Upcoming Releases:

Mario
Tracklist:
01 – Drowning
02 – Too Many Options
03 – Dancing Shadows
04 – Mirror
05 – Gold Plates
06 – Good Times
07 – What You Started
08 – One Man Woman
09 – Care for You
10 – Goes Like That
11 – I Believe

Alunageorge - Champagne Eyes

Tracklist:
01 – Faulty
02 – Champagne Eyes
03 – Superior Emotion
04 – Famous
05 – Cold Blooded Creatures
06 – Shallow Water

Rhys - Stages

Tracklist:
01 – You’ll Never Know
02 – Last Dance
03 – Starfish (feat. FELIX SANDMAN)
04 – Swallow Your Pride
05 – Better Be Over
06 – Too Good To Be True
07 – Doomed
08 – On My Own
09 – Maybe I Will Learn
10 – No Vacancy
11 – Spit My Flaws

CD1:
01 – Nine Million Bicycles
02 – What a Wonderful World (with Eva Cassidy)
03 – Plane Song
04 – The One I Love Is Gone
05 – Crawling Up a Hill
06 – In My Secret Life
07 – The Love I’m Frightened Of
08 – Red Balloons
09 – Belfast (Penguins and Cats)
10 – A Time to Buy
11 – What I Miss About You
12 – Spider’s Web (Single Version)
13 – Thank You Stars
14 – I Will Be There
15 – River

CD2:
01 – The Closest Thing to Crazy
02 – Dreams on Fire
03 – Wonderful Life
04 – If You Are so Beautiful
05 – Piece By Piece
06 – The Little Swallow
07 – Just Like Heaven
08 – Call Off the Search
09 – The Walls Of The World
10 – The Flood
11 – Tiger in the Night
12 – I Cried For You
13 – If You Were A Sailboat
14 – Where Does The Ocean Go
15 – Perfect World
16 – Bridge Over Troubled Water
17 – Diamonds Are Forever
18 – Fields of Gold

Billy Idol’s Vital Idol: Revitalized

October 9, 2018 by Paul Sinclairtags: 1980s, billy idol, review

The Police / Every Move You Make: The Studio Recordings / 6LP vinyl box

October 5, 2018 by Paul Sinclairtags: 1970s, 1980s, half-speed-mastered, sting, The Police

The Rolling Stones / Beggars Banquet 50th anniversary edition

October 3, 2018 by Paul Sinclairtags: 1960s, 50th anniversary, ABKCO Records, The Rolling Stones

Remastered vinyl with bonus 12-inch • No unheard audio

ABKCO Records will release a 50th anniversary edition of The Rolling Stones‘ Beggars Banquet album in November.

The last album recorded with the original lineup of Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Brian Jones, Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts, Beggars Banquet was recorded between March and July of 1968 at Olympic Sound Studios in London and released in December of that same year. The best known songs on the record are probably Street Fighting Man and Sympathy For The Devil.

Beggars Banquet is being reissued as a special vinyl package which incorporates both versions of the cover. The gatefold sleeve features the Michael Vosse photograph of a vandalised toilet (once deemed offensive) but will come with an ‘overwrap’ of the inoffensive ‘wedding invitation’ version.

In stark contrast to the forthcoming White Album reissue, no unheard bonus audio forms part of this 50th anniversary package, but the new vinyl does come with a bonus 12-inch vinyl record with a mono version of Sympathy For The Devil cut at 45RPM. The reverse of this vinyl features an etching of the ‘toilet’ cover art.

Also included is a replica of the rare Japanese bonus flexi disc containing a phone interview with Mick Jagger from 1968, and a download code for the album plus interview.

Beggars Banquet has been newly mastered by engineer Bob Ludwig, lacquers cut at Abbey Road and pressed on 180g vinyl. It is released on 16 November 2018, and the remaster is available on CD, too.

Beggars Banquet (50th Anniversary Edition) vinyl LP

Disc 1

Side A

Sympathy For the Devil
No Expectations
Dear Doctor
Parachute Woman
Jigsaw Puzzle

Side B

Street Fighting Man
Prodigal Son
Stray Cat Blues
Factory Girl
Salt of the Earth

Disc 2

Sympathy For the Devil (mono)

Flexi disc

1) ‘Hello, This Is Mick Jagger!’ LONDON to TOKYO April 17, 1968

Beggars Banquet (50th Anniversary Edition) CD

Sympathy for the Devil
No Expectations
Dear Doctor
Parachute Woman
Jigsaw Puzzle
Street Fighting Man
Prodigal Son
Stray Cat Blues
Factory Girl
Salt of the Earth

Geoff Emerick dies aged 72

October 3, 2018 by Paul Sinclairtags: 1960s, geoff emerick, The Beatles

Look closely at this one-of-a-kind piece of Beatles history. (Photo: Dave Morrell Archives; used with permission)

Before Dave Morrellbecame a successful record label promotion man, working countless records at radio and helping to establish the careers of scores of recording acts, he was a music fan, like all of us.

But unlike the rest of us, he has a one-of-a-kind story to tell. As a recent high school grad living in New Jersey in the summer of 1971, it was, as he says, “a great time to be 18 years old.” He listened to rock music on FM radio during the day and went to the Fillmore East in New York City as often as he could at night.

The following is excerpted from Morrell’s book, Horse-Doggin’: The Morrell Archives, Volume 1, chronicling his rise from music fan to a music distributor warehouse job to his first record label gig. It is reprinted here with his permission (with a wild postscript)…

I saw an ad in the back of Rolling Stone from a mail order company called Godzilla. They had a Beatle album they were calling Yellow Matter Custard and it had songs on it I had never heard of: “I Got a Woman,” “I Just Don’t Understand,” “To Know Her is to Love Her,” and so on. The only song I knew was “Slow Down.”

I sent the money and the record came with Godzilla’s list of bootleg albums. The disc was red vinyl with no song titles. I jacked up the volume and began to listen. “I Got a Woman” was the first track and John Lennon started singing. But was it the Beatles? Yes! There was no doubt in my mind.

This was too good to be true. I was listening to a brand new Beatles album that I never heard about and it was thrilling. I wondered if this was original material or a cover. I knew the only way to find out was to try to find someone to ask John Lennon and that man was Howard Smith, who often had written about John and Yoko and had them up to his radio show on WPLJ-FM.

The Newark Star Ledger ran a story on John and Yoko on November 7, 1971. “The Lennons have been living in New York now for several months, in a suite at the St. Regis Hotel. Their room contains a complete 16 mm editing room, a powerful stereo system, Chuck Berry albums everywhere you look… plus a rare copy of a withdrawn Beatles album cover of the boys dressed as butchers and holding bloody, decapitated dolls and slabs of meat.”

I was salivating when I read that. To me, the Beatles Butcher cover was a holy grail. Thirty days later, on December 7, 1971, I was holding it in my hands.

I got home… and there was a message for me from Howard Smith. “Dave, I showed your letter to John and he wants to meet you!”

We arrived [at the Record Plant East], one of the great recording studios, and saw John Lennon standing there to greet us. He said: “We’re recording now, sit yourself down, and we’ll talk at the break.” I sat down in front of the recording console and peered into the studio.

They were working on a song called “The Ballad of New York City/John Lennon-Yoko Ono.” I must have heard it ten times.

Everyone behind the console stood up to stretch and John said to me: “What have you got tonight?” I handed him the Yellow Matter Custard bootleg and gave him the catalog and told him it was where I found the record and some other great bootlegs. I was hoping he wouldn’t be mad and start screaming about people who rip off artists this way, but he was just the opposite, and wanted to know all about the Dylan and Rolling Stones bootlegs.

John was looking over the song titles I had written out. Without hearing it, he said he couldn’t be sure, but he knew the songs and said they were from 10 years ago and looked like they could be the Decca audition tape.

Dave Morrell with Yoko Ono and John Lennon, September 1972. (If you look carefully, you’ll see Dave wearing a Beatles Butcher t-shirt) (Photo: Dave Morrell Archives; used with permission)

We spoke about the Beatles doing their version of “Slow Down” and John went bonkers teaching me all about Larry Williams, one of the greatest rock & roll singers, who he loved as much as Chuck Berry.

As we were talking, I pulled out the Savage Young Beatles album and he screamed: “We were Savages!” I told him that “Savage” was the name of the record company. So it was like saying “The Vee-Jay Young Beatles.” He shrugged and said he loved it and wanted it, so I gave him the album.

John was in such a playful mood. He was sarcastic and witty and enjoyed seeing all the Beatle goodies. This was the same week Capitol Records released “Happy Christmas (War is Over).” At first he said he was miffed Capitol got it out so late, but was relieved it was finally on the radio.

[Morrell continued to show Lennon various items in his collection including photos he had taken of the Beatles at Shea Stadium.]

In 1965 and 1966 when I saw them, they didn’t do “I Want to Hold Your Hand” or “She Loves You.” In 1966, “Yellow Submarine” was the big hit at the time but they didn’t play that either.

John said they were always busy and couldn’t rehearse, and it was too hard to include the newer songs because he couldn’t remember the words and besides, they were too complicated to play live.

John then asked me what I was looking for and I told him the Beatles’ Butcher album cover. John picked up the phone, called his apartment and spoke to someone and told him where to find it and to bring it over to the studio. The guy brought it over and John showed us. He handed it to me to look at. I held it in my hands for a moment and gazed at it. The very record I read about a month ago was in my hands.

John was a Beatles fan and encouraged me to look for more rarities. It was time to pack up the show and tell. I didn’t want to ask for a photograph or an autograph. Things went so well, I just had a feeling we’d meet again and we did.

As I packed up and got ready to leave, John took a pen to the Butcher cover. He drew a big bubble above his head and wrote: “To Dave, From John Lennon, Dec. 7, ’71” then he smiled and handed me his own personal copy of the Beatles’ Butcher cover.

[Morrell has published three volumes in his series, writing about his music industry career, with more to come.]

The story doesn’t end here. Sadly, Morrell no longer owns the album. His signed copy of the Beatles Butcher cover was part of an auction of Entertainment & Music Memorabilia via Heritage Auctions, who identified the seller as Beatles collector Stan Panenka.

On the listing page, Heritage quotes another Beatles collection, Gary Hein: “There is no Beatles album in the world that compares with this one, in my professional opinion, in terms of both Rarity and Value.”

Hilary Hahn Returns to Bach, 21 Years Older. And Maybe Wiser.

The violinist Hilary Hahn has come back to Bach for her latest album, two decades after she made her recording debut with his solo works.CreditCreditDaniel Dorsa for The New York Times

CreditSteve Hahn

A young Ms. Hahn with her teacher Jascha Brodsky, who died in 1997.CreditHilary Hahn

Image

One of Ms. Hahn’s baby-friendly concerts, in Seattle.CreditCarlin Ma/Seattle Symphony

Peggy Sue Gerron Rackham, Who Inspired a Hit Song, Dies at 78

Peggy Sue Gerron Rackham, who lent her name to the Buddy Holly hit “Peggy Sue,” with copies of her memoir, “Whatever Happened to Peggy Sue?” in Tyler, Tex., in 2008.CreditCreditJaime R. Carrero/Tyler Morning Telegraph, via Associated Press

Mr. Holly wrote ”Peggy Sue” with Jerry Allison and Norman Petty, although he did not receive a writer credit when the song was originally released in 1957.

Buddy Holly performing "Peggy Sue" on "The Ed Sullivan Show."CreditCreditVideo by ianhuman

Mr. Holly died in February 1959 in a plane crash in Iowa, along with his fellow singers Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper (J. P. Richardson). Ms. Rackham said she toured with the Crickets for a while after Mr. Holly’s death, counting tickets at the gate among other jobs.

She eloped with Mr. Allison in 1958; their marriage ended in the 1960s.

Peggy Sue Gerron was born on June 15, 1940, in Olton, Tex. Her mother, Lillie (Rieger) Gerron, was a homemaker, and her father, John, was a civil engineer. Over time, she worked as a dental assistant and owned a plumbing business with her second husband, Lynn Rackham.

Buddy Holly in a publicity photo taken shortly before he died in a plane crash in 1959. “You sure are pretty,” he told Ms. Rackham after (literally) bumping into her in high school.CreditAssociated Press

Ms. Rackham’s memoir, written with Glenda Cameron, was published shortly after “Peggy Sue” turned 50. To recall her time around Mr. Holly and the Crickets, she said, she used about 150 contemporaneous diary entries.

Hamiet Bluiett, Baritone Saxophone Trailblazer, Dies at 78

Hamiet Bluiett, left, and Fred Hopkins performing at St. Peters Church in 1995.CreditCreditAlan Nahigian

Image

Mr. Bluiett in 2014. He played jazz baritone saxophone and clarinet, as well as composing music.CreditEarl Wilson/The New York Times

Maxwell Announces New Album NIGHT, Releases “Shame”

Winston Cook-Wilson // October 5, 2018

CREDIT: Julian Finney/Getty Images

Maxwell has announced a new album entitled NIGHT, due out sometime next year. To announce the project, he’s shared its stuttering, soulful first single “Shame,” on which Maxwell’s voice and the song’s erratic backbeat are subsumed in a pool of echo. Of the song, Maxwell said in a statement to Pitchfork:

“Shame” is a modern love song. Not just romantic love, but love for self and others. Social media has created an alternate world where people watch everything you do, including your failures. They even often feel a sense of joy in your pain. This creates a barrier to real intimacy because we’re preoccupied with appearances; with measuring up to what society thinks we should be, how we should look, what we should have and what we should aspire to. The song is about removing that mask of expectation and letting go of the shame of being real and vulnerable. The shadow of shame can only be broken when we unveil ourselves, and recognize that we that we are all human—flawed yet perfect, broken yet stronger with each obstacle.

Maxwell’s last album was 2016’s blackSUMMER’Snight, intended as a followup project to 2009’s BLACKsummer’snight. NIGHT is slated to be the final entry in a trilogy including those albums. His last release was the standalone, politically charged single “We Never Saw It Coming,” which came out in June. Last night, Maxwell participated in a Brett Kavanaugh protest concert in D.C., along with Erykah Badu, Michael Stipe, Alicia Keys, and more. Maxwell released a remastered version of his 1998 album Embrya last month, and is currently on tour.

Listen to “Shame” below.

https://www.youtube.com/w...N7gMZwhAeI

Robin Williams ‘Comic Genius’ 22-DVD Set Coming

by Best Classic Bands Staff

Robin Williams is being celebrated with a comprehensive, new collection, Robin Williams: Comic Genius. The enormous 22-DVD set from Time Life, in conjunction with the Trustees of the Robin Williams Trust, pulls from performances from the comic actor’s 40-year career. The collection, available exclusively at RobinWilliams.com, will be released in November. Watch the official trailer below.

From the announcement: Williams was a generational talent, graced with comedic brilliance, rapid-fire improvisation, and a deep well of warmth and compassion that translated to every role he inhabited. From his breakout role in ABC’s Mork & Mindyto his Academy Award®-winning performance in Good Will Hunting, the iconic actor displayed an inimitable artistry that made him beloved by millions.

The collection, housed in deluxe packaging includes:

All five HBO stand-up specials together for the very first time, including Off the Wall (1978), An Evening with Robin Williams (1983), An Evening at the MET (1986), Live on Broadway (2002) and Weapons of Self Destruction (2009);

Never-before-released concert specials, including Williams’ full MGM Grand Garden stand-up from 2007 and the Montreal stop on his last tour, a conversation on stage between Williams and comedian David Steinberg;

Memorable talk show and late night TV appearances on The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Saturday Night Live and more;

Watch the official trailer for Robin Williams: Comic Genius

Rare, never-before-seen clips including early stand-up, raw footage from HBO’s promo shoots, a toast to Richard Pryor by Williams as Mrs. Doubtfire, and more;

Brand new interviews with close friends and family including Billy Crystal, Steve Martin, Jay Leno, Eric Idle, David Steinberg, Lewis Black and Zak Williams;

11 episodes of Mork & Mindy, including the two-part pilot;

His Emmy® Award-nominated 90-minute interview with James Lipton on Inside the Actors Studio, plus deleted scenes;

A comprehensive collection of Robin’s USO shows around the world;

Critically acclaimed 2018 HBO documentary, Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind, from Emmy® Award-winning director Marina Zenovich and Oscar-winning producer Alex Gibney;

Robin Williams: Uncensored, a collectible 24-page, full-color memory book featuring rare, archival photos from award-winning photographer Arthur Grace, reminiscences from friends and colleagues, Williams’ personal tour notes and more.

John Wicks, of Power Pop Band The Records, Dead

by Best Classic Bands Staff

A signed publicity photo of The Records, circa 1979. John Wicks is 2nd from R

John Wicks, the lead vocalist and co-songwriter for the British power pop band The Records has died. His death was reported on Sunday, October 7, by his bandmate, Will Birch, on his Facebook page.

No cause of death was revealed, nor age given, but Wicks was lively in the Los Angeles area and was likely in his 60s. The Records were best known for their 1979 single, “Starry Eyes,” which became a modest pop hit in America. The website, Allmusic.com, called it “a near-perfect song that defined British power pop in the ’70s.”

The Records formed after the dissolution of a previous band, Kursaal Flyers, that Birch, on drums, and Wicks, on rhythm guitar, were members of. In 1978, the pair were joined by guitarist Huw Gower and bassist Phil Brown.

Shortly thereafter, the group served as the backing band for American teenager Rachel Sweet for her set as part of Stiff Records’ 1978 “Be Stiff Tour.” In 1979, the Records released their debut album, Shades in Bed, produced in part by Robert “Mutt” Lange (who also produced AC/DC’s Highway to Hell that year).

In the U.S., the Records’ debut was released as a self-titled album by Virgin Records, composed almost entirely of Birch-Wicks compositions. The band played a U.S. club tour in support of the album and its single, “Starry Eyes,” ultimately peaked at #56 on the Hot 100. The Records reached #41 on the U.S. album chart.

A follow-up album, 1980’s Crashes, included “Hearts in Her Eyes,” a catchy song Birch and Wicks wrote for a comeback album by the British Invasion band the Searchers. Veteran rock music critic Ken Barnes described the song as a “sparkling pinnacle of hopeless romanticism” in a feature for Best Classic Bands.

With only modest sales and airplay, The Records broke up in the early ’80s, though they reformed briefly. Wicks moved to the U.S. in 1994 and later toured as John Wicks and the Records, with shows as recently as 2018.

Will Vinton, in a 2014 photo via his Facebook page

Will Vinton, who won an Academy Award but earned fame and far more accolades as the creator of the so-called “Claymation” technique which he popularized with the singing California Raisins, died Thursday, October 4, at his Portland, Ore. home. He was 70. Vinton’s death was announced by his children, Billy, Jesse and Alex, on their father’s Facebook page.

The post indicated that Vinton had succumbed to a 12-year battle with multiple myeloma, “although you never would have known of this fight. For the vast majority of that time he continued forward in his life with strength, positivity, and humor, enjoying tropical get-aways, shepherding new creative ventures, and caring for his two sons, daughter and wife.”

Vinton, born November 17, 1947, earned his Oscar in 1975 for Best Animated Short Film for Closed Mondays. Three years later, he produced a 17-minute documentary featuring animation utilizing clay, dubbing it “Claymation.” Vinton trademarked the name.

Vinton and his production teams ultimately created the well known animated characters in the world, including the California Raisins and the “CG” (computer animated) M&Ms “Red” and “Yellow.” The California Raisins, created in 1986, for a Sun-Maid raisins TV commercial for the California Raisin Advisory Board, were a fictionalized R&B musical group made via Claymation.

With Buddy Miles singing lead vocals, the Raisins performed “I Heard it Through the Grapevine.” The TV ad proved to be so popular that the characters were licensed for numerous uses, most notably four albums. The first, The California Raisins Sing the Hit Songs, was released by Priority Records in 1987.

Soon, the Raisins were the subject of a primetime TV special, Meet the Raisins!, which aired on CBS in November 1988.

Vinton, known also for his distinctive mustache, won numerous primetime Emmy Awards for such fare as 1987’s A Claymation Christmas Celebration. That same year, he produced a video for John Fogerty’s “Vanz Kant Danz,” from the musician’s Centerfield album.

Tributes paid as ‘Barcelona’ singer Montserrat Caballé dies aged 85

Montserrat Caballé performs with Freddie Mercury Credit: Getty

RIP.

Tributes have been paid to opera singer Montserrat Caballé, best known for duetting with Freddie Mercury on ‘Barcelona’, who has died at the age of 85.

The singer recorded the epic duet with the late Queen frontman in 1987, before it went on to become the signature song of the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.

According to local media, the singer had been suffering from ill health for a sustained period and was admitted to hospital in Barcelona last month.

In a career spanning over 50 years, Caballé enjoyed early stints at the Basel Opera before a performance at New York’s Carnegie Hall catapulted her to worldwide attention.

At the peak of her fame,Caballé performed with the Metropolitan Opera and Vienna State Opera, as well as performing on star-studded bills that included the likes of Luciano Pavarotti.

But as well as acclaimed performances in the world of opera, the singer cemented her place in popular culture after teaming up with Mercury in 1987 for the operatic duet.

Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballe, late 1980s.

After reaching number eight in the UK charts in 1987, the song received renewed popularity when it became the anthem of the Olympics in 1992 – only a year after Mercury’s death.

Posting on Twitter, the Royal Opera wrote: “All at The Royal Opera are saddened to hear of the death of Montserrat Caballé aged 85.

“The Spanish soprano sang with us on a number of occasions between 1972 and 1992 and inspired millions over the course of her career with her stunning voice.”

Actor Luke Evans described her as “One of the most incredible voices I’ve ever heard”.

View image on Twitter

The Royal Opera✔@TheRoyalOpera

All at The Royal Opera are saddened to hear of the death of Montserrat Caballé aged 85.

The Spanish soprano sang with us on a number of occasions between 1972 and 1992 and inspired millions over the course of her career with her stunning voice

4:07 AM - Oct 6, 2018

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• 650 people are talking about this

Luke Evans✔@TheRealLukevans

one of the most incredible voices I’ve ever heard. RIP #MontserratCaballe watch this and I bet you won’t have a dry eye by the end. Caballé & Mercury- Barcelona https://youtu.be/q0wdxj8-mAU

5:06 AM - Oct 6, 2018

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• 344 people are talking about this

Twitter Ads info and privacy

View image on Twitter

Opera magazine@operamagazine

RIP Montserrat Caballé. One of the all-time greats.

3:26 AM - Oct 6, 2018

• 623
• 254 people are talking about this

linalss@GorPolly

They are together again.#MontserratCaballe#FreddieMercury

4:16 AM - Oct 6, 2018

• 76
• 32 people are talking about this

Revopera.com@Revopera

Montserrat forever ! #MontserratCaballé

4:12 AM - Oct 6, 2018

• 139
• 67 people are talking about this

The world renowned Soprano had experienced extensive bouts of ill health throughout her career, having spent three months in hospital while undergoing treatment for a brain tumour in 1985.

She also underwent treatment for a heart issue in 1993.

It’s expected that she’ll be buried in Barcelona on Monday.

if they can release all those tv appearances by Robin Williams...why cant they do the same with him?

luvsexy4all said:

This Chris Cornell Box set coming is really going to get PRINCE fans going on the whole "why cant the estate do this" nonsense. Its due early November

JoeBala said:

luvsexy4all said:

if they can release all those tv appearances by Robin Williams...why cant they do the same with him?

Do the same with who?

prince leno ..etc

lastdecember said:

This Chris Cornell Box set coming is really going to get PRINCE fans going on the whole "why cant the estate do this" nonsense. Its due early November

Chris Cornell / 4CD box set

September 29, 2018 by Paul Sinclairtags: 1990s, 2000s, chris cornell, Soundgarden,Temple of the Dog

4CD box • Unreleased recordings • 2LP vinyl • single CD edition

November sees the first ever complete retrospective of Chris Cornell’s career covering Soundgarden, Temple of the Dog, Audioslave and his solo works.

Simply called Chris Cornell, the four-CD box set edition (there are two other physical formats) features 64 tracks and includes 11 unreleased recordings, notably ‘When Bad Does Good’, a song found in Chris’ personal audio archive which was performed, recorded and mixed by Chris himself. Other unreleased tracks include live performances such as Chris’ duet with Yusuf/Cat Stevens on ‘Wild World’, Bob Marley’s ‘Redemption Song’ (recorded with his daughter, Toni Cornell) as well as ‘Reach Down’, ‘Stargazer’, ‘One’ and ‘Show Me How To Live’.

The set includes a 54-page booklet with unreleased photos and sleeve note contributions by Kim Thayil, Matt Cameron, Tom Morello, Mike McCready and Brendan O’Brien. The box comes wrapped in a custom die-cut o-card that “showcases Seattle with tree-line graphics on the front and other various cities Chris lived in throughout his life on the back.”

