How was my Christmas? Thanks for asking. It arrived five days early, in fact.

Sharp-eyed MAGNET readers who regularly troll this section of our site will no doubt have previously spotted my review of 2002’s Warren Haynes Christmas Jam. The annual benefit bash has, for the past 15 years, found Haynes (Gov’t Mule guitarist and a key force behind the rejuvenated Allman Brothers Band) returning each December to his hometown of Asheville in order to host a star-studded concert that typically stretches until the wee hours of the morning. And as hard to top as last year’s Jam may have been—headliners in ’02 were the Mule and Bob Weir & Friends—goddamn if Haynes didn’t pull it off, in spades.

This time, the Jam boasted what was arguably its most diverse lineup to date. Among the players were local hip-hoppers the Ville Boys, regional sons Edwin McCain & Kevn Kinney, the Black Crowes’ Audley Freed, Gov’t Mule’s Andy Hess, Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Artimus Pyle, the Sonny Landreth Band, Funky Meters, North Mississippi Allstars, Keller Williams, Gregg Allman, Sam Bush & John Cowan, Widespread Panic’s John Bell and the Stained Souls (comprising Bell, Col. Bruce Hampton, Tinsley Ellis, Gov’t Mule’s Danny Louis and Widespread’s Dave Schools and Todd Nance, plus guests Haynes, Bush and Mike Barnes).

But it’s hard to convey how special the Jam was simply by listing the people involved; there were so many collaborations, cross-pollinations and just plain recontextualizations that you practically need a holographic digital slide rule to calculate the musical wealth on display. Let’s see: hip hop times N’awlins funk, to the psych degree; plus bluegrass times jamgrass, and all divided by Southern rock, then multiplied by Haynes (squared) equals ... well, it equals the groove, that ineffable sense of musical lightness and wonder amid much heavioso playing, that so many musical events strive for but always seem to veer off at the last second, never quite hitting the mark. As Haynes would deadpan during a brief conversation with me when I ran into him backstage, “Man, everybody needs some rock ‘n’ roll for Christmas, right?”

So on a particularly frigid mountain night, I entered the Civic Center after navigating a street gauntlet of ticketless patrons—all nearly frozen with index fingers pointing heavenward in the universal gesture of needin’ a miracle/got an extra ticket? Onstage, Asheville’s mayor was proclaiming that this December 20 was officially Warren Haynes Day. (Last year, he presented Haynes with the key to the city, leaving one to speculate how he can follow up next year. Haynes as mayor-for-the-day with the power to grant amnesty to local pot farmers, perhaps?) Then Haynes took the stage to open the evening with a brief solo acoustic set. Highlight? An altogether unexpected cover of U2’s “One,” the accompanying shock of recognition mingling nicely with the awareness that, as this night was to benefit a highly worthy cause (see below), it was one of the most appropriate tunes Haynes could select. The second he was finished, on bounded the Ville Boys, four young local MCs—one of them Haynes’ nephew Austin Haynes—with Asheville rock band Robot backing them, making a kind of Beastie Boys-meets-the Bomb Squad noize. Initially skeptical, the jam band-centric audience was eventually won over by a rousing version of Run-DMC’s “Christmas In Hollis.”

Louisiana slide-guitar maestro Sonny Landreth was up next with his blues-roots-zydeco-boogie. This set marked the first of what would be many guest appearances by Haynes. In 2002, Landreth appeared at the Jam as a member of John Hiatt’s band and offered a preliminary taste of the Landreth/Haynes fireworks. This time, on the appropriately titled “Blues Attack,” the gunslingers’ showdown was closer to a bonfire. After the Landreth Band exited, Haynes picked up his acoustic guitar, Edwin McCain arrived from stage left and the pair quickly slipped into a low-key, soulful version of Hendrix’s “Axis: Bold As Love.” McCain’s chum Kevn Kinney was soon up there, too, followed by Audley Freed, resulting in a lengthy reading of Dylan’s “I Shall Be Released” that triggered the night’s first impromptu mass singalong from the audience. (Behind the stage, a makeshift control booth had been set up for a local production company that was filming the concert for a proposed DVD release. It was fascinating to watch the monitor closeups of the vocalists’ faces: Haynes, McCain and Kinney were clearly caught up in the glow of the evening’s vibe, with perhaps some hemp-fueled holiday cheer pitching in on that account. It reminded me of certain scenes from The Last Waltz, in fact.)

