Tue, 01/12/2016 - 9:51 am

Internationally renowned composer and multi-instrumentalist Yanni rings in the New Year with a new album and the news of a major North American tour, embarking February 2nd in Sarasota, FL, with stops in cities including Atlanta, Denver, Nashville, New Orleans, Los Angeles and more. The run will continue well into the Spring with more dates to be announced shortly.  Yanni, accompanied by his 15-member master musician international orchestra, will perform beloved fan favorites as well as pull out a few surprises.  His new album SENSUOUS CHILL will be available worldwide via Sony Music Masterworks imprint Portrait Records on January 29th.

Composing, producing and recording his brand new album and launching an extensive tour is seemingly not enough for Yanni: hot on the heels of the release of Sensuous Chill, the artist will also be the focus of a spectacular new PBS Special YANNI: THE DREAM CONCERT - LIVE FROM THE GREAT PYRAMIDS OF EGYPT –which will air nationwide in March. A DVD and Blu-Ray of the Special will be available as well. Yanni explains his motivation for this project, “This album represents several years of collaboration with some of the brightest artists in the world! That is what brings the uniqueness the beauty and the color on this album. I have thought long and hard in order to decide which songs to pick, and in which sequence they should appear.. I wanted to create a sensuous melodious and sexy environment for the listener; and I wanted it to last a long time !...This album "knows" what it wants to be!...And it is unmistakably Yanni!! The whole collection  contains 17 songs 10 of which have never been released before. Put it on repeat and enjoy!!!”

For complete details – including a full itinerary and remaining ticket availability – please visit www.yanni.com/tour

Sensuous Chill can be preordered here:

 iTunes -  http://smarturl.it/SensuousChill-iTunes,

Amazon http://smarturl.it/SensuousChill-amcd

Google Play http://smarturl.it/SensuousChill-google

Yanni is a multiple GRAMMY® Award-nominated composer, multi-instrumentalist, producer, and performer whose extraordinary body of work has both pioneered contemporary instrumental music and re-imagined the live concert-going experience. Since making his solo debut with 1984’s OPTIMYSTIQUE, Yanni has had 15 albums reach #1 on Billboard’s “Top New Age Albums” chart – more than any other artist ever – with 1994’s LIVE AT THE ACROPOLIS also reaching the top 5 on the overall “Billboard 200” on its way to 4x platinum certification from the RIAA and total worldwide sales in excess of 7 million.

For over two decades, Yanni has been one of the world’s top selling live acts, performing on every continent bar Antarctica, in more than 35 countries, before a cumulative worldwide audience of more than 5 million and counting. In North America alone, Yanni’s 1995, 1998, and 2003-2005 concert tours were each named among Pollstar’s top 10 concert tours of the year. In the past decade Yanni has performed more than 500 concerts in over 25 countries.

Yanni has also taken his universal music to such iconic landmarks as India’s Taj Mahal and China’s Forbidden City, captured for posterity on 1997’s concert film and chart-topping RIAA platinum certified album, TRIBUTE. Other live highlights include 10 consecutive sold out shows at New York City’s Radio City Music Hall, performing inside the Kremlin in Russia, festival events at Tunisia’s Roman Theatre of Carthage and Lebanon’s ancient city of Byblos, and an historic concert beneath the world’s tallest skyscraper, Dubai’s Burj Khalifa.

Yanni’s inimitable work has long found a home on soundtracks for film, television, and commercials including British Airways’ award-winning “Face” campaign. YouTube now provides fans around the world with unprecedented access to Yanni’s music and videos, generating close to 350 million individual views over the past year alone.

YANNI 2016 Tour Dates:

02/02/16 - Sarasota, FL - Van Wezel Perf. Arts Hall (SOLD OUT)
02/03/16 - Jacksonville, FL - Moran Theater
02/05/16 - Clearwater, FL - Ruth Eckerd Hall  
02/06/16 - West Palm Beach, FL - Perfect Vodka Amphitheatre 
02/08/16 - Naples, FL - Artis (SOLD OUT) 
02/09/16 - Tallahassee, FL - Donald L. Tucker Civic Center 
02/10/16 - Nashville, TN - Andrew Jackson Hall 
02/11/16 - Jackson, MS - Thalia Mara Hall
02/13/16 - Orlando, FL - Dr. Phillips Center For The Performing Arts
02/14/16 - Melbourne, FL - King Center For Performing Arts
02/15/16 - North Charleston, SC - North Charleston Perf. Arts Center
02/16/16 - Greenville, SC - Peace Center Concert Hall
02/18/16 - Lafayette, LA - Heymann Performing Arts Center
02/19/16 - Panama City, FL - Marina Civic Center
02/20/16 - Atlanta, GA - Fox Theatre
02/21/16 - Charlotte, NC - Belk Theater
03/07/16 - Colorado Springs, CO - Pikes Peak Center
03/08/16 - Denver, CO - Bellco Theatre
03/10/16 - Tucson, AZ - Centennial Hall
03/11/16 - Tempe, AZ - Gammage Auditorium
03/12/16 - San Diego, CA - San Diego Civic Theatre
03/13/16 - Reno, NV - Grand Sierra Resort Theatre
03/15/16 - Palm Desert, CA - McCallum Theatre
03/16/16 - Los Angeles, CA - Microsoft Theater
03/18/16 - Los Angeles, CA - Microsoft Theater
03/19/16 - San Jose, CA - City National Civic
03/20/16 - Costa Mesa, CA - Segerstrom Center For The Arts
03/21/16 - Las Vegas, NV - The Smith Center For The Performing Arts
03/23/16 - El Paso, TX - The Plaza Theatre
03/24/16 - San Antonio, TX - Majestic Theatre
03/25/16 - Grand Prairie, TX - Verizon Theatre At Grand Prairie
03/26/16 - New Orleans, LA - Saenger Theatre
03/29/16 - Lancaster, PA - American Music Theatre
03/30/16 - Lancaster, PA - American Music Theatre
04/01/16 - Morristown, NJ - Mayo Performing Arts Center
04/02/16 - Atlantic City, NJ - Borgata Hotel, Casino & Spa / Event Ctr.
04/03/16 - Durham, NC - Durham Performing Arts Center
04/04/16 - Newport News, VA - Ferguson Center For The Arts
07/15/16 - Toronto, ON - Molson Canadian Amphitheatre
07/22/16 - Kettering, OH - Fraze Pavilion For The Perf. Arts
Thu, 09/01/2016 - 9:11 am

Kalamazoo, Michigan quintet Greensky Bluegrass announced the release of their anticipated new album Shouted, Written Down & Quoted, due out on September 23rd via the band’s own Big Blue Zoo Records/Thirty Tigers.

The album is the follow-up to 2014’s If Sorrows Swim, which debuted at #1 on the Billboard Top Bluegrass Albums chart, and comes on the heels of sold-out shows at Red Rocks Amphitheatre, The Ryman Auditorium, and a closing performance at this year’s Telluride Bluegrass Festival.

Billboard premieres the album’s lead single “Past My Prime” – LISTEN HERE

Like the band's name, Shouted, Written Down & Quoted is a collection of opposites, full of dark psychedelic swirls, bright bursts of acoustic guitar, soundscapes, solos, freethinking improvisation, and plenty of sharp, focused songwriting. It's wild and wide-ranging, showing off the diversity Greensky Bluegrass brings to every live show. At the same time, Shouted, Written Down & Quoted is unmistakably a studio album, recorded during two different sessions — one at Echo Mountain Studio in Asheville, North Carolina; the other at the Mountain House Recording Studio in Nederland, Colorado — that comprise the band's longest block of recording time ever. The result is an 11-track album whose songs cast a wide net, mixing the full-throttle energy of a Greensky Bluegrass concert with the nuanced approach of a band that's still eager to explore.

"You can call us an acoustic ensemble, or a drum-less rock band, or a rock & roll bluegrass band," says mandolin player Paul Hoffman, who, along with guitarist Dave Bruzza, handles most of the album's writing duties. "All of that shifting identity has taught us to cover a lot of ground. There's a flow to this album, just like there's a flow to our setlists. There are some aggressive, rocking moments. Some bouncy, funky moments. An acoustic think piece or two. It's a balance of moods and textures that we create as a band, almost like a mix tape."

Greensky Bluegrass is currently on tour, with more dates to be announced later this year.

Track List:

01) Miss September

02) Past My Prime

03) While Waiting

04) Run Or Die

05) Room Without A Roof

06) Hold On

07) Merely Avoiding

08) Living Over

09) More Of Me

10) Fixin To Ruin

11) Take Cover 

Tour Dates:

9/4: Chicago, IL - Union Park (North Coast Music Festival)

9/8: Iowa City, IA - The Blue Moose Tap House     

9/9: Lincoln, NE - Bourbon Theatre       

9/10: Lawrence, KS - Granada Theatre

9/11: St. Louis, KY -  Central Field at Forest Park (LouFest)

9/14: Lafayette, IN - Lafayette Theater

9/15: Louisville, KY - Mercury Ballroom 

9/16: Masontown, WV - Marvin’s Mountaintop (Deep Roots Mountain Revival Festival)

9/17: Port Chester, NY - The Capitol Theatre

9/18: Canton, MA - Prowse Farm (The New England Festy)

9/21: State College, PA - State Theatre  

9/22: Portland, ME - State Theatre

9/23, 9/24: South Burlington, VT - Higher Ground Ballroom     

9/25: Lakewood, PA - New Minglewood (Catskill Chill Music Festival)

9/28: Richmond, VA- The National

9/29: Black Mountain, NC - Pisgah Brewing Company

9/30: Chattanooga, TN - Ross Landing Park (3 Sisters Bluegrass Festival)

10/1: Raleigh, NC - Downtown Raleigh (Wide Open Bluegrass Festival)

10/13: Memphis, TN - New Daisy Theatre

10/14: Eureka Springs, AR -The Farm (Hillberry Music Festival)   

10/15: New Orleans, LA – The Joy Theater    

10/18: Jackson, MS - Duling Hall

10/19: Houston, TX - White Oak Music Hall    

10/20: Dallas, TX - Granada Theater     

10/21-10/22: Austin, TX - Scoot Inn       

10/25: Scottsdale, AZ - Livewire   

10/26: Flagstaff, AZ - The Orpheum Theater   

10/28: Live Oak, FL - Spirit Of The Suwannee Music Park (Suwannee Hulaween)

10/30, 10/31: Las Vegas, NV - Brooklyn Bowl Las Vegas

11/2: Solana Beach, CA - Belly Up Tavern     

11/3: Los Angeles, CA -Teragram Ballroom   

11/4: Crystal Bay, NV - Crystal Bay Club Casino    

11/5: San Francisco, CA - Warfield Theatre

12/9-12/12: Puerto Morelos, Mexico - Now Sapphire Resort (Strings & Sol)

Wed, 05/17/2017 - 6:37 am

San Francisco-based musician, producer, and conceptual artist Bill Baird has shared a new track, "Walking In A Straight Line." The song is currently streaming via Brightest Young Things. Describing the creative process behind the track, Baird writes that it initially "sounded like a robotic square dance." He elaborates, "Then I pulled out the trusty 1950’s Gibson Lap Steel and, remembering some quote from Jimi Hendrix about doing 24 tracks of guitar, tried to create a weave of interlocking parts that each reinforce each other. It was all really quick and intuitive. I played it for some friends and they were like, 'What the hell is this?' but with a smile on their face. So it felt like I’d caught something."

"Walking In A Straight Line" is featured on Baird's forthcoming album Baby Blue Abyss, which will be released in tandem with Easy Machines through Red Essential on July 28th. Very much ‘companion pieces’, each album was written and recorded with a certain time of day in mind – the more acoustic and folk-influenced Easy Machines representing "morning" and the distorted eclectic rock of Baby Blue Abyss reflecting the "evening".

Baird recently released a music video for the track "Muzak of the Spheres" from Baby Blue Abyss. The video is currently available to stream on Stereogum. Remarking on the video Baird writes, "The video was directed by my friend Elizabeth Abrams, shot by my friend Matthew Nauser and edited by Ted Feldman. I provide the costumes and the stumbling around. We shot over two days in the Dumont Dunes, this insane Bureau of Land Management site near Death Valley. The wind whips so fast through the dunes that they sing and hold notes. No, seriously. They’re called singing dunes and they really do sound like singing. I tried singing out there but got a mouth full of sand."

Describing the two albums, Baird says "Even though the records sound and feel pretty different, to me they are two different expressions of the same thing. Simply, just reflecting the world as I see it, in all its absurdity, joy, sadness, complexity, profundity, and inane dull madness. The two records approach this in fundamentally different ways.  Easy Machines is an 'internal' record -- explores this through the inner working of my mind. Finding my place where I can be comfortable with myself. Baby Blue Abyss is an 'external' record. Searching for my place in this fucking crazy world. Sifting through the commercialism, bourgeois mediocrity, conformity in all shapes and sizes (even among the rebels), the madness of war and the inanity of office drudgery. All punctuated and subsumed by one of life's simple joys: loud rock n' roll."

A restless polymath, Baird has also created numerous multimedia art installations, taught at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, invented a new musical instrument (the magnetetractys), hosted his own public access TV show, and collaborated on the film The Origin Of Sound, shot in India over five weeks which explores his love of the Hindustani drone music of north India. He’s created several installations melding music and art, such as the 16-channel-touch-screen-video project “Pray for Rain” or the science-fiction-come-to-life monstrosity of “It’s Not a Bubble”, in which he rigged a giant mylar balloon with a conductive surface that activated a surround speaker system and projectors when touched.

The last year has now seen Baird release no less than four albums. Earth Into Aether, released in April of last year, was a freewheeling two-disc, nineteen-track work which drew comparisons to Devendra Banhart, Beck, Bright Eyes and Sufjan Stevens. Summer Is Gone was a project of epic scale released in October; an online "album" of almost infinite variation which consisted of 250 unique mixes of the ten tracks that span the record, which Baird spent countless hours to produce. These mixes were then reassembled into unique sequences every hour to create an album on which the first iteration will not repeat itself before 1.3 Billion years (give or take a couple of million).

Baby Blue Abyss track listing:
 
1.   Wino Strut
2.   Graveyard Dawn
3.   Everlasting Pleasure Cruise
4.   Diamond Studded Casket
5.   Baby Blue
6.   Walking In A Straight Line
7.   Muzak Of The Spheres
8.   Bourgeois Blues
9.   Nature Dot Com
10. Social Swamp Quicksand Screen
11. Long Ascent
 
Easy Machines track listing:
 
1.   Telephones
2.   Quicksilver Slip
3.   Shape Shifting Game
4.   Be Yourself
5.   As The Sun Will Rise This Dream Recedes
6.   Heaviness Of Flame
7.   Sound In Your Mind
8.   You’re Someone Else
9.   So Says Me
10.   Never Go Home Again
 
The albums can be pre-ordered HERE.
Mon, 03/26/2018 - 10:17 am

The band took a break from tour and borrowed a friend’s tiny desk and brought it down to Red Hook in Brooklyn to have the Statue of Liberty as a back drop. “New Colossus” is a brand-new song composed by Kellen Asebroek, written to the words of a poem by Emma Lazarus that is inscribed on a plaque at the base of the Statue of Liberty. "I was at a local theater in Manhattan a while back, right around the President’s first executive push for travel/immigration bans (and the ensuing backlash and protests.) At the end of the performance (it was a Fireside Mystery Collective live radio taping) a woman delivered an impassioned rendition of The New Colossus. It was the first time I’d heard it in its entirety and it moved me to tears. It garnered a standing ovation and left a lasting impression on me. The next morning, I started trying to figure out a way to put it to music.” - Kellen Asebroek

The performance was captured by placing each of our iPhones in various places (vocals, kick drum, bass, etc) and then Tyler Thompson our drummer combined all of the phone audio into one stereo track. Our FoH TLP (Terry Lapointe) shot the video on another iPhone.

Tue, 03/27/2018 - 8:08 am

Phoebe Hunt’s timely new single “Marching On" is a celebration of the awakening that is happening in our country. This past weekend’s March For Our Lives, hosted by the youth of our nation, is a testament to the millions of people who are willing to stand connected and united in the name of change. Hunt observes, “The youth are reminding us that the power of the spoken word is still the sword with the greatest impact. We must continue tipping the scale, pushing against the voice of oppression, and demonstrating the strength of unity.” The new single will be released on all major services this Friday.

Keeping us focused on this tipping point moment in world history, “Marching On” is an anthem for the times. Artists are now rising up to join in with the youth and women of our country who have paved the way for the turning point that can only come as the people continue to fearlessly stand together for what they believe in.

“Marching On” is the first of four singles Hunt will release this year following the cycle of the seasons. "Being about rebirth, creation, action, awakening and vibrance, spring, especially this spring, I feel called to being part of a bigger picture,” says Hunt. “There is a call to action in the air, reminding us that it has always been the strength of the people coming together with a united voice that has inspired change in any capacity.”

Hunt’s 2017 full-length release Shanti’s Shadow “reignited her solo career” according to Rolling Stone, hinting at “otherworldly music within.” Along with her band, The Gatherers, Hunt has found the musical wings upon which to soar within her unique world of artistic expression. From American Songwriter to NPR’s Heavy Rotation, her music is reaching an audience that listens beyond the status quo.

@phoebe_hunt

fb:@phoebehuntmusic

Phoebe Hunt & The Gatherers Tour Dates:

3.38 Parlor Room | Northampton, MA

3.29 Charles River Museum | Waltham, MA

3.30 Cock N’ Bull | Galway, NY

3.31 Hopewell Theater | Hopewell, NJ

4.2 Brooklyn, NY (Location TBA)

4.4 Fogartyville Cafe | Sarasota, FL

4.5 Fifth & Thomas | Tallahassee, FL

4.6 Heartwood Sound Stage | Gainesville, FL

4.7-4.8 Brooksville, FL | Stringbreak Fest

4.12 One-2-One | Austin, TX

4.14 Green Apple Arts Center | Eden, TX

4.15 Comfort Concerts | Comfort, TX

6.22 Telluride Bluegrass Festival | Telluride, CO

6.28 ROMP Festival | Owensboro, KY

8.3 Caffe Lena | Saratoga Springs, NY

8.5 Music In The Meadow | Stowe, VT

8.10 Pickadoll Country Festival | Älvkarleby (SE)

8.11 Wasastugan | Mora (SE)

8.12 Country Mot Cancer | Södra Vi (SE)

8.14 Kontoret | Uddevalla (SE)

8.15 The Bull Bar| Karlstad (SE)

8.16 Bosses Lastkaj | Örebro (SE)

8.17 Droskan | Umeå (SE)

8.18 Lillan | Luleå (SE)

8.19 Jazzköket | Östersund (SE)

8.20 Avant Garden | Trondheim (NO)

8.22 Bryggerhuset | Halden (NO)

8.23 John Dee | Oslo (NO)

8.24 Garage Bar | Höganäs (SE)

8.31 Floyd Yoga Jam | Floyd, VA

9.1 Blue Ridge Music Center | Galax, VA

9.8 Sisters Folk Festival | Sisters, OR

9.13 Oshman Family JCC | Palo Alto, CA

9.14-16 AMA Conference

9.22 Bourbon and Beyond Festival | Louisville, KY

Thu, 05/03/2018 - 9:06 am

Fruition joined Jack Johnson each night on the tour for his songs “Big Sur” and “Breakdown.” Houston Press said "If you didn't get to the show early, you missed a nice and unexpected treat in Fruition. You may have been kicking yourself when they joined Johnson (who was on the uke!) for a rousing version of 'Breakdown.’”

Fruition were such a big hit that Jack invited the band for an unexpected sit-in during his set at the New Orleans Jazz Festival this past weekend. Getting the call just two hours before showtime and being in the midst of a long drive from Dallas, TX to New Orleans, it was only thanks to a little luck, a lead foot, and help from the extroadinary staff at NOLA Jazz Fest that they were able to make it happen. Ben Elman from Galactic also joined in on the set. 
 
Returning the favor, Zach Gill from Jack's band and ALO came to Fruition's late night set at the House of Blues, where he sat in on his own tune “Handy Man” and Tom Petty’s "Runnin' Down A Dream.”

The band wraps up their own headlining tour this week with shows in Alabama and Georgia. They'll continue throughout the spring and summer with plenty of festivals and a night at Red Rocks Amphitheatre opening for Railroad Earth on August 18th. A Fall tour announcement is coming soon.

Thu, 05/17/2018 - 3:14 pm

Singer/Songwriter Phil Cook is gearing up for the release of PEOPLE ARE MY DRUG, a collection of roots and gospel-infused songs written with a common message of community in each track. PAMD comes out June 1 on Psychic Hotline/Thirty Tigers. Pre-order PEOPLE ARE MY DRUG here.

Cook’s newest single is “Another Mother’s Son,” a modern-day civil rights song about police shootings, and a plea for community in a world full of disconnect. Cook enlisted another Durham NC hip hop artist and slam poetry-champion Kane Smego to help write this deeply personal track.

Cook says, “We live in a society that is both connected and increasingly apathetic toward the human experience.  As a parent, I know that having fears and worries for my children is universal to the role. However, to be the parent of a black child in America is to send your kid out the door each day with a target on their body. This is a worry that my family will never know. We exist in the same communities, but the systematic injustice of our country has divided us into two different worlds. Empathy begins when we share in the fight for protecting black children from the disproportionate violence that they face in their everyday experience.”

For the full statement and “Another Mother’s Son” song lyrics see: http://philcookmusic.com/journal/anothermothersson

Cook heads out on tour on June 7, kicking things off with a performance at Cat’s Cradle in Carrboro, NC. He also joins Daniel Norgren on the road for a few dates in July and August. Cook is also confirmed for the 2018 Pickathon Music Festival in Happy Valley Oregon August 3-5, as well as ACL Music Festival in Austin, TX Oct. 12-14. A full list of dates is below and at www.philcookmusic.com.

Cook has been involved in a number of projects, including psych-folk band Megafaun. He is a recording and touring member of Hiss Golden Messenger, has collaborated with Indigo Girls' Amy Ray, performed with Mavis Staples, and has been the Musical Director for The Blind Boys of Alabama.  PEOPLE ARE MY DRUG  follows Cook’s first solo album, 2015’s acclaimed Southland Mission. earned raves across the board, including Paste, The Bluegrass Situation, American Songwriter, Pitchfork, NPR’s World Cafe and others.  

Phil Cook on Tour:

6/7 - Carrboro, NC – Cat’s Cradle %

6/8 - Washington DC – Songbyrd %

6/10 - Brooklyn, NY - Rough Trade %

7/31 - Los Angeles, CA - Teragram Ballroom*

8/1 - San Francisco, CA - The Independent*

8/3-5 - Happy Valley, OR - Pickathon

8/7-8 - Seattle, WA - Tractor Tavern*

7/6-7 - Eau Claire, WI – Eaux Claires Music Festival

10/12-14 - Austin, TX – ACL Music Festival

% w/ Jake Xerxes Fussell

*Co-Headline with Daniel Norgren

Wed, 06/13/2018 - 6:43 pm

Indie-folk singer/songwriter Andrew Combs is engaging in the highest order of flattery –a collection of cover songs. The acclaimed Nashville singer/songwriter announces his new EP 5 Covers & A Song with his version of The Strokes’ “Reptilia.” Brooklyn Vegan says, “He [Combs] gives it a bit of Americana twist too and he uses horns to re-create the main guitar riff, but he keeps the singing more true to the original. It’s a cool take on a great song.” “Reptilia” is available today, and the EP drops July 27 on New West Records; pre-order the EP here.   

Stream Reptilia via YouTube:

 Combs kicks off a US tour on release day in his hometown at The Basement. About the tour, Combs notes, “Each show will include one or two “special guests” performing a few covers and originals as well. I’ll have the full band in tow and look forward to playing the songs on the EP, as well as other covers and originals.”  A full itinerary of dates is below and at www.andrewcombsmusic.com.  Each show will include one or 

On 5 Covers & A Song, Combs showcases songs that have had an impact on him at different points in his life. Songs by The Strokes and Radiohead are a nostalgic look back at teenage self-discovery, while Loudon Wainwright III’s “4 x 10” represents a more current perspective, reflecting on his life now as a husband and father.

The idea for the EP evolved as a setting to recognize some of his favorite songwriters. “We all know that Blake Mills is a tremendous guitar player, but it’s his knack for songwriting and arranging that keeps me coming back to his records. Lucinda is the queen of songwriting in my book. No one else can portray a picture like her. She’s up there with Tom Waits, Townes and Guy Clark when it comes to words. I wanted a love song on the EP — something that came from a feeling of adoration. It’s a simple bed of music that her words dance on, but the build of the tune helps portray the yearning for someone. I couldn’t be happier with this version. I’d like to think Lucinda would enjoy it as well.”

The final track on the album, “Expectations,” is the sole original song on the EP. “This is a tune Sarah Siskind and I came up with on a rainy afternoon here in Nashville. We got to talking about relationships. I remember repeating a quote from a friend, saying, “you only get what you expect,” meaning that if you have expectations about someone close to you, positive or negative, they most likely will come true in your mind.”

The EP follows Combs last release, 2017’s celebrated Canyons of My Mind. Combs and the album garnered raves from tastemakers. NPR Music called Combs, "One of Nashville’s most poetically gifted young singer-songwriters,” while Rolling Stone Country said “Combs is the rare writer who can make the personal seem universal, and break down the broad into pieces small enough to chew.”