A 17-track version of Chris Cornell is also available on single CD and 2LP vinyl. This will be released on 16 November 2018.

COMPARE PRICES AND PRE-ORDER

CHRIS CORNELL SOUNDGARDEN TEMPLE OF THE DOG

CHRIS CORNELL - 4CD BOX SET

Chris Cornell 4CD box set

Disc: 1
1. Hunted Down – Soundgarden
2. Kingdom of Come – Soundgarden
3. Flower – Soundgarden
4. All Your Lies – Soundgarden
5. Loud Love – Soundgarden
6. Hands All Over – Soundgarden
7. Say Hello 2 Heaven – Temple of the Dog
8. Hunger Strike – Temple of the Dog
9. Outshined – Soundgarden
10. Rusty Cage – Soundgarden
11. Seasons – Chris Cornell
12. Hey Baby (Land of the New Rising Sun) – M.A.C.C.
13. Black Hole Sun – Soundgarden
14. Spoonman – Soundgarden
15. Dusty – Soundgarden
16. Burden in My Hand – Soundgarden

Disc: 2
1. Sunshower – Chris Cornell
2. Sweet Euphoria – Chris Cornell
3. Can’t Change Me – Chris Cornell
4. Like a Stone – Audioslave
5. Cochise – Audioslave
6. Be Yourself – Audioslave
7. Doesn’t Remind Me – Audioslave
8. Revelations – Audioslave
9. Shape of Things to Come – Audioslave
10. You Know My Name – Chris Cornell
11. Billie Jean – Chris Cornell
12. Long Gone (Rock Version) – Chris Cornell
13. Scream – Chris Cornell
14. Part of Me (Steve Aoki Remix) – Chris Cornell
15. Ave Maria (With Eleven) – Chris Cornell

Disc: 3
1. Promise (Feat. Chris Cornell) – Slash
2. Whole Lotta Love (Feat. Chris Cornell) – Santana
3. Call Me a Dog (Live Acoustic) – Chris Cornell
4. Imagine (Live Acoustic) – Chris Cornell
5. I Am the Highway (Live Acoustic) – Chris Cornell
6. The Keeper – Chris Cornell
7. Been Away Too Long – Soundgarden
8. Live to Rise – Soundgarden
9. Lies (With Chris Cornell & Ace) – Gabin
10. Misery Chain (With Joy Williams) – Chris Cornell
11. Storm – Soundgarden
12. Nearly Forgot My Broken Heart – Chris Cornell
13. Only These Words – Chris Cornell
14. Our Time in the Universe – Chris Cornell
15. ‘Til the Sun Comes Back Around – Chris Cornell
16. Stay With Me Baby – Chris Cornell
17. The Promise – Chris Cornell
18. When Bad Goes Good – Chris Cornell

Disc: 4
1. Into the Void (Sealth) [live at the Paramount] – Soundgarden
2. Mind Riot (Live at the Paramount) – Soundgarden
3. Nothing to Say (Live in Seattle) – Soundgarden
4. Jesus Christ Pose (Live in Oakland) – Soundgarden
5. Show Me How to Live (Live in Cuba) – Audioslave*
6. Wide Away (Live in Sweden) – Chris Cornell*
7. All Night Thing (Live in Sweden) – Chris Cornell*
8. Nothing Compares 2 U (Live at Sirius XM) – Chris Cornell*
9. One (Live at Beacon Theatre) – Chris Cornell*
10. Reach Down (Live at the Paramount) – Temple of the Dog*
11. Stargazer (Live at the Paramount) – Temple of the Dog*
12. Wild World (With Chris Cornell) [live at Pantages Theatre] – Yusuf/Cat Stevens*
13. A Day in the Life (Live at the Royal Albert Hall) – Chris Cornell*
14. Redemption Song (With Toni Cornell) [live at Beacon Theatre] – Chris Cornell*
15. Thank You (Live in Sweden) – Chris Cornell

*previously unreleased

Chris Cornell single CD / 2LP edition

1. Loud Love [Soundgarden
2. Outshined [Soundgarden]
3. Hunger Strike [Temple of the Dog]
4. Seasons
5. Black Hole Sun [Soundgarden]
6. Can’t Change Me
7. Like A Stone [Audioslave]
8. Be Yourself [Audioslave]
9. You Know My Name
10. Billie Jean
11. Long Gone (Rock Version)
12. Call Me A Dog (Live Acoustic)
13. Been Away Too Long [Soundgarden]
14. Nearly Forgot My Broken Heart
15. Nothing Compares 2 U (Live at SiriusXM)*
16. The Promise
17. When Bad Does Good*

*previously unreleased

Bruce Springsteen / Vol 2 box set vinyl remasters available individually

October 17, 2018 by Paul Sinclairtags: 1980s, 1990s, bruce springsteen

Sony will break open this year’s Bruce Springsteen Album Collection, Vol. 2 vinyl box set and offer each remastered long-player individually, from next month.

The collection features albums released between 1987 and 1996 so that means the albums available individually are Tunnel of Love (1987), Human Touch (1992), Lucky Town (1992), MTV Plugged (1993), and The Ghost of Tom Joad (1995).

These are the new remasters of course (courtesy of Bob Ludwig and Springsteen’s longtime engineer Toby Scott ) from the original analogue tapes and they’ve again used the used the ‘Plangent Process’ playback system as part of this process.

Tunnel of Love and Human Touch are double albums and so the £18 price point is decent enough value. Sadly, the Japanese edition aside, as things stand, Sony have chosen not to issue these Springsteen remasters on CD, either as a box set or as individual releases.

All five of these vinyl remasters are released on 2 November 2018.

COMPARE PRICES AND PRE-ORDER

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN

TUNNEL OF LOVE - 2LP REMASTER

LUCKY TOWN - VINYL REMASTER

THE GHOST OF TOM JOAD - 2LP REMASTER

HUMAN TOUCH - 2LP REMASTER

MTV PLUGGED - 2LP REMASTER

Tunnel of Love (1987) (2 LP)

Side 1
1. Ain’t Got You
2. Tougher Than the Rest
3. All That Heaven Will Allow

Side: 2
1. Spare Parts
2. Cautious Man
3. Walk Like A Man

Side: 3
1. Tunnel of Love
2. Two Faces
3. Brilliant Disguise

Side: 4
1. One Step Up
2. When You’re Alone
3. Valentine’s Day

Human Touch (1992) (2 LP)

Side: 5
1. Human Touch
2. Soul Driver
3. 57 Channels (And Nothin’ On)

Side: 6
1. Cross My Heart
2. Gloria’s Eyes
3. With Every Wish
4. Roll of the Dice

Side: 7
1. Real World
2. All Or Nothin’ At All
3. Man’s Job

Side: 8
1. I Wish I Were Blind
2. The Long Goodbye
3. Real Man
4. Pony Boy

Lucky Town (1992) (1 LP)

Side: 9
1. Better Days
2. Lucky Town
3. Local Hero
4. If I Should Fall Behind
5. Leap Of Faith

Side: 10
1. The Big Muddy
2. Living Proof
3. Book Of Dreams
4. Souls Of The Departed
5. My Beautiful Reward

In Concert / MTV Plugged (1993) (2 LP)

Side: 11
1. Red Headed Woman
2. Better Days
3. Atlantic City
4. Darkness On the Edge of Town

Side: 12
1. Man’s Job
2. Human Touch
3. Lucky Town

Side: 13
1. I Wish I Were Blind
2. Thunder Road
3. Light of Day

Side: 14
1. If I Should Fall Behind
2. Living Proof
3. My Beautiful Reward

The Ghost of Tom Joad (1995) (1 LP)

Side: 15
1. The Ghost of Tom Joad
2. Straight Time
3. Highway 29
4. Youngstown
5. Sinaloa Cowboys
6. The Line

Side: 16
1. Balboa Park
2. Dry Lightning
3. The New Timer
4. Across The Border
5. Galveston Bay
6. My Best Was Never Good Enough

Creedence Clearwater Revival / The Studio Albums Collection / 7LP vinyl box

October 12, 2018 by Paul Sinclairtags: 1960s, 1970s, 50th anniversary, creedence clearwater revival

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers / Best of Everything 1976 – 2016

October 10, 2018 by Paul Sinclairtags: 1970s, 1980s, Tom Petty

With the American Treasure box now out (at least on CD) news reaches SDE of another Tom Petty collection that’s due next month. As the title suggests, The Best of Everything: The Definitive Career Spanning Hits Collection 1976-2016 is more focussed on ‘hits’ than rarities, although inevitably the record label has added a couple of unreleased tracks.

The Best Of Everything is a two-CD or 4LP package. It spans 40 years, includes 37 tracks (non-chronologically) and covers Tom Petty as a solo artist, with The Heartbreakers and also includes a couple of tracks from 2016’s Mudcrutch 2.

The two unreleased offerings are an alternate version of ‘The Best Of Everything’ (which you can preview above) and the last song on the compilation ‘For Real’.

Cameron Crowe has written an essay which will features in the booklet and The Best of Everything will be released on 16 November 2018.

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TOM PETTY AND THE HEARTBREAKERS

THE BEST OF EVERYTHING - 4LP VINYL BOX

The Best of Everything 1976 – 2016 2CD edition

CD 1
1. Free Fallin’ – Tom Petty
2. Mary Jane’s Last Dance – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
3. You Wreck Me – Tom Petty
4. I Won’t Back Down – Tom Petty
5. Saving Grace – Tom Petty
6. You Don’t Know How It Feels – Tom Petty
7. Don’t Do Me Like That – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
8. Listen To Her Heart – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
9. Breakdown – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
10. Walls (Circus) – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
11. The Waiting – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
12. Don’t Come Around Here No More – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
13. Southern Accents – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
14. Angel Dream (No2) – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
15. Dreamville – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
16. I Should Have Known It – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
17. Refugee – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
18. American Girl – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
19. The Best Of Everything (Alternate Version) – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

CD 2
1. Wildflowers – Tom Petty
2. Learning To Fly – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
3. Here Comes My Girl – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
4. The Last DJ – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
5. I Need To Know – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
6. Scare Easy – Mudcrutch
7. You Got Lucky – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
8. Runnin’ Down A Dream – Tom Petty
9. American Dream Plan B – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
10. Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around (featuring Stevie Nicks) – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
11. Trailer – Mudcrutch
12. Into The Great Wide Open – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
13. Room At The Top – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
14. Square One – Tom Petty
15. Jammin’ Me – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
16. Even The Losers – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
17. Hungry No More – Mudcrutch
18. I Forgive It All – Mudcrutch
19. For Real – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

The Best of Everything 1976 – 2016 4LP vinyl box

LP1
SIDE A
1. Free Fallin’ – Tom Petty
2. Mary Jane’s Last Dance – Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
3. You Wreck Me – Tom Petty
4. I Won’t Back Down – Tom Petty
5. Saving Grace – Tom Petty

LP1
SIDE B
1. You Don’t Know How It Feels – Tom Petty
2. Don’t Do Me Like That – Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
3. Listen To Her Heart – Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
4. Breakdown – Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
5. Walls (Circus) – Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers

LP2
SIDE A
1. The Waiting – Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
2. Don’t Come Around Here No More – Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
3. Southern Accents – Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
4. Angel Dream (No. 2) – Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
5. Dreamville – Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers

LP2
SIDE B
1. I Should Have Known It – Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
2. Refugee – Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
3. American Girl – Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
4. The Best Of Everything (Alternate Version) – Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers*

LP3
SIDE A
1. Wildflowers – Tom Petty
2. Learning To Fly – Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
3. Here Comes My Girl – Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
4. The Last DJ – Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
5.I Need To Know – Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers

LP3
SIDE B
1. Scare Easy – Mudcrutch
2. You Got Lucky – Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
3. Runnin’ Down A Dream – Tom Petty
4. American Dream Plan B – Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
5. Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around (featuring Stevie Nicks) – Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers

LP4
SIDE A
1. Trailer – Mudcrutch
2. Into The Great Wide Open – Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
3. Room At The Top – Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
4. Square One – Tom Petty
5. Jammin’ Me – Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers

LP4
SIDE B
1. Even The Losers – Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
2. Hungry No More – Mudcrutch
3. I Forgive It All – Mudcrutch
4. For Real – Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers*

*Previously Unreleased

luvsexy4all said:

JoeBala said:

luvsexy4all said: Do the same with who?

prince leno ..etc

I'm sure something will surface either official or bootleg.

Neneh Cherry Never Stopped Taking Risks. Now She’s Making Politics Personal.

Neneh Cherry recorded her latest album, “Broken Politics,” with the electronic musician Four Tet in the Woodstock studio of an old friend, Karl Berger.CreditCreditLiam Henderson for The New York Times

Kieran Hebden, who records as Four Tet, produced Cherry’s 2014 album, “Blank Project,” and returned to make the music on “Broken Politics.”CreditGary Wolstenholme/Redferns, via Getty Images

“It’s interesting, using the idea of organic music but making it in the way we’re making music — the way we carry the torch,” Cherry said.CreditLiam Henderson for The New York Times

Hebden produced “Blank Project,” largely as a document of live arrangements Cherry had worked out with the duo. But for “Broken Politics,” she entrusted him with creating all the instrumentals. She and McVey sent voice-and-keyboard demos to Hebden; he chose sounds and built productions. Then, for just five days in Woodstock, Cherry sang and Hebden tweaked the music.

“They always have hooks in their songs,” Hebden noted. “Even if it’s not intended to be a pop song, all the songs on all their records always have a little hook.”

“Broken Politics” is filled with the sounds of an international assortment of instruments — piano, kora, harp, wooden flute, steel drums, hand bells — that echo the cultural cross-pollination Berger encouraged at Creative Music Studios. Yet except for a cameo appearance by Berger on vibraphone, and some snippets of city life recorded on Cherry’s cellphone, all of the album’s music came from Hebden’s laptop, using libraries of instrument sounds, samples and synthetic ones.

“I made the whole thing in the computer,” Hebden said in an interview at Berger’s studio. “I knew I was making something that was going to evoke the mood, that you would listen to it and it would sound like there were a group of musicians playing there. But nothing like that happened at all, ever.”

The studio is unassuming but comfortable: a converted basement with a glassed-in control room and windows that open on a woodsy backyard view. High-quality microphones share a few shelves with old reel-to-reel tapes, wind chimes and books including “Music Universe, Music Mind,” a 1996 history of Creative Music Studios. When the album was made, Hebden recalled, there were many more tapes around: some 500 hours of Creative Music sessions recorded through the decades, an archive that was being digitized for the collection of Columbia University. No doubt magnetic particles from the old tapes hung in the basement air.

“The music is made for real, even if it’s loops and coming from a computer,” Cherry said. “To me there are definitely sounds and a feeling in some of the tracks that remind me of the music that was made in the room, some of the music that brought me to where I’m sitting at now — the music that my parents made and the music I grew up around. It’s interesting, using the idea of organic music but making it in the way we’re making music — the way we carry the torch.”

Elvis Costello, Carole King and a Song 20 Years in the Making

A song Elvis Costello and Carole King wrote in the 1990s, “Burnt Sugar Is So Bitter,” is finally being released on Costello’s new album, “Look Now.”CreditCreditErik Tanner for The New York Times

By Jim Farber

• Oct. 9, 2018

Two decades ago, Elvis Costello and Carole King kept running into each other at a Japanese restaurant in Manhattan. “It was the lure of the sea urchin,” Costello said. And the meals paid off: Over the course of several omakase dinners, the musicians developed a friendship that led to a writing collaboration — but not before they went through a harrowing experience.

In 1995, the two were performing with Bob Dylan and Van Morrison in Dublin. “At the end, it was too dark and when everyone went offstage left, I went stage right,” said King. “Boom! I fell 15 feet onto a concrete floor.” Costello said it was “truly horrifying.” King broke her right wrist and left thumb in the accident. “I think I was saved by landing on a pile of cables,” she said.

Not long after, the two musicians decided to write a song together. For more than 20 years, the piece, “Burnt Sugar Is So Bitter,” only existed as a demo, though Costello performed it live on several occasions. But the track finally has a home on “Look Now,” his new album with the Imposters, out Friday.

[Never miss a pop music story: Sign up for our weekly newsletter, Louder.]

Several weeks ago, the two met at Electric Lady Studios in Greenwich Village (where he recorded the album’s strings) to talk about their work together, as well as their separate histories as collaborators, writers and performers. Settling down on a plush red sofa, King, 76, kept referring to her collaborator by his birth name.

“Do you mind if I call you Declan?” she asked Costello, 64, who was looking healthy several months after revealing that he had undergone successful surgery for cancer.

“Anything but Gladys,” he answered. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.

Elvis Costello & The Imposters - "Burnt Sugar Is So Bitter"CreditCreditVideo by Elvis Costello

“Burnt Sugar” fits right into “Look Now,” which recalls the grandeur of those highly arranged, early ’60s pop hits written by artists like you, Carole. When you heard the album, did you recognize yourself in it?

CAROLE KING I didn’t, but I did recognize a value I hold dear, which is authenticity in presentation. You take a song that’s good, and you go into the studio and you present it to the band, and they find themselves feeling the groove. Then you give them direction, and they take it to levels you didn’t quite imagine. You [Elvis] probably have more of the big picture going in than I do.

ELVIS COSTELLO That’s really true of this record. It’s one of the only ones where I recorded the vocals last. Normally, I arrange outward from a core vocal, which tortures the band. Sometimes the drummer says I drag or speed up a verse. Here, I had it all arranged in my head.

In your memoir, Elvis, you wrote about seeing Carole in concert in Manchester in 1971 when you were 17. Do you remember that show?

COSTELLO The two most memorable concerts I saw that year were you, with James Taylor, and Joni [Mitchell] doing “Blue” before that album came out. Can you imagine today someone touring before their album came out? You were playing all these songs that had been standards from the ’60s and then your songs from “Tapestry.” But you made sure not to tour until your album was in shops!

KING That wasn’t me. It was Lou Adler [the head of her record company, Ode].

COSTELLO I have a Lou Adler story. I was sitting at the Whiskey A Go Go in 1978 watching [the band] Rockpile, and this gentleman passes a piece of paper over the table, so I signed it. I thought he wanted my autograph. Looking floored, he handed the paper back to me and, after I turned it over, I saw it said, “Lou Adler” with his phone number on it. He was trying to sign me!

KING He knew your talent. We all knew! You did so many different things and did them all well. If you had begun in our generation of writers you’d be right there with us.

COSTELLO I can’t believe you said that!

KING A lot of it is just time and place. In some ways, I feel that it’s all undeserved for me. I know that I’ve done the work and I have the gift, but I feel grateful that circumstances put me in a time and place where people have gotten to hear it.

COSTELLO Do you remember the first reaction you got performing for people in the business? When I started doing it, they thought I would be coming in with a tape and I could see the look on the guy’s face when I walked in with my guitar. I made him listen to me play, and I’m super loud. I could see him thinking, “When is he going to stop?” I imagine it would be different if you come in playing “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow.”

KING I have to say this as if I’m speaking of someone else: I got everybody’s attention. I think they weren’t expecting a small Jewish girl to have that much power or confidence. They were hungry for new talent. They were small start-up companies. Atlantic Records was in a tiny office on 54th Street.

Carole, you made history twice: first as one of the young, New York writers of the ’60s hits; then as part of the singer-songwriter movement of the early ’70s, which asserted that the quirky writer’s voice was more authentic than the “professional” singer. Given your unusual voice, Elvis, was that aesthetic shift an inspiration?

COSTELLO You hit the nail on the head. I never planned to be a singer. I was a songwriter. My role model was Robbie Robertson, but I couldn’t find a Levon Helm or a Rick Danko, so I was forced to sing. Had I come up in Carole’s time, I tell myself I wouldn’t have been a performer, which, for a lot of people, would have been a relief because they wouldn’t have to hear me sing.

KING I beg to differ. Probably you would have started off as a songwriter, but your vocal ability would have emerged. Your interpretations of your songs are magnificent.

COSTELLO When you went from songwriting to singing, you were reclaiming songs that made their name played by other people.

KING Look, if you’re following Aretha Franklin [on “Natural Woman”] it’s like … I wasn’t going to try to compete with her vocally because that would be silly. What I did was just present the song I had written.

In a way, Carole, that makes you an unlikely collaborator with Elvis. Your songs are unfussy, and his are ornate, especially lyrically.

COSTELLO That’s probably because I thought of myself as a writer before I thought of myself as a musician. I knew I was some kind of writer from when I was 8 or 9. I didn’t know I was a musician until I was 17.

KING Your lyrics aren’t linear, but you get all the emotional components of what’s going on. There’s a freedom to it, even though you might not be able to draw a line from Point A to Point B.

COSTELLO That’s why you listen to the song more than once.

KING Well, I go directly from Point A to Point B, and they listen too!

Elvis, you’re known for full-album collaborations with everyone from Paul McCartney to the Roots. Carole, you’ve teamed with artists from Paul Westerberg to Mariah Carey. Why do you enjoy the collaborative process?

COSTELLO It’s the speed with which it’s done. When I did the songs with Paul McCartney, it was like a tennis match. Reaching across the table, I’ve got this line. I’ve got that line. And then the song was done.

Carole, what do you look for in a collaborator?

KING You trust that the person is coming from the same place — i.e. let’s write something creative that comes to a conclusion we both want. Most of the people who I collaborate with rise to that occasion.

What’s the core of your contribution to the writing?

KING I’m very chord oriented. I have been informed in that by Richard Rodgers — the way he wrote melodies that are deceptively simple.

[Both Costello and King spontaneously break into the same Rodgers’s song, “If I Loved You.”]

COSTELLO That could be one of your tunes!

KING I hear that, yeah.

COSTELLO People also hear that gospel thing in your songs because of “Natural Woman.”

KING That’s an influence too. It’s all down to writing the chords. Sometimes I wander off melodically. I’m wondering, “How the hell do I get from here to there?” To me, bringing it all back home is the magic of writing. When you have a collaborator, you share that joy. It’s so much richer than what you can write on your own.

Aretha Franklin ‘Atlantic Collection’ with Rarities Due

by Best Classic Bands Staff

The world lost one of the most important, influential and iconic voices of all time this summer when Aretha Franklin passed away. To celebrate her musical legacy, Rhino is readying a trio of releases honoring he Queen Of Soul.

Dec. 7 will see the release of the Atlantic Records 1960’s Collection, a six-LP boxed set that includes Franklin’s first five studio albums with Atlantic, plus an LP with 11 demos and outtakes that are making their vinyl debut. Limited to 5,000 copies, the set features each album pressed on 140-gram vinyl and presented in sleeves that faithfully re-create the original releases. Atlantic Records 1960’s Collection includes the five studio albums that Aretha released between 1967 and 1969: I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You (mono), Aretha Arrives (mono), Lady Soul (stereo), Aretha Now(stereo) and Soul ’69 (stereo).

Related: Tributes to Lady Soul poured in after her death

Prior to that, on Nov. 16, the Franklin holiday album This Christmas will be released on vinyl for the first time. The nine-track album, pared down from original length to fit on LP, features the Queen Of Soul’s distinctive take on holiday standards such as “Angels We Have Heard On High” and “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” along with some newer yuletide tunes like “This Christmas” and “My Grown-Up Christmas List.”

Available today as a digital single is the “Solo Piano Version” of “Silent Night,” a new mix of the holiday classic that was originally included on Franklin’s 2008 holiday album This Christmas. This new version features only Franklin on piano and voice.

Rarities From The 1960s Track Listing

Side One
1. “I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You)” – Demo
2. “Dr. Feelgood (Love Is A Serious Business)” – Demo
3. “It Was You” – Outtake
4. “The Letter” – Outtake
5. “So Soon” – Outtake

Side Two
1. “Mr. Big” – Outtake
2. “Talk To Me, Talk To Me” – Outtake
3. “The Fool on the Hill” – Outtake
4. “You’re Taking Up Another Man’s Place” – Outtake
5. “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” – Outtake
6. “I’m Trying To Overcome” – Outtake

This Christmas LP Track Listing

Side One
1. “Angels We Have Heard On High”
2. “This Christmas”
3. “My Grown-Up Christmas List”
4. “The Lord Will Make A Way”

Side Two
1. “Ave Maria”
2. “Christmas Ain’t Christmas (Without The One You Love)”
3. “14 Angels”
4. “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing”
5. “Silent Night”

Carol Hall, ‘Best Little Whorehouse’ Composer, Is Dead at 82

The songwriter Carol Hall, in an undated photo. Her Broadway hit, “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas,” grew out of a dinner party conversation.CreditCreditPolk & Company.

A scene from “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas” in 1980 at the 46th Street Theater in New York. Ms. Hall wrote the music and lyrics.

