SARATOGA LIVINGThe City. The Culture. The Life.

Last week, I was at my home away from Saratoga Springs in Alabama, visiting some friends and family for a few days. I made a lunch date with Mike Salerno, the creative writing teacher at my old community college, who’s, like me, a Skidmore College graduate. Over fresh Southern corn cakes, coleslaw and bread pudding, we caught up. He told me that his wife was currently in New York City, celebrating with an old friend making her Broadway debut. “Who’s her friend?” I asked. It turned out it was none other than Peppermint, who was not only the runner-up on the runaway hit series, RuPaul’s Drag Race, but also the first openly trans contestant to audition and get on the show (there have been others who came out as trans during or after filming). Now Peppermint’s making history again as the first trans actress to originate a principal role in a major show on Broadway. She’ll star in Head Over Heels, which opens at Hudson Theatre in NYC on July 26 (it’s been in previews since late June). Head Over Heels is a newish musical (it’s world premier was at the 2015 Oregon Shakespeare Festival) with a score that comprises 18 hits by The Go Go’s including “Get Up and Go,” “We Got the Beat,” “Vacation” and, of course the titular track, “Head Over Heels.” The cast features stars like Jeremy Kushnier (Paramour) and Rachel York (Disaster!), and the book is by Tony winner and writer of Avenue Q, Jeff Whitty. I talked to Peppermint about a number of things—including her historic role on Broadway—and her Saratoga connection.

I read somewhere that you’ve performed in Saratoga before. Is that true?
I have. I performed several times in the northern New York area, at different colleges—Skidmore being probably the closest to where you are. I can’t tell you the year, but it was in the early 2000s. It’s a fun place.

That was way before you were on Season 9 of Ru Paul’s Drag Race. Was it a big moment in 2017 when you were selected to compete in that show?
Yeah, it was a life changing moment for me. I got a chance to meet some great people and build a bigger platform than I’m used to. So it did change my life, for sure.

Do you think it helped get you your role in Head Over Heels?
I think it definitely did. But it wasn’t the prerequisite. It was a regular audition. I had to sing and dance just like everybody else. So it was a fair share. I’d like to say that Ru Paul’s Drag Race helped me get in the door, but my years of training for musical theater performance and the fact that I went to college for musical theater got me the role.

What’s it like preparing for your first Broadway show?
It’s a lot of emotions. A lot of hard work, a lot of memorization and a lot of Red Bull. [laughs] We’re basically rehearsing full time. Feels like 40 hours a week. So right now the process is you get up and rehearse all day and then at night you perform the shows to kind of test it out.

Can you tell me a little about the show? What’s your take on it?
It’s a great mash-up. It’s new and old. It’s pop and rock, and about love and sex and everything. It’s basically a hilarious comedy based on Arcadia [an Elizabethan prose work by Philip Sidney], and it’s all to the beat of The Go Go’s, which is fantastic.

Theater is usually seen as  welcoming to the gay community—almost a safe space. Have you had a similar experience as a member of the trans community?
I think the theater is and always has been a kind of safe haven for queer folks. That’s where I grew up. That’s where I was able to find people that were different and not always part of the popular crowd. So yeah, I think theater in general provides that service for people. But the truth is there certainly is a lack of opportunities and roles that are open or built for trans people. Even for gay people, there’s a limited amount of roles on Broadway.

So what are you looking forward to, and what else are you planning?
Well, right now this is my full-time gig. Just Head Over Heels on Broadway. Broadway and Broadway only. [laughs] But I’ve done other things in the past, of course; I’ve toured and done music. Those are things I’m passionate about so I’m sure I’ll do them again. But right now I’m 100 percent focused on my big Broadway debut.

When it became clear that legendary Boston Red Sox slugger David “Big Papi” Ortiz was going to be on the cover of our latest issue of saratoga living magazine—and that my Editor in Chief, Richard Pérez-Feria, would be interviewing the superstar and writing the cover feature—I made it known around the office that I’d be there, come hell or high water, watching the photo shoot and interview unfold. After all, Ortiz is one of my heroes; a lifelong Red Sox fan, I was watching in stunned silence (and then loud, joyful tones) as he and my team won the World Series for the first time in 86 years back in 2004. Ortiz’d been a huge part of it, too, especially in the American League Championship Series, knocking off the formidable “Evil Empire” (a.k.a. New York Yankees).