As “morph” is nothing if not a high-action verb at a Haynes Jam, the arrival of Andy Hess (bass) and Artimus Pyle (drums) signaled the music’s morphing from sweet folk rock to brawny hard-rock boogie (e.g., John Lee Hooker’s “Madman Blues” and Kinney’s own Drivin N Cryin hit “Straight To Hell”). This set the stage nicely for the next band of outlaws, the North Mississippi Allstars, featuring Jim Dickinson’s kids Luther and Cody. After a couple of numbers, Luther turned over mic chores to guitarist DuWayne Burnside (R.L.’s kid) for Junior Kimbrough’s primal choogler “All Night Long,” and who should suddenly appear onstage but Haynes, followed by Widespread Panic’s Bell, and the song gradually morphed into an extended “Turn On Your Love Light” jam. The band morphed into North Mississippi Skynyrd, or an approximation thereof, when Pyle came back up to take over the drum kit from Cody, who strapped on a guitar to make the NMAS’ front line a big-ass, three-guitar Southern rock thang.

Downstairs in the huge hospitality room, a crowd had gathered around the closed-circuit TV screen to watch the NMAS’ set, and I spotted Gregg Allman sitting alone on a couch. I sauntered up next to the singer, who was silent and imperious as a sphinx (and, er, projecting “stay away from me, fanboy!” vibes, which I duly heeded). The otherwise motionless Allman nevertheless gave himself away when the toes of his lizard-skin boots started tapping nonstop to the music. I’d say the Allstars passed the audition.

Fascinatingly, it was the next sequence of performances that triggered some of the most appreciative audience reactions. Keller Williams—the Virginia-based guitarist who, by some estimations, is being positioned as the next Dave Matthews, based on his onstage charisma and songwriting/playing virtuosity—pulled off some wildly extemporaneous, Michael Hedges-inspired fretboard moves. He was soon joined by fellow guitarist Mike Kang (of String Cheese Incident, a band with whom Williams has recorded and toured), and after a couple of duo numbers, out came the world’s greatest mandolin player, Sam Bush, plus Bush’s old pal from his Newgrass Revival days, John Cowan. He strapped on a bass, Kang switched to fiddle, Bush winked at the crowd, and within moments the arena was knee-deep in the rowdiest, loudest version of Dylan’s “Maggie’s Farm” I’ve ever heard—a bluegrass arrangement at that. Before anyone could say “twang,” the stage was further crowded with banjo/mandolin/guitar players (including members of the Yonder Mountain String Band). With Bush as chief ringleader and general wild man—picture a guy wielding a mandolin like Ten Years After’s Alvin Lee playing “I’m Going Home” in the Woodstock film—they brought the house down, and while I’ve seen live bluegrass get people on their feet and get rumps a-shaking, I’d never seen bluegrass-prompted mosh pits until this evening. Bush and Cowan subsequently served up an uproarious swamp-grass take on Little Feat’s “Sailin’ Shoes.”

More morphing: John Bell’s solo acoustic set (highlight: bluesy, bawdy “Ribs & Whiskey”) turned into a duet when Panic bassist Schools joined him, prompting a series of mini-outbursts of cheering from the crowd; apparently this unexpected onstage collaboration marked an event not witnessed by the public since the late ‘80s. The inevitable turning of the duo into a quartet occurred when Haynes and Panic drummer Nance arrived from the wings; was this Widespread Mule or Gov’t Panic? Take your pick. A luminous version of the J.J. Cale standard (and Panic live mainstay) “Travelin’ Light” prompted Bell to quip, “We been playin’ that song for 15 years and it gets a little better each time.”

