Bearsville Theater Live: Larry Campbell & Teresa Williams Break All the Rules

Larry Campbell and Teresa Williams at the Bearsville Theater in Woodstock smashed the sound barrier, lit the fuse and reimagined the heart of Saturday night for an audience that could not get enough.

Larry Campbell and Teresa Williams perform at the Bearsville Theater in Woodstock, NY, on Dec. 7, 2024. Photo by John W. Barry.

The air inside the Bearsville Theater was charged Saturday night.

The floor was moving.

The walls were breathing.

The signs were everywhere.

Moments before show time, it was clear to all in the room that we stood on the cusp of something special, something spectacular, something real, something holy.

The crowd was, well they were your typical Saturday night crowd in Woodstock—demanding, discerning, yearning, craving and ready to consume the entire room whole, in one big bite.

Up on stage were two musicians, a married couple, who seem to fall deeper in love with every passing performance, every gig, every new city, every venue, every new song, album and encore.

He is Larry Campbell, a former member of Bob Dylan’s band who served as multi-instrumentalist, music director and producer for the Levon Helm Band. Larry has also performed with Phil Lesh of the Grateful Dead, Paul Barrere and Fred Tackett of Little Feat, Jackson Browne and Emmylou Harris.

Larry was born and raised in New York City.

Teresa Williams and Brandon Morrison perform at the Bearsville Theater in Woodstock, NY, on Dec. 7, 2024. Photo by John W. Barry.

His wife and musical co-conspirator, Teresa Williams, grew up in Tennessee cotton country, has extensive experience in theater and was also a member of the Levon Helm Band.

Together, they stoke coals, ignite spark plugs, skip stones, paint the town red, feed the fire—and party, always, like it’s 1999.

I’ve seen Larry and Teresa perform many, many, many times—with Levon, as a duet and with their band. They reinvent themselves with every show I see. There’s always something new, something crisp, something that leaves you scratching your chin like that “thinking” emoji.

But on Saturday night at the Bearsville Theater, all bets were off. Larry and Teresa smashed the sound barrier. They generated seismic activity as if they were tectonic plates.

They broke all the rules.

Larry Campbell and Teresa Williams, backed by Brandon Morrison and Lee Falco, perform at the Bearsville Theater in Woodstock, NY, on Dec. 7, 2024. Photo by John W. Barry.

Contributing in major ways to this sonic spectacle at the Bearsville Theater were bass player Brandon Morrison and drummer Lee Falco, who have performed together in numerous ensembles—Donald Fagen & the Nightflyers, The Restless Age, with Kate Pierson of the B-52s, Rachel Yamagata and the hot-doggin, get-down of a band called the New Original Locals, who deliver clever and compelling Honky Tonk with a flair, semi-regularly, on Wednesdays, at VFW Post 1386 in Kingston, NY.

These four musicians generated momentum with each new song, each new note played in those songs and each lyric that was sung. The room rotated, then revolved, each time any one of the four exhaled.

Larry, Teresa, Brandon and Lee charged out of the gate and never looked back. I think it was two, maybe three songs into the show and the song, “Desert Island Dreams,” brought it all home. It was celestial—dare I say, divine? Maybe extra-terrestrial describes it best? All I know is that for this tune, the Bearsville Theater was void of gravity.

Gears were greased. Stars aligned. We all achieved liftoff and it involved Brandon and Lee going at it hard. Their bass and drum duet, with each musician on their own trajectory but never losing sight of the other, never straying, always determined, always precise, thrusting their spirit upward in the midst of a downpour of clarity and purpose.

Brandon was throwing down hard on the bass. Lee, well, Lee Falco was just being Lee Falco, and playing the drums with two arms and two hands but making it sound like he was playing with six arms and eight hands. They were COOKING! And then Larry stepped in and brought it all back home with his pedal to the metal approach to those six-strings on a slab that he channels to conjure the musical gods, who on Saturday night looked down on Bearsville, and were pleased.

Wrapping it all up with a bow and tying up any remaining loose ends was Teresa, as only Teresa can. Teresa sings from the heart, and in the process makes every single person in the venue, any venue, in any town, feel like she’s singing directly to them, and only them.

And here’s the insane part of this whole scenario—these four musicians continued to perform another roughly 90 minutes after this tonal triumph early in the evening. Are you kidding me?

How great were Larry and Teresa and the band at the Bearsville Theater, in Woodstock, NY, on Saturday, Dec. 7? They were great. They were really fucking great.

Visit larryandteresa.com to get the whole lowdown and all the information you will need about their latest album, “All This Time.”