So when we got the word on Friday that the Gala concert celebrating the re-opening of the Times Union Center in Albany, scheduled for next Saturday, was off, I asked Sam, my manager, to try again to salvage the date. We had gone to great lengths to assemble the band and I was really looking forward to playing with them. Also, I didn’t want to disappoint the people who had bought tickets for the event.

I told Sam that, if the problem was financial, I’d forego my own fee so long as the band and crew got paid. I did, however, need my co-billed fellow performers to agree to show up assuming that the audience wanted to see them as much as they did me.

Sam told me he had spoken to John Legend’s management about saving the gig; I don’t know what happened beyond that…We held it for as long as we could but, in the end, had to let it go.

So disappointing. Not to overstate the importance of my performance to the people of Albany; “it’s only Rock & Roll” and, to be sure, this kind of snafu does happen from time to time, But, man, I hate to cancel…