Stray Cats (Photo by Suzie Kaplan, used with permission)

The Stray Cats will mark their 40th anniversary in 2019 with a new album and tour, the trio has announced. Brian Setzer, Lee Rocker and Slim Jim Phantom—the original founding members of the American band—are heading into a studio in Nashville to record their first new album in 25 years.

Set to be released on Surfdog Records, the album will be produced by Peter Collins (Rush, Bon Jovi, the Brian Setzer Orchestra) and engineered by Vance Powell (Jack White, Chris Stapleton, Arctic Monkeys). Watch Best Classic Bands for more details and an official release date.

Related: Stray Cats reunited in Vegas earlier this year

The group, known for hits such as “Stray Cat Strut,” “(She’s) Sexy + 17” and “Rock This Town,” are also mapping out plans for a tour, with dates to be announced. The trio this year marked their first North American shows in 10 years, with four concerts including sold-out headlining shows at Viva Las Vegas and the Pacific Amphitheatre in Costa Mesa, Calif. (August 16 and 17).

Related: A look back at the Stray Cats’ debut album

Said Setzer, “Forty years ago, us three teenagers started a little band to play a musical style that had long since passed, and most folks had never heard of, rockabilly music. Forty years later we stand together and still get that same thrill and exhilaration from the music. That feeling is what makes the fireworks go off and the sparks fly. It makes the world go around.”

The Stray Cats (Photo by Suzie Kaplan, used with permission)

Phantom added, “Making a new Stray Cats album for 2019 in Nashville seems like the exact right thing, right time, right place, and right band for the gig! We have an album’s worth of new songs that are classic rockabilly while keeping the music and style current and fresh, like always. In other words…a Stray Cats album.”

And Rocker said, “They say history repeats itself and I now know that’s true. Forty years after Brian, Jim and I formed the Stray Cats, we are back! I’m so excited to be in the studio with my brothers. I can tell you that this will be the best Stray Cats album we have ever made. The time is right, the songs are great and we’re ready to rock.”

Tracklist:
01 – I Do
02 – Paris
03 – Safe Zone
04 – Tonic
05 – I Want You
06 – Home

Jess Glynne - Always In Between

Tracklist:
01 – Intro
02 – No One
03 – I’ll Be There
04 – Thursday
05 – All I Am
06 – 123
07 – Never Let Me Go
08 – Broken
09 – HateLove
10 – Won’t Say No
11 – Rollin
12 – Nevermind
13 – These Days (feat. Jess Glynne, Macklemore & Dan Caplen)
14 – So Real (Warriors) [feat. Jess Glynne]
15 – Million Reasons
16 – Insecurities

From 1964 to 1968—in between recording sessions with the Wrecking Crew, touring with the Beach Boys, and recording his own albums—Glen Campbell was recruited to record songs for Elvis Presley. Originally intended for Elvis’ ears only, 18 of these recently unearthed and unreleased recordings will be released together on CD, LP and digitally for the first time, more than half a century later, as the lost album Sings For the King on Nov. 16 via Capitol/UMe. The collection was announced on Oct. 10; listen to one of the tracks below.

Pre-order Sings For the King now via the links below.

Sings For the King includes songs written by the songwriting team of Ben Weisman and Sid Wayne. Weisman is significant for having written the most songs recorded by Elvis than any other songwriter in history at 57. According to a press release, “Weisman and Wayne turned to Glen Campbell, who had perfect pitch and an uncanny ability to match Elvis’s key and even mimic his delivery, to record fully fleshed out studio versions that they could present to Elvis for his recording consideration.” The songs were discovered by Executive Producer Stephen Auerbach, who found the 50-year-old recordings on long-forgotten reel-to-reel tapes in a storage space belonging to his uncle-in-law, Ben Weisman. Of the 29 recordings that have been rescued, there are 12 of Campbell’s recordings that went on to be recorded and released by Elvis, including “Stay Away Joe,” “Clambake,” “Spinout” and “Easy Come, Easy Go,” which were all made famous with performances of the title tracks in his movies.

Watch the lyric video for “Easy Come, Easy Go,” from Sings for the King

Related: Glen Campbell’s early sessions recalled

Says the release, “The variety of the material is striking and ranges from the country-flavored ‘Any Old Time’ to the more rocked-up ‘I’ll Be Back’ to meaty ballads like ‘I’ll Never Know.’ On ‘I Got Love,’ Glen begins the song sounding like himself but then subtly shifts into Elvis’ trademark tone. The album opens with the gospel song ‘We Call on Him,’ which features the two legendary voices fused into a duet, giving a real sense of how Glen’s performances teed up these songs for Elvis, and then where The King took them and made them his own. All eighteen songs highlight Glen’s incredible vocal range and guitar skills and draw focus to Weisman and Wayne’s understanding of all the styles of music Elvis could perform.”

Music journalist and author Alan Light writes in the liner notes, “With their genre-bending musical exploration and rural Southern roots, it’s no surprise that Glen Campbell and Elvis Presley formed something of a mutual admiration society.” ‘Elvis and I were brought up the same humble way,’ Campbell once said, ‘picking cotton and looking at the north end of a south-bound mule.’ The friendship between the Rhinestone Cowboy and the King of Rock and Roll spanned three decades, and they often orbited each other professionally.”

Campbell and Presley first met in 1956, when Elvis performed in Albuquerque, where Campbell had recently moved to join his uncle’s band, Dick Bills and the Sandia Mountain Boys. “I saw him in the rough,” Campbell later said. “He was so electrifying.” In 1960, Campbell headed to Los Angeles to find work as a session musician and took a regular gig at a club called the Crossbow, where Elvis and his friends would sometimes come watch from a small private room upstairs. As a member of the incomparable group of LA studio musicians known as the Wrecking Crew, Campbell appeared on dozens of hits, from “You’ve Lost that Lovin’ Feelin’” to “Strangers in the Night.” In 1963 alone, he added his guitar to almost 600 sessions, including his one and only recording with Elvis, for the Viva Las Vegas soundtrack.

By 1967, Campbell’s own career was taking off, yet he continued to knock out songs for Weisman and Wayne in whatever spare time he had.

When Elvis was assembling his TCB band in 1969, his two finalists for the lead guitar chair were Campbell and James Burton. But while Campbell was riding high as a solo artist following the hits “Gentle on My Mind,” “By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” and “Wichita Lineman,” Burton was available since his previous boss, Ricky Nelson, had recently broken up his backing band.

Track Listing
1. We Call On Him (A Duet With Elvis Presley) *
2. Easy Come, Easy Go *
3. Any Old Time
4. Anyone Can Play
5. I Got Love
6. I’ll Never Know *
7. All I Needed Was The Rain *
8. How Can You Lose What You Never Had *
9. Spinout *
10. Magic Fire
11. I’ll Be Back *
12. Love On The Rocks
13. Stay Away, Joe *
14. Cross My Heart And Hope To Die *
15. Clambake *
16. There Is So Much World To See *
17. Do The Clam *
18. Restless

* Recorded by Elvis Presley

Following the 2015 release of his last album, Fast Forward, singer-songwriter Joe Jackson has announced the release of his new studio album, Fool. The record, the 20th studio album of Jackson’s career, is described in a press release as “the fulfilment of a career-long dream: to finish a tour and head straight into the studio with the band firing on all cylinders.” On July 29, Jackson wrapped up his 2018 summer tour at the Eqyptian Theater in Boise, Idaho, and the following day set up shop at Tonic Room Studios in town.

Says Jackson in the press release, “When it looked like I’d be recording in late July and mixing around my birthday, in August, it struck me that the only other occasion that had happened was while making my first album. It still took a while for it to sink in: this would be 40 years on… The road to this album is littered with the wrecks of songs and half-songs that didn’t make the grade. There are eight survivors, which I think is enough. How significant the resurgence of vinyl is, I’m not sure, but I did think of this as an album, with two complementary sides of about 20 minutes each…I never have an overall theme in mind when I start trying to write songs for an album, but sometimes one will develop. In this case it’s Comedy and Tragedy, and the way they’re intertwined in all our lives. The songs are about fear and anger and alienation and loss, but also about the things that still make life worth living: friendship, laughter, and music, or art, itself. I couldn’t have done this in 1979. I just hadn’t lived enough.”

Related: 10 songs that defined new wave music

The album was co-produced by Jackson and producer Pat Dillett (David Byrne, Sufjan Stevens, Glen Hansard, etc.). The band was the same group that Jackson has played live with ever since the release of Fast Forward: Teddy Kumpel on guitar, Doug Yowell on drums and long-time collaborator Graham Maby on bass (Maby was on that first recording session 40 years ago as well). The Fast Forward Tour took on a life of its own and enjoyed several encores over the last three years, with the band ultimately playing 103 shows together during that time span.

Joe Jackson

Starting February 2019, Jackson and the band will embark on a new world tour, playing shows throughout North America and Europe. He says, “We want to celebrate the fact that this is happening after 40 years. Anything else would be like sulking in a room by yourself on your own birthday party. Looking for some way to organize a show out of 40 years’ worth of material, I decided to draw on five albums, each representing a decade: Look Sharp (1979), Night and Day (1982), LaughteraAnd Lust (1991), Rain(2008) and Fool (2019). We’ll also throw in a couple of songs from other albums and some new covers.”

Tickets go on-sale to the general public this Friday, Oct 12, at 10 a.m. local time at JoeJackson.com. Each North American concert ticket includes a digital download of Fool.

Fool will be released as CD digipak, 1-LP+download and digital on Jan. 18, on earMUSIC.

By the time the Ramones got around to crafting their fourth album, they must have been feeling a little nervous. Several of their contemporaries on the punk/new wave scene—including Blondie, Elvis Costello and Talking Heads—had begun to break through commercially. They had not. Their first two albums had flopped, and while their third, Rocket to Russia, had done a bit better, it had stalled at #49 on the charts—not what you’d call a hit.

Another band might have taken the opportunity to reassess and perhaps to redefine themselves. But the Ramones hunkered down. True, they got a new drummer around this time and added a few minor country touches. They also recorded a couple of songs that (barely) exceeded the three-minute mark and occasionally strummed more than three chords, both things they’d previously avoided. But at their core, they remained the same band you already adored or detested—or, more likely, didn’t even know. Their stripped-down rock ’n’ roll formula remained unchanged, and they sounded as contrarian—and sardonic—as ever. While they clearly wanted to be on a road to riches, they called the new album Road to Ruin, which was pretty much on target: the record peaked on the charts at #103—a worse showing than that of the LP’s predecessor.

Related: That time the Ramones got their own street

Today, all four of the group’s original members are dead; the only major player on Road to Ruin who’s still with us is “new” drummer Marc Steven Bell (aka Marky Ramone). But the music lives on, and it’s a good deal better than many listeners realized in 1978. No, this isn’t the Ramones’ best record: overall, it’s a bit less hook-laden and fresh than the first three. But there are gems here, such as the infectious “I Wanna Be Sedated” and a cover of “Needles and Pins” that manages to echo the Searchers’ hit version while also sounding a lot like the Ramones originals that surround it here.

The lyrics, meanwhile, are loaded with examples of the group’s wry humor. Who else would open an album with a couplet like “Hanging out on Second Avenue/Eating chicken vindaloo”? And then there’s “Go Mental,” where they sing, “Out of the hospital/Out against my will/Life is so beautiful/I’ve gone mental…I don’t like politics, I don’t like communists/I don’t like games and fun/I don’t like anyone.” OK, so it’s not Bob Dylan, but the group’s crankiness has a certain charm.

This box—the fourth in a series of 40th anniversary expanded reissues from the Ramones—delivers the goods. One CD offers a remaster of the original album as well as a substantially different, equally likable new mix while a second CD serves up an assortment of extras, including rough mixes, single versions and surprisingly lovable acoustic renditions of “Needles and Pins” and two other tracks. There’s also an LP of the original album for vinyl junkies and a booklet that includes liner notes and all the lyrics.

Watch the previously unseen live video of “She’s the One”

Perhaps the biggest carrot for anyone who already owns the 1978 release is the box’s third and final CD: a New Year’s Eve 1979 concert from New York’s Palladium that includes songs from Rocket to Russia as well as such earlier high points as “Rockaway Beach,” “Blitzkrieg Bop” and “Sheena Is a Punk Rocker.” The group also pays tribute to some of their influences in this concert, performing the aforementioned “Needles and Pins,” plus the Rivieras’ “California Sun,” Bobby Freeman’s “Do You Wanna Dance” and Chris Montez’s “Let’s Dance.” Altogether, the concert includes 32 songs packed into a mere 64 minutes—these guys were not exactly known for dragging out their performances.

All of this music sounded revolutionary in the late 1970s, when the airwaves were populated by songs like Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive,” the Doobie Brothers’ “What a Fool Believes” and Rod Stewart’s “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy.” It was a wakeup call to cut back on the self-indulgent guitar solos and other assorted pretensions, and get back to basics—the beat, the hooks, and the rebellion that fueled early rock ’n’ roll. A lot of people ultimately did wake up, but if you’re still feeling a little groggy 40 years later, Road to Ruin should be enough to get you out of bed.

Neil Diamond 6-CD 50th Anniv. Retrospective Due

by Best Classic Bands Staff

On November 30, Capitol/UMe will celebrate a half-century of music-making with the release of Neil Diamond’s 50th Anniversary Collector’s Edition, a 6-CD retrospective that spans the singer/songwriter’s entire career. This collection contains 115 tracks overall, set in a hard-cover book, featuring scores of Diamond’s hits alongside demos, rarities and 15 previously unreleased tracks.

Says a October 12 press release: “Diamond’s unique connection with audiences the world over is evident all throughout the breadth of material presented on this box set. Witness the folk-rock reverie of ‘Solitary Man,’ the unbridled exuberance of ‘Cherry Cherry,’ the sweet acoustic twang of “Forever in Blue Jeans,” the pure Americana swing of ‘Kentucky Woman,’ the eternal sing-along sunshine of ‘Sweet Caroline,’ the raw emotionality of ‘I Am…I Said,’ the welcoming arms of ‘America,’ and the deeply expressive heartlight that’s on full display in his chart-topping duet with Barbra Streisand, ‘You Don’t Bring Me Flowers, for just the tip of the iceberg of Diamond’s artistic achievements.”

Listen to the hit “Holly Holy”

A full disc contains 12 unreleased songs, including recently “Sunflower” (written and recently updated by Diamond, originally recorded by Glen Campbell), “Before I Had a Dime” and “C’est La Vie,” a song that Neil co-wrote with friend Gilbert Bécaud. Also included are the original demos of two of Diamond’s best known tracks, “I Am…I Said” and “America.”

Neil Diamond (photo from his Facebook page)

The press release provides background on Diamond’s career: “Throughout his career, Neil Diamond has sold over 130 million albums worldwide and has dominated the charts for more than five decades with 38 Top 40 singles and 16 Top 10 albums. He has achieved record sales with 40 gold albums, 21 platinum albums, and 11 multi-platinum albums.

“A Grammy Award-winning artist, Diamond is a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Songwriters Hall Of Fame, and has recently received the Johnny Mercer Award, the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and the Sammy Cahn Lifetime Achievement Award, three of the highest honors bestowed upon songwriters and artists. Diamond’s many other achievements include a Golden Globe Award, 13 Grammy nominations, ASCAP Film and Television Award, Billboard Icon Award, American Music Award and 2009’s NARAS’s MusiCares Person of the Year Award. In 2011, Diamond received the prestigious Kennedy Center Honor for his lifetime of contributions to American culture.”

Traveling Wilburys 30th Anniversary Picture Disc Due

by Best Classic Bands Staff

The Traveling Wilburys (l. to r.): Lucky (Bob Dylan), Otis (Jeff Lynne), Charlie T. Wilbury Jr. (Tom Petty), Lefty (Roy Orbison) and Nelson (George Harrison). Photo: Neal Preston; used with permission)

Craft Recordings will release a 30th-anniversary 12-inch picture-disc reissue of The Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1 on November 2. The group consisted of Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne and Roy Orbison. The music they created together on their 1988 debut won Grammys and garnered platinum plaques.

The limited-edition picture disc is available for pre-order here.

Says a press release: “The origin story of the Traveling Wilburys is a pretty simple one. It was really just about five friends gathering to make music together in a home studio-except for the fact that they all happened to be rock ‘n’ roll royalty. It began in 1988, when George Harrison and co-producer Jeff Lynne were tasked with recording a B-side for the former Beatle’s album, Cloud Nine. In need of a place to record on the fly, the two borrowed their friend, Bob Dylan’s, studio. They ended up spontaneously pulling Tom Petty, Roy Orbison, and ultimately Dylan himself into the process. The resulting track was ‘Handle With Care,’ a collaborative effort which Harrison’s A&R team knew was just too good to use as a B-side.”

Each member of the Wilburys adopted an alias: Dylan was Lucky Wilbury, Harrison was Nelson Wilbury, Orbison was Lefty Wilbury, Lynne was Otis Wilbury, and Petty became Charlie T. Wilbury Jr.

The Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1 is bookended by two huge hits, says the press release. Opening the album is the aforementioned “Handle With Care,” while “End of the Line” closes things out. According to the announcement, “In between lie the swinging rockabilly of ‘Rattled,’ the tongue-in-cheek, double-entendre-laden ‘Dirty World,’ the vintage-sounding Orbison weeper ‘Not Alone Any More’” the south-of-the-border stroll ‘Last Night,’ the sunny ‘Margarita’ (where synth, sax, and slide guitar slug it out for dominance), and more. The once-in-a-lifetime nature of this historic partnership was underscored tragically by Orbison’s unexpected death just six weeks after the album’s release.” The 30th anniversary arrives just over a year after Petty’s passing.

Related: Tom Petty, a true rock ‘n’ roll star

The A-side features the band’s logo, and the B-side displays an Alberto Tolot photo of the Wilburys, and a die-cut sleeve reveals the picture disc.

Track Listing
A1. Handle With Care
A2. Dirty World
A3. Rattled
A4. Last Night
A5. Not Alone Any More

B1. Congratulations
B2. Heading for the Light
B3. Margarita
B4. Tweeter and the Monkey Man
B5. End of the Line

Huey Lewis Performs After Hearing Loss

by Best Classic Bands Staff

There’s a bit of good news to report with regard to the hearing loss that has afflicted Huey Lewis. The popular singer and songwriter, who announced last April that he was cancelling his 2018 performances because he had lost most of his hearing, sang for the first time in eight months, when he performed his hit, “Hip to Be Square” on October 6. The, er, News, was posted on his Facebook page on October 8.

Lewis sat in with piano player Elio Pace, who was appearing with his band at St. Andrews, the renowned golf course in Scotland, on October 6. (Lewis is an avid golfer and even named his 1986 album, Fore!) The post indicated that Lewis “had a good week and felt well enough to sit in for a song with Elio’s band.”

Pace explained on his Facebook page, how it came about: The great Huey Lewis, a childhood hero of mine and who I’m proud to say I have known and worked with for many years and who I love dearly and who for the past 8 months has been cruelly struck down with Meniere’s Disease, disastrously affecting his hearing and forcing him to cancel all of his musical appearances with ‘The News’… SUDDENLY GOT HIS HEARING BACK LAST NIGHT just before we were due to perform with all the other big names EXCEPT FOR HIM at the event!!!

Murray, Pace and Lewis on October 6, 2018 at St. Andrews. (Photo via Elio Pace Facebook page)

“He came looking for me during dinner, bringing his pal, Bill Murray with him and told me what had suddenly happened to him and if he still felt better later in the evening, could he come up and do ‘Hip To Be Square’ with us!!!
He did… and he did.

“What a moment. What a reaction he got from the assembled throng of guests and celebrities. Huey Lewis, who declared in recent interviews that he feared he may never sing again, sang last night for the first time in 8 months… standing right next to me. The look in his eyes, smiling at me when the audience went wild at the end of the song is something I will never ever forget. Ever.”

Lewis’ Facebook page added: “Huey’s symptoms seem to be cyclical. A good few days are typically followed by a bad few days. We don’t want to get ahead of ourselves, but we remain hopeful and positive for the future.”

View a brief clip of the performance here. [Thanks to Martha Quinn for the heads’ up.]

It’s not the first time Lewis has performed with Pace at St. Andrews. Watch him perform “Feelin’ Alright,” “The Power of Love,” and others in 2016, along with Mike Rutherford.

In a statement originally posted to his Twitter and Facebook pages on April 13, Huey Lewis announced that he has canceled all of his planned 2018 tour dates, citing hearing loss as the reason. On May 7, Lewis was interviewed by NBC’s The Today Show.

Lewis told the program: “As I walked to the stage, it sounded like there was a jet engine going on. I knew something was wrong.

“I can’t hear music. I can do everything but what I love to do the most.”

Doctors diagnosed Meniere’s disease, a disorder of the inner ear. “It affects people differently,” said Lewis. While there’s no cure, “the good news is it can get better… It just hasn’t yet.”

On his original public disclosure on April 13, Lewis wrote:

“Two and a half months ago, just before a show in Dallas, I lost most of my hearing. Although I can still hear a little, one on one, and on the phone, I can’t hear music well enough to sing. The lower frequencies distort violently making it impossible to find pitch. I’ve been to the House Ear Institute, the Stanford Ear Institute, and the Mayo Clinic, hoping to find an answer. The doctors believe I have Meniere’s disease and have agreed that I can’t perform until I improve. Therefore the only prudent thing to do is to cancel all future shows. Needless to say, I feel horrible about this, and wish to sincerely apologize to all the fans who’ve already bought tickets and were planning to come see us. I’m going to concentrate on getting better, and hope that one day soon I’ll be able to perform again.

Sincerely, Huey”

Meniere’s disease is described as an inner ear disorder sometimes caused by lack of fluid drainage, infection, migraines, head trauma or allergies, according to the Mayo Clinic.

On April 14, Lewis wrote: “The response from my colleagues, friends and fans has been truly overwhelming. And extremely heartening. It helps me to focus on improving, and finding a way to sing again. Thanks to everyone.”

On The Today Show, Lewis noted: “I’ve always prided myself on being reliable. I’m not the greatest singer in the world but I’m reliable. I’ve canceled five gigs in 40 years maybe.”

Related: AC/DC’s Brian Johnson i...aring loss

Among the dates Lewis has been forced to give up is one at Outside Lands, a large festival held annually in San Francisco.

Lewis, who turned 68 on July 5, 2018, first came to prominence in the early ’80s with his group Huey Lewis and the News. Their string of top 10 hits includes such radio staples as “I Want a New Drug,” “The Power of Love,” “Stuck With You” and “Jacob’s Ladder,” the last three all reaching #1.

Angela Maria, 89, Brazilian Singer Who Inspired a Generation, Dies

The Brazilian singer Angela Maria in the 1955 film “Carnaval em Marte” (“Carnival on Mars”). A star since the 1950s, she continued to perform well into her 80s, her voice still vibrant.CreditCreditvia Rodrigo Faour

An undated portrait of Angela Maria, published in the weekly magazine O Cruzeiro with an article headlined “Crystal Throat.”Creditvia Rodrigo Faour

Angela Maria on the cover of a 1956 issue of the Brazilian magazine O Cruzeiro. She was both a wildly successful singer and the subject of intense tabloid scrutiny.Creditvia Rodrigo Faour

R.I.P. former New Birth vocalist Gary Young

JoeBala said:

luvsexy4all said:

prince leno ..etc

I'm sure something will surface either official or bootleg.

theyve been around along time..sound and vision series

First Listen: Avery Sunshine and L. Spenser Smith are “Hooked”

(October 31, 2018) SoulTrackers are 100% familiar with Avery Sunshine, a multiple SoulTracks Readers’ Choice Award winner over the years. They may be less familiar with Bishop L. Spenser Smith, the Alabama pastor who has been active as a composer and recording artist for two decades, and who has worked with such Gospel royalty and Marvin Sapp and Twinkie Clark.

Well, on his new single, Bishop Smith has brought in the talented Miss Avery for a call-and-response number that has us moving in our seats, giving praise to a classic R&B beat.

Check out “Hooked” and get ready to smile!

L. Spenser Smith feat. Avery Sunshine - "Hooked"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uxw-JBED4Y4

Chic - It’s About Time (2018)

https://www.soultracks.com

CHIC - It's About Time

The wait for a new album has been agonizing. After years and years of here-and-there press releases and industry teases, while also factoring Nile Rodgers’ health scares, the funk/R&B band Chic is officially ending its twenty-six year hiatus (Their last studio album was 1992’s Chic-ism). And taking a cue from the band’s latest album title, it’s about time. Of course waiting for the appropriate time is always crucial to an album’s release. But after a glorious renaissance in Nile Rodgers’ career, after picking up gigs with EDM virtuosos like Disclosure and the late Avicii, landing several spots on the Grammy-winning Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories (“Get Lucky,” “Lose Yourself to Dance”), winning collaborations with Sam Smith, Duran Duran, Janelle Monáe and Adam Lambert while getting a nod from the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame with a honorary Music Excellence induction last year, the timing of such an album drop seems just right.