Andrew Combs on Tour:

6/15: Nashville, TN - Bluebird Cafe

6/22: Nashville, TN 3rd & Lindsley

6/29: Athens, GA - Wildwood Revival

7/27: Nashville, TN - The Basement

8/7: Decatur, GA - Eddie’s Attic

8/9: Washington, DC - DC9

8/10: Philadelphia, PA - Boot and Saddle

8/11: Brooklyn, NY - Union Pool

8/16: Evanston, IL - Space

8/17: St. Paul, Minnesota - Turf Club

8/22: Seattle, WA - The Sunset Tavern

8/23: Portland, OR - Mississippi Studios

8/25: Los Angeles, CA - Bootleg Theater

Thu, 07/05/2018 - 4:02 pm

Renowned bluesman Cedric Burnside grandson of legendary R.L. Burnside is gearing up for the release of BENTON COUNTY RELIC, out September 14 on Single Lock Records.  The first single is the gritty track "We Made It" a matter-of-fact recitation of his poverty-stricken childhood without running water, radio or TV (“I come from nothin’/I done been lower than low/I keep my head straight/No matter how low I go”).

Pre-order BENTON COUNTY RELIC and stream “We Made It” here.

Burnside was Grammy-nominated in 2015 for Best Blues Album for the Cedric Burnside Project’s Descendants of Hill Country, and was the recipient of the Blues Music Awards honor as Drummer of the Year for four consecutive years. With BENTON COUNTY RELIC, Burnside showcases his electric and acoustic guitar prowess, recording the record in just two days with drummer/slide guitarist Brian Jay in the latter’s Brooklyn home studio. While Burnside draws upon a tradition that’s decades old,the tracks on BENTON COUNTY RELIC sound more immediate and cut deeper than any other artists recent attempt to interpret the blues.

There’s blood on these 12 tracks, from the description of “Typical Day” (“I wake up in the morning’/Sun shinin’ on my face/I drink a cup of coffee/I might roll me a J”) to the loss of family endured in “Hard To Stay Cool” to the unrequited passion of “There Is So Much."

As the grandson of Burnside and son of drummer Calvin Jackson, Cedric has been playing music  his whole life. He has performed and recorded with countless musicians, including Junior Kimbrough, Kenny Brown, North Mississippi Allstars, Burnside Exploration, Widespread Panic, Jimmy Buffett, T Model Ford, Bobby Rush, Honey Boy Edwards, Hubert Sumlin, Galactic, Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears, and The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion among many others. In 2006, he was featured in Craig Brewer’s critically acclaimed feature film Black Snake Moan, playing drums alongside Samuel L. Jackson. (The film is a loose tribute to R.L. Burnside, and gives many nods to the late bluesman.)

Mon, 08/06/2018 - 12:51 pm

On August 17, Fruition will release a new EP Fire. A fan favorite among their live shows, the band have shared a video for their scorching live version of the title track, which they performed at Red Rocks last year. They'll return to Red Rocks August 18 for a show with Railroad Earth, and hit the road for an extensive fall tour to support the new EP.

Three of the tracks on Fire are from the same sessions in which the band recorded their latest album Watching It All Fall Apart (LoHi Records) with acclaimed producer Tucker Martine (First Aid Kit, My Morning Jacket, The Decemberists), with the 4th track, "New Colosuss," being mixed and engineered by the band's own Tyler Thompson. The first single "Baby Let's Go" will be released on August 10. The CD can be preordered from the band’s official site at http://hyperurl.co/yj36oe

Stream Watching It All Fall Apart via Spotify.

Fruition will be donating the proceeds from the first 3 months of digital sales and streaming for the tracks "Dirty Thieves" and "New Colosuss" to charities closely tied to the subject matter of each track.

"Dirty Thieves" was written by Jay Cobb Anderson as a result of the band’s van being broken into while playing a show at Brick & Mortar in San Francisco’s Mission district. The song references being woken up to the area's homeless problem by the sound of shattered glass, feeling inconvenienced by the theft at first, but upon looking closer, seeing it as another human struggling to survive. It imagines them using what was taken to somehow improve their desperate situation that is all too often overlooked. Keeping in spirit with the songs message, initial proceeds will go to San Francisco’s Community Housing Partnership whose mission is to help homeless people secure housing and become self-sufficient.

"New Colossus," composed by Kellen Asebroek, uses lyrics taken from Emma Lazarus' poem of the same name which is engraved on the base of the Statue of Liberty. In turn, the first 3 months' proceeds will be donated to the National Immigration Law Center. The band also recorded a live version of the track in Brooklyn for NPR’s Tiny Desk Contest while on tour earlier this year: https://youtu.be/JQce2pXOtzw?t=8s

With more festivals and a show at Red Rocks on the horizon, the band have announced a new run of headline dates for the fall including stops in Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., and New York City and more. They will be joined at various dates by Daniel Rodriguez of Elephant Revival and The Lil Smokies. In November, the band will return to the Pacific Northwest for their first headline shows since they sold out New Year’s shows in Seattle and Portland. Yak Attack will open those 3 shows. See full list of dates below.

Fire Tracklist:

1) Baby Let’s Go

2) Dirty Thieves

3) Fire

4) New Colossus

Tour Dates:

August 7 - Hope, AK - Creekbend Company

August 8 - Anchorage, AK - Williwaw

August 10 - Bonner, MT - KettleHouse Amphitheater #

August 11 - Livingston, MT - Pine Creek Lodge

August 12 - Alta, WY - Grand Targhee Bluegrass Festival

August 14 - Telluride, CO - Sheridan Opera House

August 15 - Aspen, CO - Belly Up Aspen

August 18 - Morrison, CO - Red Rocks Amphitheater %

September 12 - Arcata, CA - Humbrews

September 13 - San Francisco, CA - The Chapel &

September 15 - Templeton, CA - Whale Rock Music Festival

September 23 - East Aurora, NY - Borderland Festival

September 26 - Ferndale, MI - Otus Supply @

September 27 - Grand Rapids, MI - Pyramid Scheme @

September 28 - Chicago, IL - Martyrs’ @

September 29 - Winona, MN - Boats and Bluegrass

September 30 - Milwaukee, WI - Colectivo @

October 03 -  Bethlehem, PA - Musikfest Cafe @

October 04 -  Baltimore, MD - 8x10 @

October 05 - Arrington, VA - The Festy

October 07 - Ontario, CA - Huck Finn Jubilee

October 10 - Philadelphia, PA - Boot and Saddle ^

October 11 - Washington, DC - Union Stage ^ @

October 12 - TBA

October 13 - Brooklyn, NY - Brooklyn Bowl ^

October 17 - Cincinnati, OH - 20th Century Theater @

October 18 - Indianapolis, IN - Breck Trek 

October 19 - Columbus, OH - Woodlands @

October 20 - Fayetteville, WV - Bridge Jam

November 15 - Bend, OR - Domino Room *

November 16 - Portland, OR - Crystal Ballroom *

November 17 - Seattle, WA - The Croc *

January 15-21 - Port of Miami, FL - Jam Cruise

# opening for Greensky Bluegrass

% opening for Railroad Earth

@ with Daniel Rodriguez of Elephant Revival

& with Bear Market Riot

^ with The Lil Smokies

* with Yak Attack

Wed, 12/05/2018 - 3:02 pm

Tuomo & Markus is a new musical project from acclaimed Finnish soul/jazz artist Tuomo Prättälä and singer/songwriter Markus Nordenstreng of The Latebirds. The duo’s music has been described as Nordic Americana and neo folk with distinct jazz, soul and prog-rock influences. Their haunting harmonies complement each other much like in the cases of Simon & Garfunkel or Crosby Stills Nash.

Tuomo & Markus recorded their debut album ‘Dead Circles’ in Tucson AZ. The spontaneous sessions at Wavelab Studios featured many high profile guests, including various members of Wilco, Calexico and The Jayhawks.

Since the fruitful sessions in Arizona Tuomo & Markus have transformed into a stellar 6-piece live band, featuring Finnish jazz trumpet sensation Verneri Pohjola. Jazz and psychedelic influences have become more and more evident at their ambitious live shows, drawing the attention of critics like David Fricke who hailed the band in Rolling Stone Magazine recently and Kevin Cole from KEXP who in turn invited Tuomo & Markus for a live session when they performed in Seattle.

Tuomo & Markus have also recorded several 7" soul singles for Stylart/Timmion Records under the alias Pratt & Moody.

Tuomo & Markus have shared the live video for their cover of John Lennon's "Beautiful Boy," paying tribute to the music icon who will have passed 38 years ago tomorrow. Recorded in the band's hometown of Helsinki, Finland, they were joined by acclaimed Finnish jazz trumpeter Verneri Pohjola and Wilco's Glenn Kotche on drums.

The duo’s music has been featured in various films, documentaries and commercials.

You can catch Tuomo & Markus live soon as well. They're playing in Minneapolis on Dec 21 with the Jayhawks at 1st Ave and then again on January 18 at The Cedar Cultural Center. They also play NYC’s Winter Jazzfest on January 12.

Wed, 01/16/2019 - 12:01 pm

Blackbird Presents Records is proud to announce the CD/DVD/LP release of Imagine: John Lennon 75th Birthday Concert. The concert film and music release features a collection of legendary singers and superstars who came together for a once-in-a-lifetime concert event taping in New York City at The Theater At Madison Square Garden to celebrate the songs of music icon John Lennon.

Blackbird Presents Records will release the full-length concert as a double CD, DVD and LP, which are available for immediate pre-order at http://imaginejohnlennon75.com/shop

The CD, CD/DVD, and LP packages will be released in January 18th, 2019.

John Lennon 75th Birthday Concert

Imagine: John Lennon 75th Birthday Concert features captivating performances, in-depth interviews, and compelling behind-the-scenes action with Aloe Blacc, Eric Church, Sheryl Crow, Brandon Flowers, John Fogerty, Peter Frampton, Juanes, Kris Kristofferson, Pat Monahan, Tom Morello, Willie Nelson, The Roots, Spoon, Chris Stapleton and Steven Tyler. Performances include a range of Lennon classics, such as "Mind Games" (performed by Eric Church), "You've Got To Hide Your Love Away" (performed by Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson, and Chris Stapleton), an electrified rendition of "Power to the People" (performed by Tom Morello), "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" (performed by Aloe Blacc, Sheryl Crow and Peter Frampton), and the heart-stirring finale, "All You Need Is Love," which is available as a pre-release download today.

“John’s art continues to give hope, light and happiness to generations of people everywhere. His belief that each of us can change the world continues to inspire the human race to believe in themselves, and his influence is everlasting in everyone’s hearts as we all share in the possibilities and power of music," says Yoko Ono.

In addition to the CD/DVD/LP release fans can get exclusive merchandise bundles from Blackbird Presents http://imaginejohnlennon75.com/shop.

Keith Wortman is creator and executive producer of the show. GRAMMY® and EMMY® Award winner Greg Phillinganes (“Stevie Wonder: Songs in the Key of Life: An All-Star GRAMMY Salute”) served as music director for this extraordinary concert event. DGA® Award winner Gregg Gelfand (“The Night That Changed America: A GRAMMY Salute to the Beatles”) directed.

Imagine John Lennon Concert: All You Need Is Love from Blackbird Presents on Vimeo.

“It would be impossible to quantify the immense impact John Lennon continues to have on modern culture,” says Blackbird Presents CEO Keith Wortman. “His music and lyrics continue to shape the lives of musicians and millions of fans around the world. I can't think of any better way to honor his legacy than with this extraordinary album."

FOR COMPLETE DETAILS VISIT THE OFFICIAL WEBSITE:

http://imaginejohnlennon75.com

#JohnLennon75

Sat, 03/23/2019 - 10:40 am

Forever Overhead, the debut album from singer-songwriter Tim Baker, features eleven songs that centre on kinship. His buoyant first single "Dance" was about a longing for connection and feeling close to, but ultimately separated from, love. "All Hands," his joyous indie-folk single, again explores connections, but is less of a lament than a thank you letter, dedicated to the people who have helped Baker throughout his career, and part nostalgic anthem about his Newfoundland home.

LISTEN: Tim Baker - "All Hands"

"This is a song about my past," says Baker who grew up in the small maritime town of St. John's before moving to Toronto, the 4th largest city in North America, in 2018. "It's a song of homesickness that grew into a nostalgic anthem. I was thinking of the Newfoundland diaspora (or any diaspora, really). And it turned out celebratory - sort of revelling in the fact that there is this place that is an inescapable part of me, along with all the people there that I’ve loved and learned from and been shaped by. One of my favourite things is when a reason for despair turns out to also be a reason for celebration, almost simultaneously. It feels good to sing."

Forever Overhead, is produced by Marcus Paquin (The National, Local Natives), and set for release on April 19, 2019 via Arts & Crafts. 

PRE-ORDER Forever Overhead.

For his debut solo album, Tim Baker, formerly the songwriter and lead vocalist of beloved Canadian indie rock band Hey Rosetta!, took his inspiration from ‘70s songwriters, like Jackson Browne and Randy Newman, whose music filled his childhood home, and from his contemporaries (Feist, Bahamas, Andy Shauf). The resulting blend of piano ballads, pop grooves, and ebullient folk-rock is straightforward with curious undertones that provides a timeless backdrop for Baker’s vibrant lyricism.

The album was announced in February alongside the breezy lead single "Dance" with a beautiful video directed by Tim’s long-time friend and fellow Newfoundlander Jordan Canning (Schitt’s Creek, Baroness Von Sketch). The video, shot in the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa, further examined our modern dissociation and desire. Drawing upon this unique setting where nature is frozen in time behind glass, the video speaks to how increasingly disconnected we are from nature and the people in our lives, even when they are right in front of us.

WATCH “Dance” (Dir. Jordan Canning)

The search for personal connection is a recurring theme in both Tim Baker's songwriting as well as his approach to live performance. In February of 2018, he travelled across Canada solo to play a handful of intimate  shows in some of the oddest venues: a book store, living rooms, a ski lodge, the rink bar during a curling tournament and a hotel room Tim lived in for a week. This intentional, unconventional approach allowed him to distill the purest elements of these songs by road-testing them in the most challenging of circumstances – alone in front of silent, small, attentive audiences. All delivered from the heart and either by piano or guitar and most of which will comprise a 5 song live video EP/doc style mini series entitled “The Side Door Sessions.”

 TIM BAKER – HEADLINE SHOWS 2019:

04/17/19 Hamilton, ON The Casbah (All Ages) 

04/19/19 St. John’s, NL Holy Heart Theatre* (second show added) 

04/20/19 St. John’s, NL Holy Heart Theatre* 

04/23/19 Toronto, ON Great Hall* SOLD OUT 

04/24/19 Toronto, ON Great Hall* (second show added) SOLD OUT

04/25/19 Toronto, ON Great Hall* (third show added) 

04/26/19 Ottawa, ON Bronson Centre*

04/28/19 Quebec City, QC Maelstrom* (new date) 

04/29/19 Fredericton, NB Wilmot United Church*

04/30/19 Moncton, NB Tide and Boar Ballroom*

05/02/19 Charlottetown, PE ECMAs

05/03/19 Halifax, NS St. Matthew's United Church (second show added)* SOLD OUT

05/04/19 Halifax, NS St. Matthew's United Church* SOLD OUT

05/07/19 Montreal, QC Le Ministère*

05/08/19 NYC, NY Rockwood Music Hall

05/11/19 Brooklyn, NY Jalopy Theatre

05/13/19 Asbury Park, NJ Danny Clinch Gallery

05/14/19 Vienna, VA Jammin Java 

05/16/19 Boston, MA Cafe 939

05/18/19 Burlington, VT Higher Ground Showcase

05/20/19 Buffalo, NY Leopard Lounge at Town Ballroom 

05/29/19 Edmonton, AB The Station on Jasper*

05/30/19 Calgary, AB Commonwealth Bar & Stage*

06/01/19 Vancouver, BC Commodore Ballroom* (venue change) 

06/03/19 Seattle, WA Columbia City Theater*

06/04/19 Portland, OR The Old Church*

06/07/19 Los Angeles, CA The Hotel Cafe*

06/08/19 San Francisco, CA Hotel Utah*

*with Charlotte Cornfield 

Fri, 04/26/2019 - 3:16 pm

Today, singer-songwriter Ellis Paul releases the music video for "I Ain't No Jesus," the lead off track from his forthcoming album The Storyteller's Suitcase, out May 31 on his own Rosella Records label. Pre-order the album HERE.

Watch "I Ain't No Jesus" via YouTube:

Originally, in a nod to John Prine, Paul imagined “Jesus coming out of his tomb at Easter and looking around at how screwed up everything is. So he says, ‘Fuck it, I’m going back in.’ It was serious, with a humorous aspect to it.” But while writing with rising country star Jamie Kent, the track morphed into a love song, much to Paul’s surprise and delight.

Born and raised in Maine, Paul attended Boston College and became a fixture at the city’s open mic nights. After winning a Boston Acoustic Underground songwriter competition, he caught critics’ ears with the release of his indie album Say Somethingin 1993, which led to a deal with Rounder Records and the 1994 album, Stories. Through a steady succession of albums – a remarkable 20 releases so far – and almost constant touring, Paul’s audience grew into a loyal legion of fans.

“There’s a craft to what I do, and I take it very seriously,” Paul says. “At the same time, I look at it as a calling, too. I tour quite a bit, and that allows me to come into contact with so many people of all walks of life. I hear their stories, and I realize that they could be telling me my story, too. So I try to make sense out of it all. I try to get to the heart of what we’re all feeling. That’s at the root of what I do – capturing the humanity we share with some kind of grace and integrity.”

Ellis’ new album continues that grand and noble tradition. On 13 deeply felt narratives, the singer-songwriter takes listeners on a beautifully sustained journey that is at both strikingly intimate and universally relatable.

The Storyteller’s Suitcase also serves as the first time Paul produced his own record. “I finally felt ready,” he says. “Whenever somebody else produces you, even if they’re great and you agree all the way, they’re still changing what you do in some way. I feel as though I would hand producers a black-and-white photo, and they’d put their own colors on it and hand it back to me. Now I’m hearing my own sounds and getting them on tape. I’m putting down the ink and applying all of my own colors. So this album is a very honest statement from top to bottom. It’s a true self-portrait.”

Always on the road, Paul will continue to tour throughout the U.S. all year long. See full list of tour dates below and at his website: https://www.ellispaul.com/calendar/

Tracklist:

1. I Ain't No Jesus

2. You'll Never Be This Young Again

3. Kiss Me 'Cause I'm Gone

4. Scarecrow in a Corn Maze

5. Slingshot

6. The Storyteller's Suitcase

7. How You Say Goodbye

8. Innocence and the Afterlife

9. Five Alarm Fire on the 4th of July

10. The Battle of Charlottesville

11. Mammoth

12. Heaven

13. Election Day

Tour Dates:

April 27 - Cedar Rapids, IA @ CSPS Hall

April 28 - Minneapolis, MN @ WernerCedar Cultural Center

May 3 - Chelmsford, MA @ Chelmsford Center for the Arts

May 4 - Duxbury, MA @ South Shore Folk Music Club 

May 10 - Bonita, CA @ Sweetwater Community Church

May 16 - Chattanooga, TN @ Songbirds Guitar Museum

May 19 - Washington, D.C. @ The Hamilton (Special Guest of Red Molly)

May 20 - Annapolis, MD @ 49 West Coffeehouse

May 26 - Kerrville, TX @ Kerville Folk Festival

June 6 - Boston, MA @ City Winery

June 28 - Charlottesville, VA @ The Front Porch

July 13 - Guthrie, OK @ Magnolia Moon 

July 26 - Asheville, NC @ Isis Music Hall

Aug 24 - Winnsboro, TX @ The Bowery Stage at Winnsboro Center for the Arts

Sept 19 - New London, NH @ Flying Goose Brewpub

Oct 10 - Warwick, MD @ Worsell Manor Music in the Barn

Oct 25 - Ft. Lauderdale, FL @ Broward Center for the Performing Arts

Nov 16 - Oxford, NY @ Six on the Square

Nov 30 - Decatur, GA @ Eddie’s Attic

Mon, 06/03/2019 - 10:01 am

Today, Grammy-nominated band The Record Company released a reimagined version of their song “You and Me Now” available only on Amazon Music. Originally released on the band's acclaimed sophomore album, All Of This Life, the new Amazon Original version features production from the legendary T Bone Burnett and reveals a gentler, more subtle side of the band. The track is available to stream and purchase now. 

Listen to “You and Me Now" (produced by T Bone Burnett) only on Amazon Music:  amzn.to/youandmenow

The Record Company notes, “We have always produced our own music, so to get the chance to work with one of our favorite producers in T Bone Burnett was an absolutely unforgettable experience. We are so proud to share a reimagined version of one of our favorite songs from our last record and put a new spin on it. Hope all of our fans enjoy!”

Burnett adds, “I think of the music The Record Company makes as classical music, that is, music that grows out of the same ground as Muddy Waters and Jimmy Reed and Hank Williams. Or maybe soul music. Maybe that’s what it is. Whatever you call it, they go for the groove. Good musicians and singers playing and singing good songs.”

The Record Company released All of This Life in June 2018, and the album debuted in the top 5 on multiple Billboard charts, including Top New Artists and Top Alternative Artists. The band kicked off 2019 on Bob Seger’s Farewell Tour, earning thunderous standing ovations each night while playing to packed arenas. The groove-driven, blues-infused trio also kicked off their headline All Of This Life tour today, where they are scheduled to play more than a dozen American cities with stops at Red Rocks Amphitheater (supporting Dispatch), Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival and Firefly Music Festival. See below for full tour itinerary. Tickets can be found at http://therecordcompany.net/tour/.

 Amazon Music listeners can find The Record Company's reimagined version of “You and Me Now” on the “Brushland” playlist, the global stage for today's Americana fan. Customers can also simply ask, "Alexa play the Amazon Original by The Record Company" in the Amazon Music app for iOS and Android and on Alexa-enabled devices. In addition to the new track, Amazon Music listeners can access hundreds of Amazon Originals featuring both emerging and established artists across numerous genres, available to stream and purchase only on Amazon Music.

Tour Dates:

May 31 - Seattle, WA - Neptune Theatre

June 1 - Portland, OR - Wonder Ballroom

June 3 - Boise, ID - Knitting Factory Concert House

June 5 - Sacramento, CA - Ace of Spades

June 7 - Salt Lake City, UT - The Commonwealth

June 8 - Aspen, CO - Belly Up

June 9 - Morrison, CO - Red Rocks Amphitheatre

June 11 - Omaha, NE - The Waiting Room

June 12 - North Kansas City, MO - Voodoo Lounge

June 13 - Columbia, MO - Rose Park

June 15 - Manchester, TN - Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival

June 17 - Athens, GA - Georgia Theatre

June 18 - Wilmington, NC - Greenfield Lake Amphitheatre

June 19 - Raleigh, NC - Lincoln Theatre

June 21 - Dover, DE - Firefly Music Festival

June 22 - Peoria, IL - Glen Oak Park

July 5 - Charlotte, NC - The Fillmore Charlotte

July 6 - Greensboro, NC - White Oak Amphitheatre

July 7 - Manteo, NC - Roanoake Island Festival Park

July 10 - Charlottesville, VA - Sprint Pavilion

July 11 - Baltimore, MD - MECU Pavilion

July 12 - Union, ME - Savage Oaks Vineyard & Winery

July 13 - Lowell, MA - Lowell Summer Music Series

Tue, 07/23/2019 - 5:52 pm

Guitarist Slim Gambill, releases “Over Getting Over You” with an exclusive  Parade.com debut. Parade describes the track as "...a 70's pop R&B groove with infectious vocals and some funky guitar playing." “Over Getting Over You” is the first single from Gambill’s forthcoming solo debut,  Fake Jazz & Theme Songs. The album is now available for pre-order and will be released on September 6th via Ludlow St. Records.

Experience “Over Getting Over You” via Parade Magazine

“Over Getting Over You” is the only non-instrumental track on the album, a meticulously written and arranged slice of ‘70s pop-R&B, that is graced by singer Candace Devine’s seismic performance. Gambill, who is best known as the lead guitarist for the multi-platinum Grammy® Award winning recording artist Lady Antebellum, describes “Over Getting Over You”  as ‘a song about getting out of a relationship, only to realize you want back in.’  Gambill had already recorded a version of the song for Devine’s EP, Here We Are (which he produced), but for his album he decided to revisit the track. “I wanted to do more of a guitar thing with it,” he says, “kind of how Santana would do it. I stretched out the guitar intro, and then throughout the cut I made it more of a duet between me and Candace.”

The wide range of styles featured on the album are reflected by the diversity of the musicians working with Gambill; Kenneth Crouch (Mariah Carey, Lionel Richie) and Jeff Coffin ( Dave Matthews Band)  Chris Nix, a frequent collaborator with Korn’s Jonathan Davis, and Isaac Hanson of the group Hanson. “This is probably the only record that will ever feature those two guys together,” Gambill proudly states.

Between Lady Antebellum tours, Gambill has been playing cuts from Fake Jazz & Theme Songs at jazz clubs across the country, and time permitting, he’s eyeing more dates following the release of the album. Depending on their availability, players in his band sometimes change, but for “95 percent” of his shows he performs with Latavius Mulzac on keys, Michael Majett on bass and Eljah “DD” Holt on drums.