Then in dawned on me how much of the issue was still in draft and on my desk—and how impossible it would be to get through our impending deadline without at least one soul back at the office, holding down the fort. So, in a near-out-of-body experience, I went to my editor’s office and said, “Hey, man, I don’t think it would make sense for me to come to the Big Papi shoot.” While I did end up getting his autograph on a baseball card I sent along with Managing Editor Natalie Moore—in the haste to get it back in its protective case, the signature got smudged, unfortunately—I realized that I’d have more opportunities to meet Big Papi, wondering out loud whether he’d make it to this September’s edition of the Saratoga Wine & Food Festival at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC).

My prayers were just answered.

According to SPAC and reported here exclusively, Ortiz, along with The Adelphi Hotel’s Chef David Burke and fellow celebrity chef, Todd English, will be headlining the event, which takes place this September 7-9. Ortiz, who will be representing his wine company, Arias Wine, will return to the festival on Friday, September 7, to take part in the “Fired Up!” event, and will be available for both a meet-and-greet and VIP nightclub appearance that evening. The James Beard Award-winning chef, Burke—who’s head of culinary operations at the Adelphi Hospital Group (i.e. The Blue Hen, Morrissey’s At the Adelphi and Salt & Char) and has appeared on TV shows, such as Iron Chef America and Top Chef Masters—and Emmy-nominated celebrity chef Todd English, who’s known for his PBS show Food Trip With Todd English, as a judge on the network’s Cooking Under Fire and for Food Network show, Opening Soon, will also be appearing to show off their favorite dishes and at key events throughout the festival’s busy weekend.

“Following the response that we received from Big Papi’s appearance at our festival last year, we were eager to bring him back to participate in our redesigned weekend events, including a new VIP Party and an opportunity to mingle with the baseball legend,” said Elizabeth Sobol, President and CEO of SPAC, in a statement to the press. “With the added presence of heralded celebrity chefs David Burke and Todd English, the festival will be a feast for the senses with curated gourmet food and wine tastings and entertainment from our charismatic hosts.”

As saratoga living previously reported, this year’s Wine & Food Festival, which is being co-hosted by newly minted festival partners Colin Cowie Lifestyle and the Saratoga Automobile Museum, will be featuring a decidedly more tricked-out lineup than ever before. For one, celebrity event planner and TV personality (not to mention saratoga living Design Editor) Colin Cowie will be a featured guest at the festival and will take part in a Sunday “Brunch with Colin Cowie.” Also, the American Bugatti Club will be zooming in more than 80 ultra-luxury Bugatti cars—one of the most expensive and highly-sought-after vintage and modern autos in the world, among collectors and auto enthusiasts—for display at the festival. (It’s just one of a few stops in the states that the arsenal of Bugattis will be making—and the first exhibition of its kind in the US in a decade.) Also, Chef Burke will be joining Ortiz in the Fired Up! competition on Friday as lead judge. He’ll also be preparing dishes from his famed New York City restaurants Tavern62, Woodpecker and David Burke Kitchen at this year’s Grand Tasting event, as well as competing in the festival’s own Iron Chef-like competition on Saturday afternoon. Not to be outdone, celebrity chef, English, who himself has won a pair of James Beard awards—and has appeared at the Super Bowl, Sundance Film Festival, Fashion Week and The Tony Awards, among others—will be co-hosting the Sunday brunch with Cowie.

The weekend’s festival includes a number of events throughout, but will be anchored by four: the Adirondack Road Tour and Luncheon, Friday’s Fired Up! grilling competition, Saturday’s Grand Tasting, and for the first time ever, the brunch with Chef English and Colin Cowie. The festival (and all additional ticketing) will help pay for educational programming at SPAC and the Saratoga Automobile Museum. Tickets to the event go on sale on Monday, July 9, at 10am. Below, find a schedule of events taking place on the weekend of the festival:

Friday, September 7

Adirondack Road Tour & Gourmet Luncheon (10:30am – 2:30pm) 
This is a tour that snakes through Adirondack Mountain roads and concludes at the here.)