Georgia Alumni Appreciation Night kicked into high gear courtesy of Stained Souls. For those seeking interstellar forays into psychedelic blues and extended frammin’ on the jim-jam, this super session-styled summit of talent elevated blues standards “I Wish You Would” (Billy Boy Arnold) and “See That My Grave Is Kept Clean” (Blind Lemon Jefferson) to the status of deep-space NASA expeditions. In particular, Bruce Hampton (late of the Hampton Grease Band and Aquarium Rescue Unit and currently fronting the Code Talkers) was spotted orbiting the moons of Saturn on more than one occasion—it was up to drummer Nance to keep the good Colonel tethered. Ellis, too, was heard digging deep into his bag of Hendrix/Vaughan tricks, and when both Haynes and Bush appeared during Hampton’s own funkafied “Time Is Free,” the electric jolt that hit the audience was nigh visible, like a yellow-green aura zipping hither and yonder throughout the arena. (Bush now had an amplified mandolin cut in the shape of a Stratocaster and, appropriately enough, was playing the instrument as if it were a Strat. Standing next to Sonny Landreth watching the set, I noticed his eyes opened even wider than mine. I deadpanned, “What makes a man abuse his instrument of choice so?” Landreth—himself no stranger to axe-mauling—burst out laughing, shook his head and said, “I’m definitely taking notes.”) One favorite moment: watching Luther Dickinson standing in the camera pit in front of the stage, grinning broadly and manically rocking back and forth like a kid who’s just been told that Santa’s heading down the chimney and wants to deliver the loot personally. Luther, I think I know how you felt.

For those seeking some down ‘n’ dirty swamp funk, the Funky Meters—featuring original Meters/Neville Brothers members Art Neville and George Porter Jr.—were on hand to serve up steaming helpings of gumbo-fried Meters nuggets such as “People Say” and “Fire On The Bayou.” Haynes helped complete the equation—Funky Mule? Gov’t Meters?—by wrapping his slide riffs around guitarist Brian Stolz’s signature chikkin-pickin’. By set’s end, the entire arena was knee-deep in serious undulation mode, one nation under a groove, all connected via the metaphysical hip bone. As we all know, the hip bone is connected to the ass bone, the logical conclusion being that once you free your ass your mind is bound to follow. How memorable were the Meters? Let’s just say that the first thing I did after waking up the next morning was log onto www.funkymeters.com and order the band’s recent live album Fiyo At The Fillmore.

Somewhere around the 2 a.m. mark, Gregg Allman & Friends (Allman, Haynes, Hess, Louis and the Marshall Tucker Band drummer Paul Riddle) took the stage. Haynes operated as musical director, pairing Allman-identified songs with specific guitarists (notably Landreth for “Stormy Monday Blues” and Luther Dickinson for “One Way Out”). And since the Jam was, after all, his party, he brought the evening to an appropriate close by sharing the mic with Allman for an inspired reading of “Soulshine,” the Grammy-nominated, Haynes-penned tune that both the Allmans and Gov’t Mule regularly perform in concert.

That soulshine—and the lingering afterglow of the aforementioned groove—spread across the arena floor, up the stairs and out the doors, spilling onto the chilly Asheville streets. For happy concertgoers leaving the Civic Center at 2:45 a.m., it just didn’t seem quite as cold outside as it had some eight hours earlier.

At the start of this review, I suggested the Jam amounted to an early Christmas present for me (and, no doubt, to 7,000-plus other punters). It also helped make the holiday season much sweeter for the Asheville chapter of Habitat For Humanity. As is Haynes’ tradition, proceeds of each Jam go directly to Habitat. Last year’s Jam raised more than $70,000 for Habitat and there’s now a brand-new three-bedroom house in Asheville—nicknamed “The Gov’t Mule House”—occupied by a family of Iranian religious refugees. The 2003 Jam netted at least that much, if not more, and with the concert being filmed for a live DVD—profits also slated to go to Habitat—this year’s bash amounts to nothing less than the gift that keeps on giving. Worth noting: The previous evening had seen a Haynes-hosted pre-Jam Jam held at the 750-capacity Orange Peel club and featuring many of the same musicians as the Jam proper. Haynes made a point of making several onstage plugs for Habitat, and as the concert was broadcast over the airwaves and the Internet via local station WNCW-FM, those plugs were heard far and wide.

Suffice it to say that political, social and ecological causes will come and go, but people will always need affordable housing, and the benefits, particularly the residuals in personal dignity and self-sufficiency, can be immeasurable. Anyone interested in donating money or volunteer time to Habitat should check out the nonprofit’s Web site at www.habitat.org. ‘Nuff said, y’all—hope everyone had a great Christmas.