“It would be awesome if I can tour more extensively in the next year, but I’m taking things as they come,” Gambill says. “I’m so proud of this album, and I’m really grateful that I had the chance to make it. It ties a lot of my influences into a really cool package, and it really shows off the fact that I’m a writer and composer first and foremost. Guitar is the voice I use to express myself.” 

Website -  Facebook - InstagramSpotifyYouTube

Thu, 08/29/2019 - 7:57 pm

Singer/songwriter Josh Ritter and indie-folk duo The Milk Carton Kids have teamed up for an Amazon Original reimagined version of Ritter’s song “Losing Battles.” Originally released on Ritter’s latest album Fever Breaks, “Losing Battles” is available now only on Amazon Music. The accompanying video was also released today. The track is available to stream and purchase HERE.

Watch "Losing Battles” HERE.

“Once a song is written and recorded, it can be difficult to reimagine it, but I knew that ‘Losing Battles’ was a song that could go in all kinds of directions,” said Ritter. “Once the idea of working with Joey and Kenneth came into my mind, I only wanted to see where the collaboration could take us. It was really exciting, fun, and inspiring to be in the midst of such talent and vision. What a great time!”

“It’s Josh Ritter man!” continued The Milk Carton Kids’ Joey Ryan. “An American treasure! And he asked us to make his beautiful, sad song even sadder?! That’s a task we’re well-suited to. You might not know it to hear this thing, but we had a great time making it together.”

Josh Ritter’s acclaimed tenth album Fever Breaks released this past April via Thirty Tigers. Produced by Grammy Award-winning musician Jason Isbell and recorded at Nashville’s historic RCA Studio A, the album debuted at #4 on Billboard’s Americana/Folk Albums Chart, #5 on Independent Albums Chart, #14 on Top Current Albums Chart, and placed on the Billboard 200. It received praises from NPR Music, Rolling Stone, Consequence of Sound, Paste, and the Associated Press who called it “a work of stacked marvels.”

Amazon Music listeners can find Josh Ritter’s and The Milk Carton Kids’ reimagined version of "Losing Battles" on the "Brushland" playlist, the global stage for today's Americana fan. Customers can also simply ask, "Alexa play the Amazon Original by Josh Ritter" in the Amazon Music app for iOS and Android and on Alexa-enabled devices. In addition to the new track, Amazon Music listeners can access hundreds of Amazon Originals featuring both emerging and established artists across numerous genres, available to stream and purchase only on Amazon Music.

Josh Ritter & the Royal City Band Tour Dates:

09/07 - Chattanooga, TN @ Moon River Festival

09/20 - Portland, ME @ State Theatre*

09/21 - New York, NY @ Beacon Theatre*

09/22 - Easton, PA @ State Theatre

09/24 - Columbus, OH @ The Southern Theatre

09/25 - Louisville, KY @ WFPK Waterfront Wednesdays

09/26 - Durham, NC @ Carolina Theatre*

09/27 - Asheville, NC @ Marcus King Band Family Reunion

09/28 - Nashville, TN @ Ryman Auditorium#

* - with Amanda Shires

# - with Kathleen Edwards

Sat, 10/26/2019 - 12:47 pm

San Francisco singer-songwriter Graham Norwood releases the first single from his debut album Out Of The Sea, “Greenfield.” “Awash in soaring strings and folk-centric melancholy, Norwood evokes the likes of Elliott Smith and Sufjan Stevens with double-tracked vocals and acoustic fingerpicking.” [Mother Church Pew]

“This one’s about that feeling when you realize you can’t be or provide everything that a partner in a relationship wants from you,” states Graham. “When that feeling comes along, the only emotionally honest path is to move on; but it’s often far from an easy choice to do so.”

After earning his living as a sideman in New York City for most of his twenties, Graham Norwood decided to leave music behind, at least in the professional sense. “I fell in love with a painter, and it seemed like if we wanted to have any kind of a stable life with a house and kids someday, we couldn’t both be allergic to money,” he laughs. “I decided I should get a ‘real’ job and just let music be my hobby.”

Graham Norwood - Credit: Alicia J Rose

So Norwood got married, enrolled in grad school, and moved to Italy for a year before settling down in D.C. When his marriage started to fall apart, though, he returned to New York for a trial separation, and he instinctively found himself gravitating back towards music as a survival mechanism, as a way to work through the heartbreak and loneliness and confusion of it all.

“That was the time when music meant the most to me,” he reflects. “When I got back to New York, I started writing my own songs for the first time in probably a decade, and that’s what kept me going that whole first year as the divorce went through.”

Recorded with acclaimed producer/engineer Bryce Goggin (Pavement, Phish) and mixed by John Agnello (Kurt Vile, Sonic Youth), Norwood’s gorgeous and heart-wrenching debut, Out Of The Sea, represents just a fraction of the music he wrote during that tumultuous period. While the performances are often delivered with a tender touch, the record’s dreamy atmosphere belies its intense emotional punch. Norwood writes with a raw, unflinching honesty here, grappling with isolation, doubt, and depression as he artfully documents the long and winding journey to self-discovery and acceptance. It’s a journey that Norwood, who’s legally blind, has been charting for much of his life.

“Growing up, I didn’t want to deal with the vision stuff,” he reflects. “My greatest fear was that I would be known as ‘The Blind Kid,’ and I didn’t want to carry that label with me my whole life. As I got older and fell in love with music, I realized that performing was an opportunity to transcend my disability, to not have that be the first thing people noticed about me. If you can play, you can play, and that’s what counts."

Norwood relied heavily on that ability when it came time to record Out Of The Sea, which features an all-star band including bassist Dan Edinberg (The Stepkids, Anderson .Paak), pedal steel player Dan Lead (Norah Jones, Valerie June), vibraphone wizard Brittany Anjou (Okkervil River, Elysian Fields), and drummer Bill Campbell (Andrew Bird, Cass McCombs). The musicians all met each other for the first time in the studio, and over the course of just two days, they cut the entire album raw and fast, capturing nearly everything, including Norwood’s vocals, live.

Norwood will be returning to New York City for a show at Rockwood Music Hall on Tuesday, November 12. See details HERE.

Out Of The Sea tracklist:

1. Hard Times

2. Greenfield

3. Collapses To Zero

4. Lazarus Avenue

5. Kate’s Song

6. It’ll Never Happen Again

7. Ago

8. Out on the Shore

Wed, 10/30/2019 - 6:28 pm

Fat Possum Records releases two newly-recorded Mose Allison tracks from IF YOU’RE GOING TO  THE CITY:  A Tribute To Mose Allison, out November 29. Grammy-Award winner and blues mainstay Taj Mahal has recorded "Your Mind is on Vacation," while mulitplatinum singer/songwriter Jackson Browne puts his spin on "If You Live."

The collection features Taj Mahal, Robbie Fulks, Jackson Browne, The Tippo Allstars feat. Fiona Apple, Ben Harper and Charlie Musselwhite, Chrissie Hynde, Iggy Pop, Bonnie Raitt, Loudon Wainwright III, Richard Thompson, Peter Case, Dave Alvin and Phil Alvin, Anything Mose!, Frank Black, and Amy Allison with Elvis Costello. The CD and LP packaging will include a DVD copy of Paul Bernay’s 2005 documentary on Mose Allison titled ‘Ever Since I Stole The Blues.’ It was originally produced for the BBC. 

Listen to Jackson Browne and Taj Mahal via YouTube

Taj Mahal says, "Long before Butterfield & Bloomfield,The Rolling Stones & “The British Invasion”, Canned Heat or The Blues Project,.... Mose was and still is “the man!!!” He totally influenced Dave “Snaker” Wray."

About her father, Amy Allison notes, "Mose’s singular style- a unique blend of jazz and blues, his incisive humor, and knack for distilling deep themes into simple potent lyrics made him a major influence on a generation of musicians. It didn’t take much convincing for the producers (Don Heffington and Sheldon Gomberg) to bring a host of top artists onboard. Each artist chose a favorite Mose Allison song to interpret."

Sweet Relief Musicians Fund is a 501(c)3 nonprofit that provides assistance to career musicians who are struggling to make ends meet while facing illness, disability, or age-related problems. Grant recipients include recording artists, club and session musicians, and composers and songwriters from every musical genre. Since its inception, Sweet Relief has helped musicians with medical and living expenses, including insurance premiums, prescriptions, medical treatment and procedures, housing and food costs, utilities, and other basic necessities.

Born in 1927 in the Mississippi Delta, Mose John Allison grew up listening to jazz and blues greats such as Louis Armstrong, Memphis Minnie, Duke Ellington, Louis Jordan and the Nat Cole Trio.  He learned to play piano and trumpet as a boy. After a stint in the army and then several years playing in clubs around the South, he moved to New York City to make his career as a pianist, songwriter, and performer fronting his own trio. Allison performed with jazz greats such as Stan Getz, Zoot Sims, and Gerry Mulligan, and developed a distinctive style of playing that fused blues and jazz with succinct and timeless lyrics. Mose Allison became a favorite among his peers and his songs have been covered by other great artists such as  Van Morrison, The Who, Bonnie Raitt, Elvis Costello, The Clash and many others. Allison passed away in 2016 at the age of 89.

If You’re Going to The City Tracklist:

1.     Taj Mahal   -   Your Mind Is On Vacation

2.     Robbie Fulks   -   My Brain

3.     Jackson Browne   -   If You Live  

4.     The Tippo Allstars featuring Fiona Apple -   Your Molecular Structure

5.     Ben Harper and Charlie Musselwhite   -   Nightclub

6.     Chrissie Hynde   -   Stop This World

7.     Iggy Pop   -   If You're Going to the City

8.     Bonnie Raitt   -   Everybody's Crying Mercy

9.     Loudon Wainwright III   -   Ever Since the World Ended

10.   Richard Thompson   -   Parchman Farm

11.   Peter Case   -   I Don't Worry About A Thing

12.   Dave Alvin and Phil Alvin   -   Wild Man On the Loose

13.   Anything Mose!   -   The Way of the World

14.   Frank Black   -   Numbers On Paper

15.   Amy Allison with Elvis Costello   -    Monsters of the Id

Thu, 10/31/2019 - 1:30 pm

Today, G. Love released the title track off his new Keb’ Mo’-produced album The Juice, which releases on January 17 via Philadelphonic/Thirty Tigers. Written by Keb’ Mo’ and G. Love, and also featuring rising star Marcus King, “The Juice” is a hopeful protest song that acts as a rallying cry for those who are fighting for equality. Along with the new track, G. Love has also released an animated video with characters depicting both himself and King, which was featured this morning via American Blues Scene.

Watch the video for “The Juice” ft. Marcus King via YouTube:

“I wrote this song as a personal knee jerk reaction to the frustration I feel towards the policies which the current right wing administration is pushing forward,” explains G. Love. “I also wanted to give strength, support, empathy and energy to the protest kids and activists who are in the trenches fighting to uphold liberal progress.”

G. Love (aka Garrett Dutton) is a masterful multi-instrumentalist with a wildly diverse set of influences, a knack for reinvention and a penchant for collaboration. The new album finds him teaming up with four-time Grammy winner Keb’ Mo’, and a slew of special guests including Robert Randolph, Marcus King and Roosevelt Collier, to create a unique sound that blends elements of blues, jazz, rock, funk and soul with hip-hop grooves and electronic beats. Striking a balance between the personal and political, The Juice is a thoughtful, infectious collection of songs that illustrates both an appreciation for the simple joys in life and an obligation to speak out for justice and equality. Listen to the debut track “Go Crazy” featured recently via Rolling Stone Country.

Over the last two decades, G. Love has established a reputation for being an unmatched artistic force who consistently delivers intoxicating, vibrant music that blurs the line between genre. He has garnered widespread acclaim from press including NPR Music, The New York Times, Paste Magazine, Relix, The Wall Street Journal and more. In recent years, G. Love has pushed beyond the boundaries of music, launching everything from his own special hot sauce to a beer collaboration and a curated music festival.

G. Love will be touring in 2020 in support of the new release. See a list of tour dates below, or visit: philadelphonic.com/tour/

Track listing:

1. The Juice (ft. Marcus King)

2. SoulBQue (ft. Roosevelt Collier)

3. Go Crazy (ft. Keb' Mo')

4. Shake Your Hair

5. Fix Your Face (ft. Keb' Mo')

6. She’s The Rock

7. Diggin’ Roots (ft. Ron Artis)

8. Shine On Moon (ft. Keb' Mo')

9. Birmingham (ft. Robert Randolph and Keb' Mo')

10. Drinkin’ Wine

11. The Juice (Reprise)

2020 Tour Dates:

January 7 - Des Moines, IA - Wooly's

January 9 - Madison, WI - Majestic Theatre

January 10 - Minneapolis, MN - First Avenue

January 11 - Chicago, IL - Thalia Hall

January 12 - St. Louis, MO - Blueberry Hill

January 14 - Ann Arbor, MI - The Ark

January 16 - Indianapolis, IN - HI-FI Indianapolis

January 17 - Columbus, OH - A&R Music Bar

January 18 - Cleveland, OH - House of Blues

January 19 - Bensalem, PA - XCite Center at Parx Casino

January 21 - Buffalo, NY - Tralf Music Hall

January 23 - Brooklyn, NY - Brooklyn Bowl

January 24 - Boston, MA - Big Night Live

January 25 - Uncasville, CT - Wolf Den at Mohegan Sun Resort

January 26 - Asbury Park, NJ - Stone Pony

January 28 - Annapolis, MD - Rams Head On Stage

January 30 - Washington, DC - The Hamilton Live

January 31 - Saxapahaw, NC - Haw River Ballroom

February 4 - Greenville, SC - The Firmament

February 6 - New Smyrna Beach, FL - Beachside Tavern

February 7 - Jacksonville, FL - 1904 Music Hall 

February 8 - St. Petersburg, FL - Jannus Live

Fri, 11/22/2019 - 3:25 pm

Today, Sammy Miller and The Congregation announced their debut album Leaving Egypt will be released on February 7, 2020. They've also shared the first single "Shine," which boasts Sammy’s ingratiating vocals, undeniably uplifting lyrics, playful piano hooks, and an imaginative arrangement with dynamic horn and backup vocal-driven crescendos.

Sat, 12/07/2019 - 1:04 pm

Masterful multi-instrumentalist G. Love has released a new song titled “Soul-B-Que”, the latest offering from his forthcoming Keb’ Mo’-produced album The Juice (out January 17 via Philadelphonic/Thirty Tigers). The upbeat new track finds G. Love (aka Garrett Dutton) teaming up with legendary pedal steel guitar player Roosevelt Collier to paint a picture of a rowdy celebration with family and friends. It was featured by Billboard, who proclaimed “G. Love lights a funky fire on ‘Soul-B-Que’.”

View the animated video for “Soul-B-Que” ft. Roosevelt Collier via YouTube:

“We have a lot of bonfires and BBQues at the crib with family and friends, plenty of kids and dogs, good food and all night jams,” says G. Love. “I wanted to capture these epic nights in a song and also make a song that would be an invitation to the audience at the top of the show – "Come on into my House.” Just come on down and get you some jams and feel good times for your head and your heart.”

On his new album, G. Love worked with four-time Grammy award winner Keb’ Mo’ and a slew of special guests to craft a unique sound that blends elements of blues, jazz, rock, funk and soul with hip-hop grooves and electronic beats. The Juice showcases a wildly diverse set of influences and features lyrics that strike a balance between the personal and political. These 10 new songs illustrate both an appreciation for the simple joys in life (hear “Go Crazy” feat. Keb’ Mo’) and an obligation to speak out for justice and equality (listen to “The Juice” feat. Marcus King).

G. Love remains an unmatched artistic force who consistently delivers intoxicating, vibrant music that blurs the line between genre. With a career spanning more than two decades, he has received widespread acclaim from press including NPR Music, The New York Times, Paste Magazine, Relix, The Wall Street Journal and more. In recent years, G. Love has pushed beyond the boundaries of music, launching everything from his own special hot sauce to a beer collaboration and a curated music festival. 

G. Love will be touring in 2020 in support of the new release. See a list of tour dates below, or visit: philadelphonic.com/tour

Tracklisting:

1. The Juice (ft. Marcus King)

2. SoulBQue (ft. Roosevelt Collier)

3. Go Crazy (ft. Keb' Mo')

4. Shake Your Hair

5. Fix Your Face (ft. Keb' Mo')

6. She’s The Rock

7. Diggin’ Roots (ft. Ron Artis)

8. Shine On Moon (ft. Keb' Mo')

9. Birmingham (ft. Robert Randolph and Keb' Mo')

10. Drinkin’ Wine

11. The Juice (Reprise)

2020 Tour Dates:

January 7 - Des Moines, IA - Wooly's

January 9 - Madison, WI - Majestic Theatre

January 10 - Minneapolis, MN - First Avenue

January 11 - Chicago, IL - Thalia Hall

January 12 - St. Louis, MO - Blueberry Hill

January 14 - Ann Arbor, MI - The Ark

January 16 - Indianapolis, IN - HI-FI Indianapolis

January 17 - Columbus, OH - A&R Music Bar

January 18 - Cleveland, OH - House of Blues

January 19 - Bensalem, PA - XCite Center at Parx Casino

January 21 - Buffalo, NY - Tralf Music Hall

January 23 - Brooklyn, NY - Brooklyn Bowl

January 24 - Boston, MA - Big Night Live

January 25 - Uncasville, CT - Wolf Den at Mohegan Sun Resort

January 26 - Asbury Park, NJ - Stone Pony

January 28 - Annapolis, MD - Rams Head On Stage

January 30 - Washington, DC - The Hamilton Live

January 31 - Saxapahaw, NC - Haw River Ballroom

February 4 - Greenville, SC - The Firmament

February 6 - New Smyrna Beach, FL - Beachside Tavern

February 7 - Jacksonville, FL - 1904 Music Hall 

February 8 - St. Petersburg, FL - Jannus Live

February 9 - Lake Worth, FL - South Florida Garlic Festival

February 27 - Colorado Springs, CO - The Black Sheep

February 28 - Fort Collins, CO - Aggie Theatre

February 29 - Boulder, CO - Fox Theatre

March 1 - Aspen, CO - Belly Up Aspen

March 3 - Telluride, CO - Sheridan Opera House

March 5 - Park City, UT - Park City Live

March 6 - Las Vegas, NV - The Yard at TopGolf Las Vegas

March 7 - Stateline, NV - Harrah’s Lake Tahoe 

March 11 - Solana Beach, CA - Belly Up Tavern

March 12 - Santa Barbara, CA - Soho

March 13 - San Juan Capistrano, CA - The Coach House

March 14 - San Francisco, CA - Great American Music Hall

March 16 - San Rafael, CA - Terrapin Crossroads

March 17 - Ashland, OR - Historic Ashland Amory

March 19 - Bend, OR - The Domino Room

March 20 - Portland, OR - Hawthorne Theater

March 21 - Seattle, WA - The Showbox @ The Market

March 22 - Vancouver, BC - The Venue

March 24 - Sandpoint, ID - The Hive

March 26 - Bozeman, MT - The Rialto

March 27 - Missoula, MT - Top Hat

March 28 - Hailey, ID - The Mint

March 29 - Teton Village, WY - Mangy Moose

Mon, 12/16/2019 - 12:47 pm

Today, Arts Music released the track "Lapé, Lanmou (Peace and Love)" from the upcoming benefit album Let the Rhythm Lead: Haiti Song Summit Vol. 1, a collaborative project of songwriters Jonathan Wilson, Jenny Lewis, Jackson Browne, Paul Beaubrun, Habib Koité, Raúl Rodríguez and Jonathan Russell, along with members of the Haitian roots band Lakou Mizik. 

“Lapé, Lanmou (Peace and Love)" was written by Jonathan Wilson and Jenny Lewis, and features Jackson Browne, Paul Beaubrun and the Haitian legend Sanba Zao.   Let The Rhythm Lead:  Haiti Song Summit Vol. 1 will be released on January 31, 2020.  Preorder the album here.

Hailing from four different countries, interweaving North American Indie Rock with beats and percussion of Haitian Vodou, Spanish and Malian guitar, Tres Flamenco, with songs in English, Creole, Khassonké, Manding and Spanish, Let The Rhythm Lead celebrates the work of Artists for Peace and Justice in Haiti, and was recorded at their Artists Institute on the island's southern coast, in the town of Jacmel.

Watch the video for  "Lapé, Lanmou (Peace and Love)" featuring Jonathan Wilson, Jenny Lewis, Jackson Browne and Paul Beaubrun via YouTube HERE

Stream "Lapé, Lanmou (Peace and Love)" HERE

Jonathan Wilson notes, "The song Lape’ Lanmou,’ or peace and love in Creole, was a melodic idea I had floating around while at the piano, and when I joined the wonderful group of musicians from around the world in Haiti for the Song Summit project this melody came to life. The guitars are a wonderful mixture of West African and Flamenco, the vocals are traditional Vodou call and response by the Haitian legend Sanba Zao, and Jenny Lewis adds her amazing voice in the “White Ribbon” chorus. This was one of the most special projects I’ve ever done, I want to thank Jackson Browne and APJ for inviting me to Haiti to be a part of this amazing project."

Paul Beaubrun adds, “’Lapè, Lanmou’- this song is a spiritual awakening. Haitians along with many others across the globe have been saying it for a long time.  It’s about peace, love and unity amongst us all and how we will never collectively move forward as one without it.”

Lakou Mizik shares, “The prayer that Sanba Zao sings comes from the Dahomey vodou traditions. The word - Azounke that is the chorus, is a word of exclamation and power and is used in the music to punctuate the prayer they are singing. The prayer calls out to all the most powerful vodou spirits for them to walk together with them on their path  guiding them and giving them strength as they go through the world.”

Jackson Browne says, “This song is the last song we recorded in Haiti, and it contains all the mystery and excitement that we felt being there. The conversation between the African guitar and the Flamenco tres gives way to a full Vodou call and response, which surprised me then - and it surprises me now. It's magic.”

Let The Rhythm Lead:  Haiti Song Summit Vol. 1 Track listing:

1. Lapé, Lanmou (Peace and Love), written by Jonathan Wilson and Jenny Lewis

2. Love is Love, written by Jackson Browne and David Belle

3. Surrender, written by Paul Beaubrun and Jackson Browne

4. Under the Supermoon, written by Jenny Lewis

5. Let the Rhythm Lead, written by Raúl Rodríguez

6. Goddess at the Wheel, written by Jonathan Wilson

7. Koulandian, adapted by Habib Koité

8. Saving Grace, written by Jonathan Russell and Kathryn Everett

9. El Viajero, written by Raúl Rodríguez

10. Simbi Dlo, adapted by Paul Beaubrun

11. I Found Out, written by Jonathan Russell

Wed, 01/15/2020 - 9:36 am

Ahead of their tour next week in support of the upcoming album Leaving Egypt, Sammy Miller and The Congregation have shared the latest single "Date A Jew," a simmering narrative track that showcases the Congregation's groove pocket and their subtle music interplay with some purposeful messaging sweetly tucked in.

Listen to "Date A Jew" via YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXyA-GM-NZw

"My long time partner and I come from very backgrounds. Her, Karachi, Pakistan, me, suburban Los Angeles," Miller tells Live For Live Music. "Different cultures, different religions, different in every way you could imagine yet we’re the same. We want the happiness for our friends, family, and community. We care about our work, we care about our city, our country, and most of all we care about what we can change if we aren’t tribal."

"In this time of growing tribalism, it’s on each of us as individuals to be universal. To find empathy for those we’ve been taught to hate, to listen to those we find insufferable, it takes work, but you might find you had more love in your heart than you knew possible."

Sammy Miller, a Grammy-nominated drummer for his work with Joey Alexander, convened The Congregation in 2014 at The Juilliard School in New York City where he was getting his master's in jazz. “When I was at Juilliard, I realized jazz couldn’t just live in a conservatory vacuum. It needed to provide its initial function of being an expansive creative outlet where the rules are there for you to break and improvisation went beyond notes and into an experience,” Sammy says.

The Congregation’s 9-song debut album Leaving Egypt was cut in four 16-hour days at the legendary United Studios where the many famed Count Basie sides were tracked. The band enlisted drummer extraordinaire Jay Bellerose (Alison Krauss, Ray LaMontagne, Robert Plant, B.B. King) to supervise and produce the proceedings. The band lineup is Sammy Miller, drums and vocals; Sam Crittenden, trombone; Ben Flocks, tenor sax; Sammy’s sister Molly Miller on guitar; Alphonso Horne, trumpet; Corbin Jones, bass and tuba; and David Linard, piano.

“This is us,” Sammy says of the album. “I’m proud of it, and I’m eager to embark on our mission to bring joy to people’s lives through music.”