So the big question: Does It’s About Time live up to expectations? Well, to be frank, it depends on whom you ask. For the stubborn disco cognoscente, the arrival of newly sophisticated production values and the addendum of crystallized pop vocals feel out of pocket when placed neatly against the New York funk and Studio 54 gravitas of their heyday. There’s live drumming here, but it doesn’t match the Tony Thompson pedigree. And Nile’s irresistible riffs are all over the canvas, but the void of symphony-strutting strings, replaced with glossy modern EDM traits reminding us of the ProTools environment we’re now inhabiting, stings a little. The album cover bearing the faces of Duckie Thot and Jazzelle Zanaughtti is a stellar homage to the memorable photography featuring Valentine Monnier and Alva Chinn on their debut 1977 LP, but inside the lyrics tell an entirely different story of Chic, one that’s dismissive of their bourgeois stratagem, that once-revered cocky appetite cloaked with French phrases and vintage lingo (“yowsah yowsah, C-est chic,” “but it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing/Bop-shoo-wa”).

If you’ve kept up with Nile Rodgers, you’re familiar with how he’s never been to a slave of the past. After Chic first went on hiatus back in 1983 after disco imploded on the buying public, Rodgers got to work reinventing David Bowie, steered Duran Duran into “Notorious,” dipped deeper into dance-rock with The Power Station and embraced the drum-programming, computer-generated ‘80’s pop on Madonna for Like a Virgin. His heart seemed to only beat toward the future and syncing with the pulse of the modern-day dance floor. While many of his contemporaries have long faded, Nile Rodgers remains both a threat and an influencer. And he makes sure his devout listeners are hip to every move he makes; this one included. Yes, there are elements of the past aboard It’s About Time, but this isn’t quite a rehash of heyday Chic.

Still, inside this highly-anticipated ten-track offering, there’s some good material from which to pick. “Til the World Falls,” a song co-penned with Anderson.Paak, opens with Nile’s signature guitar struts and is blissful draped with airborne vocals from Mura Masa on a honey-smacked chorus. Hailee Steinfeld jumps aboard “Dance With Me,” a funky singalong jam stoked with roof-raising rhymes. “Boogie All Night” walks in the shadows of the aforementioned tracks; although Nao’s pre-teen nasally pipes feel a bit out of their league.

Despite the first half sounding like one non-stop EDM party, Rodgers manages to take a few creative risks along the way. Early on, the Craig David-guested “Sober” plays with New Jack Swing-light, even if it feels like aged leftovers of Bruno Mars’s “Finesse.” And “Do You Wanna Party” finds LunchMoney Lewis acting as hype man, but the grooves hardly take off, sounding like a rubbery copy of DNCE’s “Cake By the Ocean.” The finer of Chic’s experiments can be heard on the quasi-instrumental gem “State of Mind (It’s About Time).” It offers something a little more mellow in the vein of adult soul by playing up Phillippe Saisse’s gorgeous smooth jazz piano and the occasional guitar solo. Rodgers — with his attentive ear on today’s dance trends — decides to pile on futuristic layers using a Daft Punk-inspired vocoder. It’s sneakily clever, but not necessarily needed. Still, it’s a joy to hear and almost reminiscent of the lustrous quasi-instrumentals that appeared on Chic’s late-‘70’s albums (songs like “A Warm Summer Night” and “Savoir Faire”).

It’s not quite clear why the Martinez Brothers-helmed 2015 non-album single “I’ll Be There” or its delicious B-side “Back In the Old School” didn’t get clearance here. Both were extraordinarily impressive and blessed with enough contagious funky riffs to blaze almost any dance floor. Instead Rodgers gets distracted with star power by dropping Elton John and Emeli Sandé on something lightweight Prince-esque (“Queen”). A paler mix of “I Want Your Love” showcasing Lady Gaga also appears. It’s good, not enough to wash away the original. That space could’ve easily been home for “I’ll Be There,” especially considering that the latter was originally released back in 2016 for a Tom Ford fashion campaign. But it’s been rumored that another full-length set is well on the way and that It’s About Time is just the first of two albums making up the “new Chic experience.” We just have to wait and see what the future holds for us, possibly something fuller and complete. Just give it time. Modestly recommended.

By J Matthew Cobb

Ashford and Simpson - Love Will Fix It: The Warner Bros. Records Anthology 1973-1981

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Ashford & Simpson - Love Will Fix It: The Warner Bros. Records Anthology 1973-1981

If history books printed by millennials get it right when referencing some of the greatest duos of the 20th century, particularly songwriting pairs, Ashford & Simpson should make the mark. After grueling as a collective songwriting team for Ray Charles, shipping out singles for Glover Records (as Valerie & Nick) and showing off their mighty prowess at Berry Gordy’s Detroit hit making factory of Motown (“You’re All I Need to Get By,” “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” “Your Precious Love,” “Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing”), Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson stepped out on their own and solidly found their voice as artists. And it was at their third music home of Warner Brothers where they flourished in two acts: smoldering soul act and euphoric disco architects.

During the pair’s duration there, their craftsmanship showed up gloriously on R&B stars such as Diana Ross, Chaka Khan and Gladys Knight & the Pips. By the time the ‘80’s emerged, they forged ahead with a unique sound in the evolving contemporary age of R&B at Capitol Records, climaxing with their Top 20 pop hit “Solid.” But it was Ashford & Simpson’s tenure at the Warners from 1973 to 1981 that remains the most sought after. US compilations are rife on this period, yet they are mostly incomplete, only giving us the bare minimum of what a “greatest hits” collection should look like. At last, UK’s Groove Line revisits Ashford & Simpson’s storied nine-album catalog at Warner Brothers with a fuller update of their 2016 Record Store Day-available, vinyl-only Love Will Fix It compilation, a double LP compilation feature focusing only on single versions by cramming nineteen tracks unto four sides. But this version, a mammoth three-disc collection, travels up and down “by way of love’s express” and hands true archivists of Ashford & Simpson stock nothing short of a five-star train ride through their finest material.

The first two discs — all fully packed with a juggernaut selection nearing twenty tracks a piece — go back and forth from single and album versions of every A&S’s charted single. No exclusions aboard; which gives this compilation a mightier advantage over its predecessors. The first disc may be the greatest gem in the rough as it shines a light on their highly overlooked early years at Warner Bros, way before the disco boom. And it’s on these golden moments where you hear the magic of their sophisticated post-Motown songwriting.

Getting their cues from their groundbreaking work heard on Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell, the pair focuses on elongated exercises of Aretha soul. “Anywhere” is the perfect album opener, exposing an arrangement richly blessed with vibes, magical strings, and emotive harmonies. It is equally matched with “Gimme Something Real,” also taken from their debut LP for Warner Bros. Structurally reminiscent of Aretha’s take on “Oh My Oh My,” this song opens calmly, set to Val’s poignant and soulful piano, while wrapping around personal testimonies about “having enough thrills” and, for a lack of better words, wanting the real thing.By the time the vamp comes in, the song kicks into overdrive, soaring into Sunday morning revival territory and encapsulated with punchy gospel choir harmonies. It’s a shame the song didn’t get released as a single, but the programmers of this collection gives it to us anyway.

Warm revisits of their early albums I Wanna Be Selfish, Come As You Are and So, So Satisfied are offered, including the gospel-powered “Main Line” and the string-laden pop-soul of “Everybody’s Got to Give It Up.” Towards the backend of the first disc, Ashford & Simpson’s sound evolves for the better. They hammer down luxurious dance floor gems like “Tried, Tested and Found True” and “Don’t Cost You Nothing” before capping off with “By Way of Love’s Express” and their instrumental flight of “Bourgie Bourgie.”

Disc 2 focuses heavily on Ashford & Simpson’s golden era with succulent offerings taken from their best-selling LPs from the Warner Bros deck (Send It, Is It Still Good to Ya?, Stay Free and Musical Affair), three of which were certified gold. It acts as the sturdier of the discs, swinging from album versions of “It Seems to Hang On,” “Found a Cure,” “Nobody Knows” and the seductive power ballad “Is It Still Good to Ya?” Gems like the vivaciously funky “Get Up and Do Something” and “I Ain’t Asking for Your Love (a hit for Phyllis Hyman) are also embedded into the stack, giving the collection a more balanced overview of this productive period. The closing track, the icing on top of the musical cake, is a live medley of their memorable Motown compositions cherry-picked from their Performance (1981) album.

All of Jimmy Simpson’s original 12” mixes from Ashford & Simpson’s majestic disco output are completely gathered up and exhibited on the third and climatic set – one that plays with only remixes and expanded versions. From the ever-funky “Don’t Cost You Nothing” to the ethereal presentation of “It Seems to Hang On,” they all are preserved here for posterity. Even Tom Moulton’s 2008 ten-minute lordly mix of “Found a Cure” and a slightly-expanded “Over and Over” – a song that Sylvester mastered in 1977 – rises to the surface. Also aboard, newly crafted mixes of songs that failed to get the proper 12-inch treatment the first time around are all supplied with Studio 54 grandeur. And all are so, so satisfying: John Morales gives us an eight-minute M+M take of “Love Don’t Always Make It Right,” ripe with instrumental breaks and plenteous chorus repeats, while a percussion-heavy mix of “Bourgie Bourgie” stretches the furthest as it reaches the eleven-minute mark. But it’s the sweeping Groove Line remix of “Stay Free,” one of Ashford & Simpson’s underrated and grossly ignored disco tracks, that reigns as the disc’s golden moment. Here Mike Maurro and Wayne Dickson stretch the sweet string sections and instrumental sections with refinement using Tom Moulton-esque magic.

Now the market has been kind with dropping reissues and greatest hits compilations of Ashford & Simpson’s work. But chronicling all of their hits in a mighty multi-pack in the style of Groove Line’s update of Love Will Fix It, even in the US, is pretty rare. 2008’s The Warner Bros. Years: Hits, Remixes & Raritiesis as close to a definite collection as we’ve ever gotten. But with the abundant omissions of their finest ballads, that set was mostly a stocking stuffer for disco lovers. This collection goes beyond the call of duty. Although it doesn’t flow in exact chronological order of when they were actually released, compiler Wayne Dickson comes mighty close. And it is in his careful hands that we hear a luscious non-interrupted flow that compliments the tapestry of an easy-listening album experience, building stronger with each and every following track. The package is also sweetened with Christian John Wikane’s liner notes, written celebrity tributes and a handsome display of archived group photos and single scans. There’s hardly a hit missing from this period inside this collection, except maybe “Stuff Like That” from their collaboration with Quincy Jones. And so, if you’re hunting for the more superior and soul satisfying collection out there, at least until a more comprehensive one comes along merging their Capitol run and early material, this will do you real good. It honestly doesn’t get any better than this. Highly recommended.

By J Matthew Cobb

Various Artists - Stax ’68 A Memphis Story (2018)

Various Artists - Stax ’68 A Memphis Story

The tragedy for Stax Records in the year 1968 is that everybody associated with the label, from executives Jim Stewart and Al Bell to musicians such as Otis Redding, Steve Cropper and Booker T. Jones, wanted to expand while the world around them was contracting. In that sense, the label shared something in common with Dr. Martin Luther King, who came to Memphis in March and April of that year with an expansive view of what his movement for human and civil rights could accomplish at a time when he was becoming increasingly politically isolated.

The multi-media package Stax ’68 A Memphis Story, which will be released on Oct. 18 by Craft Recordings, tells the story of Memphis, Stax Records and the music the label released during the tumultuous year of 1968. This five CD box set contains every single and B-Side that Stax released during 1968.

Those songs provide an insight into what was happening at Stax, in Memphis and in America in 1968. The CD comes with a 56-page book that includes archival photos and two sets of liner notes. The first, written by Andria Lisle and Robert Gordon, is a history of the Memphis’ racial environment and the sanitation strike that brought King to Memphis. Part two details the efforts of the executives, vocalists, producers, musicians and songwriters working to create music while being buffeted by personal loss, business setbacks, and national tragedy.

And create they did. Stax, of course, is known as Soulville – the rougher, grittier version of Motown. And the label made no effort to smooth out the rural field hollers of the blues, the sanctified or Baptist church traditions or even the country and rockabilly influences that had been there since Stewart started the label as Satellite Records in the 1950s.

By 1968, Soulville was in a position to be a label that encapsulated everything happening in music at the time. Artists such as Redding, Rufus Thomas, Mable John, Carla Thomas performed the soul music that allowed Stax to rightfully be called Soulville. However, Stax counted artists such as Daaron Lee, who released “Long Black Train,” a straight country song that told a story about childhood friends who ended up on the opposite sides of the law.

Albert King dropped blues gems such as “Blues Power” and the Muskegon, Mich. based rock band The Aardvarks dropped trippy psychedelic rock numbers like “Conscious Train of Thought.” The label even stepped into Motown’s territory with songs such as Ollie & the Nightingales’ “A Sure Thing,”

All of this, as we learn from Steve Greenberg’s liner notes, was both a part of Al Bell’s grand plan – a plan that became an existential necessity because of the tragedy of Redding’s death in late 1967 and the fact that Atlantic owned the distribution rights to nearly every Stax record released from 1960 to 1967. Stax signed an agreement with Atlantic stipulating that the former could terminate its distribution deal with Atlantic if co-owner Jerry Wexler was no longer the owner. That happened in 1967 when Warner Brothers purchased Atlantic. When Stewart sought to execute the deal, he learned that Atlantic owned Stax’s catalog, as well as the contracts of Stax’s biggest hit makers at the time, Sam & Dave. Stax, after fruitless negotiation, cast out on its own, and with a real need to get new music out there. Stax still had a great deal of talent, and those artists, producers and writers got to work. One of their first big hits in 1968, and the record that opens this box set, is Redding’s posthumous release, “Dock of the Bay.” Redding, along with several members of the Bar Kays died in an airplane crash on Dec. 10, 1967.

“Dock of the Bay” and Sam & Dave’s “I Wanna Thank You,” were both released on Jan. 8, 1968. Both became top 10 hits. The hits continued after the news of Stax’s break with Atlantic. Booker T. and the MGs hit with “Soul Limbo,” Johnnie Taylor has a smash with “Who’s Making Love,” and William Bell’s “I Forget to Be Your Lover,” released in 1968, became his first Top 10 hit in March 1969.

Yet, Stax kept being squeezed by the contracting real world. King’s assassination in Memphis on April 4, 1968, brought the city’s racial tensions to a head, and those tensions had an impact on the Stax that had been an oasis of racial cooperation and equality. Linda Lyndell was a white singer who grew up singing in black churches in Gainesville, Fla. She signed with Stax and her most famous release is “What a Man.” The label pitched the tune to radio, but DJs and radio cooled on it after realizing that Lyndell was white. Racists, angered that Lyndell sang an R&B song that they felt encouraged race mixing, threatened to kill the singer. Frightened, Lyndell left the music business and stayed away for a quarter century until Salt & Pepa used the song’s bass line and hook as the basis of their rap hit by the same name.

Stax’s attempts to broaden the label’s reach ran up against the racial and political realities of 1968, and this box validates the label’s reputation as the preeminent maker of soul music. Songs such as Rufus Thomas’ “I think I Made a Bo Bo,” Eddie Floyd’s Motown-inspired “I’ve Never Found a Girl,” Taylor’s “Sundown” and “I Ain’t Particular” are all underappreciated gems by well-known artists. Cuts such as “Lovey Dovey” and “New Year’s Resolution” show that Redding and Carla Thomas had the potential to become Stax’s version of Marvin Gaye and Tammy Terrell.

Stax ’68 introduces listeners to some of the label’s lesser known acts such as Shirley Walton and Jeanne and the Darlings – their “What Will Later On Be Like” is a classic that should be getting some run on Soul Town.

A lot of bad things happened in 1968. But as Stax ’68 A Memphis Story shows, Stewart, Bell and their talented staff made a lot of good in a bad situation. It is an incredible story that highlights the rollercoaster ride of the Golden Age of soul music during one of the most infamous and tumultuous years in American history. Highly Recommended.

By Howard Dukes

The Allman Brothers Band and Commodores ‘Collected’ coloured vinyl

October 30, 2018 by Paul Sinclairtags: 1970s, 1980s, collected, coloured vinyl, The Allman Brothers Band

Joni Mitchell / Love Has Many Faces: A Quartet, A Ballet Waiting To Be Danced

October 29, 2018 by Paul Sinclairtags: 1960s, 1970s, Joni Mitchell

Limited 8LP vinyl box set edition • Curated by Joni Mitchell

Joni Mitchell‘s 2014 CD collection Love Has Many Faces comes to vinyl with the news of a luxury limited edition 8LP box set which features the same 53 tracks as the previous package.

Issued a few days prior to Joni’s 75th birthday, this set features songs recorded throughout Joni’s career and originally came about as a result of a failed attempt to put together single disc collection of songs about love for a potential “ballet about love”. In the sleeve notes she wrote: “I wanted the music to feel like a total work-a new work. No matter what I did, though, at that length, it remained merely a collection of songs.”

After two years, she had created a four-act ballet based on the 53 songs that make up this inspiring collection. “I am a painter who writes songs. My songs are very visual. The words create scenes… What I have done here is to gather some of these scenes (like a documentary filmmaker) and by juxtaposition, edit them into a whole new work,” she explains.

In the previous set each CD was an ‘act’ but the vinyl box set features eight records. The music is pressed on 12 out of the 16 sides of vinyl with four sides featuring etchings of Mitchell’s artwork – each one signifying the end of an act in the ballet. In other words, each ‘act’ is three sides of vinyl, followed by the etching and then the next ‘act’ begins.

If that sounds in any way pretentious, Joni Mitchell took it very seriously: “I had forty years of footage to review. Then, suddenly, scenes began to hook up. Then series began to form. Instead of it being an emotional roller coaster ride as it was before – crammed into one disc – themes began to develop. Moods sustained. I was getting there…When this long editorial process (two years) finally came to rest, I had four ballets or a four-act ballet-a quartet. I also had a box set.”

This vinyl box is limited to 5,000 units and comes individually numbered. It is presented in a hard-bound deluxe folio package and will be released on 2 November 2018. Fabulous price right now in the UK for what sounds like a superb set.

Act 1: Birth Of Rock ‘n’ Roll Days

Side A

“In France They Kiss On Main Street”
“Ray’s Dad’s Cadillac”
“You Turn Me On I’m A Radio”
“Harlem In Havana”
“Car On A Hill”

Side B

“Dancin’ Clown”
“River”
“Chinese Cafe/Unchained Melody”
“Harry’s House/Centerpiece”

Side C

“Shades Of Scarlett Conquering”
“Number One”
“The Windfall (Everything For Nothing)”
“Come In From The Cold”

Side D – Joni artwork etching

Act 2: The Light Is Hard To Find

Side A

“Court And Spark”
“Not To Blame”
“Nothing Can Be Done”
“Comes Love”
“Trouble Child”

Side B

“No Apologies”
“Moon At The Window”
“Blue”
“Tax Free”
“The Wolf That Lives In Lindsey”

Side C

“Hana”
“Hejira”
“Stay In Touch”
“Night Ride Home”

Side D – Joni artwork etching

Act 3: Love Has Many Faces

Side A

“You’re My Thrill”
“The Crazy Cries Of Love”
“Love Puts On A New Face”
“Borderline”
“A Strange Boy”

Side B

“You Dream Flat Tires”
“Love”
“All I Want”
“Be Cool”

Side C

“Yvette In English”
“Just Like This Train”
“Carey”
“The Only Joy In Town”

Side D – Joni artwork etching

Act 4: If You Want Me I’ll Be In The Bar

Side A

“Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter”
“Two Grey Rooms”
“God Must Be A Boogie Man”
“Down To You”
“A Case Of You”

Side B

“The Last Time I Saw Richard”
“Raised On Robbery”
“Sweet Sucker Dance”
“Lakota”

Side C

“Cool Water”
“Amelia”
“Both Sides Now”
“My Best To You”

Side D – Joni artwork etching

Billy Joel / 52nd Street SACD

October 18, 2018 by Paul Sinclairtags: 1970s, billy joel, hi-res, SACD, Surround

Japanese 40th anniversary SACD • 5.1 mix • Lavish packaging

Sony Music in Japan will issue a 40th anniversary edition of Billy Joel‘s album 52nd Street as a multi-channel hybrid SACD (Super Audio CD) which boasts a ludicrously lavish (and satisfyingly geeky) packaging.

Like the recent Miles Davis Bitches Brew SACD edition this features a 5.1 surround sound mix and a stereo version (which is the 2011 remastering by Ted Jensen).

This comes in oversized seven-inch cardboard sleeve packaging and as can be seen from the video above (courtesy of CDJapan) it includes loads of ‘goodies’ such as replica tour programme (in die-cut folder), poster, OBI strips, seven-inch single artwork and more.

Anyone who owns the Miles Davis package (or any of the previous editions) will tell you how good these are. Expensive, but superb. Obviously, you do need an SACD player to access the SACD layer hi-res audio and surround sound (and the latter will require the necessary home cinema-style amplifier and speaker set-up).

This was actually released yesterday in Japan, although if you purchase via Amazon in the UK you’ll have to wait until the end of next week for it (later in the US).

BILLY JOEL

52ND STREET - JAPANESE SACD WITH 5.1

• Order 52nd Street SACD fr...azon Japan

1. Big Shot 4:01
2. Honesty 3:50
3. My Life 4:43
4. Zanzibar 5:10
5. Stiletto 4:39
6. Rosalinda’s Eyes 4:40
7. Half a Mile Away 4:06
8. Until the Night 6:35
9. 52nd Street 2:27

Barbra Streisand Set To Release New Album Walls November 2

Gabriel Olsen/FilmMagic/Getty Images

Celeste Yarnall

She starred as a jungle goddess in 'Eve,' played opposite Elvis in 'Live a Little, Love a Little' and got Chekov's attention on 'Star Trek.'

Celeste Yarnall, who appeared opposite Elvis Presley in Live a Little, Love a Little, had a memorable turn on Star Trek and donned a loincloth to play "the original flower child" in the jungle-set cult classic Eve, has died. She was 74.

Yarnall, a "scream queen" who was terrorized by a headless monster in Beast of Blood (1971), died Sunday at her home in Westlake Village, California, her husband, British artist Nazim Nazim, told The Hollywood Reporter. She was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in November 2014 and turned to a crowdsourcing site to help pay her medical expenses.

"She was magnificent in everything she did," Nazim said. "She was my beloved queen." They were together for nine years.

Yarnall is known to Star Trek fans for her portrayal of Yeoman Martha Landon on the October 1967 episode "The Apple," in which Chekov (Walter Koenig) can't help but fall for her.

*

(She appeared as herself — one of 42 Trek alums — in the 2018 sci-fi comedy Unbelievable!!!!!and was a regular on the convention circuit for years.)

While attending the 1967 Cannes Film Festival, Yarnall was spotted by producer Harry Alan Towers, who was in search of a girl to star as the jungle goddess in his 1968 film. According to the actress, he yelled and pointed, 'Stop that girl! That's my Eve!'"

She took the role as the scantily clad Eve, who is the long-lost granddaughter of Christopher Lee's character, but later called the film “one of the worst movies of all time.”

In Live a Little, Love a Little, also released in 1968, Yarnall played Ellen, a girl at a party who reasons she and Presley can't hook up because he's a Sagittarius. Undeterred, he tries to woo her by singing "A Little Less Conversation."

The National Association of Theatre Owners liked what they saw and named her the “Most Promising New Star” of 1968.

A native of Long Beach, California, Yarnall was discovered by Rick and Ozzie Nelson while she walked past their studio offices on the way to an audition. She appeared on an episode of The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet in 1962 and then played college kids in Jerry Lewis' The Nutty Professor and Jack Lemmon's Under the Yum Yum Tree, both released in 1963.

In 1964, Yarnall became the 25th and last woman elected Miss Rheingold. She moved from Los Angeles to New York and made personal appearances for the brewer while modeling and doing commercials.

Yarnall played a vampire seductress in The Velvet Vampire (1971), produced by Roger Corman, and appeared in Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice(1969), The Mechanic (1972) and Scorpio (1973) before concentrating on commercial real estate for years. She also earned a Ph.D. in nutrition.

She reappeared in Fatal Beauty (1987), Driving Me Crazy (1991), Midnight Kiss (1993) and Born Yesterday (1993).

Yarnall's TV résumé also included Bonanza, Hogan’s Heroes, It Takes a Thief, Captain Nice, Mannix, Bewitched, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and the 1971 pilot for Columbo.