Fired Up! Grill Competition featuring Chef David Burke and David Ortiz (7pm – 10pm) | Tickets: $100
Chefs from top local restaurants will face off for the Fired Up! grilling title, while guests will be enjoying live music, gourmet food, barbecue (of course!), beer, wine and spirits. Burke will lead a panel of four celebrity judges (the three others have yet to be named) in judging the event. Big Papi will also make a special appearance.

David Ortiz Meet and Greet (7pm to 7:50pm) | Tickets: $150
Note that the meet and greet is limited to 100 fans. A portion of the proceeds from it will be donated to Ortiz’s charity, the David Ortiz Children’s Fund, which funds pediatric services for children in New England and the Dominican Republic.

Party with David Ortiz at VIP nightclub (8:30pm – 10pm) | Tickets: $200
A portion of the Saratoga Spa State Park, overlooking the reflecting pool, will turn into an exclusive VIP nightclub, with David Ortiz emceeing. Guests will be able to mingle with the Red Sox legend, enjoy gourmet hors d’oeuvres and Arias Wine and will each receive a bottle of wine autographed by the former Sox star.

Saturday, September 8

Grand Tasting (12pm – 4pm) | Tickets: $100 (VIP passes cost $175)
The Bugatti display will be featured at this part of the event, as well as curated food, wine and additional events and activities. The main stage will feature speeches, guest appearances, live music and the aforementioned Iron Chef-style competition. Chef Burke will also be serving some of his top dishes there, too. (Note: the VIP experience will include early entry and access to a special VIP area.)

Sunday, September 9

Brunch with Colin Cowie & Celebrity Chef Todd English (11am – 3pm) | Tickets: $225
Cowie and Chef English will be presenting Colin’s “five-senses” approach to the brunch, which includes scent consultations, examples of floral and table designs for all to view, live music by On The Move and of course, a number of gourmet food and cocktail options. “Cocktail Architect” Yusef Austin will also be onsite, mixing up a a number of speciality cocktails.

When I was growing up here, summer in Saratoga Springs meant three things: tourists, the races and concerts at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC). Because I had nothing in common with the high-rollers—and wasn’t much of a horseplayer—what really did it for me was going to SPAC to see all the acts I’d only read about in Rolling Stone or heard on 102.7 WEQX. I saved a lot of my ticket stubs, so I know that I went to see the H.O.R.D.E. Festival (I was a huge Barenaked Ladies fan at the time), Tom Petty (#RIP), Neil Young (Silver & Gold tour), the Steve Miller Band (multiple times), a double-bill featuring Beck and Ben Folds Five (I may’ve inhaled for the first time later that night), John Mellencamp (I actually went for the opening band, Son Volt), Counting Crows and countless others. And, yes, if you’re wondering, I broke my (Saratoga) maiden—that’s a horse racing term; look it up—seeing the Dave Matthews Band several times throughout the years. As much as I enjoyed going to SPAC shows, I also patronized a number of other local venues. Below, we’ve assembled the ultimate summer music preview featuring as many venues (and musical genres) as we could muster. Music is in our DNA. Enjoy.

DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS
Colony, Woodstock, NY • July 5

PARADOX SAINTS
(Album Release Party) Putnam Place, Saratoga • July 7

BIG DADDY KANE
“Alive At Five” at Jennings Landing, Albany • July 12

COURTNEY BARNETT
Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA), North Adams, MA • July 12
Grammy-nominated Aussie indie rocker Courtney Barnett is coming to nearby North Adams, MA (one-and-a-half hours southeast of Saratoga). In the last three years, Barnett’s released a trio of critically acclaimed albums, including her most recent one, Tell Me How You Really Feel, which came out in May. You don’t want to miss this one, mate.

SPIN DOCTORS
“Schenectady County SummerNight,” Schenectady • July 13

DAVE MATTHEWS BAND
SPAC, Saratoga • July 13-14
I’d be remiss not to put DMB—or simply “Dave,” to superfans—on this Saratoga summer music preview. If you want to experience what it’s like to grow up in the Spa City, buy a ticket to one of these shows, pregame way too hard before going and annoy the family next to you by singing all of the songs you know at the top of your lungs. Then you’ll crash…into bed, baby.