Leaving Egypt Tracklist:

1. Searching For Ragtime

2. Shine

3. Reasons I Just Don't Know Yet

4. Bluebird

5. Before

6. It Gets Better

7. Eagle Rock

8. Date A Jew

9. When I'm Gone

Tour Dates:

Jan 13 - Toronto, ON - Hugh’s Room

Jan 14 - Lake Orion, MI - 20 Front Street

Jan 15 - Evanston, IL - SPACE

Jan 17 - Mason City, IA - North Iowa Community Auditorium

Jan 18 - Des Moines, IA - xBK

Jan 19 - Indianapolis, IN - The Jazz Kitchen

Jan 20 - Columbus, OH - Rumba Café

Jan 30 - New York, NY - Mercury Lounge

Feb 12 - Escondido, CA - California Center for the Arts

Feb 13 - Santa Barbara, CA - Campbell Hall

Feb 16 - Los Angeles, CA - Bootleg Theater

Feb 21 - Mill Valley, CA - Sweetwater

Feb 22 - Palo Alto, CA - Oshman Family JCC

Feb 23 - Sacramento, CA - The Sofia Tsakopoulos Center for the Arts

Feb 28 - Dubai, UAE - Dubai Jazz Festival

Mar 24 - Atlanta, GA - Vinyl

Mar 26 - Charlotte, NC - Neighborhood Theatre

Mar 25 - Asheville, NC - Isis Music Hall

Mar 27 - Richmond, VA - Tin Pan

Mar 28 - Washington, DC - Songbyrd

Mar 29 - Sellersville, PA - Sellersville Theater

Mar 31 - Boston, MA - The Red Room at Cafe 939

May 1 - Fond du Lac, WI - Thelma Sadoff Center for the Arts

May 2 - Baileys Harbor, WI - Door County Brewing Co. Music Hall

May 3 - Minneapolis, MN - Dakota

June 27-28 - Aspen, CO - Jazz Aspen Snowmass

Wed, 01/15/2020 - 10:29 am

San Francisco singer-songwriter Graham Norwood has released the latest single from his debut album Out Of The Sea, a cover of Tim Hardin's "It'll Never Happen Again." Out Of The Sea will be released on January 31.

Listen and embed “It'll Never Happen Again” via YouTube:
https://youtu.be/JDp2kCFqR6Q

"I have this philosophy of doing covers; You shouldn't know a song too well," Graham tells Billlboard in an interview about the song and new album. "If I can get 80 percent familiar with a song and let my brain fill in the gaps, that's the best way to do it."

"I didn't tell the band beforehand we were gonna do this. I taught it to them myself, on the spot. I didn't play them the original recording. Nobody had any ideas of how it was to be played. We just went with it and came up with his something that's a bit of a twist on the [Hardin] original."

Graham earned his living as a sideman in New York City for most of his twenties before getting married and going to graduate school. When his marriage started to fall apart, though, he returned to New York for a trial separation, and instinctively found himself gravitating back towards music as a survival mechanism, as a way to work through the heartbreak and loneliness and confusion of it all.

Recorded with acclaimed producer/engineer Bryce Goggin (Pavement, Phish) and mixed by John Agnello (Kurt Vile, Sonic Youth), Norwood’s gorgeous and heart-wrenching debut, Out Of The Sea, represents just a fraction of the music he wrote during that tumultuous period. Norwood writes with a raw, unflinching honesty grappling with isolation, doubt, and depression as he artfully documents the long and winding journey to self-discovery and acceptance. It’s a journey that Norwood, who’s legally blind, has been charting for much of his life.

The album was recorded with an all-star band including bassist Dan Edinberg (The Stepkids, Anderson .Paak), pedal steel player Dan Iead (Norah Jones, Valerie June), vibraphone wizard Brittany Anjou (Okkervil River, Elysian Fields), and drummer Bill Campbell (Andrew Bird, Cass McCombs).

Norwood recently released “Greenfield,” the lead single from Out Of The Sea with Mother Church Pew commenting, “Awash in soaring strings and folk-centric melancholy, Norwood evokes the likes of Elliott Smith and Sufjan Stevens with double-tracked vocals and acoustic fingerpicking.” The track was also included in Pandora's October 2019 Pandora Picks playlist. Glide Magazine, said of the following single "Collapses To Zero" that, "Graham, who showcases both his folk singer side and his more soulful, with high octave vocals and far out harmonies, brings to mind the quieter side of Harry Nilsson with an indie rock sensibility."

Out Of The Sea tracklist:

1. Hard Times

2. Greenfield

3. Collapses To Zero

4. Lazarus Avenue

5. Kate’s Song

6. It’ll Never Happen Again

7. Ago

8. Out on the Shore

Thu, 01/23/2020 - 3:10 pm

The Atlanta-based Yacht Rock Revue has debuted their new single "Bad Tequila," the third song released from YRR's first album of original music HOT DADS in TIGHT JEANS (out February 21st). American Songwriter premiered the song and praised the album, saying "HOT DADS fuses everything YRR is in disco-rock funk beats and typical cheeky humor, all wrapped in old-school, radio countdown tracks."

Stream or embed "Bad Tequila" via YouTube: https://youtu.be/Ur0DoeMEaxA

With 10 original songs inspired by the sounds of the Seventies and Eighties, HOT DADS in TIGHT JEANS returns Yacht Rock Revue to their roots in original music. The group worked with producer Ben Allen (Gnarls Barkley, Animal Collective, Neon Indian) to give the songs the studio luster needed to make them shine for both new listeners as well as longtime fans. Tracks like their lead single "Step" draw influence from their pastel-colored-era forebearers as well as more modern bands like Phoenix or Air, who adapted yacht rock for a younger audience. The official video for "Step" premiered along with an interview feature in Entertainment Weekly who described the song as a "synthy-smooth jam." Watch it HERE.

Additionally, the group recently premiered a new lyric video for a Jamie Lidell remix of "Step" on Adult Swim's Fishcenter Live. "‘Step' in its original form is an aperol spritz of a track" writes Lidell. "I thought a remix that pushed that into slightly more 80s Bowie meets Moroder might be the look so I changed the color of those shoes. Step with a little more anger as it were. One for all balanced dancers."

HOT DADS in TIGHT JEANS

Tickets are currently on sale for YRR's "HOT DADS in TIGHT JEANS" U.S. tour HERE. In partnership with Live Nation and SiriusXM, the group is taking their acclaimed show back on the road. Fans are also able to purchase a special VIP ticket package. YRR's setlist is firmly rooted in the variety of covers that they've played for audiences for years, while also including selections from the new album. Reassuring his fans, frontman Nick Niespodziani writes that "we built this Yacht Rock thing on the power of memories and good vibes. None of that is changing; we're just gonna make a few new memories as well." See below for a complete list of dates.

An immersive and fan-oriented live experience, YRR's spot-on renditions of Hall & Oates, Michael McDonald, Steely Dan, and the other soft rock hit makers of the 1970's has enthralled fans across the United States. The group goes far beyond the “tribute” category by regularly joining their heroes on stage: John Oates, Eddie Money, Little River Band, Pablo Cruise, Starship, Bobby Kimball (formerly of Toto) and more icons of the era have joined them onstage to perform their hits. 

Yacht Rock Revue's note-perfect performances and onstage charisma have earned them a devoted nationwide fanbase. The growing crowds adorned in captain's hats and boat shoes (endearingly known as "The Nation of Smooth") are a testament to the band's growing status as icons of the subculture, and attracted the attention of SiriusXM, culminating in a partnership deal in support of the tour. Live Nation will also be partnering for much of the tour, and Live Nation Director of Touring Andy Messersmithwrites that "After seeing the band build in our venues in the early stages, their upward trajectory as a touring artist became especially evident and that led us to pursue the partnership. It’s a truly special artist that can create a unique culture and loyalty amongst their fanbase that leads to major growth each time they play a market."

HOT DADS in TIGHT JEANS is available to pre-save on Spotify and Apple Music, and available for pre-order via iTunes.

HOT DADS in TIGHT JEANS Track List:

1. The Doobie Bounce

2. Step

3. Bad Tequila

4. You're Welcome, Baby

5. Big Bang

6. Another Song About California

7. House in the Clouds

8. Change of Scene

9. Can't Stop

10. My Favorite Stardust

HOT DADS In TIGHT JEANS Tour Dates:

02/06/20 - St. Petersburg, FL - Jannus Live

02/07/20 - Fort Lauderdale, FL - Revolution Live

02/08/20 - Lake Buena Vista, FL - House Of Blues - Orlando

02/21/20 - Denver, CO - Mission Ballroom

02/22/20 - Breckenridge, CO - The Riverwalk Center

02/27/20 - Portland, OR - Revolution Hall

02/29/20 - Seattle, WA - The Neptune Theatre

03/05/20 - Los Angeles, CA - The Wiltern

03/06/20 - San Diego, CA - The Observatory North Park

03/07/20 - Phoenix, AZ - The Van Buren

03/08/20 - Tucson, AZ - The Rialto Theatre

03/11/20 - Napa, CA - JaM Cellars Ballroom

03/12/20 - Sacramento, CA - Ace of Spades

03/13/20 - San Francisco, CA - August Hall

03/19/20 - Philadelphia, PA - The Fillmore - Philadelphia

03/20/20 - New York, NY - Webster Hall

03/21/20 - New York, NY - Webster Hall

03/22/20 - Lancaster, PA - Chameleon Club

03/25/20 - Clifton Park, NY - Upstate Concert Hall

03/26/20 - Norwalk, CT - Wall Street Theater

03/27/20 - Boston, MA - House of Blues - Boston

03/28/20 - Boston, MA - House of Blues - Boston

04/17/20 - Charlotte, NC - The Fillmore - Charlotte

04/18/20 - Raleigh, NC - The Ritz - Raleigh

04/19/20 - Asheville, NC - The Orange Peel

04/24/20 - Nashville, TN - Marathon Music Works

05/01/20 - Chicago, IL - House Of Blues - Chicago

05/02/20 - Chicago, IL - House Of Blues - Chicago

05/07/20 - New Orleans, LA - House of Blues - New Orleans

05/08/20 - Houston, TX - The Ballroom at Warehouse Live

05/09/20 - Austin, TX - Emo's Austin

05/15/20 - Chattanooga, TN - The Signal

05/30/20 - Vienna, VA - Filene Center - Wolf Trap Amphitheater

07/25/20 - Indianapolis, IN - The Amphitheater at White River State Park

08/22/20 - Atlanta, GA - Cadence Bank Amphitheatre at Chastain Park

Mon, 02/17/2020 - 3:31 pm

American roots artist The Reverend Shawn Amos has announced the April 17 release of Blue Sky, his debut with the newly formed Brotherhood band. The new album is a full-circle moment for the Rev, featuring a group of masterful musicians that includes drummer Brady Blade (Dave Matthews, Indigo Girls), bassist Christopher Thomas (Norah Jones, Carly Simon, Macy Gray) and longtime Rev guitarist Chris “Doctor” Roberts. While his previous release, 2018’s politically-charged Breaks It Down, reckoned with the calamity of our current society, the new album looks inward as the Rev explores his own identity and embraces his singer/songwriter past.

“On this album, I wanted to connect the dots between my current love of blues and my singer-songwriter past,” says The Rev. “When I first started recording blues material, I pulled up the bridge behind my Americana catalogue. Five years into this blues journey, I was ready to revisit that terrain, but in the end, I really believe that blues music is roots music. Making this album has allowed me to bring both sides of myself as a writer together.”

Blue Sky marks a major step forward for The Reverend Shawn Amos, both sonically and personally. With a recent move from his hometown of Los Angeles to Texas, he found himself immersed in a world wildly different from his own, yet still somehow familiar. Surrounded by a variety of new sounds and genres, the Rev injects his bluesy, gritty sound with a revitalized creative energy while embracing a newfound sense of home. Glide Magazine described the new album’s debut track “Counting Down The Days” as “a blackened riff howl of workmanship blues and Texas boogie that never surrenders,” while Elmore said “this material showcases Shawn Amos’s songwriting like no previous Rev outing, alternately furious, vulnerable; crazy, forlorn and tender.”

The Rev is also embracing collaboration in a new way – unlike past Shawn Amos collaborations, the Brotherhood is in it for the long haul. More than a band, they have become a tight-knit group of brothers, who provide critical emotional and spiritual support as the Rev reckons with loss, dislocation, reinvention, and his own lifelong journey in understanding his blackness. “I sound free, because I’m as free as I’ve ever been as an artist,” explains the Rev. “I’m around people who make me feel safe, people I can lean on emotionally. It’s very much a collaborative experience...I couldn’t imagine making this music with people who are not friends.”

Shawn Amos has been featured on NPR Weekend Edition and ABC News, with accolades from Relix, Purevolume, Elmore and more. Prior to emerging as the Reverend in 2013, he made a name for himself as a producer (Solomon Burke’s Live in Nashville, and Shout! Factory box set Q: The Musical Biography of Quincy Jones), content creator for companies looking for ways to tell their stories on the internet, and as an Americana singer-songwriter who’d grown up in a dramatically dysfunctional L.A. home, a story the Rev details in his serialized “Cookies & Milk” feature with The Huffington Post.

The Reverend Shawn Amos & The Brotherhood will tour through 2020 in support of the new release. More info and dates to come soon. 

Sun, 05/31/2020 - 6:04 pm

Seattle-based indie folk band The Head And The Heart have released an Amazon Original cover of Post Malone and Swae Lee’s “Sunflower,” which is available to stream and purchase only on Amazon Music. Produced by legendary record producer T Bone Burnett, the cover finds The Head And The Heart putting their own spin on Post Malone and Swae Lee’s chart-topping hit.

Listen to The Head And The Heart’s “Sunflower” only on Amazon Music:

amzn.to/Sunflower

“The first time I heard Post Malone and Swae Lee’s Sunflower was at a pool party in Austin, TX,” says drummer Tyler Williams. “We couldn’t stop listening to it all summer long and when the opportunity arose to cover a tune with T Bone Burnett producing we knew it had to be Sunflower. T Bone, being the legend that he is, helped us find the emotional center and enabled us to fully inhabit the song as our own. We can’t thank him enough for allowing us to take this journey with him, it is an honor.”

The Head And The Heart have released four albums to date, most recently with 2019’s Living Mirage, “the band’s sleekest and poppiest album” according to Rolling Stone. The record was widely acclaimed by Billboard, The New York Post, Consequence of Sound, Relix, Paste Magazine, and World Cafe who said, “Living Mirage, is warm, open and definitely leans hard on the ‘heart’ part of the band's name.” This month, The Head and The Heart returned to The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon to perform their hit song "Honeybee" from Living Mirage, watch the impressive home performance HERE. The band had previously played their song “Missed Connection” from the album on the show, with Fallon joining the band for an extra performance backstage for an acoustic rendition of THATH classic “Rivers and Roads".

T Bone Burnett has won 13 Grammy Awards with 18 nominations, including four for his contributions to the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack. Throughout his extensive career, he has produced albums for artists such as Sara Bareilles, the Counting Crows, Elvis Costello, the Wallflowers, Alison Krauss and Robert Plant, and Elton John and Leon Russell. He has also contributed music to films such as Crazy Heart, Walk The Line, and The Hunger Games.

Amazon Music listeners can find The Head And The Heart’s “Sunflower” on the Produced By: T Bone Burnett playlist. Customers can simply ask, "Alexa play the Amazon Original by The Head And The Heart" in the Amazon Music app for iOS and Android and on Alexa-enabled devices. Amazon Music customers can stream the entire "Produced By T Bone Burnett" playlist featuring Manchester Orchestra, I'm With Her, Logan Ledger and Ida Mae exclusively via Amazon Music here or by asking "Alexa, play the playlist Produced by T Bone Burnett." In addition to the new track, Amazon Music listeners can access hundreds of Amazon Originals featuring both emerging and established artists across numerous genres, available to stream and purchase only on Amazon Music.

Fri, 06/19/2020 - 10:03 am

The summer concert calendar may be canceled, but singer-songwriter Zach Heckendorf is still embarking on a virtual tour to support his current single “Up.” Through the magic of social media and live stream technology, Zach is partnering with venues, radio stations, artists, brands and fans to live stream performances in every one of the 50 states. The first leg of the tour unofficially kicked off Monday, June 15th, with Philadelphia PBS affiliate WHYY hosting his collaborative “House Concert” with funk band Love Raptor. His first live stream takes place this Friday, June 19th on Rockwood Music Hall’s Instagram. The first leg includes dates with partners in 11 different states including Road Nation (Washington DC), Which Wich (Texas), Americana Highways (Maryland), Portland Sessions (Oregon), The Boot (Tennessee), Swallow Hill and Larimer Lounge (Colorado), Sofa King Fest (Louisiana), and more. Tour dates are listed below, with more to be announced soon.

“Although my touring is canceled for the foreseeable future, I’m excited that I still have the opportunity to reach audiences in every state across the country,” Heckendorf says. “To make sure each show feels unique, there’ll be a local angle to each stream, including a signature song that’s special to the state I’m performing in.” 

Last month Heckendorf released his new single and video “Up” via Organically Elevated/Missing Piece Records. Masterfully produced by Grammy winner John Fields (Jonas Brothers, Pink, Miley Cyrus), “Up” is an irresistible song that Westword said “falls into the Ed Sheeran, Lewis Capaldi school of pop — the stuff of earnest young men with big feelings, singing danceable songs with catchy hooks.”

Watch the “Up” Music Video here: https://youtu.be/c5dFJ3fywWo

Listen to “Up” on Your Preferred Music Service: https://missingpiece.ffm.to/zheckendorf-up   

Last month, Heckendorf performed “Up” at the American Medical Association’s Tribute to the Medical School Class of 2020. The live streamed event also featured actors from Grey’s Anatomy, Scrubs and other leading TV medical shows; watch Zach’s performance HERE

Since releasing his self-titled debut album at age 16, Heckendorf has released a series of critical and fan-favorites: The Cool Down, Speed Checked by Aircraft, Artifacts and an EP titled Up. He’s toured the U.S. extensively as a headliner and has supported artists such as Rodrigo y Gabriela, John Butler Trio and Rogue Wave as well as Michael Franti and Spearhead at Red Rocks Amphitheater. 

Livestream Tour Dates:

June 19th 8PM ET - @rockwoodmusichall (Instagram) - New York 

June 24th 7:45PM ET - @americanahighways.org (Facebook) - Maryland

June 25th 3PM ET - @IBGLive (Facebook) - Massachusetts

June 26th 3PM PT - ThePortlandSessions (YouTube Live) - Oregon

June 27th 10AM CT - @thebootcountry (Facebook) - Tennessee

July 2nd - Road Nation (Simulcast on Facebook, Instagram, Twitch) - Washington DC

July 3rd - @swallowhillmusic(Facebook) - Colorado

July 7th - @SofaKingFest (Facebook) - Louisiana

July 9th - Birmingham Mountain Radio (Private Listener Stream) - Alabama

July 12th 6PM MT - @LarimerLounge - Colorado

July 15th - @WhichWich (Instagram) - Texas

July 17th - @evanstonspace (Facebook) - Illinois

Tue, 06/23/2020 - 4:40 pm

Earlier this year, the Atlanta-based Yacht Rock Revue (YRR) debuted their first album of original music, fittingly titled, HOT DADS in TIGHT JEANS. Rolling Stone credits the band's ability to deftly “..connect the dots between yesteryear’s soft rock and contemporary flourish.” American Songwriter praised the new album, saying "HOT DADS fuses everything YRR is in disco-rock funk beats and typical cheeky humor, all wrapped in old-school, radio countdown tracks."  Praise for the band and their rousing live shows are near unanimous.

View Yacht Rock Revue’s version of OUR HOUSE, here

As with musicians in every port, all touring plans were put on hold when the pandemic hit our shores.  The band shares that it has been challenging for them to find the right forms for creative expression these days. “It seems that what was true last week is no longer true this week. Facts, emotions, what you can depend on... it’s all changing at a disorienting rate.“

They felt their best use, as a musical group, is to make people happy. Nostalgia can wrap you up like a soft blanket. Yacht Rock Revue frontman Nicholas Niespodziani wanted to capture that feeling in a fresh way for YRR’s rendition of Our House in terms of the sound and approach to the song. “And it felt like it needed a hint of melancholy... cause 2020,” said Niespodziani, “I wanted to dig into the idea of our houses - since we all feel stuck in them right now - and how we can still be together even when we’re apart.”

So Niespodziani and his longtime creative collaborator (and sister), Gina, started throwing those ideas around, and soon realized they could use YouTube to create similar backgrounds for everyone if they shot the video in front of their TVs. “And it kinda went from there,” continued Niespodziani, “I was seeing a lot of these quarantine style video and we made a couple - “Hot Rod Hearts” with Robbie Dupree and “You’ve Got  A Friend” - but I wanted to elevate the concept creatively.”

Limitations can be some of the greatest forms of inspiration.

While YRR's previously announced tour, in partnership with Live Nation and SiriusXM,  has been delayed, you can still embark on Yacht Rock Radio  24/7 on SiriusXM.

Yacht Rock Revue is:

Nick Niespodziani

Pete Olson

David B. Freeman

Greg Lee

Mark Cobb

Mark Dannells

Mark Bencuya

Keisha Jackson  

Kourtney Jackson

Fri, 08/21/2020 - 2:12 pm

Today, Blue Water Highway shared their new single "Dog Days” along with the release date for their new album Paper Airplanes, due March 12, 2021.

Listen to "Dog Days" via YouTube:

“This is a song about finding re-enchantment in life, making the best out of the final days of summer," said Zack Kibodeaux. "The Dog Days are the hottest part of the year, a time of meteor showers, baseball games, trips to the beach, and fireworks. I remember reading somewhere that, 'these days are made for us to suffer through, or to enjoy, depending on our own point of view.'"

“Dog Days” is the follow up to "All Will Be Well", a song off Paper Airplanes which they initially had no intention of releasing as a single ahead of the full album, but given its message and the overwhelming response it received from fans during their recent StageIt shows, they felt it was best not to wait. American Songwriter said “'All Will Be Well' is a propulsive track that speeds up to a consistent jog, recalling the earnestness of AM Radio of the 70s while sporting modern textures worthy of Top 40 radio.”

Blue Water Highway

Blue Water Highway was started by Zack Kibodeaux (lead vocals/guitar) and Greg Essington (vocals/guitar) who have been best friends since high school. Zack then turned to Catherine Clarke (vocals/keyboard), to complete the three-part harmonies that the band would soon be known for, and they were joined by Kyle Smith (bass). They take their name from the roadway that links their hometown of Lake Jackson, Texas to Galveston. They have released two full-length studio albums to date in 2015’s Things We Carry and 2018’s Heartbreak City which includes their hit “Evangeline”.

Follow Blue Water Highway:

Website - Facebook - Twitter - Instagram

Thu, 09/03/2020 - 12:16 pm

Today, Devendra Banhart released an Amazon Original cover of The Dead’s "Franklin’s Tower," available to stream and purchase only on Amazon Music. Banhart’s cover is released in honor of the 45th anniversary of Grateful Dead’s Blues for Allah. The song was produced and mixed by Noah Georgeson (Joanna Newsom, Marlon Williams) and recorded with his current touring band consisting of Nicole Lawrence (guitar), Jeremy Harris (synths), Gregory Rogove (drums and percussion). It was recorded remotely in various studios and home studios around Los Angeles and Stinson Beach, CA.

Listen to "Franklin’s Tower" only on Amazon Music:

http://amzn.to/DevendraBanhart

Devendra Banhart on his Amazon Original cover of "Franklin's Tower":

More than ever

I find myself

Fighting dread

With the dead…

We chose "Franklin's Tower" for its opening line, one of my favorite opening lines of all time:

"In another time’s forgotten space

Your eyes looked through your mother's face"

This is the gift of the Dead,

The paradox of personal universality...

Wisdom found at the end of a maze,

The bliss of unconditional love and acceptance...

There’s a Dead for everyone...

Through the pandemic, I go on daily immersions into Blues for Allah, marveling at Phillip Garris’s eerie and alluring cover art,

Help/Slip/Frank guiding me through the weird underworld that the day has become, & I feel at once remarkably insignificant and the most precious thing in the universe, A wave, held in the ocean of my mother's eyes... a child dancing, rolling away the dew...

Knowing Help is indeed on the way...

In 2019, Banhart released his critically acclaimed album Ma, which Paste called “the most cohesive songs and sophisticated arrangements that Banhart has delivered to date.” On July 24 of this year, he released a new EP, Vast Ovoid, which features three previously unreleased songs from the Ma sessions alongside a Helado Negro remix of the Ma track “Love Song.” He also just announced OLA: Devendra Banhart plays songs in the order they were written, a series of live concerts that will stream on Wednesdays from various Los Angeles locations in September. Tickets are on sale now.

Amazon Music listeners can find Devendra Banhart’s cover of “Franklin’s Tower” on the Chill Indie playlist, featuring dreamy, laid back indie from the world’s finest artists. Customers can simply ask, "Alexa play the Amazon Original by Devendra Banhart" in the Amazon Music app for iOS and Android and on Alexa-enabled devices. In addition to the new track, Amazon Music listeners can access hundreds of Amazon Originals featuring both emerging and established artists across numerous genres, available to stream and purchase only on Amazon Music.

Fri, 10/02/2020 - 8:54 am

Today Chattanooga band Strung Like A Horse have released their new song “F*ck What They Think” from their upcoming debut studio album WHOA! (out 10/30 via Transoceanic Records). American Songwriter said of the track, “Their signature brand of Americana is distilled from old-school storytelling, newgrass instrumentations, and alt-rock edge.”

Listen to “F*ck What They Think” here:

https://ffm.to/7xojamo

“‘Fuck What They Think’ is about being yourself,” says frontman Clayton Maselle. “Meaningful connection, which is at the center of our needs as humans, is not found while being someone you are not. Get comfortable with yourself. Love yourself. Only then will our connections and relationships that matter start to develop.”

