“State Trooper,” from Bruce’s 1982 Nebraska, gets an overdue overhaul courtesy of Carre Kwong Callaway of Los Angeles who records as Queen Kwong. It’s off her Strangers EP where she also interprets the Stones (“Sympathy For The Devil”), Chris Isaak (“Baby Did A Bad Thing”) and Velvet Underground (“I Found A Reason”).

Southside Johnny Lyon has cancelled his annual New Year’s Eve show with the Asbury Jukes this year due to health reasons. When contacted, management declined comment. Lyon, 76, had left the stage midway through a December 14 show in Virginia, the Jukes finishing without him.

Longtime Englewood resident George Benson will host “Breezin’ With The Stars” January 3-6 at the Wigwam Resort in Phoenix Arizona with classes, workshops, concerts, discussions and jam sessions with Steve Lukather, Patti Austin, Tommy Emmanuel, Stanley Jordan, Al Di Meola, Greg Phillinganes, Lee Ritenour, John Scofield, Esperanza Spalding, Andy Timmons, Rick Beato, Norman Brown, Isiah Sharkey, Joscho Stephan, Quinn Sullivan, Randy Waldman, Chris Walker and Cory Wong.

April May Webb of Connecticut is the winner of the 13^th Annual Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition held at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark on November 24. Known as The Sassy Awards for Vaughan’s longtime nickname, Webb bested the 220 entrants from 21 countries, whittled down to five for the sing-off hosted by WBGO’s Sheila Anderson.

There’s a poet in Madison, deep within Morris County, but you might find him stretched out on the grass at Princeton Battlefield State Park in Mercer County where American and British troops fought each other in 1777. Alt-folk-country Americana singer-songwriter Dave Murphy thinks about those times a lot.

Newark’s own Whitney Houston [1963-2012] will be honored yet again and rightly so at Town Hall in New York City in February. “The Voice Of Whitney: A Symphonic Celebration” is being billed as hearing Whitney’s voice “as never heard before [in] an Immersive Visual Experience.”

“Christian McBride’s World At Sea” will set sail in January of 2026 from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, for a week, with stops in Jamaica and the Grand Cayman Islands.

The Ronnie James Dio Stand Up And Shout Cancer Fund got a sweet 70G payday when SiriusXM 103 Faction Talk DJ Eddie Trunk hosted the annual “Bowl For Ronnie” celebrity bowl-a-thon November 14 at the PINZ Bowling Center in Studio City California.

There are those who swear the spirit of the 1960s finally ended at the end of a rope in Far Rockaway, New York, when Phil Ochs hung himself at his sister’s house. He was 35. Unlike Dylan, who has admitted he used folk-music to become a rock star, Ochs truly believed in his role as generational spokesman. He preferred “topical singer” to “protest singer” but he protested long and loud at racism, war and apathy.

The members of Hickory are spread out over such Jersey towns as Denville, Lincoln Park, Pompton Plans and Ramsey. Yet when they jam, they are as close in spirit and chemistry as a single entity can be. That closeness is fully evident on their debut recording, Postcard Picture Show, due December 20.

The story goes that Bruce didn’t even want to include “No Surrender” on 1984’s Born In The USA but did so at the insistence of Stevie Van Zandt. It’s since become a concert staple, one of the most beloved songs in the Bruce catalog. It’s been covered 19 times by artists from all around the world but not like the one-named singer-songwriter Rowe from Hopewell in Mercer County.

Jenny Owen Youngs, 43, was raised in the woods of Sussex County. It was a decade between her third album (An Unwavering Band Of Light) and last year’s 10-track fourth (Avalanche). Why did it take so long? She was busy touring the world, writing hits for others, starting a popular podcast, writing a book, and having her songs placed in movies and TV shows.

For the fourth straight month, there’s Melanie news. The Long Branch High School graduate, who died earlier this year, but not before winning the hearts of multiple generations from the 1960s on, is the subject of Reimaginings (Cleopatra Records), a 42-track, two-disc gem wherein the artist who absolutely refused to settle, and continued to tinker with new and old songs alike, gets her catalog overhauled. And she did it herself!

The organization known as Violins of Hope has amassed such stringed instruments as violins, cellos and upright basses in an effort to protect the legacy of slaughtered Jewish musicians during the Holocaust and the instruments they once played.

There was always something special about internationally-revered piano man Bill Evans. He was especially popular in Scandinavia, Paris, London and South America. Was it the fact that his voicings included snippets from the great classical composers? Or was it that this Jersey Boy, born in 1929 Plainfield, added so much when he was in the band of Miles Davis to record the best-selling jazz album of all time, Kind Of Blue?

West Orange guitarist Dave Stryker got himself some strings and he’s taking ‘em all to the movies. The album—Stryker with Strings Goes To The Movies (Strikezone Records)—doesn’t come out until January 10 but he’s laid a little something on us for the meantime. And it’s a flat-out doozy.

The “Scumbags of the Universe,” GWAR, will meet and greet their fans for the first time in their blood-spattered career at the Trenton Punk Rock Flea Market for the last two days of the three-day December 13, 14 & 15 Cure Arena event on Hamilton Avenue.

If you’re in Hoboken, and you go west of Willow Avenue, you’ll not only find Sinatra’s boyhood home and the Café Visa but also the 503 Social Club. The West of Willow collective (WOW), an organization that hosts charitable events like the ones they’ve held for Ukraine and Planned Parenthood, will, on December 8, host a benefit concert at the 503 starring Hoboken rockers Karyn Kuhl and her Gang plus Debby Schwartz of the bands Psych-O-Positive and The Aquanettas. Poets Danny Shot and Vera Sirota will also perform.

Punk-rock fans in Jersey City will get to be among the first in the country to see the new documentary—Born Innocent: The Redd Kross Story—with Pearl Jam, The Go-Go’s, Soundgarden, Black Flag, The Bangles, Sonic Youth, The Melvins, Mudhoney, Dinosaur Jr., Veruca Salt, Circle Jerks, The Germs and more on December 22 at Monty Hall on Montgomery Street where radio station WFMU is housed.

Written and Directed by Scott Cooper from last year’s book—Deliver Me From Nowhere: The Making Of Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska—by Warren Zanes, principal shooting for the much-anticipated 2025 Bruce bio-pic started last month in New York and three sites in The Garden State:  Bayonne, Rockaway (Morris County) and next month from the ninth to the 13^th in Asbury Park.