OLD CROW MEDICINE SHOW
Brewery Ommegang, Cooperstown • July 14

M. WARD
Bearsville Theater, Woodstock • July 14

JASON ALDEAN
SPAC, Saratoga Springs • July 15
This guy’s a true survivor. Aldean was the artist caught in the crossfire at the 2017 Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas, when a mentally ill gunman opened fire over the crowd, killing nearly 60 people and wounding more than 500. The 2018 recipient of the Academy of Country Music’s Entertainer of the Year, Aldean is sure to put on a great show.

TAB BENOIT
Cohoes Music Hall, Cohoes • July 20

AMANDA SHIRES
The Egg, Albany • July 25
An Americana gem, fiddler and singer-songwriter Shires is one of the brightest young stars out there today, and man, can she belt it out. It also doesn’t hurt that she’s married to the President-elect of the genre, Jason Isbell, formerly of the Drive-By Truckers, who’s now become a Grammy mainstay as a solo artist. The happy couple performed together earlier this year at Albany’s Palace Theatre. Shires’ new album, To The Sunset, will be released on August 3.

BERMUDA TRIANGLE FEATURING BRITTANY HOWARD (OF ALABAMA SHAKES)
Colony, Woodstock • July 25

JANET JACKSON
SPAC, Saratoga • July 26
All wardrobe malfunctions aside, I’ve been a part of the rhythm nation for most of my life—and I can tell you, it feels pretty good. Fifty-two-year-old Janet—sister to the late King of Pop, and a recent mom—doesn’t tour all that often in our neck of the woods, so this’ll be a rare treat for Saratogians. I’m going to guess that she’ll be hitting her hits hard, including “Nasty” and the previously hat-tipped “Rhythm Nation,” all while wearing some sort of bondage gear and looking incredible. She’s still supporting her most recent album, Unbreakable, which came out (astonishingly) three years ago.

KENNY WAYNE SHEPHERD BAND & BETH HART BAND
Palace Theatre, Albany • July 27

JOHN FOGERTY
SPAC, Saratoga • July 29
As a member of Creedence Clearwater Revival in the ’60s and ’70s, Fogerty scored nine Top 10 singles, including “Proud Mary” and “Fortunate Son.” As a solo artist, he busted the charts again in ’85, with comeback album Centerfield, penning one of the greatest baseball-referencing songs of all time in its title track. He’s been working the Vegas residency circuit of late, so the fact that he’s coming to the Northeast is a pretty big deal. I’ll be there singing the wrong “Bad Moon Rising” chorus lyric—subbing in “bathroom on the right” for “bad moon on the rise”—just as Fogerty’s been known to do during his live shows. (I’ve heard it with my own two ears; he even points to “the right.”)

SYLVAN ESSO
Upstate Concert Hall, Clifton Park • July 30

RUBBLEBUCKET
“Rockin’ On The River” in Riverfront Park, Troy • August 1 

SLAYER
Times Union Center, Albany • August 1
I can pretty much guarantee that the majority of saratoga living’s readership has never strapped on headphones and turned a Slayer record up to 11. But area metal-heads need an outlet too, and this is the Grammy-winning band’s farewell tour. Don’t bang your head against the wall for missing out, just bang your head.

SIR SLY
“Alive At Five”, at Jennings Landing, Albany • August 2

BLONDIE
MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA • August 3

SQUIRREL NUT ZIPPERS
The Egg, Albany • August 4

NEW YORK PLAYERS
Putnam Place, Saratoga • August 10

ADIRONDACK INDEPENDENCE MUSIC FESTIVAL
Various Locations, Lake George • September 1-2

DAVID BYRNE
Palace Theatre, Albany • September 9
As the lead singer/guitarist and co-songwriter for the new wave band Talking Heads, Byrne penned a number of radio classics, including “Psycho Killer,” “Burning Down The House” and “Once In A Lifetime.” As a solo artist, Byrne’s been a mainstay on the avant-garde scene—and has won a Golden Globe, an Oscar and a Grammy for his work. He’ll be swinging through Albany on a tour supporting his 2018 album, American Utopia.