WHOA!, was produced by multiple Grammy-winner Matt Ross-Spang (Jason Isbell, John Prine, Brandi Carlile, Calexico/Iron & Wine, Margo Price, Josh Ritter) at the legendary Sound Emporium in Nashville.

"I'm very excited to be working with Strung Like a Horse on their new record in Nashville,” says Ross-Spang. “I was intrigued immediately by the band's energy and sheer love of music. You can hear their home and heroes in these songs, but just enough to help them carve out their own sound. The way they approach Americana is truly unique."

“This one is going to catch our fans off guard, I believe,” states Maselle. “The sound is bigger now (from our previous ‘basement recordings’) with more electric bass and electric guitar, and I think we did a great job of keeping our eclectic nature on the album while still having a cohesive product. It’s a sound explosion, the branding is a color/flower/collage explosion. A lot of different parts of SLAH come together---bluegrass, rock, folk, punk, soul---for one big audio image. And it feels like WHOA!”

Mississippi-bred, Chattanooga-based frontman Clayton Maselle brings the influences of John Hartford, Split Lip Rayfield, Danny Barnes, The Band, Violent Femmes, and Old Crow Medicine Show to the band’s high energy, live shows which have made them a cult favorite. Noted by Amos Perrine in No Depression as among the “Best New Music” at AmericanaFest 2018 and on his "Don't Miss" list for AmericanaFest 2019, Strung Like A Horse also recently performed a standing-room-only official showcase at AmericanaFest UK 2020 this year in London. 

Before the pandemic the band toured year-round, performing up to 100 shows a year, including Bonnaroo (labeled "Best Band Name"), Moon River Music Festival, Suwanee Roots, Wildwood Revival, Rhythm & Blooms, Summer Camp, HartfordFest, LibertyFest, NAMM, Road to Nightfall (winning act), Get Off the Grid Fest, and recently appeared on Jam in the Van. They have toured on the road or performed with Old Crow Medicine Show, Shooter Jennings, Nicki Bluhm, Del McCoury, Charlie Daniels, Travis Tritt, Sam Bush, War, Lera Lynn, Honey Honey, and Hot Buttered Rum. Sam Bush remarked, after they opened for him, that the five-piece band's full-tilt set "makes me sound like Bill Monroe."

Follow Strung Like A Horse:

Spotify - Apple Music - Instagram - Facebook

Twitter - Youtube - Bandcamp - Website

Fri, 10/09/2020 - 3:00 pm

Today, singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Casey Abrams shares his new single, a cover of P.F. Sloan’s impassioned “Eve of Destruction.”  The track boasts the unmistakable harmonies of legendary vocalist, activist and near EGOT, Cyndi Lauper. The song is available here.

Originally Eve of Destruction lamented the morale surrounding the war in Vietnam, the draft, the cold war, and the challenges of their time. The song hit #1 for Barry McGuire in September of 1965, exactly 55 years ago this Fall.  Casey’s striking vocals enhance the song with new lyrics to bring this powerfully urgent composition into a 2020 focus. Casey and Cyndi now share the song with fans via American Songwriter. The magazine praised Casey’s take on the song while stating he, “can summon passionate emotions and feelings..”

Stream Eve of Destruction here.

Casey Abrams and guest Cyndi Lauper have joined forces to revisit the conscious raising   song with an eye toward a more hopeful future. While the track is downbeat, the sparse arrangement coupled with the urgent voices of Casey and Cyndi parallel the warning cry of the song. True to their activist roots, the artists are utilizing the song to encourage people to help get out the vote and recognize their own power to affect positive change. Lauper, a longtime outspoken activist states, “Eve of Destruction is as relevant today as when it first came out in 1965.  I hope the song’s powerful message with it’s updated lyric will motivate people to get out and vote.”

Growing up with activist parents in a household where the song was often heard,  Casey reflects, ”Eve of Destruction is an anthem to many in my parent’s generation and it is unimaginable how some things have not changed since the song debuted back in the 60’s.” He adds, “My hope is to introduce this classic song to a whole new generation and help inspire change.”

The era of the protest song is far from over, social movements inspire artists to use what's in their toolbox to share their feelings, protest the status quo, inspire others  and artistically call for reform. With this song, Casey and Cyndi hope to ignite  a new generation of activists. The 2020 version of “Eve of Destruction” contain new verses such as;

The virus hit, many isolated and ill,

Jobs disappearing, tryin to pay the bills

Hurricanes, Floods, Tornadoes, Stormin

Politicians claim there  ain’t no Global Warmin’

Winds are blowin, Fires Blazin’

Hills are scorched no horses are grazin

If you cross the man his words are scathin’

And you tell me

Over and over and over and over again my friend

You don't believe

We're on the eve of destruction

Casey was a young music student when his parents moved from Illinois to Idyllwild, California, a small mountain town full of artists and people who supported creative exploration including, the Idyllwild Arts Academy, where his parents taught. Casey took piano and bass and absorbed the eclectic music  library  including folk, roots, baroque, classic rock, and especially classical jazz that his parents collected.   His studies with Marshall Hawkins, the jazz bass maestro of Idyllwild, who had toured with Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock, helped mold Casey into a talented musician who became well equipped to play any genre.

Remembered fondly for his memorable turn on the hit television show, American Idol, Casey Abrams has released three solo albums. His most recent releases on Chesky Records Put a Spell On You, and Jazz, peaked at #3 on the Contemporary Jazz Albums and #2 on the Traditional Jazz Albums Billboard Charts. Abrams serves as a regular contributor to all-star internet sensation supergroup, Postmodern Jukebox.

A defining voice of the 1980s, Cyndi Lauper broke into mainstream prominence with her debut album in 1983 and has graced us with immortal songs like "Girls Just Want to Have Fun", "Time After Time", and "True Colors". The recipient of a GRAMMY, Emmy (Mad About You), and Tony (Kinky Boots), the singer's last full album was 2016's Detour.

Sat, 10/31/2020 - 10:29 am

On November 13, Nels Cline will release his 3rd Blue Note album Share The Wealth, a dynamic double album of swirling, evocative soundscapes including the opening track “Segunda,” an explosive version of the Caetano Veloso song which is out today. Share The Wealth features the sonic explorer and guitar renegade with an expanded edition of his long-running project The Nels Cline Singers with saxophonist and punk-jazz iconoclast Skerik, keyboard marvel Brian Marsella, bass powerhouse Trevor Dunn, longtime collaborator and drummer Scott Amendola, and Brazilian percussionist Cyro Baptista. The album can be pre-ordered now on vinyl, CD, or download.

“The inspiration was from hearing the Gal Costa studio version,” Cline says, referring to the Brazilian singer’s performance of “Segunda” from her 2011 album Recanto. “Yuka [Honda] and I just love that album, which Caetano Veloso produced. I didn't know anything about the lyrics so I asked Cyro's wife, Eleonora Alberto, who offered to translate it. It turns out the lyrics are extremely poetic and timely. The song is essentially like a Black Lives Matter anthem. It’s about a black Brazilian ruminating on how people think that blacks are lazy and that the light-skinned people are the industrious people. And it incorporates the idea of White Monday, which is a Catholic holiday in Brazil. So Caetano uses this idea of the working man and the holiday and the legacy of black slavery in Brazil as this kind of potent, poetic statement. And Skerik just launches on this one.”

The video for “Segunda,” which was directed by Toni Nogueira and Sergio Gag, documents life in the favelas on the outskirts of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro in Brazil.

“This band has never even played a live gig together,” says Cline of the new Singers line-up. “So basically, the whole thing was an experiment. We recorded all these jams with the idea that I was going to take tiny fragments of them and create this kind of cut-and-paste, collaged, psychedelic record like an Os Mutantes record or something crazy like that. But when I listened back to these jams, I liked them so much that I wanted to keep them intact. And some of the most startling transitions, they’re not edits. They just happened in the course of these long improvisations in the studio, almost like magic.”

Sat, 10/31/2020 - 10:42 am

The americana duo Ida Mae have released "Raining For You," the title track from their upcoming EP. The track is currently streaming on Wide Open Country who writes, "It's yet another well-crafted country-blues cut, driven by married couple Chris Turpin and Stephanie Jean's tight, wistful harmonies. The pair gets rightful credit for chasing the magic of Robert Johnson, Charley Patton and other Delta blues greats, but they deserve just as much credit for channeling the Deep South's literary voices through such poetic statements as this retelling of a friends' romantic past." Raining For You will be released on November 20th via Thirty Tigers.

Stream "Raining for You" on Youtube:

https://youtu.be/fOMNs3qaWOg

Stream/Download "Raining for You":

https://orcd.co/rainingforyou-single

"This was one of the first tracks we recorded as Lockdown measures began here in Nashville TN," writes Ida Mae. "It's a simple love song written from the perspective of a friend of ours, someone I knew that was losing themselves in the darker memories of a past romantic relationship. Through social media and memory I think many people today can find themselves feeling like a helpless voyeur, watching the self-destructive behaviour of someone brilliant they love but feel powerless to help.”

Describing the story behind the Raining For You EP Ida Mae writes, "Our last show was in San Antonio Texas when we were flown home from our tour schedule and into quarantine. The years before had been the biggest adventures of our lives, two Brits on our own travelling and playing nonstop shows across the length and breadth of the USA and Europe. We played a rollercoaster of shows from Entertainment Centre’s in Wisconsin to Stadiums in New York. In all that time we’d been collecting scraps of conversation, words and sounds from our experiences on the road.  We’d been piecing together the bones of our next album in hotel rooms and the backs of taxis every spare moment we had. Collecting fragments of what felt like a strange, ragged, dream-state journey. All the plans we’d made for recording the next album had gone out the window, so we wired the house into our lockdown studio and began to self-produce"

There’s a genuine 'Bonnie & Clyde’ perspective to Ida Mae’s songwriting, reflecting the wild expanse of America as viewed through the eyes of two restless lovers. The husband-and-wife duo have toured roughly 120,000 miles of the USA and Canada to date, earning rave reviews and performing at festivals like Bonnaroo and Philly Folk Festival, and alongside artists like Willie Nelson, Greta Van Fleet, Allison Krauss and Marcus King. All the while Ida Mae was at work writing new material inspired by their experiences on the road as well as their favorite American authors (Kerouac, James Baldwin, Ferlinghetti, Raymond Carver).

In recent years Ida Mae have worked with some of the most renowned producers including T-Bone Burnett (Robert Plant & Allison Krauss), Ethan Johns, Jake Gosling (Ed Sheeran / Shania Twain), Mike Crossey (The 1975 / The Arctic Monkeys), Cam Blackwood (George Ezra / Florence & The Machine), Leo Abrahams (Brian Eno / Imogen Heap) and Ryan Hadlock (The Lumineers). The results of their continual immersion in the production process are audible throughout Raining For You, as they pursue a more expansive and ambitious sound.

Ida Mae's 2019 debut album Chasing Lights reached #10 on Billboard's "Heatseekers" album chart and was nominated for Americana Music UK’s ‘Album of the Year’ award. The record has been widely acclaimed by publications including Rolling Stone Country, who dubbed Ida Mae one of "10 New Country and Americana Artists You Need to Know," as well as NPR Music's All Songs Considered

Sun, 11/01/2020 - 2:24 pm

Chattanooga band Strung Like A Horse have released their debut studio album WHOA! via Transoceanic Records. The album was produced by multiple Grammy-winning producer Matt Ross-Spang (Jason Isbell, Margo Price, Brandi Carlile, John Prine) and was recorded at the legendary Sound Emporium in Nashville, TN. The band will be playing a SOLD OUT socially distanced release show tonight at The Signal in Chattanooga.

Listen to WHOA! here:

https://ffm.to/pyp3dgb

“This album WHOA! is special to us in so many ways,” says frontman Clay Maselle. “You could say that this album is a celebration of the sound people have grown to love over the years, as well as an introduction to the future of our band. It has a positive message and something for everyone musically. It has moments reminiscent of our old grassy ways, sweet sounding ballads, straight up in-your-face rocket sauce, and just the right amount of our signature nonsense--that all sit nicely in a bed of Tennessee twang.”

Songs from Strung Like A Horse’s new album have been praised by The Bluegrass Situation, Glide Magazine, Chattanooga Times Free Press, Gimme Country, Lightning 100, WUTC and American Songwriter said, “the magic touch of award-winning producer and ‘Memphian’ Matt Ross-Spang…played their chemistry to their advantage. Each component plays a part in the story delivery, without one filler track.” The Alternate Root chose the first single “F*ck What They Think” as their #1 track of the week upon release.

"I'm very excited to be working with Strung Like a Horse on their new record in Nashville,” says Ross-Spang. “I was intrigued immediately by the band's energy and sheer love of music. You can hear their home and heroes in these songs, but just enough to help them carve out their own sound. The way they approach Americana is truly unique."

Strung Like a Horse is helmed by Clay Maselle (lead vocals, rhythm guitar, mandolin), along with Eric “Crispy” Crisp (drums, bells, percussion), Tyler Martelli (lead guitars, piano, organ, keyboard, mandolin), and Dan Pinson (upright double bass, electric bass, lap steel guitar). Their high-energy live shows, sense of joy, and the originality of their sound, a trademark blend of Americana roots, Southern rock, bluegrass, and folk-punk, have made the band a cult favorite on the road. Noted by Amos Perrine in No Depression as among the “Best New Music” and a “Don’t Miss” at AmericanaFest, the group’s official showcase also wowed London at AmericanaFestUK this past January.

Fri, 11/20/2020 - 12:18 pm

The Jayhawks have announced a special live stream event on November 29 featuring the band’s classic album Sound of Lies. Following their October XOXO stream, the band will perform the album in its entirety while sharing stories about its creation. Released in 1997, Sound of Lies is the first album featuring the current Jayhawks lineup – Gary Louris, Marc Perlman, Karen Grotberg and Tim O’Reagan – as well as guitarist Kraig Johnson, who will also perform with the group.

Explaining the album choice, Louris says “If there is one Jayhawks record I feel strongly about playing front to back it is Sound of Lies. It holds a special place in the hearts of all band members and we look forward to performing it for you.”

The Jayhawks will perform the third and final show of their live stream series on January 10, featuring a selection of cover songs. All performances are streamed live from Slamhammer in Minneapolis, MN. Tickets range from $20-$75 and are available for purchase via Mandolin. View more information here: boxoffice.mandolin.com/pages/jayhawks-livestream-series

Carrying on their success since returning to the core members from the late-90’s lineup, The Jayhawks released their new album XOXO earlier this summer. Featuring songwriting and lead vocal contributions from all four members, the album marks a new era in collaboration with their most diverse set of songs to date. In addition to performing on CBS This Morning: Saturday, the band has garnered widespread acclaim including Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, No Depression, UNCUT, American Songwriter and more. A testament to The Jayhawks’ ongoing evolution, XOXO is a sonically and emotionally cohesive album that reminds us why they remain one of the most enduring and beloved bands of the last thirty years. 

Tue, 01/05/2021 - 7:22 am

The Seattle-based soul-jazz groove-machine Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio announced I Told You So, their sophomore studio album out January 29th via Colemine Records. The announcement comes with the first single “Call Your Mom,” which Under the Radar praised saying “the jazzy guitar and shots of organ bring a swaggering style to the track as the band instantly locks into a tight groove with the organ and guitar trading lines in a simmering jam.”

Listen to “Call Your Mom” here: https://youtu.be/y2ew3uCHBnY

DLO3 conjures the smoky 1960s jazz stylings of Jimmy Smith and Baby Face Willette, and the snappy soul strut of Booker T. & The M.G.’s, The Meters, Dr. Lonnie Smith, and Charles Earland. Within DLO3’s distinct jazz stew, are also dashes of Motown, Stax Records, blues, and cosmic Jimi Hendrix-style guitar. It’s an aesthetic that only these three could muster, as these are the sounds and vibes imprinted in the trio’s DNA.

Bandleader Delvon Lamarr is a self-taught virtuosic musician with perfect pitch who taught himself jazz and has effortlessly been able to play a multitude of instruments. On guitar is the dynamo Jimmy James who eases through Steve Cropper-style chanking guitar, volcanic acid-rock freak-out lead playing, and slinky Grant Green-style jazz. From Reno, Nevada is drummer Dan Weiss (also of the powerhouse soul and funk collective The Sextones). Dan’s smoldering pocket-groove drumming locks in the trio’s explosive chemistry.

I Told You So follows the trio’s 2018 debut album Close But No Cigar which nabbed the Billboard ranks of #1 Contemporary Jazz and #3 Jazz Album. DLO3’s live album Live at KEXP! hit #10 Jazz Album and #20 Heatseekers Album on the Billboard charts.

Sat, 01/23/2021 - 4:58 pm

In October 2018, Robert Glasper settled into the Blue Note Jazz Club in New York City for a month-long residency several nights of which featured the new dream team collective R+R=NOW with Glasper on keys, Terrace Martin on synthesizer, vocoder, and alto saxophone, Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah on trumpet, Derrick Hodge on bass, Taylor McFerrin on synthesizer, and Justin Tyson on drums. The band had recently released their debut album Collagically Speaking and the music had already taken on expansive new dimensions in concert as evidenced on R+R=NOW Live, a thrilling live recording that will be released February 12th on Blue Note Records featuring standout tracks from the studio album including “Change of Tone” and “Resting Warrior,” as well as a cover of Kendrick Lamar’s “How Much a Dollar Cost” (co-written by Martin), which is available to stream or download today.

The tracklisting for R+R=NOW Live is as follows:

1. Respond (6:01)

2. Been On My Mind (3:32)

3. How Much A Dollar Cost (4:08)

4. Change Of Tone (9:01)

5. Perspectives/Postpartum (11:25)

6. Needed You Still featuring Omari Hardwick (12:38)

7. Resting Warrior (25:21)

The origin of R+R=NOW came in 2017 when Glasper was asked to put together an all-star line-up for a show at SXSW. With his history—producing for everyone from Common to Herbie Hancock and exploding jazz boundaries with his Black Radio series—the Houston-born keyboardist could be choosy. Martin, of L.A., was best-known as a chief architect of Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp a Butterfly. NOLA native Adjuah turned heads with his socially charged 2017 Centennial trilogy, a comprehensive celebration of Africa's sonic diaspora. Philly's Hodge is a founding member of the Robert Glasper Experiment and has scored for Spike Lee and music-directed for Maxwell. McFerrin, born in Brooklyn, is Bobby McFerrin's oldest son and rolls with Flying Lotus' Brainfeeder camp. Grand Rapids native Tyson plays with Esperanza Spalding and has become a regular in all Glasper’s formations due to his versatility. Their diverse wealth of experience melded with profound ease. “There was no rehearsal and no plan. Just a quick soundcheck,” says Glasper of the band’s Austin debut. And yet, “We were vibing, listening to each other, and coming up with stuff on the spot that was so dope.”

“R+R stands for ‘Reflect’ and ‘Respond’,” says Glasper, an idea that came to him via Nina Simone. Facing backlash for her politics, Simone was asked, more or less, why she didn't just shut up and sing. Her answer: “an artist’s duty, as far as I’m concerned, is to reflect the times.” Glasper adds: “When you reflect what's going on in your time and respond to that, you can't not be relevant. So ‘R’ plus ‘R’ equals ‘NOW’.”

“Everyone in this band is a six-foot-tall black guy who didn't come from an affluent background,” says Adjuah. “In order for us all to make it into that room together, we've had to go through some hell, fight for some things, build up a lot of armor, and do a lot ourselves to forge our realities, to become who we are. We're all very aware of that, so anytime we get together, it's a celebration.”

Fri, 01/29/2021 - 7:37 am

NY-based artist The Bones of J.R. Jones announced today his new EP A Celebration will release on March 19th. Inspired by the American Southwest, it was written on his honeymoon during trips to Tucson, Bisbee, Joshua Tree, and other desert destinations. The six-song collection is everything its title promises: a celebration of the thrill of getting lost in something new, whether it’s a landscape, a sound, a perspective, or all of the above. Today he shared the lead single and video for “Bad Moves,” watch it HERE.

“This was the last song I wrote for the record, it was definitely an add on,” J.R. stated. “I had a very specific list of sonic qualities in mind—the point of the song was to give the EP texture and dimension. It asserts itself more than the other songs, which definitely feels a little dreamier, comparatively. The lyrics and intent behind this one were darker and kind of a nod to the animalistic instinct in all of us, which is where the driving pace of the song comes from.”

The Bones of J.R. Jones - photo by Christian Harder

A Celebration marks a new stage in The Bones of J.R. Jones’ own evolution, fusing the songwriter’s southern gothic sound - a sound rooted in acoustic instruments and J.R.’s woozy vocals - with drum machines, analog synths, vibraphone, and the rich, dark tones of a Magnatone amplifier. The songs were recorded quickly, in a series of first takes and instinctual performances, with J.R. playing nearly every instrument himself. The result is an organic record with an electric pulse - a collection of music that, like the region that inspired it, is familiar one minute and otherworldly the next.

Over the course of three full-length albums and two EPs, Jonathan Robert Linaberry - the songwriter, storyteller, visual artist, and one-man band behind The Bones of J.R. Jones - has woven his own tapestry of American roots music. It’s a classic sound for the modern world, influenced not only by blues, soul, and forward-thinking folk, but also by J.R.’s environment. Noisey once raved “He’s a one man band who can hold an audience rapt, rendering the cacophony of a stage full of musicians utterly unnecessary.”

J.R. also revealed a special series of virtual shows that will take place on his Instagram page with each show benefiting a local venue. Fans are invited to donate to J.R.’s PayPal/Venmo where half of the proceeds will be donated to each venue. J.R. is also making limited edition Linocut posters for each date featuring handmade wood carved letters. Visit www.thebonesofjrjones.com/shows- for more info.

Virtual Tour Dates:

02/05 - New York, NY: Mercury Lounge @ 8pm EST

02/27 - Los Angeles, CA: The Troubadour @ 8pm PST

03/18 - San Francisco, CA: Cafe Du Nord @ 8pm PST

04/17 - London, UK: Omeara @ 8pm GMT

05/14 - Austin, TX: Stubbs, Jr. @ 8pm CST

A Celebration Track List:

01) Stay Wild

02) Howl

03) Bad Moves

04) Keep It Low

05) Like An Old Lover

06) A Celebration

Sun, 02/07/2021 - 8:09 am

GRAMMY award-winning artist, producer, actor, and activist Wyclef Jean released an Amazon Original cover of Bob Marley’s “Is This Love.” “I chose ‘Is This Love’ because love is timeless and we must always remember love conquers hate,” Wyclef says of the song, which is being released in honor of what would have been Bob Marley’s 76th birthday on February 6th. The track is available to stream and purchase only on Amazon Music.

Listen to Wyclef Jean’s “Is This Love” [Amazon Original] only on Amazon Music: http://amzn.to/Wyclef

The music that ​Wyclef Jean​ has written, performed, and produced — both as a solo superstar and as founder and guiding member of the ​Fugees​ — has been a consistently powerful, pop cultural force for over two decades. In 1996, the ​Fugees​ released their monumental album ​The Score. ​Since then, Wyclef has released eight albums as a solo artist that have sold nearly nine million copies worldwide, including his 1997 debut ​The Carnival​ and 2000’s ​The Eclectic: 2 Sides II a Book​. In March 2019 Wyclef released ​Wyclef Goes Back to School, ​a collaboration with students he met while touring the United States and visiting colleges across the country, and features the singles “Demons Enjoy,” “Baba” and “Faded Butterfly."

In his most recent project, Wyclef hosts RunThatBack, a one of a kind show for music lovers of any type, where Wyclef interviews heavy hitters from all walks of life. Some of the biggest names in music, politics, society, and sports sit down virtually with Wyclef and bring their insightful, inspirational, and often hilarious experiences to the table, including Lena Waithe, Clive Davis, Gunna, will.i.am, Common, Carlos Santana, Rapsody, Ari Melber, Steve Harvey, and many more. You never know what you’ll learn about the world or music from Clef, but you definitely won’t find it anywhere else.

Amazon Music listeners can find “Is This Love” on the Reggae Revolution playlist, featuring the new sounds of Reggae. Customers can also simply ask, "Alexa play the Amazon Original by Wyclef Jean” in the Amazon Music app for iOS and Android and on Alexa-enabled devices. In addition to the new song, Amazon Music listeners can access hundreds of Amazon Originals featuring both emerging and established artists across numerous genres, available to stream and purchase only on Amazon Music. 

Tue, 02/16/2021 - 10:06 am

Today, the New Orleans-based six-piece band Sweet Crude announced Dualité: a new double A-side singles series where the group will release pairs of songs where one is sung in Louisiana French and the other in English. In celebration of Mardi Gras, the band released the first installment today with two brand new songs “La Rêveuse” and “Under New Moons.”

Watch the videos for “La Rêveuse” and “Under New Moons” via YouTube:

 “La Rêveuse” - https://youtu.be/eeC4g0VjI-U

“Under New Moons” - https://youtu.be/u1774nyqal0

“Tours? Nope. Money? Broke. Launch a blitz of bilingual bangers in 2021 because we can? Putain ouais (hell yeah, and pardon our Louisiana French),” explains singer Sam Craft. “Through confinement and a lack of gigs, we’ve steadily built up a loyal Patreon following with whom we’ve been streaming and chatting on a regular basis. They’ve been inspiring us to keep going and to write like crazy. We show them brand new ideas, they give us feedback, and we are now self-producing and self-recording a whole new body of work for approximately zero dollars. Dualité is the result, or really the start, of this new frontier. The first two tracks to kick things off showcase our French and our English sides. We remain dedicated as ever to creating new avenues to celebrate our Louisiana roots.”