In addition to her husband, survivors also include her daughter Cami, son-in-law Stephen and granddaughter Gaby.

A celebration of her life will take place at 2:30 p.m. on Oct. 27 at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale.

StarTrek.com was the first to report her death.

New World Pictures/Photofest

Celeste Yarnall in 1971's 'The Velvet Vampire,' produced by Roger Corman.

Jimmy Farrar of Molly Hatchet

A former frontman for the Southern rock band Molly Hatchet, Jimmy Farrar, died today (Oct. 29) at age 67. The cause was congestive heart failure compounded by liver and kidney failure; the place of death was not disclosed. Farrar had suffered three heart attacks during 2017 and underwent bypass surgery in Atlanta at that time.

Farrar served as the band’s vocalist from 1980-82, singing on the group’s Beatin’ the Odds and Take No Prisoners albums. Born Dec. 8, 1950, in La Grange, Ga., Farrar performed in local bands in his teens before joining the Raw Energy Band in La Grange as their lead vocalist. He was heard by Molly Hatchet’s road manager, who suggested to the band that he replace the departing Danny Joe Brown.

Related: Molly Hatchet’s co-founder Dave Hlubek died in 2017

Farrar took the band toward a more mainstream, harder rock sound, honed during a grueling touring schedule of nearly 300 gigs per year. Beatin’ the Oddsperformed well sales-wise, reaching #25 on the Billboard album chart, and Take No Prisoners reached #36. During Farrar’s tenure with the band, several personnel changes took place, and Farrar himself left in 1982 for what was described at the time merely as “personal reasons.”

Farrar subsequently sang with the bands Predator, Section 8 and the Dixie Jam Band. He also performed with other former members of Molly Hatchet in the groups Southern Rock Allstars and Gator Country. The latter, formed in 2005, included guitarist Duane Roland, drummer Bruce Crump, guitarist Steve Holland and bassist Riff West of Molly Hatchet, as well as Paul Chapman, a former member of the band U.F.O. They took their name from the title of the hit song, “Gator Country.”

Farrar suffered a stroke in 2008, followed by his heart attacks, but he remained active in music, most recently with a band called Hanging Tough.

Tracklist:
01 – Eenie Meenie Miney Mo (feat. RayFade)
02 – Bae Bae
03 – Cloud 9
04 – Get Up In It
05 – Big Ass Lie
06 – How Many Ways (feat. K-Ci)
07 – No Love Loss
08 – Fuego (feat. Akon, Alkaline & RayFade)
09 – Who’s Ya Daddy (feat. Teddy Riley & Tank)
10 – Pull Up
11 – Red Negligee
12 – Boomerang (feat. Candace Price)
13 – All About You

Tracklist:
01 – Wonderful Christmastime
02 – Sleigh Ride Jingle Bells London Symphony Orchestra
03 – Winter Wonderland
04 – It’s Christmas Time
05 – White Christmas
06 – Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow
07 – The Christmas Song
08 – Overjoyed
09 – Someday At Christmas
10 – What The World Needs Now
11 – Amazing Grace
12 – His Eye Is On The Sparrow
13 – Silent Night
14 – O Holy Night
15 – O Little Town Of Bethlehem London Symphony Orchestra
16 – Ave Maria
17 – Go Tell It On The Mountain London Symphony Orchestra
18 – The First Noel London Symphony Orchestra
19 – I Heard The Bells London Symphony Orchestra
20 – Happy Christmas (War Is Over)

Tracklist:
01 – Looks Like A Cold, Cold Winter
02 – White Christmas (feat. Christina Perri)
03 – Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!
04 – Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
05 – I’ll Be Home for Christmas (feat. Will Chase)
06 – Happy, Happy Christmas
07 – What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve
08 – Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree (feat. Grace VanderWaal)
09 – Mele Kalikimaka (feat. Allie Moss & Bess Rogers)
10 – Christmas Time Is Here
11 – All I Want for Christmas Is You (feat. Leslie Odom Jr.)
12 – Auld Lang Syne

Tracklist:
01 – Jingle Bells
02 – Let It Snow
03 – My Gift Is You
04 – Silent Night
05 – When I Was A Little Girl
06 – Last Christmas
07 – You Make It Feel Like Christmas
08 – Under The Christmas Lights
09 – Santa Baby
10 – White Christmas
11 – Never Kissed Anyone With Blue Eyes
12 – Christmas Eve
13 – Santa Claus Is Coming To Town
14 – Cheer For The Elves
15 – Secret Santa
16 – Winter Wonderland
17 – Feliz Navidad

Tracklist:
01 – What Christmas Means To Me
02 – Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree
03 – It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas
04 – Grown-Up Christmas List
05 – Greensleeves (Interlude)
06 – Sweater Weather
07 – When You Believe (with Maren Morris)
08 – Waltz Of The Flowers
09 – Here Comes Santa Claus
10 – Making Christmas
11 – Where Are You Christmas
12 – Jingle Bells (with Orchestra)

Tracklist:
01 – Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town
02 – Man With The Bag
03 – Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree
04 – Jingle Bell Rock
05 – Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer Jingle Bells
06 – Let It Snow
07 – Winter Wonderland
08 – The Christmas Song
09 – This Christmas Day
10 – White Christmas
11 – Silent Night

Tracklist:
01 – Something’s Happening!
02 – This World Will Never Be the Same
03 – Giving Season
04 – The Grace of the Father
05 – O Come, O Come, Emmanuel
06 – Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
07 – I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day
08 – Feliz Navidad O Holy Night
09 – It’s Christmas
10 – Silent Night
11 – Something’s Happening! – Reprise

Tracklist:
01 – 4thelovers
02 – Give It All Up
03 – Midnight Rain
04 – Don’t Say a Word
05 – I Remember Us
06 – Just Sayin’

Tracklist:
01 – Curious
02 – Amnesia
03 – Not a Love Song
04 – The Wall
05 – 4AM Mulholland
06 – A Heart’s for the Breaking
07 – See Me Cry (A Lover’s Lament)

Esperanza Spalding - 12 Little Spells

Tracklist:
01 – 12 Little Spells
02 – To Tide Us Over
03 – ‘Til The Next Full
04 – Thang
05 – Touch In Mine
06 – The Longing Deep Down
07 – You Have To Dance
08 – Now Know
09 – All Limbs Are
10 – Readying To Rise
11 – Dancing The Animal
12 – With Others

Tracklist:
01 – Talk Of The Town
02 – Baby Outlaw
03 – Shame
04 – Man’s Man
05 – Naturally Pretty Girls
06 – Told You So
07 – Good Thing Gone
08 – Runaway
09 – It Girl
10 – Ram Jam
11 – Sober
12 – Chained
13 – Little Bit Of Lovin’

Tracklist:
01 – Santa Claus is Coming To Town
02 – Most Wonderful Time of The Year
03 – Winter Wonderland
04 – It’s Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas
05 – Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer
06 – Happy Holiday It’s The Holiday Season
07 – Home For The Holidays
08 – Frosty The Snowman
09 – My Favorite Things

Tracklist:
01 – Awaken
02 – Unravelled
03 – Being Human
04 – Under the Night Sky
05 – Shadow of Your Smile
06 – Long Way Round
07 – Look at You Now
08 – Standstill
09 – Remember
10 – A New Day
11 – Wild Anemones
12 – Amy
13 – Raindance

Before you roll your eyes or let out a hearty laugh, consider the guest list: Todd Rundgren, Iggy Pop, Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson, Judy Collins, ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons, Yes’ Rick Wakeman and more. The album is titled Shatner Claus (for real!) and the artist is, yes, that William Shatner.

The album was released Oct. 26 on Cleopatra Records. Full track listing is below.

According to its marketing copy, Shatner Claus is “a very special gift of the holidays—the first-ever Christmas album from the godfather of dramatic musical interpretations and a legend of stage and screen, Mr. William Shatner! Features an incredible cast of supporting players such as Henry Rollins, Billy Gibbons, Judy Collins, Brad Paisley, Rick Wakeman, Iggy Pop, Todd Rundgren, Joe Louis Walker and more! This is a holiday treat the whole family can enjoy with gorgeous and fun arrangements of these holiday classics as well as an original tune ‘One For You, One For Me!’ Available on both CD and limited edition red vinyl!”

But first…

Listen to his take on “Jingle Bells” featuring Rollins

Shatner, of course best known for his recurring role in Star Trek enterprises as Capt. James T. Kirk, is no stranger to musical recordings. His 1968 debut album, The Transformed Man, included covers of the Beatles’ “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” and Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man,” among others. It became a coveted collectible in its original vinyl pressing. He has since released several other albums, including 2011’s Seeking Major Tom, a set of covers of songs by David Bowie, Elton John, Sting, Freddie Mercury, Black Sabbath and others, and Ponder the Mystery (2013), a prog-rock album.

Related: More about that 1968 debut

Shatner Claus–The Christmas Album Track Listing
1 Jingle Bells [ft. Henry Rollins]
2 Blue Christmas [ft. Brad Paisley]
3 Little Drummer Boy [ft. Joe Louis Walker]
4 Winter Wonderland [ft. Todd Rundgren & Artimus Pyle]
5 Twas The Night Before Christmas [ft. Mel Collins]
6 Run Rudolph Run [ft. Elliot Easton]
7 O Come, O Come Emmanuel[ft. Rick Wakeman]
8 Silver Bells [ft. Ian Anderson]
9 One for You, One For Me
10 Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer [ft. Billy Gibbons]
11 Silent Night [ft. Iggy Pop]
12 White Christmas [ft. Judy Collins]
13 Feliz Navidad [ft. Dani Bender]
14 Jingle Bells (Punk Rock Version) [ft. Henry Rollins]

Gordon Lightfoot

Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot will turn 80 on November 17, and will mark the date by performing in Ontario, at the Orillia Opera House. The show is part of a U.S. and Canadian tour that began last night (Oct. 29) in Columbus, Ohio. Scroll down to see all of the current tour dates.

The tour takes Lightfoot, whose hits include “Sundown” (#1), “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” (#2) and “If You Could Read My Mind” (#5), to such cities as Louisville and New York, as well as several cities in Ontario.

Lightfoot’s songs have been recorded by Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, Barbra Streisand, Eric Clapton, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Hank Williams Jr., Jerry Lee Lewis, Harry Belafonte, Peter, Paul and Mary, Glen Campbell, Herb Alpert, Johnny Mathis, Olivia Newton-John, Jimmy Buffett, the Grateful Dead and many others. Bob Dylan regularly performs Lightfoot’s composition “Shadows,” Paul Simon and Billy Joel have included his tunes in their shows, and when Toby Keith does his surprise small venue/barroom appearances playing cover songs as the Incognito Bandito, “Sundown” is always on the set list.

Lightfoot has earned four gold albums, two platinum and one double platinum sales awards in America and nine gold, four platinum and three double platinum in his native Canada. He still performs some 80 shows annually.

Related: “The Wreck of the Edmun...0s Hits”

Lightfoot was awarded Canada’s highest civilian honor, the Companion of the Order of Canada, in 2003, and is pictured on his own Canadian postage stamp. Dylan once said, “I can’t think of any Gordon Lightfoot song I don’t like. Every time I hear a song of his, it’s like I wish it would last forever.” Kris Kristofferson says, “Gordon has created some of the most beautiful and lasting music of our time.” The Guess Who recorded a song titled “Lightfoot” in 1968 that used many of his song titles in its lyrics. A 2003 multi-artist salute to him, Beautiful: A Tribute to Gordon Lightfoot, featured such noted acts as Cowboy Junkies, Maria Muldaur, the Tragically Hip, Jesse Winchester, Bruce Cockburn, Blue Rodeo, Murray McLauchlan and others.

“The term legend is overused way too often,” Lightfoot has said. “I’ve certainly been around a long time and been at it now over 50 years, but I don’t consider myself a legend. I’m a guy who likes to sing my songs in front of people who want to hear them. I work at what I do and I enjoy it,” he says.

Gordon Lightfoot Tour Dates (Tickets are available here and here)

10/30 Louisville, KY Kentucky Center Brown Theatre
11/1 Jim Thorpe, PA Penn’s Peak
11/2 Staten Island, NY St. George Theatre
11/3 Hershey, PA Hershey Theater
11/4 Glenside, PA Keswick Theatre
11/15 Hamilton, ON FirstOntario Concert Hall
11/16 Oshawa, ON Tribute Communities Center
11/17 Orillia, ON Orillia Opera House
11/18 Ottawa, ON National Arts Center
11/22 Kitchener, ON Centre In The Square
11/23 Peterborough, ON Peterborough Memorial Centre
11/24 London, ON Budweiser Gardens

The Traveling Wilburys (l. to r.): Lucky (Bob Dylan), Otis (Jeff Lynne), Charlie T. Wilbury Jr. (Tom Petty), Lefty (Roy Orbison) and Nelson (George Harrison). Photo: Neal Preston; used with permission)

Craft Recordings will release a 30th-anniversary 12-inch picture-disc reissue of The Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1 on November 2. The group consisted of Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne and Roy Orbison. The music they created together on their October 18, 1988 debut won Grammys and garnered platinum plaques.

The limited-edition picture disc is available for pre-order here.

Says a press release: “The origin story of the Traveling Wilburys is a pretty simple one. It was really just about five friends gathering to make music together in a home studio-except for the fact that they all happened to be rock ‘n’ roll royalty. It began in 1988, when George Harrison and co-producer Jeff Lynne were tasked with recording a B-side for the former Beatle’s album, Cloud Nine. In need of a place to record on the fly, the two borrowed their friend, Bob Dylan’s, studio. They ended up spontaneously pulling Tom Petty, Roy Orbison, and ultimately Dylan himself into the process. The resulting track was ‘Handle With Care,’ a collaborative effort which Harrison’s A&R team knew was just too good to use as a B-side.”

Each member of the Wilburys adopted an alias: Dylan was Lucky Wilbury, Harrison was Nelson Wilbury, Orbison was Lefty Wilbury, Lynne was Otis Wilbury, and Petty became Charlie T. Wilbury Jr.

The Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1 is bookended by two huge hits, says the press release. Opening the album is the aforementioned “Handle With Care,” while “End of the Line” closes things out. According to the announcement, “In between lie the swinging rockabilly of ‘Rattled,’ the tongue-in-cheek, double-entendre-laden ‘Dirty World,’ the vintage-sounding Orbison weeper ‘Not Alone Any More’” the south-of-the-border stroll ‘Last Night,’ the sunny ‘Margarita’ (where synth, sax, and slide guitar slug it out for dominance), and more. The once-in-a-lifetime nature of this historic partnership was underscored tragically by Orbison’s unexpected death just six weeks after the album’s release.” The 30th anniversary arrives just over a year after Petty’s passing.

Related: Tom Petty, a true rock �... roll star

The A-side features the band’s logo, and the B-side displays an Alberto Tolot photo of the Wilburys, and a die-cut sleeve reveals the picture disc.

Track Listing
A1. Handle With Care
A2. Dirty World
A3. Rattled
A4. Last Night
A5. Not Alone Any More

B1. Congratulations
B2. Heading for the Light
B3. Margarita
B4. Tweeter and the Monkey Man
B5. End of the Line

Elvis Presley / ’68 Comeback Special 50th anniversary box set

October 26, 2018 by Paul Sinclairtags: 1960s, 1970s, Blu-ray, Elvis Presley

Tanita Tikaram / Ancient Heart limited edition 30th anniversary clear vinyl LP

October 23, 2018 by Paul Sinclairtags: 1980s, coloured vinyl, tanita tikaram

Neil Young / Songs For Judy

October 23, 2018 by Paul Sinclairtags: 1970s, Neil Young

Neil Young will release Songs For Judy in November an album of live performances from 1976.

This new album has 22 songs from Neil’s autumn 1976 autumn tour and includes solo acoustic renditions of ‘Heart of Gold’, ‘The Needle and the Damage Done’, ‘After The Gold Rush’. One song, ‘No One Seems to Know,’ hasn’t appeared before on any official release.

As you can see from the track listing below, this is a great collection culled from many different shows – it was compiled by Joel Bernstein and Cameron Crowe. SDE expects this to be branded as volume seven in Young’s long-running ‘Archive Performance Series’ although it remains to be seen if that’s how he chooses to present it.

Songs For Judy will be issued on CD on 30 November 2018, and as a double LP vinyl set on 14 December. There are no UK listings for it yet (bizarrely).

Songs For Judy Intro – Atlanta, GA – Nov 24 (late show)
Too Far Gone – Boulder, Colorado – Nov 06
No One Seems To Know – Boulder, Colorado – Nov 07
Heart Of Gold – Fort Worth, Texas – Nov 10
White Line – Fort Worth, Texas – Nov 10
Love Is A Rose – Houston – Nov 11
After The Gold Rush – Houston – Nov 11
Human Highway – Madison, Wisconsin – Nov 14
Tell Me Why – Chicago – Nov 15 (late show)
Mr. Soul – New York – Nov 20 (early show)
Mellow My Mind – New York – Nov 20 (early show)
Give Me Strength – New York – Nov 20 (late show)
A Man Needs A Maid – New York – Nov 20 (late show)
Roll Another Number – Boston – Nov 22 (late show)
Journey Through The Past – Boston – Nov 22 (late show)
Harvest – Boston – Nov 22 (late show)
Campaigner – Boston – Nov 22 (late show)
Old Laughing Lady – Atlanta – Nov 24 (early show)
The Losing End – Atlanta – Nov 24 (late show)
Here We Are In The Years – Atlanta – Nov 24 (late show)
The Needle And The Damage Done – Atlanta – Nov 24 (early show)
Pocahontas – Atlanta – Nov 24 (late show)
Sugar Mountain – Atlanta – Nov 24 (late show)

Takehisa Kosugi, Composer for Merce Cunningham, Dies at 80

Takehisa Kosugi performing at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 2015. Mr. Kosugi was associated with the Fluxus movement and composed for Merce Cunningham.

CreditCreditHiroyuki Ito for The New York Times

By Neil Genzlinger

• Oct. 18, 2018

Takehisa Kosugi, an avant-garde composer who was an accomplished violinist but who was just as likely to play bicycle spokes or inflatable balls in his innovative explorations of the sonic landscape, died on Oct. 12 in Ashiya City, Japan. He was 80.

The Merce Cunningham Trust said the cause was esophageal cancer. Mr. Kosugi composed for and performed with the Merce CunninghamDance Company for decades and was its music director from 1995 to 2012.

In a long career on the cutting edge, Mr. Kosugi’s interests were in found sounds; in creating events rather than traditional musical works; in examining all parts of the acoustical spectrum, including silence; and in challenging audience expectations.

One early piece, “Micro 1,” consisted of his crumpling a large sheet of paper around a live microphone; the audience was then invited to listen to the paper uncrinkle as it strove to return to its original state.

“There is a radical integrity to everything he did that stayed razor sharp,” Jay Sanders, who curated “Takehisa Kosugi: Music Expanded,” a 2015 retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, said by email. “He reframed everyday actions as mesmerizing music events that pushed the philosophical edge of his whole field into new frontiers.”

Takehisa Kosugi was born on March 14, 1938, in Tokyo. He studied music at the Tokyo University of the Arts, graduating in 1962. While still a student, he was among the founders of Group Ongaku, an improvisational music ensemble that experimented with multimedia approaches and explored the idea that physical actions could constitute music.

Mr. Kosugi became identified with Fluxus, a movement that defined art in terms of experiences as well as traditional forms like paintings or musical compositions. His early works included “Events,” a set of 18 instructional cards now in the collection of the Whitney that set forth specific actions. A similar piece, “Theatre Music,” was included in “Fluxus 1,” a sort of compilation notebook created in 1964; it consisted of a card imprinted with a spiral of feet and the words “Keep walking intently.”

Mr. Kosugi also created performance-based works in this period, and in 1967 — assisted by two other artists then building their avant-garde reputations, Nam June Paik and Charlotte Moorman — he offered some in a program called “Music Expanded” at Town Hall in Manhattan. (The title was later appropriated by the Whitney for its retrospective.)

In one piece, “Instrumental Music,” a spotlight threw a silhouette of Ms. Moorman, a cellist, onto a screen, and Mr. Kosugi tried to cut out the silhouette with scissors. Another piece performed that night, “Slow Anthology,” a collection of light and sounds that the program said was composed from 1964 to 1967, did not impress Donal Henahan, a critic for The New York Times.

“By its dating it appears it took Mr. Kosugi three years to compose this work,” Mr. Henahan wrote, “but one could learn to hate it in far less time.”

Barbara Moore, a Fluxus historian, described these early works as “more what is now called performance art — in his case with strong visual components implying a musical connection rather than making it explicit.”

Mr. Kosugi’s later performances, Ms. Moore said by email, were at least somewhat more conventional, with him and others playing instruments or creating electronically amplified sounds from various sources.

Although Mr. Kosugi appeared on his own at numerous festivals and other events, many of his compositional efforts were in service to the Cunningham troupe’s dances. He first composed for the company in 1977, and he worked alongside and was influenced by John Cage, Cunningham’s longtime collaborator and partner.

From left, Ken Hamazaki, Mr. Kosugi and Kiyoshi Izumi performing Mr. Kosugi’s “Organic Music” at the Whitney, part of a retrospective called “Takehisa Kosugi: Music Expanded.”

CreditHiroyuki Ito for The New York Times

His works for the troupe were a long way from the musical accompaniment used in conventional dance. They might incorporate dropped objects, electronically created noise and more.

“Imagine the sound of a live microphone, wrapped in aluminum foil, dragging behind a garbage truck that’s driving along a rugged shoreline as ocean waves crash nearby,” Brian Mackay wrote in The State Journal-Register of Illinois, reviewing a 2009 performance of the Cunningham troupe at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “Now imagine it going on for 80 minutes.”

To others, though, Mr. Kosugi was liberating the idea of music from relatively narrow boundaries.

“I think what he was trying to do was absolutely bring music right up to the present, to dismantle its rules completely,” said Mr. Sanders, who is now executive director of Artists Space in New York. “It’s almost a kind of productive nihilism to retrofit music as visceral sonic event and visual bodily act.”

Mr. Kosugi’s survivors include three brothers and his longtime manager and partner, Takako Okamoto.

For the Whitney retrospective, Mr. Kosugi, then in his late 70s, was an active participant, displaying a stamina that impressed Mr. Sanders.

“He worked incredibly hard, bringing much electronic gear from Japan, and working with collaborators to perform the more physical action works that he could no longer do himself,” he said. “As much as I know his work, I was shocked by how powerful and earth-shattering every piece was.”

Annapurna Devi, Acclaimed but Reclusive Indian Musician, Dies at 91

Annapurna Devi an undated photo. She played the surbahar, often described as a bass sitar, and the relatively few people who heard her before she stopped performing early in her career were amazed by her mastery of it.CreditCreditvia Annapurna Devi Archive

By Neil Genzlinger

• Oct. 24, 2018

Annapurna Devi, a noted Indian musician and teacher whose decision to stop performing relatively early in her career made her something of an enigma, died on Oct. 13 in Mumbai. She was 91.

Ram Nath Kovind, India’s president, was among those noting her death. “She was a rare talent and a generous teacher,” he said on Twitter, calling her life “a poignant inspiration for women artists.”

President of India✔@rashtrapatibhvn

Sorry to hear of the passing of classical musician and surbahar exponent Annapurna Devi. A legatee of her father and guru Baba Allaudin Khan, she was a rare talent and a generous teacher. Her life will always serve as a poignant inspiration for women artistes #PresidentKovind

2:42 AM - Oct 13, 2018

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Ms. Devi learned at the feet of her father, Allauddin Khan, a revered figure in Indian classical music, and was married for years to one of his students, the sitarist Ravi Shankar. She played the surbahar, often described as a bass sitar, a difficult instrument that few if any women of her era played. The small number of people lucky enough to hear her were amazed by her mastery of it.

She and Mr. Shankar, who died in 2012, played together a few times; after their concerts, she once said, fans seemed to respond more to her than to him. (A 1973 movie, “Abhimaan,” is often said to have been inspired by their marriage and the tensions in it.) By the early 1960s she had stopped performing.

“Some hold that Raviji pressured her not to be in competition with his career,” George E. Ruckert, the author of five books on the music of India, said by email, referring to Mr. Shankar, “but others simply comment that the concert and recording politics and travels of the modern musician were not to her liking.”

Whatever the case, her public appearances and interviews virtually ceased. Few recordings of her exist. Instead she became a sought-after teacher, passing along the classical traditions her father had conveyed to her.

“The contribution of Annapurna Devi is heard largely through her students, who were diverse of instrument and abilities,” said Mr. Ruckert, who studied under her brother, the sarod master Ali Akbar Khan, and is a senior lecturer emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “She was a very strict teacher, and hence not for everybody, but she turned out musicians of the highest caliber.”

