FOR a while, it seemed as though audiences might be singing the blues instead of hearing them in Riverhead next weekend. The board of the Vail-Leavitt Music Hall, which has run the Riverhead Blues and Music Festival since 2006, and the Riverhead Chamber of Commerce both sought permits to hold the same festival in the same place at the same time. Local news reports referred to political squabbling, and Newsday reported that perhaps there would be no festival at all.






Jessie
Haynes has spent her life playing music across the east and west
coasts, and occasionally internationally as well. Lately she’s made
a home for herself on the east end, heading up a concert series at a
beautiful old restored theater in Riverhead. The Vail Leavitt Music
Hall is an antique theater run entirely by volunteers, which may
just have a ghost or two amongst its velvet curtains and balconies.
Jessie feels like her involvement with the Vail has a measure of
fate in it.