“‘La Rêveuse’ (The Dreamer) is an all-French song and carries the premise that we are all living in someone else's dream. In the song, our dreamer is likened to a little kid playing on the beach, building sandcastles and romping around. Unbeknownst to our baby-god, we are actually all denizens of her temporary sand creations and are at the mercy of all her arbitrary whims. It could kinda explain why everything is so dang weird all the time. Not exactly being conspiracy theorists, we wanted the music to have a certain tongue-in-cheek bounce to it, while maintaining the drama of COVID-induced desperation.”

“Meanwhile, ‘Under New Moons’ is a reality check. On a stream one day, our fans offered us the prompt to write a song about self-care during lockdown. We narrowed that idea down to the moments in life when the best self-care is to disengage from that person (place or thing) that provokes all your worst habits. This moody, minor-key bop takes you on a push-and-pull emotional journey.”

Sweet Crude’s Dualité singles are the band’s first release of new music since their critically-acclaimed debut album Officiel//Artificiel that was released last year. The band was featured on NPR’s All Things Considered and praised by NPR Music, who said, “Sweet Crude sports a brightly booming pop sound and Cajun influences 
that extend to its bilingual lyric.” Billboard called the band, “Cajun pop at its best,” while American Songwriter called them “as eccentric as their city.”

Sweet Crude perform livestreams twice weekly on Mondays and most Thursdays. The performances on Monday are for Patreon subscribers only and fans can view the Thursday performances via Facebook and YouTube.

Tue, 02/23/2021 - 12:32 pm

Today, Austin-based musician Danny Golden announced an April 23rd release date for his new EP Changes. The announcement comes with the first single “I Can’t Change” — Under The Radar praised the song’s “inviting melodies and plainspoken lyrical approach” along with its “towering layers of shoegaze guitars and crashing percussion.”

Listen to “I Can’t Change” here: https://youtu.be/__fGJIsSdjQ

Changes follows Golden’s 2018 full-length Old Love. “It’s been over two years since I last put out new music, and I felt that ‘I Can’t Change’ had to be the song to break the silence,” Golden says. “The period between my last record and now saw me dealing with a lot of changes in my life, and in my approach to making music; I don’t think that’s more evident anywhere than on ‘I Can’t Change.’”

The song starts with a cymbal crash from Jeff Olson (White Denim, Balmorhea) and a wall of electric guitar sound courtesy of guitarist Ben Brown (PR Newman). These players along with Sam Pankey (Balmorhea, Mother Falcon) on bass, Mary Bryce (Smiile) in backing vocals, and Spencer Garland (Black Pumas, Matthew Logan Vasquez) on synth make up the EP’s core backing band. Other collaborators include David Ramirez (who produced the EP song “L.A. County”), and John Michael Landon (who produced “I Can’t Change” and “Alien”).

Danny Golden: Changes

“I Can’t Change” is at once abrasive and inviting, like a friend pulling up with the aux at full volume. Your senses are a bit overwhelmed, but you know you want to get in, and that you’re bound for a good adventure. “The song is an expressionistic postcard and a story of supplication,” Golden says. “You can agonize all you want about choices in your life, but either way, change is going to happen to you. Taking what’s dealt to you and allowing change within yourself determines your quality of existence. I think we all experience periods of listlessness and malaise, often when we’re seeking answers without knowing the questions. Recording ‘I Can’t Change’ was a chance for me to give lyrical and sonic form to feelings that had been too abstract to understand.”

Danny Golden’s four-song EP Changes is out April 23rd.

Tracklisting:

1. I Can’t Change

2. Alien 

3. L.A. County 

4. Cigarettes and Sunburn

Wed, 03/03/2021 - 7:32 am

Today, the Nashville-via-London duo Ida Mae announced their new sophomore album Click Click Domino, which follows their critically-acclaimed EP Raining For You and breakout debut Chasing Lights. The husband-wife duo has also shared the title track from the record, which features a blistering guitar performance from Marcus King. Click Click Domino will be released on July 16th, through Thirty Tigers.

Watch the official video for "Click Click Domino" via YouTube:

Download or Stream the single "Click Click Domino":

https://orcd.co/imccd

Pre-save / pre-order Click Click Domino:

https://orcd.co/clickclickdomino

Filled with thunderous production, killer riffs, and an insatiable rhythm throughout, "Click Click Domino" is among their most raucous tracks to date. Ida Mae writes, "This was written kind of as a knee jerk song. The unfiltered noise of social media, concerns surrounding social engineering, the lack of emotional connection and physical disconnection gets to all of us. We all know how easy it is to falsify an image, be it in fashion / politics / or any aspect of your everyday and in a lot of people's lives it has become a necessity to play into it. I wanted to write the lyrics to ‘Click Click Domino’ almost as Twitter statements, counting characters, making a short sharp stream of consciousness commentary."

"The riff was originally inspired by the playing of one of our favourite guitar players Pop Staples and it slowly morphed into something that in my mind almost echoed moments of Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac. It kicked up a gear when Marcus King came over and we stood side by side, soloing call and response guitar lines over the outro. The attitude of his playing was perfect."

Adding to this Marcus King says, "A warm summer Nashville evening, enjoying a whiskey beverage with my lady and two of our best friends in town, Chris & Steph of Ida Mae. I listened through the track ‘Click Click Domino’ and was immediately floored by the raw nature of the recording, the intensity and the undeniable, delightfully British rock sound I had grown up being captured. I’m honoured to have played on this track. What a powerhouse album and what a powerhouse band."

Clash Magazine covered the single and said, "Ida Mae seem to tap into something primal."

For nearly two straight years following the release of their critically acclaimed debut, Chasing Lights, Ida Mae lived on the road, crisscrossing the US from coast to coast as they performed hundreds of dates with everyone from Willie Nelson and Alison Krauss to Marcus King and Greta Van Fleet. While those shows were electrifying for the duo, it was what happened in between - the countless hours spent driving through small towns and big cities, past sprawling suburbs and forgotten ghost towns, across deserts and mountains and forests and prairies - that truly laid the creative groundwork for Click Click Domino.

Click Click Domino

Written primarily in the backseat of a moving car, Click Click Domino embodies all the momentum and possibility of the great American unknown, offering up a series of cinematic vignettes full of hope and disappointment, promise and regret, connection and loneliness. The songs here are raw and direct, fueled by an innovative mix of vintage instruments and modern electronics, and the performances are loose and exhilarating to match, drawing on early rock and roll, classic country, British folk, and 50’s soul to forge a sound that’s equal parts Alan Lomax field recording and 21st century garage band.

When it came time to record, the band planned on working once again with legendary producer Ethan Johns (Ray LaMontagne, Laura Marling, Kings of Leon), who’d helmed Chasing Lights back in England. With COVID-19 taking international travel off the table, though, Turpin and Jean decided to go ahead and make the record themselves, leaning on everything they’d learned working with Johns and other top shelf producers over the years like T Bone Burnett (Elvis Costello, Robert Plant & Alison Krauss), M. Ward, Ryan Hadlock (The Lumineers, Brandi Carlile), Jake Gosling (Ed Sheeran, Shawn Mendes), and Mike Crossey (The 1975, Arctic Monkeys). Working out of their house in Nashville, they set up a series of bare bones recording stations and began cutting tracks together in one or two take performances, balancing the spontaneity of the moment with the energy and intuition of the live show they’d spent the past few years perfecting

The new album follows the release of their highly-praised EP Raining For You last year, which was acclaimed by Rolling StoneGuitar World and Wide Open Country among others, and garnered huge support from Spotify, featured across playlists such as "The Most Beautiful Songs In The World", "Lost in The Woods", and Blues & Roots Rock playlists.

Ida Mae's 2019 debut record Chasing Lights reached #10 on Billboard's "Heatseekers" album chart. The record has been widely acclaimed by publications including The Independent, Billboard, and Rolling Stone Country, who dubbed Ida Mae one of "10 New Country and Americana Artists You Need to Know," as well as NPR Music's All Songs Considered.

Wed, 03/10/2021 - 4:00 pm

Streaming as a live YouTube event on M​arch 13th and 14th at 7pm CST / 8pm EST, Pedals: The Musical is the world’s first-ever historically accurate musical comedy about guitar and guitar pedals.

Watch the trailer for Pedals: The Musical HERE.

This live musical theater performance is inspired and written by JHS Pedals CEO and founder Josh Scott, whose YouTube series “The JHS Show” has received more than 30 million collective views. Josh has a reputation as the Bill Nye the Science Guy meets Mr. Rogers of guitar, using his weekly show to explain the technical and cultural aspect of guitar history in an entertaining and educational format.

In the same vein as Saturday Night Live, Schoolhouse Rock! and Monty Python, Pedals: The Musical is a live theater production that showcases the history, inventors and musicians behind some of the first inventions that changed guitar, and how they shaped pop culture. Utilizing local Kansas City cast and crew (as well as acclaimed musician Rhett Shull), ​this production will be performed live on YouTube as a JHS Show special event​.

More information is available at www.pedalsthemusical.com

Fri, 03/12/2021 - 12:09 am

Acclaimed musician/singer/songwriter Gary Louris has announced his new album Jump For Joy will release on June 4 via Sham/Thirty Tigers. Written, performed and produced entirely by Louris himself, Jump For Joy is his first solo release since 2008’s Vagabonds. Along with the announcement Louris is sharing “New Normal,” the breezy debut single reminding us to live in the present and enjoy each moment we have on this earth.

Listen to “New Normal” via YouTube:

“The oldest recording of the bunch,” Louris says of the new single, “I made this down in my basement studio in Minneapolis in the first decade of the new millennium. I was still learning the art of the digital studio. It is a dip of the toe into that world and is pretty rudimentary, and yet it has that touch of magic. The sounds just work and I wouldn’t know how to recreate this if I tried.”

He continues, “The highlights for me are the strange vocoder sounds I got, and the crazy solo which was me channeling Robert Fripp. It’s a sloppy electronic melange (and here I am presaging TikTok more than a decade before it’s existence!). Lyrically, it’s my view on the world and how only when we ‘stand still, watch time passing around you’ can one truly be here now.”

Over the last three decades, Gary Louris has built a deeply compelling body of work as a singer, songwriter, guitarist and producer. The lead singer/songwriter of seminal band The Jayhawks, Louris is one of the founding members of alt-rock supergroup Golden Smog, which has included members of Soul Asylum, Wilco, The Replacements and Big Star. He has also produced records and contributed songs to GRAMMY Award-winning albums by Tedeschi Trucks Band and The Chicks, and recorded with a diverse group of acts including The Black Crowes, Uncle Tupelo, Joe Henry, Counting Crows, John Hiatt, Lucinda Williams, Roger McGuinn, Nickel Creek and The Wallflowers.

Jump For Joy features 10 never-before-released songs written entirely by Louris and recorded in his home studio, with cover art illustrated by his son, Henry Louris. The album follows The Jayhawks’ 2020 release XOXO, which garnered high praise from press including HuffPost, Billboard, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, BrooklynVegan and more.

Jump For Joy is available for pre-order here: www.garylourismusic.com/store

Jump For Joy Tracklist

1. Almost Home 

2. Living In Between 

3. White Squirrel

4. New Normal 

5. Mr. Updike

6. Follow 

7. Too Late The Key 

8. One Way Conversation 

9. Jump For Joy 

10. Dead Man’s Burden

Fri, 03/12/2021 - 12:08 pm

Today, Blue Note Records announced There Is No End, a posthumous album from the legendary Afrobeat drummer Tony Allen, who died last year at the age of 79. Featuring guest rappers and singers including Sampa The Great, Danny Brown, Lava La Rue, and more, the new full-length will be released on April 30, 2021, the one year anniversary of Allen’s death. The preorder launches today along with the first single “Cosmosis (ft. Skepta & Ben Okiri).”

Listen to “Cosmosis (ft. Skepta & Ben Okiri)” here: https://youtu.be/hnM8foG4Vuc

Tony Oladipo Allen, who was born in Lagos, Nigeria, in 1940, never played a traditional instrument: right from the beginning, his interest was for a distant relative of the ancestral percussion family, namely, the drum kit. He taught himself, serving his apprenticeship while working as a technician for Nigerian national radio, all the time listening to records by American masters such as Art Blakey, Max Roach and Kenny Clarke, the eminent drummers of the bebop and hard bop eras.

His life changed totally in 1964 when he made the acquaintance of Fela Kuti, whom he would accompany for the next 15 years, first with Fela’s Koola Lobitos, an emblematic highlife band that was a model for all modern African music groups, and then when Fela led Africa 70, for which he developed a new music language: Afrobeat, which combined Yoruba rhythms and funk instruments with themes of revolution. Alongside Fela, Tony recorded some 20 albums and put his rhythm-signature to each of them. From then on, Afrobeat would propel a career that saw him pursue his own projects while collaborating with everyone from Oumou Sangare to Damon Albarn. The language Allen created was as supple and pleasing to the ear as it was complex and difficult to decipher, moving with ease across the avant-garde of modern popular music on both sides of the Black Trans-Atlantic – from jazz to highlife, funk to electronica, hip hop to the full spectrum of African music and its American and European diasporas.

"I play yours, you play mine. The music never ends." The wisdom of Tony Allen's words was as deep as his grooves, and these two sentences truly capture the spirit of There is No End. Tony’s motivating concept and desire was to work with younger artists, especially the new generation of rappers, and to give them a voice in a time of global turmoil when music has never been more important – not necessarily as a "weapon" for the future in the manner of Fela's violently political songs, but also as a medicine to heal a fractured world today.

There Is No End was produced by Tony Allen, Vincent Taeger, and Vincent Taurelle — Allen had produced and written all the album’s beats back in 2019 alongside Taeger. In thinking back on the process of finalizing There Is No End without Tony physically present to guide them, Taeger remarked that his friend and mentor "was a teacher without speaking... a drummer and a guardian, with a great artistic vision and that vision filled the songs even after he had left us." Renowned Nigerian novelist and poet Ben Okri, like everyone else involved in this valedictory album, had a very similar experience, declaring in awe that "this man could have lived another 150 years and kept creating new worlds. He had become the master shaman of his art. He knew himself and his mind. He wanted the album to be open to the energies of a new generation... but like a great mathematician or scientist who found a code for a new world, with just a few beats, he created this extraordinary canvas."

“Cosmosis'' came together just as Tony, Damon Albarn and Nigerian-British rapper Skepta had finished tracking their collaboration, “How Far?” for the Gorillaz 2020 album Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez. Ben Okri wrote his lyrics as a tribute to Tony, to ask “How do you absorb a cosmos or integrate a cosmos, enrich a world, infiltrate in the highest possible way and change the mentalverse, the spiritverse; it's by cosmosis.”

Tony Allen's singular talent didn't end when the music stopped. For all those who knew him, he was a deeply spiritual man whose life's mission was not just to create a new musical language, but to pass it on to subsequent generations. As he put it, “I'm just doing my best to please the universe. Life's a boomerang, you know? You create bad or good [and] it comes back to you.” Right up to this, his last album, his thoughts were for the younger artists who continued to flock to him, especially in the fraught historical and political moment in which we live. “I want to take care of youngsters; they have messages and I want to bring them on my beat. The idea is to transmit to the young generation, to mix different universes – the hip hop world to the Afrobeat world.”

Tracklisting: 

1. Tony’s Praeludium

2. Stumbling Down (feat. Sampa The Great)

3. Crushed Grapes (feat. Lord Jah-Monte Ogbon)

4. Très Magnifique (feat. Tsunami)

5. Mau Mau (feat. Nah Eeto)

6. Coonta Kinte (feat. Zelooperz)

7. Rich Black (feat. Koreatown Oddity)

8. One Inna Million (feat. Lava La Rue)

9. Gang On Holiday (Em I Go We?) (feat. Jeremiah Jae)

10. Deer In Headlights (feat. Danny Brown)

11. Hurt Your Soul (feat. Nate Bone)

12. My Own (feat. Marlowe)

13. Cosmosis (feat. Ben Okri & Skepta)

14. There’s No End

Tue, 03/23/2021 - 9:48 am

On April 23rd, Austin-based musician Danny Golden will release his new EP Changes, the followup to Golden’s 2018 full-length Old Love. Today, Golden released the video for the EP’s second single “Alien.” MXDWN praised the song, saying “while the lead single from Changes, ‘I Can’t Change,’ blended a Neil Young-esque chord progression and song structure with shoegaze-style dynamics, ‘Alien’ takes a more straightforward approach, allowing Golden’s storytelling to take the lead. The guitars have a wistful, compressed quality that’s reminiscent of ’80s heartland rock.”

Watch the “Alien” video here: https://youtu.be/xUlgcZNJhIk

“Alien” follows the EP’s first single “I Can’t Change” — Under The Radar acclaimed the song’s “inviting melodies and plainspoken lyrical approach” along with its “towering layers of shoegaze guitars and crashing percussion.”

“‘Alien’ was dropped into my head by some extraterrestrial intelligence,” Golden says. “I think creativity comes from some external mystical source, artists simply figure out how to tune our radios to the frequency and transmit the messages. I was flying back to Pittsburgh for Thanksgiving in that groggy twilight feeling of an airplane nap, 20,000 feet above the earth at 11pm after an extended layover.”

Golden woke from a dream on the plane with the “Alien” chorus virtually complete playing in his head. “I liked the feeling of it, so I threw a jacket over my head, opened up my voice memos and sang it to my phone,” Golden says. “I still have the recording, you can hear the flight attendant announcing our descent in the background. The chorus came to me complete and the rest of the song was figured out from there. It’s a song about the power of love to give your alienated existence meaning. Plus a little bit of an indulgence in my fascination with UFOs and life elsewhere in the universe.”

The core backing band on Changes features drummer Jeff Olson (White Denim, Balmorhea), guitarist Ben Brown (PR Newman), bassist Sam Pankey (Balmorhea, Mother Falcon), backing vocalist Mary Bryce (Smiile), and keyboardist Spencer Garland (Black Pumas, Matthew Logan Vasquez). Other collaborators include David Ramirez (who produced the EP song “L.A. County”), and John Michael Landon (who produced “I Can’t Change” and “Alien”).

Danny Golden’s four-song EP Changes is out April 23rd.

Tracklisting:

1. I Can’t Change

2. Alien 

3. L.A. County 

4. Cigarettes and Sunburn

Wed, 03/24/2021 - 10:31 am

Grammy-winning songwriter and producer Daniel Lanois releases his new album Heavy Sun through eOne, the first release under his new "Maker Series" brand. “We want to lift people’s spirits with this music,” says Lanois. “It’s so easy to feel isolated right now, but we want everyone to feel included in what we’re doing.”

Stream / Download: Daniel Lanois - Heavy Sun

Also available today is a new visualizer video for the track “Way Down”. Watch it HERE.

Daniel Lanois previously released singles “Power” and “(Under The) Heavy Sun” which premiered with SPIN who calls it a "dubby, atmospheric tune" that "previews the space-gospel vibe of his upcoming LP." American Songwriter writes of the album that “songs such as ‘Power,’ ‘Tumbling Stone,’ ‘Dance On,’ ‘Angels Watching’ and ‘Every Nation’ are instilled with a spiritual fervor, one tempered by reggae rhythms, hints of electronica, rich textures, and the deep commitment of all involved.” And No Depression raves, "Heavy Sun is a broad-brush celebration of existence and art."

Lanois was also recently featured on NPR’s World Cafe, and as a guest on WTF with Marc Maron.

Whether crafting ambient records with Brian Eno, making rock and roll history with U2 and Peter Gabriel, digging into American roots with Bob Dylan and Emmylou Harris, scoring Oscar-winning films and blockbuster video games, or composing his own solo music, 11-time Grammy winner Daniel Lanois has always seemed to reinvent himself with a chameleon-like ease. While Lanois may be best known for his production work on era-defining albums like Joshua Tree, Wrecking Ball, and Time Out Of Mind, he actually grew up on organ records and gospel music, and he cut his teeth as a young man in the studio recording vocal quartets touring their way through Ontario. In the decades to come, Lanois would go on to become one of the most acclaimed studio gurus of the modern era (Rolling Stone declared that his “unmistakable fingerprints are all over an entire wing of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame”), as well as a prolific solo artist (NPR hailed his “brilliant albums of heartfelt songs”), but his love of soul and roots music never left.

Recorded in Los Angeles and Toronto, Heavy Sun fuses classic gospel and modern electronics, mixing gritty, human textures with crisp, digital accents and lush, swirling atmospherics to create a sound that’s at once warmly familiar and boldly unexpected. The arrangements here are spacious and dreamy, anchored by rich, righteous organ topped with airy falsetto and mesmerizing four-part harmony, and the writing is buoyant and soulful to match, tapping into the shared uncertainty of the human condition to offer hope, comfort, and connection at a time when all three run in desperately short supply.

That communal spirit is on full display here, with Lanois and his bandmates—guitarist/vocalist Rocco DeLuca, organist/vocalist Johnny Shepherd, and bassist/vocalist Jim Wilson—showcasing an undeniable chemistry and boundless appetite for sonic discovery that far surpasses the influence of any individual member.

For Lanois, who sang and played guitar in addition to producing the album, that meant taking full advantage of modern recording techniques, slicing and dicing live, improvised performances into discrete songs that could be fleshed out with experimental effects and sci-fi flourishes. Some tracks began life with Shepherd alone on the organ, taking the rest of the group to church the way he did for years at Zion Baptist in Shreveport, LA; others began with a melody or a simple groove played on a vintage beatbox. While Lanois dug deep into the production work, carving up raw material and extracting samples he could weave back into the arrangements, DeLuca (a revered solo artist in his own right) was often in the rear of the studio with the rest of the band, crafting lyrics around inspiring messages of community and resilience. 

“Our goal was to be a force for good with these songs,” explains Lanois. “We wanted to remind people not to let the world steal their joy, to remind them that even during a global pandemic, it’s our responsibility to protect our spirits and find ways to keep on dancing, keep on singing, keep on teaching, keep on loving.”

Sat, 04/10/2021 - 1:03 pm

Blue Note Records released “Stumbling Down (feat. Sampa The Great),” a new song from the legendary Afrobeat drummer Tony Allen. It’s the second single from There Is No End, a posthumous album from Allen, who died last year at the age of 79. Featuring guest rappers and singers including Skepta, Danny Brown, Lava La Rue, Zelooperz, and more, the new full-length will be released on April 30, 2021, the one year anniversary of Allen’s death. “Stumbling Down” follows the first single “Cosmosis (ft. Skepta & Ben Okri),” which was co-produced by Damon Albarn.

Listen to “Stumbling Down (feat. Sampa The Great)” here: https://youtu.be/SRQUEqpMeKw

“Stumbling Down” features Zambian-Australian rapper Sampa The Great, whose flow and lyrics live up to the four Australian Grammy's she's won for her breakout debut album The Return, released in 2019 via Ninja Tune. The sound draws together the musical lifeblood of Melbourne, Johannesburg and Gaborone, all locations where parts of the track were recorded. As Sampa puts it, “Uncle Tony was involved in changing the way African Music was heard and felt, and he has constantly inspired me to learn and to expand my music.”

Tony Oladipo Allen, who was born in Lagos, Nigeria, in 1940, never played a traditional instrument: right from the beginning, his interest was for a distant relative of the ancestral percussion family, namely, the drum kit. He taught himself, serving his apprenticeship while working as a technician for Nigerian national radio, all the time listening to records by American masters such as Art Blakey, Max Roach and Kenny Clarke, the eminent drummers of the bebop and hard bop eras.

His life changed totally in 1964 when he made the acquaintance of Fela Kuti, whom he would accompany for the next 15 years, first with Fela’s Koola Lobitos, an emblematic highlife band that was a model for all modern African music groups, and then when Fela led Africa 70, for which he developed a new music language: Afrobeat, which combined Yoruba rhythms and funk instruments with themes of revolution. Alongside Fela, Tony recorded some 20 albums and put his rhythm-signature to each of them. From then on, Afrobeat would propel a career that saw him pursue his own projects while collaborating with everyone from Oumou Sangare to Damon Albarn. The language Allen created was as supple and pleasing to the ear as it was complex and difficult to decipher, moving with ease across the avant-garde of modern popular music on both sides of the Black Trans-Atlantic – from jazz to highlife, funk to electronica, hip hop to the full spectrum of African music and its American and European diasporas.

"I play yours, you play mine. The music never ends." The wisdom of Tony Allen's words was as deep as his grooves, and these two sentences truly capture the spirit of There is No End. Tony’s motivating concept and desire was to work with younger artists, especially the new generation of rappers, and to give them a voice in a time of global turmoil when music has never been more important – not necessarily as a "weapon" for the future in the manner of Fela's violently political songs, but also as a medicine to heal a fractured world today.

There Is No End was produced by Tony Allen, Vincent Taeger, and Vincent Taurelle — Allen had produced and written all the album’s beats back in 2019 alongside Taeger. In thinking back on the process of finalizing There Is No End without Tony physically present to guide them, Taeger remarked that his friend and mentor "was a teacher without speaking... a drummer and a guardian, with a great artistic vision and that vision filled the songs even after he had left us."