She was born Roshanara Khan in April 1927 (the exact date is unclear) in Maihar, in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, to Allauddin Khan and Madina Begum. Her father was a court musician at the time, and she was given the name Annapurna Devi by the local maharajah. She showed musical aptitude as a child, and her father began training her, alongside her brother and Mr. Shankar.

“They all learned the vocal arts of the old dhrupad tradition, wherein strict attention to the rhythmic design of the composition had to be followed in the improvised sections,” Mr. Ruckert wrote in his email. That approach, he added, “was also applied to the instrumental style which they learned under his very thorough discipline.”

She married Mr. Shankar in 1941, when she was a teenager. Their approaches to music diverged over time, with Ms. Devi remaining a classical purist while Mr. Shankar, who would catch the interest of George Harrison of the Beatles, was more exploratory and populist. They separated in the early 1960s and later divorced.

As a teacher, Ms. Devi chose her students carefully. Mr. Ruckert said that those who had studied under her told stories of arriving at her apartment in Mumbai for a lesson and being required to spend an hour in the warm-up room playing repetitive exercises before the teaching even began.

“The great flutist (bansuri) Hariprasad Chaurasia once commented, ‘If I closed the door of the apartment incorrectly upon entering or departing, she would not see me for weeks!’ ” Mr. Ruckert recalled.

Her other students included the sitarist Nikhil Banerjee and the bansuri player Nityanand Haldipur.

In 1982 Ms. Devi married Rooshikumar Pandya, one of her sitar students. He died in 2013. Her son with Mr. Shankar, Shubhendra Shankar, died in 1992.

Barbra Streisand at home with her dog Miss Fanny. Streisand uses her new album, “Walls,” as an outlet for her outrage. “I am so grateful to have music in my life as a way to express myself,” she said.CreditCreditRyan Pfluger for The New York Times

Barbra Streisand Can’t Get Trump Out of Her Head. So She Sang About Him.

Her new album, “Walls,” is a rare instance of politics permeating her music, and in an interview, she could barely stop talking about her least favorite president.

Barbra Streisand at home with her dog Miss Fanny. Streisand uses her new album, “Walls,” as an outlet for her outrage. “I am so grateful to have music in my life as a way to express myself,” she said.CreditCreditRyan Pfluger for The New York Times

By Maggie Haberman

• Oct. 30, 2018

Barbra Streisand has a new album, one that is the musical embodiment of her singular dislike of President Trump, and the rare instance of her political views entering her music. One track already released, “Don’t Lie to Me,” is a direct address to her fellow native New Yorker who now holds the Oval Office.

There are similar messages throughout the album, “Walls,” due on Friday, which also includes a medley of John Lennon’s “Imagine” and Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World.” The title track warns that people now “build them where they shouldn’t be.”

Barbra Streisand - "Don't Lie to Me"CreditCreditVideo by barbrastreisandVEVO

In a phone interview from California, Streisand spoke to The New York Times about a range of topics, from her music to presidential power to the remake of “A Star Is Born” to pancakes. But her politics engulfed her. She answered questions about the #MeToo movement by discussing Hillary Clinton’s loss and her belief that Senator Al Franken, the Minnesota Democrat, should not have quit after he was accused of groping or trying to kiss several women. A question about her last visit to Brooklyn elicited a rumination on democracy and truth. Those who recall her attacks on Senator John McCain in 2008 — and the Arizona Republican’s butchering of “The Way We Were” on “Saturday Night Live” (“Do I know how to sing? About as well as she knows how to govern America.”) — might be amused to hear her now praising the senator, her anti-Trump compatriot.

Streisand drew a blank when asked if she could think of anything positive that Trump has done. But this outspoken Democrat risks annoying, if not alienating, some of her own fans who might agree with the president on a number of issues. If she was concerned about that, she didn’t express it.

(The interview was conducted before the Tree of Life synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh. Asked about it on Monday via email, she sent a response that faulted Trump for divisive rhetoric and added: “My heart aches for these innocent people and the centuries-old attitude of somehow blaming Jews for all the ills of the world.”)

These are edited excerpts from the conversation.

What inspired you to do this album after not being so overtly political in your art?

I would lie awake at night with Trump’s outrages running through my head, and I had to do another album for Columbia Records, so I thought, why not make an album about what’s on my mind? And that became the title of the first song. I am so grateful to have music in my life as a way to express myself.

Do artists have an obligation to be political now?

My first album in 1962 or something like that, my manager was able to get me artistic control. That means no one could tell me what to sing or what to name my album or even what the cover looks like. And that’s important to me.

Truth has always worked for me, so to see the truth defiled every day is very, very painful for me. I only can do what I can do. I probably will turn a lot of people off. When I’m creating an album there has to be musicality — there has to be beauty in the music.

I don’t know what people are going to think when they hear what’s on my mind. It may bring up things that are on their mind. “Don’t Lie to Me,” if you don’t look at the video, can be a more general idea. But the music is upbeat, the music is interesting, it’s nice for me, kind of a contemporary track. And it expressed my anger, it expressed my frustration.

I can only be true to me as an artist and if people like it that’s great, and if they don’t, they don’t have to buy it or listen to it. But me in real life is more important than me as the artist. As a citizen, that’s the role.

What about offending Trump fans who like your music?

It doesn’t matter. I remember being onstage in Washington, D.C., and asking, “I’m just curious, how many Republicans are in the audience?” because everyone knows I’m a staunch Democrat, and a lot of people raised their hands. Art or music transcends politics, I think. I hope it does. I actually said that to George Bush.

Can you think of anything good Trump has done?

[Very long pause] I mean, this is a man who’s kind of, not kind of — he’s mean. I worry about the children. I worry about what is the image he’s projecting to them.

How do you feel about how the music industry has dealt with #MeToo?

The music industry, I didn’t have a lot of problems there. I mean, it depends on how many records you sell, you know what I’m saying, whether you’re male or female. It matters more in directing. The idea of being in control doesn’t go over well.

I think that’s what happened with Hillary Clinton. I mean, a woman of substance, an articulate, experienced in government, dignified, who had everything I thought would make her become a wonderful president of the United States, that doesn’t seem to matter because I think powerful women, strong women are viewed with suspicion.

“Originally I was going to call the album ‘What’s on My Mind,’” Streisand said. “I try to always go back to ideas that are more universal that people can relate to.”CreditRyan Pfluger for The New York Times

Are you glad women are fighting back?

I’m glad they’re fighting back, although when it comes to somebody like Al Franken, I’m dismayed and I think he was right when he said at the beginning, I’ll resign when Trump resigns, for somebody, too, who has been accused of assaulting at least three women and he’s the president of the United States.

What was the evolution of this album?

Originally I was going to call the album “What’s on My Mind.” I try to always go back to ideas that are more universal that people can relate to.

[The songwriters] wrote the most beautiful words about what I was thinking. You know it’s interesting, I had a conversation with Bob Dole recently.

Do you speak with him frequently?

I’ve never spoken to him before. But actually I got a call from President Clinton’s office that said Bob Dole would like to speak with you, and they said, would you speak with him? [Dole reached out via the former president’s office because of the Clintons’ relationship with Streisand.] I said, of course I’ll speak with him. Bob Dole was so lovely, he said to me that he was recuperating from a yearlong illness and he wanted to tell me how powerfully my music helped him recuperate.

And he reminded me of how when he was the leader of the Senate, he was always crossing the aisle and working with George Mitchell. McCain, I was fond of John McCain. In other words, you can agree to disagree.

[Returning to an earlier question about Trump] He’s a great marketer. You asked me what I think he’s good at? He’s good at marketing.

Have you met Trump?

No, but when I was editing my last TV special for Netflix and we were looking at audience shots, there he was sitting next to Barbara Walters, but he never came backstage to see me or meet me. So I never met him.

Does it surprise you to think that both you and he came from the same city?

No, because I think that’s great about New York. I mean, I didn’t know people from the Bronx. I lived in Brooklyn. Bronx people seemed different than Brooklyn people.

When was the last time you were back in Brooklyn?

When I sang at the Barclays Center, I asked the driver to drive me around Williamsburg. I wanted to see. But he never got to Pulaski Street [a childhood home, in Bedford-Stuyvesant].

By the way, what I think he’s really doing now, is trying to reverse reality. When you say something loud enough and long enough people will believe you. Doesn’t democracy hinge on the truth?

Have you seen the “A Star Is Born” remake?

I haven’t seen it completed. Bradley [Cooper] did show me the opening. I was surprised by how similar it was to my version. I loved how he used the drag bar. I thought that was new and interesting. What I’ve seen of the film I really liked.

How are you feeling these days?

I want to sleep nights, if we take the House I’ll be able to sleep a little bit better.

And if they don’t?

Don’t know. I’ve been thinking about, do I want to move to Canada? I don’t know. I’m just so saddened by this thing happening to our country. It’s making me fat. I hear what he said now, and I have to go eat pancakes now, and pancakes are very fattening. We make them with healthy flour, though — almond flour, coconut flour.

Barbra Streisand✔@BarbraStreisand

Donald Trump is making me gain weight. I start the day with liquids, but after the morning news, I eat pancakes smothered in maple syrup!

8:56 PM - Mar 4, 2017

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Tony Joe White, ‘Swamp Rock’ Singer and Songwriter, Dies at 75

Tony Joe White in concert in Amsterdam in 1971. His music came to be known as swamp rock and earned him the nickname Swamp Fox.CreditCreditGijsbert Hanekroot/Redferns, via Getty Images

By The Associated Press

• Oct. 25, 2018

Tony Joe White, the Louisiana singer and songwriter who wrote Brook Benton’s Top 10 hit “Rainy Night in Georgia” and had a Top 10 hit of his own with “Polk Salad Annie,” died on Wednesday in Nashville. He was 75.

His death was announced by Yep Roc Music Group, which released Mr. White’s album “Bad Mouthin’ ” last month. The announcement did not specify the cause, but Mr. White’s son Jody told The Tennessean that he had a heart attack and that “there was no pain or suffering.”

Mr. White’s style, a mix of blues, country and rock ’n’ roll sung in a deep, growling voice, came to be known as swamp rock and earned him the nickname Swamp Fox. His songs were covered by Elvis Presley, Tina Turner, Waylon Jennings and many others.

His biggest hit was “Polk Salad Annie,” a song about Southern greens and a poor girl who picked them for her family’s dinner — and who was so tough she “made the alligators look tame.” It was not an immediate hit, but months after its release it reached No. 8 on the Billboard singles chart in 1969.

“Polk Salad Annie” begins with a spoken introduction in which Mr. White explains that he’s singing about “a plant that grows out in the woods and the fields.” He told The Associated Press in 2006 that in the late 1960s, many people thought he was singing about something else.

“Back then, people thought polk salad was grass,” he said. “They’d bring me bags of grass backstage and say, ‘Hey, we brought you a little polk.’ ”

Presley recorded “Polk Salad Annie” and performed it frequently in the 1970s. He sang it with relish, waving his arms over his head and dancing as he sang. He would later record more of Mr. White’s songs, including “I’ve Got a Thing About You Baby.”

Tony Joe White was born on July 23, 1943, and raised on a cotton farm in Goodwill, La., about 20 miles west of the Mississippi River. He became infatuated with the hypnotic blues of Lightnin’ Hopkins and often said that hearing Bobbie Gentry’s 1967 hit “Ode to Billie Joe”inspired him to start writing songs.

“I heard ‘Ode to Billie Joe’ on the radio and I thought, man, how real, because I am Billie Joe, I know that life. I’ve been in the cotton fields,” he said in a 2014 interview. “So I thought if I ever tried to write, I’m going to write about something I know about.”

In addition to his son Jody, Mr. White’s survivors include his wife, Leann; another son, Jim Bob; a daughter, Michelle; and grandchildren.

The R&B singer Brook Benton had a No. 4 hit in 1970 with “Rainy Night in Georgia.” It proved to be Mr. White’s most successful composition; it has since been covered by numerous other artists, including Ray Charles, Johnny Rivers and Hank Williams Jr.

Mr. White worked with Tina Turner on her critically acclaimed album “Foreign Affair” (1989), contributing four songs and playing guitar and harmonica. He said in 2006 that Ms. Turner was taken aback when they first met.

“She turned around and looked at me and started hysterically laughing and couldn’t get her breath,” he recalled. “She was doubling over, and I thought, ‘Are my pants unzipped or something?’ Finally she got her breath and came over to me and gave me a big hug and said: ‘I’m sorry, man. Ever since “Polk Salad Annie” I always thought you were a black man.’ ”

Rico J. Puno, Soul Music Pioneer in the Philippines, Dies at 65

By Mike Ives

• Oct. 30, 2018

Rico J. Puno, a pop singer from the Philippines who channeled American superstars to forge a distinctive brand of local soul music, died on Tuesday in Taguig, east of Manila. He was 65.

A sister-in-law, Anna Puno, confirmed his death in an Instagram post. Mr. Puno had triple-bypass heart surgery in 2015, and the domestic news media reported on Tuesday that the cause of death was cardiac arrest.

Mr. Puno became famous in the 1970s by covering American hits — including Barbra Streisand’s “The Way We Were” and Marvin Gaye’s “Baby I’m for Real” — in a mix of English and Tagalog, the country’s dominant language. Those recordings put him in the vanguard of the Manila Sound, Filipino popular music from roughly the mid-1970s through the end of the Ferdinand Marcos era, in 1986.

While the Manila Sound encompassed many genres with roots in the United States, such as soul and disco, it also had a distinct melodic style that incorporated Filipino folk traditions and transcended foreign influences, said Joel Quizon, a D.J., filmmaker and music curator in Los Angeles. He said the term Original Pilipino Music eventually replaced Manila Sound as a shorthand for Filipino pop music.

As Mr. Puno’s profile grew over the years, he became known throughout the Philippines as the larger-than-life Total Entertainer. Among many other projects, he was a longtime spokesman for San Miguel beer; the host of “Lunch Date,” a popular television variety show; and a star on the sitcom “Home Sweetie Home.”

He also represented Makati City, in the Manila area, as a city councilor from 1998 to 2007, and was re-elected in 2016 after losing a 2010 race for vice mayor. He had planned to run again in 2019, local news media reported.

“We express our condolences to the legend that is Rico J. Puno,” Salvador Panelo, a spokesman for President Rodrigo Duterte, told reporters on Tuesday. “He has contributed a lot to the music industry.”

Despite his forays into television and politics, Mr. Puno was perhaps best known as the ultimate Macho Gwapito, or Little Handsome, a nickname derived from his hit song of the same name.

The term “refers usually to young and rising movie teen stars, but what was wonderful about Rico J., as he was called, was that he impishly appropriated it,” said Patricio Abinales, a professor of Asian studies at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. “So he was not only the ‘ultimate macho,’ but he was also ‘little handsome,’ which endeared him to younger women.”

Enrico De Jesus Puno was born on Feb. 13, 1953, and grew up in Manila, according to a short biography posted on his website. After earning a bachelor’s degree in business administration, he tried to find work as a bell boy. But when he failed to get the job, he ended up singing folk songs in Manila nightclubs.

Mr. Puno’s big break — a deal with Vicor Records — was precipitated by an encounter in the 1970s with the Motown band the Temptations at the Palazzi, a club where Mr. Puno played regularly. It was during this period that he recorded his signature version of “The Way We Were,” among other popular American songs.

Mr. Puno made American music his own by adding bawdy lyrics and banter in Tagalog. One of his best-known covers, for example, was “You Don’t Have to Be a Star,” by Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis Jr. And he embellished it with this line: “Even if you’re ugly, I still need you.”

Over the years, Mr. Puno performed solo and with the Hitmakers, a group that included the Filipino musicians Rey Valera and Hajji Alejandro.

“Rico, Valera and Hajji were three of the biggest stars of the glory days of Filipino music,” the music columnist Baby A. Gil wrote in The Philippine Star in 2002. “It is to their credit that they have retained the same vast degree of talent, unique performing style and the capability to excite an audience over nearly 30 years.”

In the 1970s and early ′80s, Mr. Puno’s star rose at a time when the Marcos regime, which led the Philippines with an iron fist for two decades, was promoting local songwriting competitions. Mr. Quizon said that the largely upbeat Manila Sound that Mr. Puno helped pioneer was occasionally “derided as too happy or optimistic, especially during that time’s political climate.”

But Mr. Puno, a Marcos supporter, was not one to apologize for his art. His website says that his destiny was to be “the Philippines’ one and only Total Entertainer!”

“Only God can stop me from singing,” he told reporters in February at a news conference to promote a concert. “He gave me this gift and only He can take it back.”

His survivors include a daughter, Tosca Camille Puno-Ramos. Information on other survivors was not immediately available.

On Tuesday, some of the best-known musicians and celebrities in the Philippines celebrated Mr. Puno’s legacy on social media.

“Rest In Peace, Rico J. Puno,” the singer and actress Lea Salonga toldher 5.3 million Twitter followers. “Your distinctive voice that lent itself to so much of the music of my childhood will not be forgotten.”

Dionisio Lind, Whose Voice Was a Mighty Carillon, Dies at 87

Dionisio Lind on the stairs leading to the carillon atop the Riverside Church in Manhattan in 2015. He played the instrument there from 2000 until he retired this year.CreditCreditMichael Appleton for The New York Times

Mr. Lind at the console keyboard of the Riverside Church carillon, the world’s heaviest.CreditMichael Appleton for The New York Times

The carillon at the Riverside Church consists of 72 bells ranging in weight from 10 pounds to 20 tons, housed atop a 392-foot tower.CreditMichael Appleton for The New York Times

Carmen McRae - BIOGRAPHY

Chronology (from Carmen McRae, Miss Jazz)
excerpted from Carmen McRae, Miss Jazz, by Leslie Gourse
(Billboard Books, New York. 2001)

APRIL 8, 1920: Carmen McRae, the only child of Oscar and Evadne McRae, is born at Harlem Hospital in New York City.

1920s to 1930s: Carmen lives with her parents in the Bronx, then in 1934 the family moves to West 114^th Street, then to 880 St. Nicholas Avenue, in the prestigious Sugar Hill neighborhood in Harlem. At eight years old she begins to study classical piano, though Carmen prefers American popular music, and begins to sing popular music, and begins to sing popular songs for fun. Though Carmen has childhood asthma, it never grows severe, and eventually clears up.

1934 to 1938: Carmen takes both academic and secretarial courses at the commercially oriented all-girls’ Julia Richman High School on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. In general, Carmen is an average student. Her high school health report doesn’t mention any respiratory problems. Carmen graduates in 1938.

1938 to 1939: Attracted to jazz, Carmen meets jazz pianist Teddy Wilson’s wife, composer and pianist Irene Kitchings. Irene introduces Carmen to many swing era jazz stars, including singer Billie Holiday. Carmen gives Billie a copy of one of her early jazz songs, "Dream of Life," which Billie records on January 20, 1939, on the Vocalian label; it is released at around the same time on the Brunswick label. Carmen becomes enamored of jazz and, though tentative because she’s unsure of her chances of success, begins her lifelong commitment to playing and singing. Irene’s and Billie’s influence becomes so strong that Carmen eventually tells audiences "If there had been no Billie and Irene, there would have been no me." On Marian McPartland’s Peabody prize-winning "Piano Jazz" show in the late 80s, Carmen tells McPartland "without (Irene), I wouldn’t be sitting her now talking to you."

1940 to 1943: Gregarious, slender, and girlish, Carmen becomes a fixture on the Harlem jazz scene, friendly with singer Sarah Vaughan and hundreds of other musicians and prominent figures in the African-American entertainment and sports worlds – Nat "King" Cole, Duke Ellington, Benny Carter, the Brown Sisters, who dance in Harlem clubs, Ben Webster, Joe Louis, Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie, and Kenny Clarke, to name only a few. Everybody knows Carmen. She hangs out at such central jazz-scene places as the Hotel Braddock Grill and Minton’s Playhouse. Also during these years Carmen and Kenny Clarke, an adventurous drummer and founder of "the new thing" – progressive jazz and the bebop style of drumming – become involved.

1944: Carmen goes to Alabama and marries Kenny Clarke, who was drafted into service in 1943. She doesn’t stay there with him long. Carmen returns to New York, perhaps at Clarke’ suggestion; she despises the confines of segregation in the South. Clarke soon goes AWOL for about four months, in order to play jazz. Perhaps Clarke’s plans to leave the army and return to New York was the overriding reason for Carmen to leave Alabama.

1943 to 1946: Carmen goes to Washington, DC and takes a variety of jobs connected with the war effort. Soon bored with the routine and anxious to be playing music, she returns to New York City’s music scene.

Carmen sings with Benny Carter’s band in 1943, then with Count Basie’s band. She plays piano with Mercer Ellington’s band, and makes her first recording. Mercer’s band tours in the U.S., but it doesn’t last tong, and breaks up while on the road.

Stranded out of town – no one can remember where but it was either Chicago or Atlantic City – Carmen goes to work in the chorus at the Club Harlem on Kentucky Avenue in Atlantic City, a hub of the African-American entertainment world of the era.

(Author’s Note: In some instances the chronology is approximate. It was largely based upon interview with Carmen McRae, whose memory for dates may have been faulty. At the time of the interview she was already in her early seventies, and could not recall details such as the exact year she married Kenny Clarke, though she knew it was around 1943. Furthermore, she sometimes chose to alter dates; for example, by the time she was in her thirties, if not before, she was shaving two years off her age, claiming to have been born in 1922; much later in life, she would say she had been born in 1928. The actual date was 1920, according to official birth records in New York City. Most events did take place in approximately the year she recalled.)

1946: Kenny Clarke returns to New York. Clarke and Carmen live for a while in her family’s house in Brooklyn. However, though back in New York, Clarke doesn’t spend much time at home.

1947: In December, 1947, Clarke goes on tour in Europe with Dizzy Gillespie’s band. When the tour ends in 1948, he stays In Paris for several extra months…Although the couple doesn’t legally divorce at that time, the marriage is over. Their friendly feelings for each other survive, however, and they continue to play and record together through the years.

LATE 1940s to Early 1950s: Carmen falls in love with Chicago-based mimic and comedian George Kirby and moves to Chicago with him. When the relationship falls on hard times, she goes to work as a pianist and singer at the Archway Lounge, a favorite restaurant and watering hole among entertainers and gamblers. She also works in other Chicago clubs.

After serving the apprenticeship in Chicago, teaching herself many tunes which she learns by ear from the radio, and honing her own specific style, she decides to return too New York. Her parents also encourage her to return, and Carmen goes home in 1952.

1952: Carmen works in an office by day, and performs at the Bandbox, a small club in Brooklyn, by night. Matt Mathews, the accordionist, is putting together a band. He hears Carmen perform and is bowled over. He asks her to front his band at Birdland and on tour.

1953: Clarinetist Tony Scott hires Carmen to be intermission pianist and singer at Minton’s Playhouse, the club where bebop was developed in the 1940s. Tony Scott encourages Carmen to get up from the piano bench and stand up at the microphone to sing. She resists but finally takes his advice and finds that she attracts an even greater following.

Despite her local successes, Carmen is becoming frantic about her career prospects. She recognizes that she has made few inroads. The struggle has tired her out. Friends worry about her.

The recordings she has made in the early 1950s for the Stardust, Venus, and Bethlehem labels are well received and keep winning her fans. Carmen records for Bethlehem and Venus before Stardust, with which she had a contract, but the Stardust recordings are released first.

1955: Carmen signs a contract to record for the Decca label. According to Milt Gabler, an artists and repertoire man with Decca, he signs and records Carmen to the label after he hears her working with the Mat Mathews Quintet in a club in Philadelphia. Her first album on the Decca label in released in 1955 and gets sufficient distribution to bring her more national attention than even the Bethlehem records did. She also acquires the management of Associated Booking Corporation, owned by Joe Glaser, Louis Armstrong’s manager. Under the auspices of A.B.C., Carmen is handled by Oscar Cohen. She begins to get prestigious bookings, and while on tour in Toronto, Canada, learns of her tie with Ella Fitzgerald for Metronome magazine’s Singer of the Year award. Carmen is jubilant. She is also thrilled when Down Beat magazine votes her Best New Female Singer of the Year. She performs in an All-Star Jazz Concert on March 12, 1955, at Carnegie Hall. Carmen goes to Hollywood and sings with the Mat Mathews Quintet in the movie The Square Jungle.

1954 to 1957: Carmen makes the rounds of prestigious clubs and concert halls and continues to record for Decca. In early spring 1957, she headlines at Birdland, dubbed the "jazz corner of the world," the leading jazz club of the era. There she sings what was perhaps her biggest hit under her own leadership "Skyliner," from a 1956 recording on the Decca label, in her lusty, full-throated, powerful voice. The audience cheers. Already some of her voice’s sweetness has begun to change, to lower and darken with age… though the change is barely perceptible.

