone interview in which he engagingly came across as quite happy to generously talk on any subject.

“I open acoustically,” he said, likely with such Loggins and Messina favorites as “House at Pooh Corner.”

“Then I gently move into the electric.” By the end of the night it’s full electric. Other numbers may include Buffalo Springfield’s “Kind Woman,” Poco’s “You Better Think Twice” and the Loggins and Messina big hit “Your Mama Don’t Dance”

“Its’ a very full musical evening. They get a really good evening,” Messina said.

He released a recording of one of his live shows, “In The Groove,” in 2016. Special guest Rusty Young of Poco combined on a number of songs.

Performing live is where it all started for Messina out in California, although for a while he thought his future was in the recording studio - and not performing recordings, but engineering them.

“I started performing when I was 13 years-old. I performed all through high school,” he said. He recorded an album with his own band, Jim Messina and the Jesters, which led to an invitation from a DJ who asked if he could produce some musicians of his.

Seeing all the musical talent at a recording studio such as Sunset Sound in Hollywood with its famed Wrecking Crew of studio musicians including Glen Campbell, Messina became convinced “I’d never have chance” as a musician.

“So I became a recording engineer. I thought I’d be doing that the rest of my life which I was fine with.”

Still, he was very young when he became producer/audio engineer for Buffalo Springfield.

“I was probably 19 when that happened, so yeah I started young. I was writing, producing arranging other acts.”

Buffalo Springfield, inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997,[ was comprised of Neil Young, Bruce Palmer, Dewey Martin, Stephen Stills and Richie Furay — great talents who didn’t always get along. .After bassist Palmer had to leave the band Messina auditioned as his replacement and got the job.

“That put me back into performing,” he said.

Besides playing bass, singing, and writing a song (”Carefree Country Day”) on “Last Time Around,” Messina was also the album’s producer and engineer.

While we may now think understandably glowingly about the short-lived magic and music of Buffalo Springfield, “We weren’t making a lot of money. There was a lot of frustration about that,” Messina said.

“When I think of Buffalo Springfield I think of the talents of Stephen Stills. He brought the sophistication to Buffalo Springfield. Neil Young and Stephen Stills were so different in terms of energy. They were both unique.”

When Buffalo Springfield disbanded in 1968, Messina and fellow bandmate Furay formed Poco. Messina switched to playing lead guitar.

Poco signed with Epic Records in 1968, a subsidiary of Columbia Records, and began recording its first album, “Pickin up the Pieces.”

Messina’s final appearance with Poco was on October 31, 1970, at the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco, California.

“There were a couple of contributing factors. I was getting tired being on the road. I had just married the year before,” Messina said of his departure.

There was also the thought that Poco was “too country for rock, too rock for country.”

In all, “I thought it was a good time to bail and go back to producing,” he said.

In 1989, Poco’s original lineup regrouped for a successful reunion tour, but “it wasn’t going to be a full time schedule,” Messina said.

Meanwhile, in 1971 Messina, now an independent producer

Jim Messina is set to return to Bull Run.COURTESY GEORGE BEKRIS

Jim Messina

When: 8 p.m. Nov. 20. Doors open for seating and dinner at 6 p.m. Where: The Bull Run Restaurant, 215 Great Road, Shirley How much: $62. All ticketed shows at Bull Run require proof of vaccination or proof of negative PCR COVID 19 test within 72 hours of performance. For more information, call (978) 425-4311, or go to www.bullrunrestaurant.com.

South African vocalist Naledi Masilo, South High students team for BrickBox Theater show

Richard Duckett

Worcester Magazine USA TODAY NETWORK

WORCESTER — South African-born jazz vocalist, composer and teaching artist Naledi Masilo will be “sharing a little bit about myself with the community,” during a concert Nov. 20 at the BrickBox Theater at the JMAC presented by Music Worcester.

Masilo grew up Johannesburg, South Africa, where she cultivated her love for music. She is now based in Boston, and recently graduated from the New England Conservatory while continuing to get attention as a multifaceted performer and presence in the arts.

Saturday’s program will include South African traditional music and jazz, and some of Masilo’s own compositions. “It’s based on the music I grew up listening to,” she said.

Joining her for some of the songs will be singers from South High Community School in Worcester. Naledi has been coming to South High to work with students from its choir and a cappella chorus for the past few weeks in a program organized by Music Worcester and Worcester Public Schools. “It’s been going really well. They’re in a new space (the school’s new building at Apricot Street). It’s really beautiful,” Masilo said.

With some of the traditional music and jazz that Maslio has had them singing, she has been taking students “out of their comfort zone,” she noted. But “the students have been really responsive to the experience,” she said.

“Naledi’s visits have been inspiring. The students admire both her singing voice and her general energy and presence,” said Allyson Meacham, choral director and piano and music instructor at South High.

Naledi studied classical piano as a child in South Africa, then went on to perform as a vocalist appearing at venues there such as the Artscape Youth Jazz Festival, the Grahamstown Youth Jazz Festival, and as a finalist of the Grandwest Open Mic Jazz Competition.

She studied international relations at the University of Cape Town while also performing with musician friends in Cape Town. After graduating, she won a scholarship at the New England Conservatory. In Boston she has established a strong relationship with The Boston City Singers and also runs her own workshops on jazz, voice techniques and the history and music of South Africa.

Masilo is also founder of the Dreaming Girls Foundation, a South African based non-profit to help women and young girls become leaders and critically conscious members of society.

South African jazz is “very intertwined with American jazz,” Masilo said. American jazz had a critical role in the Civil Rights movement and South African jazz musicians often had to go into exile during the years of protesting apartheid. Several of them played with American jazz legends, Masilo said.

Jazz is “definitely something universal. You can hear it on either side of the music,” she said.

Her own compositions are “rooted in songs my mom would sing to me as well as the journey I’ve had here,” she said. But what ties them together is “the people presence in the music.”

Masilo has been described as a “zesty vocalist” and is about to record a few of her songs with a view to releasing the recording “in the next few months, which I’m very excited to share.”

The pandemic shut down live performing for a long time but Masilo noted that the situation has been opening up more recently and she has been out singing with a band with gigs in New Hampshire, Springfield and Vermont.

Masilo’s performance at the BrickBox Theater will also feature a seven-piece band

“They’ll be performing with the (South High) choir,” Masilo said. “It’s going to be a great experience for them being in a live setting after the pandemic.”

“After a year and a half of remote learning, students having an opportunity to perform this engaging music live — on stage and with professionals — is an exciting gift,” said Meacham. “We are so grateful for Naledi’s generosity and spirit, and for Music Worcester’s continuing deep commitment to the community and its schools.”

“Allyson’s really been great,” said Masilo about Meacham.

“Everyone’s just really open and receptive. I’m really excited Music Worcester has given me this opportunity.”

Naledi Masilo will perform at the BrickBox Theater in Worcester. SUBMITTED

If You Go

What: Naledi Masilo — presented by Music Worcester When: 8 p.m. Nov. 20 Where: BrickBox Theater at the JMAC, 20 Franklin St., Worcester

How much: $49; $17.50 students; $.7.50 youth. General admission. For tickets and more information, including Music Worcester’s pandemic policy, visit www.musicworcester.org