Tony Allen's singular talent didn't end when the music stopped. For all those who knew him, he was a deeply spiritual man whose life's mission was not just to create a new musical language, but to pass it on to subsequent generations. As he put it, “I'm just doing my best to please the universe. Life's a boomerang, you know? You create bad or good [and] it comes back to you.” Right up to this, his last album, his thoughts were for the younger artists who continued to flock to him, especially in the fraught historical and political moment in which we live. “I want to take care of youngsters; they have messages and I want to bring them on my beat. The idea is to transmit to the young generation, to mix different universes – the hip hop world to the Afrobeat world.”

Tracklisting: 

1. Tony’s Praeludium

2. Stumbling Down (feat. Sampa The Great)

3. Crushed Grapes (feat. Lord Jah-Monte Ogbon)

4. Très Magnifique (feat. Tsunami)

5. Mau Mau (feat. Nah Eeto)

6. Coonta Kinte (feat. Zelooperz)

7. Rich Black (feat. Koreatown Oddity)

8. One Inna Million (feat. Lava La Rue)

9. Gang On Holiday (Em I Go We?) (feat. Jeremiah Jae)

10. Deer In Headlights (feat. Danny Brown)

11. Hurt Your Soul (feat. Nate Bone)

12. My Own (feat. Marlowe)

13. Cosmosis (feat. Ben Okri & Skepta)

14. There’s No End

Wed, 04/14/2021 - 7:38 am

Today, the Nashville-via-London duo Ida Mae shared their new song “Road to Avalon”, the opening track from their upcoming sophomore album Click Click Domino. “We wanted this song and production to be a cinematic, slow pan across a vignette of the towns and cities we’ve travelled through that felt lost and forgotten,” writes Ida Mae. “Clashing a 1900s American gut string ukulele banjo with modern synthesizers, casio keyboards, thumb piano and Beatles-esque Mellotron organ was intentional to try and create a kind of sparse transatlantic dreamstate. We chose Avalon because it's rich in Celtic mythology, an earthly paradise in the western skies, a pretty grandiose metaphor for searching or escaping to a place or situation that's better than where you are.”

Click Click Domino will be released on July 16th, through Thirty Tigers.

Watch the official video for "Road to Avalon" via YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWGIvSgZSRo

Download or Stream the single "Road to Avalon":

https://orcd.co/roadtoavalon

Pre-save / pre-order Click Click Domino:

https://orcd.co/clickclickdomino

The song follows the release of lead single “Click Click Domino” which was featured in Rolling Stone who writes, “With guitar assistance from shred wizard Marcus King, the tune is a heaving mass of scuzzy blues-rock riffs and thunderous drums that indicts social media for its isolating, alienating effects… Somewhere, Jack White is busy looking for new amp settings.” Watch the video for “Click Click Domino” HERE.

For nearly two straight years following the release of their critically acclaimed debut, Chasing Lights, Ida Mae lived on the road, crisscrossing the US from coast to coast as they performed hundreds of dates with everyone from Willie Nelson and Alison Krauss to Marcus King and Greta Van Fleet. While those shows were electrifying for the duo, it was what happened in between - the countless hours spent driving through small towns and big cities, past sprawling suburbs and forgotten ghost towns, across deserts and mountains and forests and prairies - that truly laid the creative groundwork for Click Click Domino.

Written primarily in the backseat of a moving car, Click Click Domino embodies all the momentum and possibility of the great American unknown, offering up a series of cinematic vignettes full of hope and disappointment, promise and regret, connection and loneliness. The songs here are raw and direct, fueled by an innovative mix of vintage instruments and modern electronics, and the performances are loose and exhilarating to match, drawing on early rock and roll, classic country, British folk, and 50’s soul to forge a sound that’s equal parts Alan Lomax field recording and 21st century garage band.

When it came time to record, the band planned on working once again with legendary producer Ethan Johns (Ray LaMontagne, Laura Marling, Kings of Leon), who’d helmed Chasing Lights back in England. With COVID-19 taking international travel off the table, though, Turpin and Jean decided to go ahead and make the record themselves, leaning on everything they’d learned working with Johns and other top shelf producers over the years like T Bone Burnett (Elvis Costello, Robert Plant & Alison Krauss), M. Ward, Ryan Hadlock (The Lumineers, Brandi Carlile), Jake Gosling (Ed Sheeran, Shawn Mendes), and Mike Crossey (The 1975, Arctic Monkeys). Working out of their house in Nashville, they set up a series of bare bones recording stations and began cutting tracks together in one or two take performances, balancing the spontaneity of the moment with the energy and intuition of the live show they’d spent the past few years perfecting.

Sat, 04/24/2021 - 11:20 am

Grammy-winning songwriter and producer Paula Cole shares her new song “Black Mountain Blues.”  Recorded by Bessie Smith and covered by Janis Joplin, Cole’s version of the song is the second single from her upcoming album American Quilt.  “It’s strong like black coffee and it’s warrior-esque”, says Cole. American Quilt will be released on May 21st through Renew Records / BMG.

Listen: Paula Cole - “Black Mountain Blues

Pre-Save American Quilt

https://lnk.to/americanquilt

“Black Mountain Blues” follows Cole’s recent single “Wayfaring Stranger” which premiered in Rolling Stone. American Songwriter also praised the track and album writing, "Throughout, the 11-track collection contains the folkloric roots of American music. Cole’s radiant vocals pull the underlying humanity of a nation divided."

With a musical catalog defined by honest and deeply personal lyrics carried by her powerful, radiant voice, Cole has always had a gift for discerning the underlying humanity in stories from her own life as well as those around her, and channeling those emotional elements into captivating music. On American Quilt, Cole applies this natural insight to American history and musical roots traditions by interpreting a selection of classic songs – each of which provide an entry point for rediscovering the overlooked stories and figures that populate America’s interwoven cultural lineage.

The album was produced by Cole, who was the first woman nominated (without collaborators) as Producer of the Year at the 1997 Grammy awards. She garnered a total of seven Grammy nominations that year and won “Best New Artist” for her second album and major-label debut, This Fire, with its timeless hits, “Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?” and “I Don’t Want to Wait” (later the theme song for hit TV series Dawson’s Creek). Today, as a visiting scholar at Berklee College of Music, Cole tells “all my female students, ‘Start thinking like a producer, think about how you want the whole track to sound, be a voice.’”

“Together these songs make an American Quilt,” says Cole, “a patchwork of heritage, a stitched-together-history of culture both painful and beautiful. I hope the listener will step inside the canoe and float down the Missouri River of their mind.  I hope they will hear the gospel of the country, and taste the liquor in the speakeasies.  I hope they will feel the freedom in the jazz of the cities, heed the call to morality in the spirituality of a day’s hard work, and the call to the Great Beyond from the Appalachians.”

As on previous albums, Cole was joined by a longtime “family” of musicians, including esteemed drummer Jay Bellerose and guitarist Kevin Barry, collaborators since the trio’s days at Berklee. American Quilt follows 2019’s acclaimed album of originals, Revolution, deemed by PopMatters as “an exceptional piece of work, a timely reminder of how soulful and perceptive a writer and singer Cole is and has always been.”

Track List:

 1. You Don’t Know What Love Is

2. Wayfaring Stranger

3. God’s Gonna Cut You Down

4. Wayfaring Stranger

5. Shenandoah

6. Black Mountain Blues

7. Good Morning Heartache

8. Nobody Knows You (When You’re Down And Out)

9. Blackbird

10. Steal Away / Hidden In Plain Sight

11. What A Wonderful World

Sun, 04/25/2021 - 11:41 am

Massachusetts-based singer/songwriter Jake Manzi has released “How Long This Time,” the third single from his debut album Whatever My Heart Allows (out May 7). Under The Radar say “The tender melodies of ‘How Long This Time’ quickly make for some of Manzi’s most passionate, heart-on-the-sleeve songwriting yet… Manzi has that coveted songwriting talent of translating personal heartbreak into universal writing that will hit anyone at their core.”

Listen to “How Long This Time” here:

https://youtu.be/AXNeOyGSD1E

"It’s pretty much a song about getting the runaround,” says Jake. “We recorded it about five different times. It seemed like if we could get this song to sound good, then all of the other tracks would follow suit with the tone that this one set. It was the first track where it really felt like we had stumbled upon our sound for the record.”

Atwood Magazine say “his voice is raw and deeply expressive...Pouring himself into his song, Manzi commands listeners’ attention with an easy lilt and timeless sound” and called the album’s first single “Whatever My Heart Allows” “an achingly tender instant hit that makes us unequivocally excited for May 7’s debut album.” We All Want Someone To Shout For praised the song, saying “the keyboards tend to accompany and emphasize his lyrics and the easy going drumming will make you feel like you’re floating through the air.”

Whatever My Heart Allows consists of ten dreamy, heartfelt tracks, and features contributions from Grammy winner Don Was, Griffin & Taylor Goldsmith (Dawes), Grammy-nominated guitarist/singer Madison Cunningham, and Mikaela Davis. The album is a sweetly confessional union of soft rock and indie pop, the story of someone growing towards a deeper understanding of themselves. A laid-back, honest meditation on what it means to let yourself love, even when you’re afraid. With lush, sweeping string arrangements, heartachey pedal steel, vibraphone, and harp, Whatever My Heart Allows reads as a love letter from Manzi to himself—a love letter he didn’t even know he was writing.

Recorded at Studio 68 in Williamsburg, MA and produced by Manzi and his longtime bandmate and friend Caleb Rosazza, Whatever My Heart Allows sees the two collaborators at their best: dreaming big and making no compromises. Whatever My Heart Allows makes the most of Manzi and Rosazza’s combined treasure trove of vintage instruments and amps, and features Manzi’s beloved ‘59 Silvertone electric guitar. Other contributors from Western MA and Los Angeles include Jacob Rosazza, Ryan Hommel, and Danny Bernini. Dawes drummer Griffin Goldsmith’s gentle, lyrical touch on drums (recorded at Spirithouse Studios in Northampton, MA) underpins it all.

Thu, 04/29/2021 - 10:56 am

Last week, Austin-based musician Danny Golden released his new EP Changes, the followup to Golden’s 2018 full-length Old Love. Today, Danny released the video for the EP’s single “Cigarettes and Sunburn” — “the song is about love cut short by time and circumstance,” says Golden. “It’s about the promise of new love and the mystery of what could have been. The song and video explore the pain of loss, which, like a sunburn, lingers until it slowly fades away.”

Watch the “Cigarettes and Sunburn” video here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGOXBMTGbmM

The Boot praised the “Cigarettes and Sunburn” video saying it “uses a retro French film style to tell a story of lost love and the emotions that come with it.” MXDWN also recently acclaimed the EP, saying “while the lead single from Changes, ‘I Can’t Change,’ blended a Neil Young-esque chord progression and song structure with shoegaze-style dynamics, ‘Alien’ takes a more straightforward approach, allowing Golden’s storytelling to take the lead. The guitars have a wistful, compressed quality that’s reminiscent of ’80s heartland rock.” Under The Radar lauded the “inviting melodies and plainspoken lyrical approach” of “I Can’t Change,” along with the song’s “towering layers of shoegaze guitars and crashing percussion.”

The core backing band on Changes features drummer Jeff Olson (White Denim, Balmorhea), guitarist Ben Brown (PR Newman), bassist Sam Pankey (Balmorhea, Mother Falcon), backing vocalist Mary Bryce (Smiile), and keyboardist Spencer Garland (Black Pumas, Matthew Logan Vasquez). Other collaborators include David Ramirez (who produced the EP song “L.A. County”), and John Michael Landon (who produced “I Can’t Change” and “Alien”).

Danny Golden’s four-song EP Changes is out now.

Tracklisting:

1. I Can’t Change

2. Alien 

3. L.A. County 

4. Cigarettes and Sunburn

Sun, 05/02/2021 - 1:53 pm

Tom Jones’ new album Surrounded By Time debuts at No. 1 on the official UK albums chart. The UK chart crown is his first in over 20 years and also sets the record for the oldest artist ever to do so with an album of new material. Earlier this week, Sir Tom made his US performance debut on the album where he brought a stunning rendition of “No Hole In My Head” to Jimmy Kimmel Live!

Watch Tom Jones perform “No Hole In My Head” on Jimmy Kimmel Live!:

https://youtu.be/_QQGs9w9EM8

Listen to Surrounded By Time:

http://TomJones.lnk.to/surroundedbytime

"I am thrilled beyond words with the reception for Surrounded By Time, and to now hold these UK chart records is tremendous, just unbelievable," says Sir Tom. "I am so proud of everyone who helped me create this music, I had a ball working with them and to get this result is just incredible. It’s wonderful that the public has allowed me to be musically expressive at my time of life and have shown their support. I am forever grateful."

Recently, Sir Tom appeared on The TODAY Show, WTF with Marc Maron, and NPR’s Here & Now, and has been featured in PEOPLE Magazine, The Boston Globe, AARP, and many more. The Independent called Surrounded By Time “a triumph of hope and experience” and The New Yorker proclaiming it “steeped in gravity.” The Guardian says, "spoken word, doomy electronics and 60s psych are threaded through songs by Dylan, Michael Kiwanuka and more.”

Co-produced by Ethan Johns and Mark Woodward, Surrounded By Time marks out new territory with a sonic landscape of outstanding musicianship and a vocal delivery that re-imagines a diverse set of songs of personal importance that have impacted Jones throughout a long, unpredictable but undeniably impressive career.

Wed, 05/05/2021 - 11:50 am

Today, Sharon Van Etten releases her new Amazon Original live album epic Ten: Live From Zebulon available now to stream and purchase only on Amazon Music. The album documents Van Etten’s April 2021 virtual concert from Zebulon LA, where she performed her seminal album epic in its entirety. Amazon Music HD customers using an Echo Studio can listen to Sharon Van Etten’s Amazon Original album in immersive 3D Audio mixed by Emily Lazar, which turns her performance into a unique, multidimensional audio experience.

Stream epic Ten: Live From Zebulon only on Amazon Music:

http://amzn.to/EpicTenLive

Sharon Van Etten’s epic was originally released in 2010. epic Ten, released digitally last month and physically on June 11th via Ba Da Bing, celebrates the 10th anniversary of epic’s release. It’s a double LP including the original epic and an album of epic covers by Fiona Apple, Lucinda Williams, Shamir, IDLES, Big Red Machine, St. Panther, and Courtney Barnett ft. Vagabon. As described by Van Etten, “epic represents a crossroads for me as an artist -- going from intern to artist at Ba Da Bing, from solo folk singer to playing with a band for the first time and beginning to play shows on tour where people showed up.”

Amazon Music listeners can simply ask, “Alexa play the new album from Sharon Van Etten” in the Amazon app for iOS and Android and on Alexa-enabled devices. In addition to Sharon Van Etten, Amazon Music listeners can access hundreds of Amazon Originals featuring both emerging and established artists across numerous genres, available to stream and purchase only on Amazon Music.

epic Ten: Live From Zebulon tracklist:

1. A Crime

2. Peace Signs

3. Save Yourself

4. DsharpG

5. Don’t Do It

6. One Day

7. Love More

Tue, 05/11/2021 - 5:41 pm

Today, the Nashville-via-London duo Ida Mae (Chris Turpin and Stephanie Jean) shared their new song “Little Liars” from their upcoming sophomore album Click Click Domino. "‘Little Liars’ is a runaway song, the first person whisperings of a seductress that you’ll follow whatever the consequences," writes Turpin. "This song was written on a late 1800s Mandolinetto that we picked up at the end of a tour in Nashville and what you hear on the record is actually the demo. Stephanie Jean's live vocal performance on the demo was a first take and it had such a dark and playful intensity we didn't want to change it."

Click Click Domino will be released on July 16th, through Thirty Tigers.

Listen to "Little Liars" via YouTube:

https://youtu.be/YRCc569RQsU

Pre-save the single "Little Liars":

https://orcd.co/littleliars

Pre-save / pre-order Click Click Domino:

https://orcd.co/clickclickdomino

"Little Liars" is currently streaming on Under The Radar who writes, "'Little Liars' finds the duo crafting an evocative swirl of instrumentation... all weaving together into an off-kilter haze where old meets new and tradition meets invention."

Wed, 05/12/2021 - 2:06 pm

Today, SUSTO announced their new live album Rogue Acoustic, out June 4 via Acid Boys/Missing Piece Records. The album was recorded in February of 2020 at The Royal American in their hometown of Charleston, SC. The band has also shared the first single and video “Hard Drugs” — originally released on SUSTO’s 2017 album & I’m Fine Today, both the song and video feature SUSTO frontman Justin Osborne performing alongside Ben Bridwell of Band of Horses. Along with live versions of original SUSTO material, Rogue Acoustic includes covers of The Rolling Stones’ classic “Dead Flowers” and Green Day’s timeless “Good Riddance.”

Watch “Hard Drugs (ft. Ben Bridwell)” HERE

“The live recording of Rogue Acoustic was meant to capture the strange energy of playing to a Friday night crowd at a packed bar, with just an acoustic guitar and vocals,” says Justin Osborne. “I didn’t realize until a few months later just how easily that kind of raw energy of the crowd could disappear from my life. I’m happy to be releasing this album now, with the hope that soon we’ll be back to a world where moments like this can happen again.”

Following Rogue Acoustic’s release, SUSTO will head out on a 10-date tour through the Southeast US, kicking off with a return to The Royal American in Charleston, SC on June 10th. All shows are at limited capacity and adherent to local COVID-19 guidelines, tickets are on sale now [link].

SUSTO has made a name for themselves through frequent touring and performances at major U.S. festivals including Hangout, Austin City Limits, Stagecoach, AmericanaFest, Pickathon and Hopscotch. The band has opened for The Lumineers, Band of Horses, and The Head and The Heart. Their previous albums have received praise from Consequence, Paste, and Rolling Stone, who described their songs as “serenely laid back, with gentle instrumentation and thoughtful vocals inviting the listener to step out of their daily grind and into more intentional headspace.”

Osborne first began writing songs as a teen in South Carolina, performing with numerous bands before forming SUSTO. During a self-imposed hiatus, he moved to Havana, Cuba and befriended local musicians who encouraged and inspired him to start writing music again. "It was a weird moment. I just had to finally quit keeping one foot out of music and dive in," he explains. The band's name, SUSTO, is derived from a Latin American term that can be roughly translated as "panic attack." "That deep fright was something I was experiencing, and songwriting felt like it was helping me cure it," adds Osborne. "I can lose my mind on stage sometimes — I will break down and cry or have to keep myself from doing it — I just feel so incredibly lucky."

Rogue Acoustic tracklist:

1. Introduction

2. Waves

3. Dead Flowers (ft. She Returns from War) 

4. Glacier 

5. Mystery Man (ft. Johnny Delaware) 

6. Erlene 

7. Hard Drugs (ft. Ben Bridwell)

8. Manual Transmission

9. Jah Werx (ft. dk yama)

10. Good Riddance

Tour Dates:

6/10 - Charleston, SC - The Royal American **SOLD OUT**

6/16 - Greenville, SC - Radio Room **SOLD OUT**

6/17 - Asheville, NC - The Grey Eagle

6/18 - Chattanooga, TN - The Signal

6/19 - Nashville, TN - Marathon Music Works 

6/20 - Mobile, AL - Callaghan Irish Social Club **SOLD OUT**

6/22 - Atlanta, GA - City Winery Atlanta (2 Shows)

6/24 - Waverly, AL - Standard Deluxe Inc

6/25 - Savannah, GA - Service Brewing Co. **SOLD OUT**

6/26 - West Columbia, SC - New Brookland Tavern **SOLD OUT**

Wed, 05/19/2021 - 9:27 am

Jackson Browne released the video today for “My Cleveland Heart,” his new single, which drops on Friday everywhere. The single, co-written with his longtime guitarist Val McCallum, comes from Browne’s forthcoming album Downhill From Everywhere due out on July 23, worldwide through his label Inside Recordings.

The “My Cleveland Heart” video was directed by Alissa Torvinen (Phoebe Bridgers, Pink, Melanie Martinez – K12) and includes a cameo by Phoebe Bridgers along with Browne's bandmates Val McCallum, Greg Leisz, Jeff Young, Mauricio Lewak, Bob Glaub as well as Pete Thomas and Dave Faragher.

Watch “My Cleveland Heart” music video in Rolling Stone here.

“What an honor to collaborate with Jackson,” said Torvinen on the making of the video. “His creativity is inspiring, not solely in music, but in everything he puts his energy into. We came up with a script for the video very serendipitously, and Phoebe joining us was a wonderful surprise. The way she received Jackson's heart and the shot of her watching from the wings . . . perfectly dark and poetic and Phoebe.”

Nearly five decades since his debut LP, the songs on Jackson Browne’s new album Downhill From Everywhere sustain the soulful intimacy of his first release, combined with a power and wisdom gained from a life pursuing positive change.

“There’s a deep current of inclusion running through this record,” Browne says. “I think that idea of inclusion, of opening yourself up to people who are different than you - that’s the fundamental basis for any kind of understanding in this world.”

The album will be available to pre-order starting Friday, May 21.

Jackson Browne will be on tour this summer and fall with James Taylor. For more information, please visit www.jacksonbrowne.com

Jackson Browne with James Taylor Tour:

7/29 - Chicago, IL - United Center

7/31 - Cuyahoga Falls, OH - Blossom Music Center

8/1 - Detroit, MI - DTE Energy Center

8/3 - Pittsburgh, PA - PPG Paints Arena

8/4 - Dayton, OH - Nutter Center

8/6 - Charleston, WV - Charleston Coliseum

8/11 - Roanoke, VA - Berglund Ctr Coliseum

8/13 - Louisville, KY - KFC Yum Center

8/14 - Memphis, TN - FedEx Forum

8/16 - Nashville, TN - Bridgestone Arena

8/17 - Atlanta, GA - Infinite Energy Center

8/19 - Hershey, PA - Giant Center

8/21 - Bethel, NY - Bethel Woods Center For The Arts

8/25 - Camden, NJ - BB&T

8/27 - Wantagh, NY - Jones Beach

8/28 - Holmdel, NJ - PNC Bank Arts

10/16 - New Orleans, LA - Smoothie King Center

10/17 - Houston, TX - Toyota Center

10/19 - Fort Worth, TX - Dickies Arena

10/22 - Salt Lake City, UT - Maverik Center

10/23 - Boise, ID - ExtraMile Arena

10/25 - Portland, OR - Moda Center

10/27 - Tacoma, WA - Tacoma Dome

10/29 - San Francisco, CA - Chase Center

10/30 - Anaheim, CA - Honda Center

11/1 - San Diego, CA - Pechanga Arena

Thu, 06/03/2021 - 11:21 am

Starting today, fans can place reservations to be first in line for tickets to Jackson Browne’s next headlining tour via jacksonbrowne.com. Powered by Lyte’s Priority Reservation technology, fans can sign up to reserve and purchase tickets for dates to be announced soon. The tour will support his new album, Downhill From Everywhere, available worldwide on July 23 via Inside Recordings. Reservations can be placed HERE.

Lyte’s Priority Reservation technology transforms the typical ticket buying process by offering fans access to shows with unprecedented flexibility. Fans can reserve the number of tickets they want in the city of their choosing.  When tickets that match their reservation criteria become available, these fans are among the first to be given access to the best tickets through a private onsale. If unable to attend the show, Lyte offers fans the option to return their tickets for cash, allowing another fan to attend. Fans can also transfer, change or modify their reservation at any time without losing their place in line. Additionally, as shows sell out, fans can sign up through Priority Reservation for the waitlist and can be matched with additional tickets if they become available.

“All of us here at Lyte are proud and grateful to be a part of this journey and to help deepen the connection between Jackson Browne and his dedicated fans,” says Lawrence Peryer, Lyte’s Chief Strategy Officer.

Last week, Browne released “My Cleveland Heart,” the new single from Downhill From Everywhere. Browne shared the music video, directed by Alissa Torvinen Kouame and featuring a cameo by Phoebe Bridgers, with Rolling Stone who said, "It’s fitting for Bridgers — who has cited Browne as an influence and recently enlisted him to duet on 'Kyoto' — to receive his heart, almost like Browne is passing down the singer-songwriter torch."

Stream "My Cleveland Heart" HERE / Preorder Downhill From Everywhere HERE

Jackson Browne will be on tour this summer and fall with James Taylor. Additional Jackson Browne dates will be announced soon.  For more information, please visit www.jacksonbrowne.com

Jackson Browne / James Taylor Tour Dates:

7/29 - Chicago, IL - United Center

7/31 - Cuyahoga Falls, OH - Blossom Music Center

8/1 - Detroit, MI - DTE Energy Center

8/3 - Pittsburgh, PA - PPG Paints Arena

8/4 - Dayton, OH - Nutter Center

8/6 - Charleston, WV - Charleston Coliseum

8/11 - Roanoke, VA - Berglund Center Coliseum

8/13 - Louisville, KY - KFC Yum Center

8/14 - Memphis, TN - FedEx Forum

8/16 - Nashville, TN - Bridgestone Arena

8/17 - Atlanta, GA - Infinite Energy Center

8/19 - Hershey, PA - Giant Center

8/21 - Bethel, NY - Bethel Woods Center For The Arts

8/25 - Camden, NJ - BB&T

8/27 - Wantagh, NY - Jones Beach

8/28 - Holmdel, NJ - PNC Bank Arts

10/16 - New Orleans, LA - Smoothie King Center

10/17 - Houston, TX - Toyota Center

10/19 - Fort Worth, TX - Dickies Arena

10/22 - Salt Lake City, UT - Maverik Center

10/23 - Boise, ID - ExtraMile Arena

10/25 - Portland, OR - Moda Center

10/27 - Tacoma, WA - Tacoma Dome

10/29 - San Francisco, CA - Chase Center

10/30 - Anaheim, CA - Honda Center

11/1 - San Diego, CA - Pechanga Arena

Fri, 06/04/2021 - 12:58 am

Today, saxophonist Dave McMurray announced a July 16th release date for Grateful Deadication, his sophomore release for Blue Note Records. On the new full-length, McMurray takes his gritty, soulful Detroit sound and reimagines the flower empowered songs of San Francisco icons the Grateful Dead with an album as vibrant as it is unexpected. The announcement comes with the video for a transcendent version of Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter’s “Loser,” featuring Grateful Dead co-founder Bob Weir, alongside Bettye LaVette and Weir’s Wolf Bros bandmates Don Was, Jay Lane, Jeff Chimenti, and Greg Leisz.