RINGO STARR & HIS ALL STARR BAND
SPAC, Saratoga • September 14
The closest a Beatle has come to Saratoga in recent years is Albany, when Paul McCartney played the Times Union Center in 2014. That’ll change this September, when Fab Four drummer Ringo Starr rolls into SPAC with his All Starr Band, which features supporting players such as two-time Rock Hall of Fame inductee Gregg Rolie (Journey, Santana) and Colin Hay (Men At Work). There’s nothing like a little help from your friends.

GINUWINE
Vapor at Saratoga Casino Hotel, Saratoga • September 27

THE WEEPIES
Troy Savings Bank Music Hall, Troy • September 29

My mother, Tina Levith, is one of the most caring, personable people you’ll ever meet. That’s what made her the perfect fit for a job working with students at Skidmore College in the Dean of Studies Office in the early 1990s. Though I know the job weighed on her at times, she ultimately loved it and was constantly befriending talented students around campus. When I was a teenager, I remember her excitedly telling me about this one student, Garland Nelson, who had a larger-than-life personality and a beautiful singing voice. He was one of the college’s rising stars. Now long since retired, she recently told me that whenever she runs into him in Downtown Saratoga, he gives her a big hug. That should tell you everything you need to know about him; he’s still the same effervescent person my mom met all those years ago—and he’s never forgotten the people who helped shape him into the man he is today. As the leader of Saratoga band Soul Session—and an all-around musical polyglot—Nelson’s one of the area’s most successful and sought-after musicians.

But it wasn’t such an easy road getting there. Born and raised in the projects in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn—the same neighborhood that spawned hip-hop giants such as The Notorious B.I.G. and Jay-Z—Nelson tells me that a career in music wasn’t really in the cards for him early on. “You’d be surprised to know that none of the members of my family were musicians,” he says. His path to music was actually paved by his uncle, who had a turntable and a massive record collection. He remembers rifling through his uncle’s stacks of LPs on the floor as a young child, marveling at the colorful album covers, listening to the music and mimicking everything he heard. His uncle was a funk connoisseur, a fan of groups such as B.T. Express, The Commodores, and especially, Earth, Wind & Fire. Nelson can actually pinpoint the song he first sang along with on a loop: “Sun Goddess,” from the eponymous 1974 Ramsey Lewis/Earth, Wind & Fire collaboration album, which features the type of album cover that would mesmerize a curious child: It shows a woman’s face—eyes closed, lips pursed—painted in glittery gold, with golden rays emanating from it. “I used to take it out of the sleeve and put it on his wooden floor and spin it,” says Nelson. “Needless to say, my uncle went through quite a couple of copies of that album.”

By the 1980s, Nelson was at Washington Irving High School in Manhattan “trying not to be a statistic,” with the mean streets in full effect. “Fortunately for me I had a very strong mother and grandparents that were like, ‘We will not only whup your ass, but we’ll throw your ass out on the street if you don’t keep it moving,’” he says. “I was able, by God’s grace, to keep it moving enough to finally catch fire.” By that he means that his grades started improving, and he actually began believing that there was a future for him outside of the city. By senior year, he was looking at a range of colleges and universities—some historically black and others, such as Marist College and Temple University—when his advisor suggested he check out Skidmore (a friend of Nelson’s, one year ahead of him, had gone there to study dance). Nelson remembers thinking “Skid Row College” at first. “It just didn’t compute,” he says. “Skidmore was absolutely not even on the radar whatsoever.” So he traveled up to Saratoga to check it out, and something clicked. “Something about the environment coinciding with my Black Pantherism at the time made me want to see how the other side lives,” says Nelson. “It just felt so welcoming, across the board, not only from other students of color, but also the faculty, who seemed like regular people, New York City-style; there was no pretentiousness or hierarchical kind of thing.” After a second trip to the college, everything fell into place. Unexpectedly, he felt strangely at home.