LATE 1950s: Carmen and Kenny Clarke are legally divorced. Touring with her own groups, one of her earliest including pianist Ray Bryant and bassist Ike Isaacs, Carmen continues to build her career. She and Isaacs have a good relationship, which leads to a love affair. They marry, and the relationship begins to go on a downswing. Various observers blame the difficulty on Isaac’s increasingly domineering attitude. Carmen, for her part, becomes more inclined toward asserting her independence, and is sometimes difficult and feisty. Carmen makes a number of recordings on Decca, Kapp, Official, and Mercury that are influential on younger singers. She hires Dick Katz, Bill Rubinstein, Bob Cranshaw, and Walter Perkins to play in her group during these years.

1961: By 1961, Isaacs and Carmen separate and divorce. For the next few years, Carmen calls New York City home base, continuing to build her career and attract fans. She goes to England in 1961, where she scores a success in London, though not in other cities on the tour. She causes a fracas on British television by sharing her shocking, fiery opinions abut commercialism in music: Carmen thinks that no one should sing a song just because it might become a financial success.

Carmen hires pianist Norman Simmons as her accompanist, though he is wary of working with her because of her reputation for being tough, outspoken, and highly opinionated. Simmons soon learns to love and respect his boss on a professional level; he observes that she simply doesn’t let any one "stomp around" in her life. At all costs she protects her career and artistry – and space and time. She takes charge, sometimes quite rudely, yet at the same time she nurtures young talents. Her efforts pay off with great reviews. Critics pay her homage, and by association her sidemen garner attention and hosannas as well.


In July 1961, Carmen appeared at the Basin Street in New York with the Dave Brubeck Quartet. The song "Take Five," written by Paul Desmond, Brubeck’s alto player, was included on the live recording release on the Columbia label. The album sold more than a million copies, and the song was Carmen’s biggest hit.

Even so, she never had a million-selling record. Not even her big hit single, "Skyliner," wins a Grammy or sells a million copies. Carmen survives on the strength of her artistry and attraction for audiences. She eschews the usual round of publicity interviews, often avoiding the radio and television exposure that other stars accept as part of their de rigueur daily routine when they tour.

1967 TO 1968: Carmen moves from New York to Los Angeles to be close to her parents and other family members who had moved to a community near Los Angeles years earlier. From then on, California is home base. For a year, from 1967 to 1968, she has a live-in relationship with French guitarist Francois Vaz, who works in her group. Although they announce to audiences several times that they are married, they actually never wed. Carmen and Vaz split up in the fall of 1968.

1969 to 1970: Norman Simmons leaves Carmen’s group in 1969. Carmen leaves Associated Booking Corporation, and by 1970 Jack Rael is her manager. Among his other star clients are singer Patti Page and The Everly Brothers. A manager with vision for the overall career strategies for his clients, Rael manages Carmen, with few interruptions, until 1989.

Occasionally Carmen tries working with other managers. One is a well-known, highly respected jazz bassist, Ray Brown, who has little time to devote to Carmen’s management, and limits himself to conducting her business affairs. Brown doesn’t work for Carmen very long. Kim Harstein also has a brief sting as Carmen’s manager.

1970s: Honors accrue to Carmen. Since her success in 1955, she has been known as one of the greatest jazz singers of all time, alongside Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, and Anita O’Day. Carmen’s history with record labels in this period is erratic. Many jazz artists find themselves without record contracts while rock reigns supreme in the music world. Carmen works in large rooms in casinos in Las Vegas, though they are not her true milieu, as well as touring abroad. Like Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald, Carmen belongs in top jazz clubs, festivals, and concert halls, but the economic conditions that exist for the top jazz artists in this era preclude her finding the appropriate regular exposure.

LATE 1970s to 1980s. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, jazz undergoes a renaissance of popularity, and Carmen enjoys prestigious bookings in clubs, festivals, and concert halls. She makes a recording with bebop singer Betty Carter in 1987 for the Bet Car/Verve label, and begins recording for RCA Novus, where she does some important and ambitious work.

Marshall Otwell, Mark Pulice, and Jay Anderson frequently accompany her during the 1980s. Otwell leaves music altogether in 1986, and is replaced by Eric Gunnison. Scott Colley becomes Carmen’s bassist in 1987. By 1989, Carmen leaves the management of Jack Rael in favor of her good friend Larry Clothier. Clothier remains her manager for the rest of her life.

1988: Carmen records a complex, adventuresome tribute to Thelonious Monk.

1990: Sarah Vaughan dies. Carmen is very sad. She and Sarah, though both emotionally volatile divas, have probably never had a truly angry word pass between them. This may be overstating the case, but Carmen and Vaughan maintained a lifelong friendship over a forty-five year period. Vaughan, no slouch at tantrums and rudeness, simply sloughs off Carmen’s temper, saying. "Oh, well, Carmen," to anyone who mentions Carmen’s sharpness.

1991: Carmen records a tribute to Sarah Vaughan. Carmen can bring audiences to tears with ‘Sarah," a song written for the album, which is Carmen’s last.

Carmen performs in public for the last time from May 21^st through the 26^th at the Blue Note in New York. After the final performance, she is hospitalized for a few weeks before flying home to Los Angeles. Doctors tell her that if she undertakes an aggressive course of healthy living, she can regain her strength and go back onstage and continue her career. Suffering from respiratory problems, Carmen has spent most of her adult life smoking cigarettes… and now suffers from asthma, chronic bronchitis, and emphysema. Carmen doesn’t make enough of an effort with rehabilitation exercises. She is never able to go back to work.

1993: Seated in a wheel chair, Carmen collects an award from the N.A.A.C.P.

January, 1994: Carmen receives a master’s of jazz fellowship for lifetime achievement from the National Endowment for the Arts, but her manager and friend Larry Clothier has to accept the award on her behalf; Carmen is too ill to travel.

1994: Carmen falls into a coma and dies on November 10, 1994, at her home in Los Angeles on Summit Ridge Drive, her beloved hideaway with a well-tended garden… set far back from the road and overlooking a canyon.

Carmen leaves the legacy of her recordings. And she is quoted in newspaper obituaries as saying she wants to be remembered for one thing: her music.

Leslie Gourse has written over a dozen books on jazz music and musicians, including Wynton Marsalis: Skain’s Domain; No Chaser: The Life and Genius of Thelonious Monk; and Sassy: The Life of Sarah Vaughan
See review of Carmen McRae, Miss Jazz.

On November 2, John Mellencamp announced the forthcoming release of his 24th album, Other People’s Stuff (Republic Records), available on December 7.

According to a press release, “Not only has Mellencamp released hundreds of original songs over his illustrious career, but he has recorded numerous celebrated covers. For as renowned as his original material remains, Mellencamp has breathed new life and spirit into various staples of the classic American musical canon as well. A handpicked selection of those covers comprises the aptly titled, Other People’s Stuff.”

Culled from his albums, compilations, unearthed sessions and documentaries, this record “serves as a proud homage to some of the greatest songs in history,” the release continues. For the album, Mellencamp recorded a brand-new version of “Eyes on the Prize,” which was originally performed at the White House. Mellencamp was asked by the Obama administration to perform for the 2010 Celebration of Music from the Civil Rights Movement event.

Watch “Eyes on The Prize” at the White House

About the collection, Mellencamp commented “Most, if not all, of the songs on Other People’s Stuff come from the Great American Songbook. These are songs that have been recorded over the last 40 years of my career, but had never been put together as one piece of work. Now, they have.”

Check out the full track listing below.

The new album sets the stage for his 2019 tour of “The John Mellencamp Show,” which will feature the singer-songwriter’s classics plus some new material. Mellencamp kicks off the tour February 7 in his home state of Indiana at South Bend’s Morris Performing Arts Center. Mellencamp announced additional dates for the tour, which will extend the already lengthy 2019 run with 14 additional shows, making stops across the country. Tickets for most dates will go on sale on Friday, Nov. 9 at 10 a.m. local time. Every ticket purchased online will receive a physical copy of Other People’s Stuff.

Other People’s Stuff Track List
“To The River” (originally from 1993’s Human Wheels)
“Gambling Bar Room Blues” (originally from 1997’s The Songs of Jimmie Rodgers – A Tribute)
“Teardrops Will Fall” (originally from 2003’s Trouble No More)
“In My Time of Dying” (originally from 1997’s Rough Harvest)
“Mobile Blue” (originally from 2017’s Sad Clowns & Hillbillies)
“Eyes on the Prize” (originally performed at the White House in 2010)
“Dark As A Dungeon (originally from the 2017 National Geographic Channel documentary From the Ashes)
“Stones in My Passway” (originally from 2003’s Trouble No More)
“Wreck of the Old 97” (originally from 2004’s The Rose and The Briar)
“I Don’t Know Why I Love You” (originally from 2003’s An Interpretation of Stevie Wonder’s Songs)

John Mellencamp 2019 Tour Dates (For tickets, click here and here)

February 7 South Bend, IN Morris Performing Arts Center
February 8 Milwaukee, WI Riverside Theatre
February 10 Cincinnati, OH Aronoff Center for the Arts
February 12 Fort Wayne, IN Embassy Theatre
February 14 Rockford, IL Coronado Performing Arts Center
February 15 Peoria, IL Peoria Civic Center
February 17 Grand Rapids, MI DeVos Performance Hall
February 19 Youngstown, OH Stambaugh Auditorium
February 20 Baltimore, MD Modell Performing Arts Center at The Lyric
February 22 Providence, RI Providence Performing Arts Center
February 23 New Brunswick, NJ State Theatre New Jersey
February 25 New York, NY Beacon Theatre
February 26 New York, NY Beacon Theatre
February 27 New York, NY Beacon Theatre
March 9 Louisville, KY Louisville Palace Theatre
March 10 Evansville, IN Aiken Theatre
March 12 St. Louis, MO Stifel Theatre
March 14 Kansas City, MO Arvest Bank Theatre At The Midland
March 16 Tulsa, OK Brady Theatre
March 17 Memphis, MO Orpheum Theatre
March 19 Nashville, TN Ryman Auditorium
March 20 Nashville, TN Ryman Auditorium
March 22 Charlotte, NC Ovens Auditorium
March 24 Orlando, FL Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts
March 27 Ft. Meyers, FL Barbara B. Mann Performing Arts Hall
March 29 Clearwater, FL Ruth Eckerd Hall
March 30 Clearwater, FL Ruth Eckerd Hall
April 9 Kalamazoo, MI Miller Auditorium*
April 11 Saginaw, MI The Dow Event Center Theater*
April 13 Green Bay, WI Weidner Center^
April 15 Omaha, NE Orpheum Theatre*
April 16 Wichita, KS Century II Convention Center*
April 18 Rapid City, SD Rushmore Plaza Civic Center Theatre*
April 20 Spokane, WA First Interstate Center for the Arts*
April 22 Eugene, OR Hult Center for the Performing Arts*
April 23 Portland, OR Portland Center for the Performing Arts*
April 25 Oakland, CA Paramount Theatre*
April 26 Santa Barbara, CA Arlington Theatre*
April 28 Tucson, AZ Tucson Music Hall*
April 20 Albuquerque, NM Kiva Auditorium*

*On sale Friday, November 9 at 10 am local time
^On sale Friday, November 9 at 11 am local time

A new collection from Rhino Records, Eagles Legacy, has been released in two versions on Nov. 2. The first has 12 CDs and includes all seven of the band’s studio albums, three live albums and a compilation of singles and B-sides. It also includes two concert videos: Hell Freezes Over (DVD) and Farewell Tour: Live From Melbourne (Blu-ray).

A vinyl version of Legacy was also made available the same day. It has all the music from the CDs on 15 LPs, but none of the videos. Both sets are housed in slipcases and accompanied by a 54-page hardbound book that’s filled with rare and unseen photos, memorabilia and artwork that encompasses the band’s entire career.

Grammy-winning mastering engineer Bob Ludwig remastered Hell Freezes Over and Millennium Concert especially for Legacy. Both albums, along with several tracks from the Singles and B-Sides compilation, are being released on vinyl for the first time ever as part of this collection, save for a small European vinyl pressing of Hell Freezes Over around its original release in 1994. In addition, the double-album Eagles Live is making its long-awaited return to vinyl in this set after being out-of-print for decades.

Legacy follows the Eagles through the different stages of the band’s career, from the country-rock of early albums like Desperado and the success of Hotel California, to the band’s 1994 reunion Hell Freezes Over and its most-recent studio album, 2005’s Long Road Out of Eden. All of the band’s hits, deep cuts and fan favorites are here, including “Take It Easy,” “Already Gone,” “Hotel California,” “Please Come Home For Christmas,” “Heartache Tonight” “No More Cloudy Days” and “Get Over It.”

Related: Our review of the Eagles’ 2018 show in Denver

The Eagles—Don Henley, Joe Walsh and Timothy B. Schmit, with Deacon Frey and Vince Gill—have announced many 2019 dates. Tickets are available at Ticketmaster and StubHub.

Legacy CD/DVD/Blu-ray Listing
Eagles (1972)
Desperado (1973)
On The Border (1974)
One of These Nights (1975)
Hotel California (1976)
The Long Run (1979)
Eagles Live (1980)
Hell Freezes Over (1994)
Millennium Concert (2000)
Long Road Out of Eden (2007)
Single and B-Sides (2018)
1. “Take It Easy” (Single Version)
2. “Get You In The Mood” (Non-LP B Side)
3. “Outlaw Man” (Single Version)
4. “Best Of My Love” (Single Version)
5. “One Of These Nights” (Single Edit)
6. “Lyin’ Eyes” (Single Edit)
7. “Take It To The Limit” (Single Edit)
8. “Please Come Home For Christmas”
9. “Funky New Year”
10. “Hole In The World”

DVD: Hell Freezes Over (1994)
Blu-ray: Farewell Tour: Live From Melbourne (2005)

A Dec. 14 release date has been announced for Springsteen on Broadway, the audio souvenir of The Boss’ long-running, Tony-winning one-man show on the Great White Way. The show, which has been running five nights a week at the Walter Kerr Theatre in New York City since October 2017, will close Dec. 15, with a Netflix film of the show premiering the following day.

The album is the complete live performance of the show, and available physically as a 2-CD set, or on vinyl as a 4-LP set, as well as digitally. Springsteen on Broadway is the solo acoustic performance written and performed by Tony Award, Academy Award, and 20-time Grammy Award winner Bruce Springsteen.

The audio-only first track from Springsteen on Broadway, “Land of Hope and Dreams,” which appeared on his 2012 album Wrecking Ball, has been released. The song, according to NPR: “imagines a communal train where all are welcome — saints, sinners, whores, gamblers, thieves, lost souls, fools, kings, the brokenhearted — as it heads off to unknown future.”

Springsteen performs solo, on voice, guitar and sometimes piano, on all but two tracks, which also feature his wife, singer Patti Scialfa. See the complete track listing below.

In a statement announcing the global stream on Dec. 16, Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos said, “We are thrilled to bring Bruce Springsteen—a master storyteller, humanitarian and voice of the everyman—to Netflix in this historic one-man show. This groundbreaking experience defies the boundaries of theater, concerts and film and will give our global audience an intimate look at one of the biggest cultural icons of our time.”

Springsteen on Broadway will have played for a total of 236 performances by the time it closes. It was originally scheduled to run for six weeks, but has since received three extensions. Every show has sold out and the production has received nearly unanimously glowing reviews. While tickets for all of the performances have been immediate sell-outs, seats are available on StubHub.

Springsteen on Broadway Track Listing

Growin’ Up
My Hometown
My Father’s House
The Wish
Thunder Road
The Promised Land
Born in the U.S.A.
Tenth Avenue Freeze-out
Tougher Than the Rest
Brilliant Disguise
Long Time Comin’
The Ghost of Tom Joad
The Rising
Dancing in the Dark
Land of Hope and Dreams
Born to Run

Roy Hargrove, Trumpeter Who Gave Jazz a Jolt of Youth, Dies at 49

Roy Hargrove performed at a “Celebrate Brooklyn” concert in Prospect Park in June 2011. “New York will not be the same without you,” the trumpeter Nicholas Payton said.CreditCreditMylan Cannon/The New York Times

Mr. Hargrove in 2005 performing at the Jazz Gallery in Manhattan.CreditChang W. Lee/The New York Times

Mr. Hargrove performing at the Marseille Jazz Festival of the Five Continents in July.CreditClaude Paris/Associated Press

Aretha Franklin Gospel Film Finally Has a Release Date, 46 Years After It Was Made

Image

The documentary “Amazing Grace,” with Aretha Franklin’s 1972 performance of the song, will have its world premiere Nov. 12 in New York at the festival Doc NYC.CreditCreditDaniel Lefevre/INA, via Getty Images

Hardy Fox, of the Avant-Garde Band the Residents (Maybe), Dies at 73

The Residents in a 1979 publicity photo. They were more than a band: They were performance and visual artists, critics and deconstructors of pop culture, and pioneers of music videos.CreditCreditPoor Know Graphics

The Residents - Constantinople (Live in Copenhagen, February 9th, 2016)CreditCreditVideo by mathiasnielsen66

Mr. Fox, left, and Homer Flynn in 2018. As the Cryptic Corporation, the two handled business, booking, distribution and public relations for the Residents. Neither of them admitted to playing in the group, though journalists and fans suspected otherwise.CreditLeigh Barbier

The Residents in a publicity photo from their most recent tour. Another tour is scheduled for next year.CreditPoor Know Graphics

Freddie Hart, Hit-Making Country Singer-Songwriter, Dies at 91

Freddie Hart in about 1970. He also wrote songs for Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Buck Owens, George Jones and Waylon Jennings.CreditCreditMichael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

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H.E.R. Releases New EP, ‘I Used to Know Her: Part 2’ (Stream)

By Singersroom|November 2nd, 2018|Categories: Music, News, R&B Music|Tags: featured, H.E.R.|0 Comments

The H.E.R. train is showing no signs of slowing down!

A week before kicking offer her 21-date “I Used To Know HER Tour,” the soulful singer and songwriter release the new EP, ‘I Used to Know Her: Part 2.’

Unlike ‘I Used to Know Her: The Prelude,’ which features Bryson Tiller and DJ Scratch, the new project offers no appearances, keeping the focus on the talented songstresses musical growth, eargasmic vocals, and heartwarming melodies.

Listen to ‘I Used to Know Her: Part 2’ below:

H.E.R.’s upcoming “I Used To Know HER Tour” will kick off on November 10 in Atlanta, GA and make stops in major cities like New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and Las Vegas, before commencing on December 20 in San Francisco. Bri Steves and Tone Stith will serve as supporting acts.

PREMIERE: OLIVIA – ‘REASON TO STAY’

The London-based singer releases her defiant debut single.

London-based singer, Olivia, has released a defiant, straight-talking debut single: ‘Reason To Stay.’ Written after an argument with her boyfriend, the catchy, vibrant single is a powerful statement about honesty, and sure to be a hit. Speaking of the song, Olivia said: “It is about how I don’t stand for any bullshit basically. It’s a reminder, it’s cool to be honest and the truth always comes out in the end anyway. It don’t cost you to care, Trust is a virtue that we should share.”

Daughter to Jamaican/Guyanese and English parents, Olivia has been performing her whole life, going from gospel choir to busking in the streets to the acclaimed BRIT school in pursuit of her passion. Having gone on the road with Rudimental and honed her songwriting in the studio, her songs encapsulate typical London Friday-night-pub storytelling – falling in love with a boy that loves a shandy, getting wolf whistled in the street, or (as in Reason To Stay) her boyfriend telling a white lie and being exposed on speakerphone. Naming everyone from Lauryn Hill, Amy Winehouse, and Carole King as inspiration, it’s the artists with an original sound and engaging storyline that she really admires “where the music reads like a book, and each song feels like the next chapter”.

Listen to ‘Reason To Stay’ below.

https://www.youtube.com/w...bOR9n9Yx1A

LENNY KRAVITZ

Read the full cover interview for Man About Town’s Winter 2018/Spring 2019 issue.

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An annotated short story about love and grief, featuring an all star cast.

Lenny Kravitz thought he was alone when he heard the news his mother was dead. His mother, the actress Roxie Roker, had been fighting breast cancer for some time. Kravitz returned from a month’s tour of Japan that morning, visited her in hospital, then headed to the LA home of producer Rick Rubin, where he was staying, to eat, freshen up and change. By the time he got there the hospital had called. She was gone.*

*It is 1995, six years after the release of Kravitz’s debut album Let Love Rule. He is the winner of four consecutive Grammys; a megastar, recognized the world over, even in dreadlocked silhouette. Aside from his own hits – ‘It Ain’t Over ‘Til It’s Over’, ‘Are You Gonna Go My Way’, ‘Rock And Roll Is Dead’ – he has written for and worked with Madonna, David Bowie, Mick Jagger and Michael Jackson (“He gave me a great compliment, probably the best compliment I ever got. He said he hadn’t had that much fun [in a studio] since Quincy Jones”). Divorced from the actress Lisa Bonet, he has one daughter, Zoe, and a charmed life in which it’s difficult to imagine sadness playing a part.

Kravitz sat the foot of the stairs and wept. His mother’s love and influence had been inestimable. In one of his fondest memories, she had taken him to see James Brown perform at The Apollo Theatre when he was just seven-years-old.

“That was it. I was done. I knew I was going to make music. Did I know I’d be able to, or be good at it? No idea. But I knew I loved it”. This was just one lesson in a lengthy and spectacular education. When he was growing up his mother moved in celebrated circles. The young Kravitz sat on legendary laps.

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“At 5 years of age I was sitting on Duke Ellington’s knee while he played piano. I was hanging out with Miles Davis. I was hanging out with Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald and Maya Angelou. I didn’t know who they were or what it meant, but I was around them. I felt it. I listened.”

As Kravitz cried, he heard a door open behind him, upstairs.**

**Kravitz’s body of work – eleven albums over three decades – is testament to an extraordinary range of influences, from funk to reggae to soul to the jazz of the greats who’d sing to him on his birthdays as a boy. But his first love remains rock, a sound and style that seeped into his blood as a teenager in 1970s LA, where it prevailed, and where his high school classmates improbably included the actor Nicholas Cage, and Guns ‘n’ Roses’ guitarist, Slash.

Kravitz turned to find two familiar faces coming downstairs towards him. The faces were old and lined, kneaded and twisted into living artifacts of another time. They were familiar to Kravitz not because they were friends, but because they were familiar to everyone. They were Johnny Cash and June Carter.

Cash and Carter were icons, over half a century into careers that shaped American culture. Now ailing, Cash was there recording his haunting final records with Rubin, adding last length to the tall shadow he cast over music. And here they were, all that history and wisdom soaked up inside them, chancing on a young man who’d found himself stranded on the precipice of grief.

“Down come Johnny and June. And they said:
‘Hey Lenny, how are you, what’s going on?’
And I said.
‘My mom just died.’
Cash and Carter threw their arms around the young man they only really knew from hearing his records on the radio, and closed the door.***

Jacket SAINT LAURENT Necklace LENNY’S OWN

***While restless in genre, all Kravitz’s music is bound by odes to the necessity of these human moments: calls to arms for love, compassion and unity. But in three decades as a recording artist he has watched society shift and divide, in recent times further from his message than he ever could have imagined.

“We are living in some amazingly trying times. If you were to ask me 30 years ago when I said ‘Let Love Rule’ the first time where we’d be now, I would have thought we’d be in a much better place and that we’d have evolved more.”

His new record, Raise Vibration, emerges in the wake of Charlottesville, and after America’s first black president, with profound dignity, handed the keys to the Oval Office to a man who’d spent years questioning his birthright because of the colour of his skin. On tracks like ‘It’s Enough’, Raise Vibration catches the heat of the fire in Kravitz’s belly, though the flames have been there all along.

“It’s always been my thing. Like on ‘Mr Cab Driver’ on my first album, that’s about racism. On ‘Does Anybody Out There Even Care’ I’m talking about people being lynched. The world goes generally in one direction, of not being compassionate, of not showing humanity. War. Greed. Power. But there are so many of us who know that it’s about love and that love is the answer and that that’s our main key to survival. So even though if things are going on one direction, I don’t get fazed by that. I don’t become cynical. I’m always on the side of love.”

In that moment, with his life changed irrevocably, love was what Kravitz needed most. And this is what Carter and Cash gave to him.

“It was just the three of us. The two of them just surrounded me, grabbed me, held me, in this beautifully amazing way. Especially for people that didn’t know me that well and weren’t family, they just completely took this opportunity to have this human moment for someone that they felt compassion for, and sadness for, and wanted to support me and saw, clearly, that no one was around.”