Nelson says he really enjoyed his first two years at Skidmore. “I was one of those guys who did 40 million things,” he says. He did his best work, academically, during those years and was an RA his sophomore year, a rarity for an underclassman on campus. He made fast friends with two brothers who were star players on the Skidmore College Men’s Basketball team, and he says his room was a constant hip-hop dance party. “But year three was the first one where it was like, ‘I don’t feel like I belong here anymore,’” says Nelson. He was getting closer to graduating, and it began to dawn on him that his future could easily be going back to living in the ’hood with his mom. Also, being the first person from his family to go away to college, he had no one to talk to about what post-graduate life looked or felt like. He was lost.

What saved him was music. He DJ-ed at the college radio station—and spun records in the Downtown Saratoga scene too, at now long-closed venues such as The Trattoria, Golden Grill and The Metro. After graduation, Nelson moved Downtown, living in a studio apartment above Impressions of Saratoga. The way he looked at it, he was just buying time in order to get to the next step of his life. He was singing a lot too. “All of a sudden, music came screaming back into my life,” he says. He decided to go to an open mic night at the newly opened Bailey’s, which was run by local musicians Rick Bolton and Jeff Walton. Again, an epiphany. “It was those open-mic environments with these key people—they took me in and put their arms around me, and that gave me an opportunity to learn from people actively doing it,” he says. That turned out to be his ticket to success on the local music scene—and for a minute, the national stage. In 1999, Nelson won an early American Idol-type karaoke competition and was named the top singer in all of New York State. He was flown down to Nashville to compete in a national sing-off championship. He didn’t win, but it provided him with a big takeaway: that there had been tons of talented people there at the competition, all of whom were hungry for success—and just “being who they really were.” That was the turning point for him. He came back to Saratoga with a purpose: He was going to go all-in on being a professional musician. He auditioned for and landed a slot in a relatively new local nine-piece band called the New York Players, and within a year, they were the most sought-after act within a three-hour radius of their home base in Albany. And he was their frontman.

Fast-forward to 2003, and Nelson got the itch to break out on his own. That’s when he founded Soul Session, a project that started as a soul singer-fronted acoustic outfit and morphed from there. The band has since opened for Boyz II Men, Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Bootsy Collins (of Parliament-Funkadelic) and even ’70s/’80s hit machine Eddie Money. “It was the weirdest pairing,” says Nelson of the latter gig. “That was one thing we didn’t listen to in the ’hood.” Soul Session has become a mainstay on the fundraising and wedding circuits in Saratoga and the greater Capital Region—they played the American Cancer Society’s Gala of Hope in May and are gearing up to play the Saratoga Performing Arts Center’s Ballet Gala on July 21. While some local bands might not think twice about their audience at a fundraiser or wedding, Nelson says he takes every single gig “deathly serious.” Here’s how he puts it: “When people come to me and ask for my leadership to deliver one of maybe two or three greatest moments of their existence, outside of children, that’s pressure like a motherf—. There’s no other way for me to put it.” Taking that a step further, he says that each client comes away knowing that his band will be at their function to “blow sh— up.” In other words, he’ll bring them nothing short of his all. Turning it around, he asks, rhetorically, “What would I want?”

Most bands don’t have much of a story behind how they got their name. Even die-hard fans have to admit that “The Beatles” is a pretty lame name for a band. Soul Session, on the other hand, is anything but a throwaway. Nelson says the word “soul” came to him in the context of the Bible: “God breathed into man the breath of life, and he became a living soul,” he says, paraphrasing the passage from Genesis. The other half, “session,” is less a synonym for what a musician does in a recording studio than it is about providing therapy to the audience. “This was literally downloaded into me,” says Nelson. “It wasn’t a matter of us to you; it was more like us being in a circle, and everyone in it having just as much importance as the person who was leading the discussion.” Nelson provides a powerful example of that ethos: He once received a letter from a fan who’d been at one of his shows that said, had he or she not been caught up in Nelson’s energy, they would’ve probably ended their life that night. That’s the kind of power few of us get to wield or harness during our lifetime. And it brings us back full circle to that young, impressionable college student, full of dreams and aspirations, who left the big city for a small school in a small town—and wound up, years later, owning it.

The next time I run into Garland Nelson in Downtown Saratoga—and I know I will—I’ll be sure to give him a big hug back.