(LEFT) Trousers LENNY’S OWN
(RIGHT) Top BALMAIN Sunglasses LENNY’S OWN

They spent the evening this way: crying, talking, holding. Afterwards, lost in the fog of grief, Kravitz’s memories of this night faded. His mind did what minds do with loss, smuggled him away from it, so that he may survive. He would not recall it clearly for over twenty years, until he needed Cash and Carter once more. And it would come to him in his sleep.****

****The new record appeared in a series of dreams, and they came just in time. When he’d sat down to write Raise Vibration, he’d been alarmed to find his muse hadn’t turned up.

“I still feel like I did when I was in high school making music. I still feel the magic. It’s wonderful. I’m not jaded, I’m not over it, I’m not tired of it. If I went to the studio right now, I’d be amped. I’m all about being creative. [But] because you’re in front of an open road, starting this album was difficult for me. I wasn’t sure which way to go. And, so what I did was I had to stop for a minute and do nothing and get quiet and listen. And that’s when these dreams started.”

It woke him. A noise. He rushed to his home studio before the dream began to splinter. In it he’d heard the chords, and a melody swirling, which he wrote down as quickly as possible. Making Raise Vibration had been difficult to this point, but here it was pouring out of, or rather in to, him. Something was filling him up, but he did not know yet what. He only heard the lyrics “Johnny Cash”.

“I was like, Johnny Cash what? Why? But, as I was writing it, I realised I’d gone back to this moment that I hadn’t thought about in so long.”

And it became clear. As with the death of his mother, Kravitz was struggling to come through a difficult time personally. A relationship had ended, and he’d been the cause. Now he was trying to win the woman back, and what he needed more than anything was her compassion, compassion of a magnitude he’d experienced only once before. It suddenly came to him in a song, called ‘Johnny Cash’ that would become the album’s giant heart.
“As the chorus says – ‘just hold me like Johnny Cash when I lost my mother/whisper it in my ear just like June Carter’. And so, somehow, my heart, my spirit, remembered the last time that I was consoled in a way that was so monumental like that. So that’s what I’m singing to his person. Hold me like Johnny Cash.”*****

*****Love, unity, compassion. While in the real world they wax and wane, in Kravitz, and his music, they remain a constant force.

Lenny Kravitz covers Man About Town Winter 2018/Spring 2019. Watch the behind-the-scenes video and the issue is available to pre-order below.

Jacket SAINT LAURENT Trousers and sunglasses LENNY’S OWN

Jumper SAINT LAURENT Trousers LENNY’S OWN

Jumper SAINT LAURENT Trousers LENNY’S OWN

Blanket MANDKHAI Trousers LENNY’S OWN

(LEFT) Scarf SAINT LAURENT Trousers and necklace LENNY’S OWN
(RIGHT) All clothing LENNY’S OWN

Man About Town – Lenny Kravitz from MARIANO VIVANCO on Vimeo.

Wah Wah Watson, Guitarist Whose Sound Was Everywhere, Dies at 67

The guitarist Melvin Ragin, better known as Wah Wah Watson, in an undated photo. He was widely admired, and imitated, by guitarists seeking the essence of funk.CreditCreditEchoes/Redferns, via Getty Images

Mr. Ragin was born on Dec. 8, 1950, in Richmond, Va., to Robert and Cora (Brown) Ragin. His father was a minister, his mother an evangelist.

His mother bought him his first guitar for $15 “with a promise from me that I would learn how to play it,” he told an interviewer. As a teenager he worked with a Richmond group, the Montclairs, before moving to Detroit.

In the late 1960s he joined Bobby Taylor and the Vancouvers, a Canadian soul band signed to Motown Records, and left Richmond for Detroit. When not touring with the Vancouvers, he was a regular member of the house band at the Twenty Grand Club, often backing Motown headliners.

After hearing the wah-wah pedal deployed by Dennis Coffey, who was the Motown studio guitarist on songs like the Temptations’ 1968 hit “Cloud Nine,” Mr. Ragin bought a Cry Baby brand wah-wah pedal and rebuilt his guitar style around it.

Norman Whitfield, the Temptations’ producer, brought Mr. Ragin into the Motown studio band that became known as the Funk Brothers; his first major session was in 1970 for Edwin Starr’s “Stop the War Now.”(Mr. Coffey had played on Mr. Starr’s earlier hit, “War.”)

Tracklist:
01 – My Love (Acoustic)
02 – Valentine Heart (Acoustic)
03 – Wonderful Shadow (Acoustic)
04 – Only the Ones We Love (Acoustic)
05 – Twist in My Sobriety (Acoustic)
06 – To Drink the Rainbow (Acoustic)
07 – Play Me Again (Acoustic)
08 – Love Is Just a Word (Acoustic)

Listen:

https://www.youtube.com/w...w6Z-ZMFZ0w

Lili Sastry EP(Rowan Atkinson(Mr. Bean) daughter)

Tracklist:
01 – Stay in My World
02 – Imperfect
03 – Rat in Gold
04 – Love in Love

Listen:

https://www.youtube.com/w...mEsE6aTCMY

This cover image released by Dunham/Daptone Records shows “Black Velvet,” a release by Charles Bradley. (Dunham/Daptone Records via AP) (Associated Press)

By Pablo Gorondi | AP

November 7 at 12:50 PM

Charles Bradley, “Black Velvet” (Dunham/Daptone Records)

Charles Bradley was past 60 when he released his first album with the extended Daptone Records family, and his death from cancer a year ago robbed soul music of one of its most expressive and exuberant singers and performers.

“Black Velvet” collects 10 songs recorded mostly during sessions for his three solo albums, its title coming from Bradley’s nickname when fronting a James Brown cover band.

It’s also an instrumental tune written by producer Thomas Brenneck and his Menahan Street Band, and the only track on the eponymous release not to feature Bradley, who was too weak by then to add vocals. Instead, it’s now a poignant tribute.

Including mostly originals co-written by Bradley, the album opens with deep romance in the soul and funk of “Can’t Fight the Feeling,” ‘’I Feel a Change” and “Luv Jones,” the latter a duet with LaRose Jackson, whose upcoming solo debut should be one to watch for.

Near the end, “Fly Little Girl” is little gem of a farewell song that’s reconciled with its fate instead of bitter, while an electric version of “Victim of Love,” originally on Bradley’s second album, is smoother and even more devastating.

In between, three covers complete the collection. A straight-and-true version of Neil Young’s “Heart of Gold,” ‘’Slip Away” from Rodriguez — another musician who found fame late — and Nirvana’s “Stay Away,” probably the clearest instance of Bradley’s James Brown influence.

Like Sharon Jones’ posthumous “Soul of a Woman” from 2017 — she arrived at Daptone around the same time as Bradley and some of her Dap-Kings are also in the Menahan Street Band — “Black Velvet” reflects immense talent and dedication.

It’s an opportunity to grieve and a chance to value an all-too-brief recording career in which Bradley gave his all.

*

*

Tracklist:
01 – Can’t Fight the Feeling (feat. Menahan Street Band)
02 – Luv Jones (feat. LaRose Jackson and Menahan Street Band)
03 – I Feel a Change (feat. Menahan Street Band)
04 – Slip Away (feat. Menahan Street Band)
05 – Black Velvet
06 – Stay Away (feat. Menahan Street Band)
07 – Heart of Gold (feat. Menahan Street Band)
08 – (I Hope You Find) The Good Life [feat. Menahan Street Band]
09 – Fly Little Girl (feat. Menahan Street Band)
10 – Victim of Love (feat. The Sha La Das and Menahan Street Band) [Electric Version]

ALBUM REVIEW

Rosanne Cash Takes the Long View on ‘She Remembers Everything’

Rosanne Cash finds mythic resonances behind everyday details on her new album, “She Remembers Everything.”CreditCreditMichael Levine

The passage of time, tenacious love, a life on the road and inevitable mortality suffuse “She Remembers Everything,” Rosanne Cash’s new album. “From this point on there’s nothing certain/except there’s not many miles to go,” she sings in one of the album’s most upbeat songs, the country-rocker “Not Many Miles to Go.” And in “Everyone But Me,” a solemn piano hymn, she counsels, “Our strange and beautiful lies/Fade and turn to dust.” Cash is 63, and she is neither pretending otherwise nor regretting where she stands right now.

Her previous album, “The River and the Thread” from 2014, was a travelogue through the geography of the South and through her family heritage; she is Johnny Cash’s daughter. On “She Remembers Everything,” Cash contemplates the present as the outcome of a lifetime of choices, balancing memories and prospects, loyalties and second thoughts, repentance and acceptance.

Her voice finds equipoise in those mixed emotions. It seems transparent, always natural and confiding, never forced. The nearly unornamented way she carries melodies, shading some words with the tiniest bit of a quaver, comes across as both pensive and determined, and it lets her find mythic resonances behind everyday details.

Cash teamed with new collaborators, including T Bone Burnett and Lera Lynn, on “She Remembers Everything.”

“Crossing to Jerusalem,” written with her husband, John Leventhal, presents a marriage as a pilgrimage toward home, telescoping a long life together into brief verses: “The birthdays and the babies/The bourbon and the tears/Roaring like a hurricane/Tearing up the years.” Another of their collaborations, “The Undiscovered Country,” considers past and future generations (pairing, along the way, “Shakespeare and my father”) and longtime attachments, concluding that she is “thankful for what we don’t understand/the undiscovered country between a woman and a man.” In both songs, Leventhal plays all the instruments, melding the lucidity of a string band with the gravity of anthems.

Rosanne Cash - "She Remembers Everything" ft. Sam PhillipsCreditCreditVideo by RosanneCashVEVO

Rosanne Cash
“She Remembers Everything”
(Blue Note)

Neil Diamond / 50th Anniversary Collector’s Edition / 6CD retrospective

November 2, 2018 by Paul Sinclairtags: 1960s, 1970s, Neil Diamond

Say Hello Again to another 50th anniversary celebration
Unreleased tracks • Unheard demos • Six CD set spanning entire career

Although UMe/Capitol already ‘celebrated’ Neil Diamond‘s 50 years in music 18 months ago with a three-disc set called the ’50th anniversary collection’ it seems they haven’t celebrated enough and so will this month offer forward the ’50th Anniversary Collectors Edition’ a six-disc hardcover book deluxe package that features the same artwork, but this time includes six CDs of content, including rarities, demos and 14 previously unreleased tracks.

This set contains a full disc of unreleased songs, including ‘Sunflower,’ (originally recorded by Glen Campbell recently updated by Neil Diamond), ‘Before I Had a Dime’ and ‘C’est La Vie’ (a song that Neil co-wrote with friend Gilbert Bécaud). Also unreleased are two original demos of ‘I Am…I Said’ and ‘America,’.

I suppose they’ve got there in the end, as this set is far more appealing than last year’s effort – and is reasonably priced – although one wonders whether Universal Music plan to release 50th anniversary editions of Neil Diamond’s output every year, going forward?

For now, this year’s Neil Diamond 50th Anniversary Collector’s Edition will be released on 30 November 2018.

NEIL DIAMOND

50TH ANNIVERSARY COLLECTOR'S EDITION

DISC ONE

1. SOLITARY MAN – Mono
2. CHERRY, CHERRY – Mono
3. I GOT THE FEELIN’ (Oh No No) – Mono
4. DO IT – Mono
5. THE BOAT THAT I ROW – Mono
6. YOU GOT TO ME – Mono
7. GIRL, YOU’LL BE A WOMAN SOON – Mono
8. I’M A BELIEVER – Mono
9. THANK THE LORD FOR THE NIGHT TIME – Mono
10. KENTUCKY WOMAN – Mono
11. RED, RED WINE – Mono
12. BROOKLYN ROADS
13. GLORY ROAD
14. HOLLY HOLY
15. AND THE GRASS WON’T PAY NO MIND
16. SHILO
17. SUNDAY SUN
18. BROTHER LOVE’S TRAVELLING SALVATION SHOW
19. DIG IN
20. SWEET CAROLINE
21. CRACKLIN’ ROSIE
22. SOOLAIMON
23. CRUNCHY GRANOLA SUITE
24. LORDY (Live)

DISC TWO

1. I AM…I SAID* – Original Demo
2. I AM…I SAID
3. DONE TOO SOON
4. STONES
5. MORNINGSIDE
6. PLAY ME
7. WALK ON WATER
8. LONELY LOOKING SKY
9. SKYBIRD
10. BE
11. I’VE BEEN THIS WAY BEFORE
12. THE LAST PICASSO
13. ROSEMARY’S WINE
14. SONG SUNG BLUE
15. LONGFELLOW SERENADE
16. THE GIFT OF SONG
17. BEAUTIFUL NOISE
18. JUNGLETIME
19. LADY-OH
20. STREET LIFE
21. SIGNS
22. SURVIVING THE LIFE
23. STARGAZER
24. IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN

DISC THREE

1. DRY YOUR EYES
2. DESIRÉE
3. ONCE IN A WHILE
4. I’M GLAD YOU’RE HERE WITH ME TONIGHT
5. AMERICA* – Original Demo
6. AMERICA
7. HELLO AGAIN
8. LOVE ON THE ROCKS
9. AMAZED AND CONFUSED
10. SONGS OF LIFE
11. YESTERDAY’S SONGS
12. I’M ALIVE
13. HEARTLIGHT
14. ON THE WAY TO THE SKY
15. HEADED FOR THE FUTURE
16. YOU DON’T BRING ME FLOWERS – Duet with Barbra Streisand
17. FOREVER IN BLUE JEANS
18. SEPTEMBER MORN

DISC FOUR

1. THE STORY OF MY LIFE
2. IT’S A TRIP (Go For The Moon)
3. HOOKED ON THE MEMORY OF YOU
4. BABY CAN I HOLD YOU* – Live in Dublin R.D.S. 1989
5. HARD TIME FOR LOVERS
6. ALL I REALLY NEED IS YOU
7. IF THERE WERE NO DREAMS
8. SOMEONE WHO BELIEVES IN YOU
9. THE WAY
10. ONE GOOD LOVE – Duet with Waylon Jennings
11. BLUE HIGHWAY – Featuring Chet Atkins
12. OPEN WIDE THESE PRISON DOORS
13. EVERYBODY
14. NO LIMIT
15. I HAVEN’T PLAYED THIS SONG IN YEARS
16. YOU ARE THE BEST PART OF ME
17. DELIRIOUS LOVE
18. I BELIEVE IN HAPPY ENDINGS
19. MAN OF GOD
20. WE

DISC FIVE

1. I’M ON TO YOU
2. WHAT’S IT GONNA BE
3. SAVE ME A SATURDAY NIGHT
4. CAPTAIN OF A SHIPWRECK
5. ANOTHER DAY (THAT TIME FORGOT) – Duet with Natalie Maines
6. DON’T GO THERE
7. HOME BEFORE DARK
8. FORGOTTEN
9. PRETTY AMAZING GRACE
10. MELODY ROAD
11. NOTHING BUT A HEARTACHE
12. SOMETHING BLUE
13. IN BETTER DAYS
14. SEONGAH AND JIMMY
15. SUNNY DISPOSITION
16. THE ART OF LOVE
17. HELL YEAH

DISC SIX

1. SUNFLOWER*
2. C’EST LA VIE*
3. GIRLS GO FISHIN’*
4. MAYBE*
5. CARIBBEAN CRUISE*
6. YOU ARE*
7. EASY (TO BE IN LOVE)*
8. BEFORE I HAD A DIME*
9. THE BALLAD OF SAVING SILVERMAN*
10. IT DON’T SEEM LIKELY*
11. LONG NIGHTS, HOLD ON*
12. MOONLIGHT RIDER*

*Previously unreleased

Marc Anthony, Bad Bunny & Will Smith to Perform at Latin Grammys 2018

11/5/2018 by Suzette Fernandez

Alexander Tamargo/Getty Images

Marc Anthony and Will Smith during the Miami Dolphins vs New England Patriots Monday Night Football game on Sept. 12, 2011 in Miami.

Calibre 50, Nicky Jam, Carla Morrison, Christian Nodal & Ozuna are also confirmed to perform at the 19th annual gala.

Marc Anthony, Bad Bunny and Will Smith are confirmed as the opening act at the 2018 Latin Grammys, where they will perform their song “Está Rico.”

The Latin Recording Academy also announced additional artists scheduled to perform at the 19th annual ceremony, including Calibre 50, Carla Morrison, Ozuna, Monsieur Periné, Nicky Jam, Steve Aoki and Rosalía. The new performers join the previously announced lineup: Ángela Aguilar, El David Aguilar, Pablo Alborán, J Balvin, Jorge Drexler, Karol G, Kany García, Halsey, Mon Laferte, Natalia Lafourcade, Maná, Victor Manuelle, Banda Los Recoditos, Carlos Vives and Sebastián Yatra.

The 2018 Latin Grammys will broadcast live Nov. 15 from Las Vegas' MGM Grand Garden Arena on Univision.

Simply Red / Symphonica In Rosso

November 6, 2018 by Paul Sinclairtags: 1980s, 1990s, simply red

Last year Simply Red played ‘Symphonica In Rosso’ the annual Dutch event which sees artists perform on three nights with a full orchestra. These shows will be celebrated later this month with a new audio-video package.

BMG are releasing this as a CD+DVD edition which includes 20 tracks on DVD and 15 tracks on the CD. Additionally, a special three-disc collector’s pack offers 20 track across two CDs (so five exclusive songs), enhanced bookset packaging and a printed signed setlist from the night. To be clear, Mick has signed the original setlist and the record label had these scanned/printed – so you aren’t getting an actual ‘real’ autograph.

It’s a rock solid collection with four hits from Stars, UK number one ‘Fairground’ and much more. The five bonus tracks included on the collectors’ version are as follows: ‘Your Mirror,’ ‘Someday in My Life,’ ‘Big Love,’ ‘You Make Me Smile,’ and ‘It Was a Very Good Year.’ In this instance, ‘Big Love’ is actually exclusive to the CD since that isn’t part of the filmed performance (remember there were three shows).

The CD-sized standard edition is available from the usual channels, whereas you can only pre-order the collector’s set via the official Simply Red store.

Simply Red’s Symphonica In Rosso will be issued on 23 November 2018.

• Pre-order 2CD+DVD collectors’ edition with setlist and printed signature

Symphonica In Rosso 2CD+DVD Collectors’ Edition

CD1:

1. All or Nothing at All
2. Your Mirror
3. For Your Babies
4. Someday in My Life
5. So Beautiful
6. Say You Love Me
7. Big Love
8. Home
9. You Make Me Smile
10. It Was a Very Good Year

CD2:

1. Picture book
2. Holding Back the Years
3. Stars
4. A New Flame
5. It’s Only Love
6. Sunrise
7. Something Got Me Started
8. Fairground
9. My Way
10. If You Don’t Know Me by Now

DVD:

1. All or Nothing at All
2. Your Mirror
3. For You Babies
4. Someday in My Life
5. So Beautiful
6. Say You Love Me
7. Home
8. You Make Me Smile
9. It Was a Very Good Year
10. Picture book
11. Holding Back the Years
12. Stars
13. A New Flame
14. It’s Only Love
15. Sunrise
16. Something Got Me Started
17. Fairground
18. My Way
19. If You Don’t Know Me by Now

Symphonica In Rosso CD+DVD edition

Disc: 1

1. All or Nothing at All (Live at Ziggo Dome, Amsterdam)

2. For Your Babies (Live at Ziggo Dome, Amsterdam)

3. So Beautiful (Live at Ziggo Dome, Amsterdam)

4. Say You Love Me (Live at Ziggo Dome, Amsterdam)

5. Home (Live at Ziggo Dome, Amsterdam)

6. Picture Book (Live at Ziggo Dome, Amsterdam)

7. Holding Back the Years (Live at Ziggo Dome, Amsterdam)

8. Stars (Live at Ziggo Dome, Amsterdam)

9. A New Flame (Live at Ziggo Dome, Amsterdam)

10. It’s Only Love (Live at Ziggo Dome, Amsterdam)

11. Sunrise (Live at Ziggo Dome, Amsterdam)

12. Something Got Me Started (Live at Ziggo Dome, Amsterdam)

13. Fairground (Live at Ziggo Dome, Amsterdam)

14. My Way (Live at Ziggo Dome, Amsterdam)

15. If You Don’t Know Me by Now (Live at Ziggo Dome, Amsterdam)

DVD

1. All or Nothing at All (Live at Ziggo Dome)

2. Your Mirror (Live at Ziggo Dome)

3. For Your Babies (Live at Ziggo Dome)

4. Someday in My Life (Live at Ziggo Dome)

5. So Beautiful (Live at Ziggo Dome)

6. Say You Love Me (Live at Ziggo Dome)

7. Home (Live at Ziggo Dome)

8. Smile (Live at Ziggo Dome)

9. It Was a Very Good Year (Live at Ziggo Dome)

10. Picture Book (Live at Ziggo Dome)

11. Holding Back the Years (Live at Ziggo Dome)

12. Stars (Live at Ziggo Dome)

13. A New Flame (Live at Ziggo Dome)

14. It’s Only Love (Live at Ziggo Dome)

15. Sunrise (Live at Ziggo Dome)

16. Something Got Me Started (Live at Ziggo Dome)

17. Fairground (Live at Ziggo Dome)

18. My Way (Live at Ziggo Dome)

19. If You Don’t Know Me by Now (Live at Ziggo Dome)

[Edited 11/7/18 10:38am]

CREDIT: Getty Images

The Weeknd says his new album is ‘coming soon’

Tom SkinnerNov 7, 2018 9:45 am

The Weeknd performs live Credit: Getty

• R&B

Starboy teased that big things are ahead...

The Weeknd has promised fans that his next album is in the works and will be “coming soon”.

• Read More: The Weeknd at Las Vegas�...ive review

The Canadian artist released his third studio album, ‘Starboy‘, in 2016. It was followed by the surprise ‘My Dear Melancholy’ EP earlier this year. Reviewing the six-track collection, NME said: “Where ‘Starboy’ often drifted into forgettable airiness, his latest offering is tighter and more focused, with greater attention to detail.”

Now, the musician – whose real name is Abel Makkonen Tesfaye – has updated fans on the progress of his next full-length.

Speaking to the crowd during a show in his home city of Toronto, The Weeknd said: “I wanna let you guys know, being in Toronto these past two days… I haven’t been this inspired in years, I got to tell you.” Check out a clip of the moment below.

XO@XOnews_

THE WEEKND ANNOUNCES THAT HE IS WORKING ON HIS NEXT ALBUM! CHAPTER 6 COMING SOON! @theweeknd #theweeknd #hxouse

11:46 PM - Nov 6, 2018

• 1,501
• 884 people are talking about this

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Revealing that he’s “working on my [his] album right now”, Tesfaye promised: “‘Chapter 6’ coming soon, let’s get it!”

Hinting at big things to come, the singer tweeted: “some chapters are smaller than others. not this next one though…”

The Weeknd✔@theweeknd

some chapters are smaller than others. not this next one though...

12:30 AM - Nov 7, 2018

• 89.6K
• 31.9K people are talking about this

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Earlier this year, The Weeknd said that he’d finished work on a “ver...e released. After saying that the shelved project was written “a different time” in his life, he added: “I don’t want to perform something that I don’t feel.”

Meanwhile, it was reported last month that The Weeknd and Daft Punk ...Starboy’.

Carly Rae Jepsen – “Party for One”

Carly Rae Jepsen performing at the 2018 Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival.CREDIT: (Photo by Steve Jennings/WireImage)

Carly Rae Jepsen, who went viral for performing “Cut to the Feeling” with an inflatable sword at Lollapalooza back in August, has released a new track called “Party of One” along with an accompanying video today. The song is a departure from her previous bubblegum love songs — “Call Me Maybe,” “I Really Like You,” “Cut to the Feeling”— and showcases a more mature version of the artist.

Jepsen teased the single with a picture of her eating pizza and chilling with a tabby cat, captioned “party of one” on Twitter earlier this week.

View image on Twitter

Carly Rae Jepsen✔@carlyraejepsen

Party for one

11:35 AM - Oct 30, 2018

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• 7,537 people are talking about this

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Most recently, Jepsen headlined the headline the All Things Go 2018 Fall Classic festival alongside Maggie Rogers, BØRNS, and Billie Eilish. She’s also collaborated with Bleachers (“Hate That You Know Me”), BC Unidos (“Trouble in the Streets”), and Charli XCX (“Backseat”). Watch the video for “Party of One” below.

https://www.youtube.com/w...0ih3FriG1k

Sonny Fortune, Saxophonist of Urgency and Grace, Dies at 79

Sonny Fortune performing with the drummer Rashied Ali at the Manhattan nightclub Sweet Rhythm in 2005. Mr. Fortune was known for his stalwart command not just of the alto saxophone, his primary instrument, but also of the flute, clarinet, and soprano, tenor and baritone saxophones.CreditCreditHiroyuki Ito for The New York Times