Watch the video for “Loser (ft. Bettye LaVette & Bob Weir And Wolf Bros)”

During the heyday of the Dead’s tireless touring, McMurray was on the road himself, joining now-Blue Note president Don Was in the uncategorizable Was (Not Was) beginning in 1981. McMurray has performed with a stunning roster of legendary musicians, including B.B. King, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Iggy Pop, Patti Smith, Bonnie Raitt, Johnny Hallyday, Gladys Knight, Albert King, Nancy Wilson, KEM, Bootsy Collins, Herbie Hancock, Geri Allen and Bob James.

In 2018 McMurray joined Don Was for an all-star set at San Francisco’s Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival. The performance featured a surprise appearance by Bob Weir, who had recently enlisted Was and drummer Jay Lane for his new band Wolf Bros, including a rendition of Dead classic “Days Between.”

“My Grateful Dead adventure began a few years ago when I was lucky enough to play a show with The Wolf Bros,” McMurray explains. “The long-form, odd measures and complex chords of the music hooked me immediately. I noticed the songs had great melodies, yet held the openness of Miles Davis’ Electric Period….The music was catchy, psychedelic, raw, with the idea that nobody solos/everybody solos—akin to Weather Report. The more I listened, the more I knew these songs would eventually become a vehicle for my jazz expression."

For this spirited excursion into the Dead’s vast repertoire, McMurray reconvened the rhythm section that graced his 2018 Blue Note debut, Music Is Life. This time out, bassist Ibrahim Jones and drummer Jeff Canady are joined by guitarist Wayne Gerard and keyboardist Maurice O’Neal, both longtime compatriots from the Motor City scene, as well as pianist Luis Resto and percussionist Larry Fratangelo, colleagues from McMurray’s days in Was (Not Was).

Grateful Deadication is not only a heartfelt celebration of the Grateful Dead’s brilliant songcraft, but the imagination and soul evident throughout the album exemplify the wide range of McMurray’s influences - from jazz, pop, rock, soul, reggae, R&B, gospel and beyond.

Tracklisting:

1. Fire On The Mountain 

2. Dark Star

3. Loser (feat. Bettye LaVette & Bob Weir And Wolf Bros)

4. Estimated Prophet 

5. Eyes Of The World 

6. The Eleven 

7. Touch Of Grey (feat. Herschel Boone)

8. Touch Of Grey (Instrumental) 

9. Franklin's Tower 

10. The Music Never Stopped 

Sun, 06/06/2021 - 12:23 pm

SUSTO released a new live album, Rogue Acoustic, via Acid Boys/Missing Piece Records. The album was recorded in February of 2020 at The Royal American in their hometown of Charleston, SC. The band also shared a live video “Mystery Man” featuring SUSTO alumnus Johnny Delaware — the track originally appeared on the band’s 2017 album & I’m Fine Today. Next week the band will embark on a 10 date, limited-capacity tour through the Southeast US.

Listen to Rogue Acoustic

Watch “Mystery Man (ft. Johnny Delaware)”

“The live recording of Rogue Acoustic was meant to capture the strange energy of playing to a Friday night crowd at a packed bar, with just an acoustic guitar and vocals,” says founder and frontman Justin Osborne. “I didn’t realize until a few months later just how easily that kind of raw energy of the crowd could disappear from my life. I’m happy to be releasing this album now, with the hope that soon we’ll be back to a world where moments like this can happen again.”

Previous singles for Rogue Acoustic included “Hard Drugs” featuring Band of Horses frontman Ben Bridwell and a cover of The Rolling Stones classic “Dead Flowers” featuring She Returns From War. Following Rogue Acoustic’s release, SUSTO will head out on a 10-date tour through the Southeast US, kicking off with a return to The Royal American in Charleston, SC on June 10th. All shows are at limited capacity and adherent to local COVID-19 guidelines, tickets are on sale now [link].

SUSTO has made a name for themselves through frequent touring and performances at major U.S. festivals including Hangout, Austin City Limits, Stagecoach, AmericanaFest, Pickathon and Hopscotch. The band has opened for The Lumineers, Band of Horses, and The Head and The Heart. Their previous albums have received praise from Consequence, Paste, and Rolling Stone, who described their songs as “serenely laid back, with gentle instrumentation and thoughtful vocals inviting the listener to step out of their daily grind and into more intentional headspace.”

Osborne first began writing songs as a teen in South Carolina, performing with numerous bands before forming SUSTO. During a self-imposed hiatus, he moved to Havana, Cuba and befriended local musicians who encouraged and inspired him to start writing music again. "It was a weird moment. I just had to finally quit keeping one foot out of music and dive in," he explains. The band's name, SUSTO, is derived from a Latin American term that can be roughly translated as "panic attack." "That deep fright was something I was experiencing, and songwriting felt like it was helping me cure it," adds Osborne. "I can lose my mind on stage sometimes — I will break down and cry or have to keep myself from doing it — I just feel so incredibly lucky."

Rogue Acoustic tracklist:

1. Introduction

2. Waves

3. Dead Flowers (ft. She Returns from War) 

4. Glacier 

5. Mystery Man (ft. Johnny Delaware) 

6. Erlene 

7. Hard Drugs (ft. Ben Bridwell)

8. Manual Transmission

9. Jah Werx (ft. dk yama)

10. Good Riddance

Tour Dates:

6/10 - Charleston, SC - The Royal American **SOLD OUT**

6/16 - Greenville, SC - Radio Room **SOLD OUT**

6/17 - Asheville, NC - The Grey Eagle

6/18 - Chattanooga, TN - The Signal

6/19 - Nashville, TN - Marathon Music Works 

6/20 - Mobile, AL - Callaghan Irish Social Club **SOLD OUT**

6/22 - Atlanta, GA - City Winery Atlanta (2 Shows)

6/24 - Waverly, AL - Standard Deluxe Inc

6/25 - Savannah, GA - Service Brewing Co. **SOLD OUT**

6/26 - West Columbia, SC - New Brookland Tavern **SOLD OUT**

Fri, 06/11/2021 - 7:46 pm

Last night, Jackson Browne performed his new single "My Cleveland Heart" on Jimmy Kimmel Live! The single, co-written with his longtime guitarist Val McCallum, comes from Browne’s forthcoming album Downhill From Everywhere due out on July 23, via Inside Recordings. Stream/purchase "My Cleveland Heart" HERE, and preorder Downhill From Everywhere HERE.

Browne also guested on the latest episode of WTF with Marc Maron podcast where they discussed the new album, his history with Nico and the Velvet Underground, touring with James Taylor, the Pacific Garbage Patch, and more.

Watch Jackson Browne perform "My Cleveland Heart" on Jimmy Kimmel Live!" HERE

Listen to Jackson Browne on WTF with Marc Maron HERE

The companion music video for “My Cleveland Heart” was directed by Alissa Torvinen Kouame and includes a cameo by Phoebe Bridgers along with Browne's bandmates Val McCallum, Greg Leisz, Jeff Young, Mauricio Lewak and Bob Glaub as well as Pete Thomas and Dave Faragher. Rolling Stone featured the video saying, "It’s fitting for Bridgers — who has cited Browne as an influence and recently enlisted him to duet on 'Kyoto' — to receive his heart, almost like Browne is passing down the singer-songwriter torch."

You can read about Downhill From Everywhere at Browne's website HERE.

Sat, 06/12/2021 - 2:42 pm

The Felice Brothers have announced their new album From Dreams To Dust will be released on September 17, 2021 via Yep Roc Records. They’ve also released the official video for "Jazz On The Autobahn," the second song to be released from the forthcoming album. The stop motion video was painted and constructed by Ian Felice and took over a month to complete. Ian Felice spoke with Consequence of Sound about the origins of the new song.

Watch the official video for "Jazz On The Autobahn" HERE

Pre-Order/Pre-Save From Dreams To Dust HERE

"This song is a story about two people on the run. They’ve left behind their entire lives in search of something but are haunted by a feeling of looming catastrophe. They are both using each other as a means of escape," explains Ian Felice.

The Felice Brothers have also announced a US tour to celebrate the release of the new album. The tour will kick off on September 16 at New York’s Bowery Ballroom and will make stops in Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, D.C. and many more. Tickets are on sale this Friday, June 11. Find a full list of tour dates below and at TheFeliceBrothers.com.

From Dreams To Dust sees the continuation of the new lineup of The Felice Brothers that debuted with Undress, consisting of Ian Felice, who shares songwriting and vocal duties in the band with his brother James Felice, bassist Jesske Hume (Conor Oberst, Jade Bird) and drummer Will Lawrence. The album was written and produced by The Felice Brothers, and features Bright Eyes’ Nathaniel Walcott on trumpet and Mike Mogis, who mixed the album, on pedal steel.

The 12 songs that make up From Dreams To Dust follow the band’s tradition of opting to record in unconventional spaces, similar to their debut album which was recorded in an old theater in New York and their self-titled, which was recorded in a chicken coop. The Felice Brothers found their new recording home in an 1873 church in upstate New York that Ian renovated himself. Though the church had fallen into disrepair, it was Ian’s dream to acquire the property and renovate the 30x40 one-room church.

In April, the band released "Inferno", the first song to be pulled from the album, which Rolling Stone described as "a swirl of blurry adolescent recollection and Nineties pop culture ephemera" and "...a promising taste of what’s to come."

Tour Dates:

9/16 - New York, NY - Bowery Ballroom

9/17 - Woodstock, NY - Levon Helm Studios

9/18 - Woodstock, NY - Levon Helm Studios

9/24-25 - Boise, ID - Treefort Festival

9/28 - Seattle, WA - The Crocodile Second Stage

9/29 - Portland, OR - Doug Fir Lounge

10/1 - San Francisco, CA - Great American Music Hall

10/3 - Los Angeles, CA - Bootleg Theater

10/12 - Asbury Park, NJ - Asbury Lanes

10/13 - Philadelphia, PA - World Cafe Live

10/14 - Washington, DC - DC9

10/15 - Richmond, VA - Richmond Music Hall

10/16 - Durham, NC - Motorco Music Hall

10/17 - Asheville, NC - The Grey Eagle

10/19 - Louisville, KY - Zanzabar

10/20 - Chicago, IL - Lincoln Hall

10/21 - Fort Wayne, IN - The Brass Rail

10/23 - Pittsburgh, PA - Club Cafe

10/24 - Millersville, PA - Phantom Power

From Dreams To Dust Tracklist:

01) Jazz On The Autobahn

02) To-Do List

03) All The Way Down

04) Money Talks

05) Be At Rest

06) Valium

07) Inferno

08) Silverfish

09) Celebrity X

10) Land Of Yesterdays

11) Blow Him Apart

12) We Shall Live Again

Sun, 06/13/2021 - 1:25 pm

Gabe Dixon shares “I Got Your Love (You Got Mine),” a dreamy duet with GRAMMY-nominated artist Susan Tedeschi and the latest release from his new album Lay It On Me (out June 25). Dixon recently spoke about his inspiration for the R&B-tinged love song with Relix.

Listen to “I Got Your Love (You Got Mine)” via YouTube HERE.

“‘I Got Your Love (You Got Mine)’ is an uncomplicated love song that simply celebrates and affirms the good feelings in love and romance,” explains Dixon. “When it came to finding a duet partner for the song, I shot for the moon and asked my friend and bandmate in Tedeschi Trucks Band, Susan Tedeschi. I am so thankful that she said yes. She is such an amazing singer, and her vocals on this song are simply heavenly.”

Gabe Dixon’s third solo release, Lay It On Me is a bold, self-assured statement from an artist learning to trust his gut and embrace his instincts like never before. Recorded with producer/composer/multi-instrumentalist Dustin Ransom, the album features an ecstatic blend of old school soul grooves, effervescent pop hooks and addictive rock and roll energy. Dixon has previously shared two tracks from the album – the blissful debut single “Something Good” and the soulful title track “Lay It On Me.” He also recently spoke about the new music with The Boot and American Songwriter, who called it “one of the year’s most necessary, and therapeutic, releases.”

After getting his start playing keys as a teenager professionally around Nashville, Gabe Dixon studied classical piano at the University of Miami where he launched the Gabe Dixon Band with his then roommate Jano Rix (The Wood Brothers). The group released a string of acclaimed albums, garnering high praise from press and performing on Jimmy Kimmel Live and The Late Show. Respected by critics and peers alike, Dixon also became a go-to for some of the biggest names in modern music, touring and performing with artists including Paul McCartney, Alison Krauss, O.A.R. and, most recently, Tedeschi Trucks Band. When the Gabe Dixon Band ended in 2010, he released his solo debut One Spark in 2011, followed by his celebrated sophomore effort, 2016’s Turns To Gold.

“I’ve been on this journey of learning to believe in myself and my music for most of my life,” says Dixon. “I’ve spent quite a bit of my time playing in support of other artists’ visions over the years, but with this record, I’ve finally reached a place where I’m able to fully realize my own.”

Lay It On Me is available for pre-save HERE.

Lay It On Me Tracklist

1. Lay It On Me (Intro)

2. Lay It On Me

3. Something Good 

4. Don’t Look Down

5. Don’t Look Down (Outro)

6. I Believe In Our Love

7. I Got Your Love (You Got Mine) feat. Susan Tedeschi

8. Everything About You 

9. Reach (In The Middle Of The Night)

10. Last Train Home

Mon, 06/21/2021 - 9:23 am

Today, Jackson Browne announces his "Evening With" tour, a run of shows this August and September featuring Browne backed by his full band. The tour will support his new album, Downhill From Everywhere, available worldwide on July 23 via Inside Recordings. Tickets go on sale Friday, June 25, 2021 at 10 AM local time.  Presale ticket information is available at jacksonbrowne.com.

Last month, Browne released "My Cleveland Heart," the new single from Downhill From Everywhere. The music video, directed by Alissa Torvinen Kouame, features a cameo by Phoebe Bridgers. In describing the clip, Rolling Stone said, "It’s fitting for Bridgers — who has cited Browne as an influence and recently enlisted him to duet on 'Kyoto' — to receive his heart, almost like Browne is passing down the singer-songwriter torch."

Stream "My Cleveland Heart" HERE / preorder Downhill From Everywhere HERE

Last week, Browne performed "My Cleveland Heart" on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, and discussed the new record as a guest on the WTF with Marc Maron podcast.

Jackson Browne is on tour with James Taylor & his All Star Band this Summer and Fall. See full list of tour dates below. For more information, please visit www.jacksonbrowne.com

Jackson Browne “Evening With” Tour:

August 8 - Mashantucket, CT @ Foxwoods Grand Theater

September 5 - Santa Barbara, CA @ Santa Barbara Bowl

September 8 - Paso Robles, CA @ Vina Robles Amphitheatre

September 10 - Napa, CA @ Oxbow Riverstage

September 11 - Stateline, NV @ Harveys Outdoor Arena

September 14 - Prescott, AZ @ Findlay Toyota Center

September 15 - Tucson, AZ @ Tucson Music Hall

September 17 - Phoenix, AZ @ The Celebrity Theatre

September 18 - Phoenix, AZ @ The Celebrity Theatre

September 20 - Albuquerque, NM @ Kiva Auditorium

Jackson Browne with James Taylor Tour:

July 29 - Chicago, IL @ United Center

July 31 - Cuyahoga Falls, OH @ Blossom Music Center

August 1 - Detroit, MI @ DTE Energy Center

August 3 - Pittsburgh, PA @ PPG Paints Arena

August 4 - Dayton, OH @ Nutter Center

August 6 - Charleston, WV @ Charleston Coliseum

August 11 - Roanoke, VA @ Berglund Ctr Coliseum

August 13 - Louisville, KY @ KFC Yum Center

August 14 - Memphis, TN @ FedEx Forum

August 16 - Nashville, TN @ Bridgestone Arena

August 17 - Atlanta, GA @ Infinite Energy Center

August 19 - Hershey, PA @ Giant Center

August 21 - Bethel, NY @ Bethel Woods Center For The Arts

August 25 - Camden, NJ @ BB&T

August 27 - Wantagh, NY @ Jones Beach

August 28 - Holmdel, NJ @ PNC Bank Arts

October 16 - New Orleans, LA @ Smoothie King Center

October 17 - Houston, TX @ Toyota Center

October 19 - Fort Worth, TX @ Dickies Arena

October 22 - Salt Lake City, UT @ Maverik Center

October 23 - Boise, ID @ ExtraMile Arena

October 25 - Portland, OR @ Moda Center

October 27 - Tacoma, WA @ Tacoma Dome

October 29 - San Francisco, CA @ Chase Center

October 30 - Anaheim, CA @ Honda Center

November 1 - San Diego, CA @ Pechanga Arena

Thu, 06/24/2021 - 5:00 pm

Today, saxophonist Dave McMurray released a new rendition of the Grateful Dead’s 1975 song “Franklin’s Tower.” The track is taken from McMurray’s upcoming album Grateful Deadication, out July 16th via Blue Note Records. On the new full-length, McMurray takes his gritty, soulful Detroit sound and reimagines the flower empowered songs of San Francisco icons the Grateful Dead with an album as vibrant as it is unexpected.

Listen to Dave McMurray’s “Franklin’s Tower”

Grateful Deadication was announced earlier this month with the video for a transcendent version of Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter’s “Loser,” featuring Grateful Dead co-founder Bob Weir, alongside Bettye LaVette and Weir’s Wolf Bros bandmates Don Was, Jay Lane, Jeff Chimenti, and Greg Leisz.

During the heyday of the Dead’s tireless touring, McMurray was on the road himself, joining now-Blue Note president Don Was in the uncategorizable Was (Not Was) beginning in 1981. McMurray has performed with a stunning roster of legendary musicians, including B.B. King, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Iggy Pop, Patti Smith, Bonnie Raitt, Johnny Hallyday, Gladys Knight, Albert King, Nancy Wilson, KEM, Bootsy Collins, Herbie Hancock, Geri Allen and Bob James.

Dave McMurray | Grateful Deadication

In 2018 McMurray joined Don Was for an all-star set at San Francisco’s Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival. The performance featured a surprise appearance by Bob Weir, who had recently enlisted Was and drummer Jay Lane for his new band Wolf Bros, including a rendition of Dead classic “Days Between.”

 
“My Grateful Dead adventure began a few years ago when I was lucky enough to play a show with The Wolf Bros,” McMurray explains. “The long-form, odd measures and complex chords of the music hooked me immediately. I noticed the songs had great melodies, yet held the openness of Miles Davis’ Electric Period….The music was catchy, psychedelic, raw, with the idea that nobody solos/everybody solos—akin to Weather Report. The more I listened, the more I knew these songs would eventually become a vehicle for my jazz expression.”

For this spirited excursion into the Dead’s vast repertoire, McMurray reconvened the rhythm section that graced his 2018 Blue Note debut, Music Is Life. This time out, bassist Ibrahim Jones and drummer Jeff Canady are joined by guitarist Wayne Gerard and keyboardist Maurice O’Neal, both longtime compatriots from the Motor City scene, as well as pianist Luis Resto and percussionist Larry Fratangelo, colleagues from McMurray’s days in Was (Not Was).  

Grateful Deadication is not only a heartfelt celebration of the Grateful Dead’s brilliant songcraft, but the imagination and soul evident throughout the album exemplify the wide range of McMurray’s influences - from jazz, pop, rock, soul, reggae, R&B, gospel and beyond.

Tracklisting:
1. Fire On The Mountain
2. Dark Star
3. Loser (feat. Bettye LaVette & Bob Weir And Wolf Bros)
4. Estimated Prophet
5. Eyes Of The World
6. The Eleven
7. Touch Of Grey (feat. Herschel Boone)
8. Touch Of Grey (Instrumental)
9. Franklin's Tower
10. The Music Never Stopped

Sat, 07/03/2021 - 3:05 pm

Renowned singer-songwriter Martin Sexton shared his new single "Calling On America." Arriving just ahead of Independence Day weekend, "Calling On America" follows in the grand tradition of tender R&B cultural commentary epitomized by soul poets like Curtis Mayfield and Marvin Gaye. Featuring a guest appearance from longtime friend and supporter John Mayer on guitar, it's a scene-setting song panning through visual vignettes of love and harmony while also contemplating division.

Listen to "Calling On America" Here

"'Calling On America' is a song of hope, unity, and redemption summonsing our better angels to help see the likeness and goodness in one another," Martin told Relix who featured the track. "I was so psyched to be working with Alagia again - he's an old friend and a brilliant producer. When we played the track for John Mayer, he really grabbed hold of it and knocked it out of the park with his sweet and soulful guitar mastery. It's such an honor."

"Calling On America" is the latest song to release from Martin's forthcoming EP 2020 Vision, out September 10th via Kitchen Table Records. It follows lead single "Hold On," a sun-shining-through-the-rain song brimming with soul guitar fixings, punchy horns, and a touching narrative about the simple pleasures of spending time with loved ones. American Songwriter featured the track and stated, "'Hold On' opens 2020 Vision with the soulful beauty of a moment in time."

Martin has nurtured a critically-acclaimed trademark aesthetic of soul, folk, blues, rock, pop, and sweet balladry for over three decades. A constant theme throughout his music has been the celebration of America. His 1996 album Black Sheep featured a rendition of "America The Beautiful," and his major-label debut was simply called The American. Martin getting his start in music through leaving his upstate New York hometown with seventy-five bucks and a Stratocaster to chase his aspirations also brims with anthemic American Dream overtones. 2020 Vision continues this American story, a 4-song collection that snapshots moments of clarity during the past year and beyond.

The ability to hone in on defining moments has long been evident in Martin's songwriting. Produced by three-time Grammy-nominee John Alagia (John Mayer, Paul Simon, Lukas Nelson), 2020 Vision is a poetically emotive and an elegantly evocative pandemic scrapbook. "In one song, I'm building a treehouse with my son. In another song, I'm crossing America and seeing the beauty in people rising through adversity and loving each other," detailed Martin.

Extensive touring in support of 2020 Vision will begin this summer throughout the US. Tickets are on sale now for select dates with more shows announcing soon. For more information, visit www.martinsexton.com/tour.

2020 Vision will always have its lessons and remain in Martin's sight, even as the miles out on the road put pandemic life in the rearview mirror. One of those lessons is the power of togetherness. "My mission statement for the past 15 years has been unity through music, and I am committed to sharing peace and harmony through my songs."

Track List:

01) Hold On

02) Calling On America

03) Riding Through The Rain

04) Penny from the Land of Plenty

Tour Dates:

07/16 - North Truro, MA @ Payomet Performing Arts Center

07/17 - Exeter, NH @ The Word Barn (5pm show)

07/17 - Exeter, NH @ The Word Barn (8pm show)

07/18 - Arundel, ME @ Vinegar Hill Music Theatre

08/14 - Burlington, VT @ Higher Ground at Backside 405

08/15 - Lake Placid, NY @ Lake Placid Horse Grounds

08/20 - Oak Bluffs, NY @ The Loft

08/21 - Amagansett, NY @ The Stephen Talkhouse

08/22 - Montgomery, NY @ City Winery Hudson Valley

10/16 - Syracuse, NY @ Westcott Theater

10/21 - Salisbury, MA @ Blue Ocean Music Hall

10/23 - Portland, ME @ Aura

11/10 - Charlotte, NC @ Visulite Theatre

11/11 - Rocky Mount, VA @ Harvester Performance Center

11/12 - Charlottesville, VA @ The Southern

11/13 - Richmond, VA @ The Tin Pan

12/08 - Wilmington, DE @ The Queen

12/09 - South Orange, NJ @ SOPAC

12/10 - Old Saybrook, CT @ The Kate

12/11 - Tarrytown, NY @ Tarrytown Music Hall

12/17 - Northampton, MA @ Academy Of Music Theatre

Tue, 07/13/2021 - 1:19 pm

The Nashville-via-London duo Ida Mae shared their new song “Learn To Love You Better” from their upcoming sophomore album Click Click Domino. Ida Mae writes, “'Learn To Love You Better' was written for a friend of ours who was wildly and selflessly in love with a partner struggling with mental health issues and wanting to do everything right. It was written on a late 1800s Mandolinetto which we later combined with 70s analogue drum machines- inspired by JJ Cale and John Martyn. We just wanted it to be a lighter breath of fresh air on the record." Click Click Domino will be released on July 16th, through Thirty Tigers.

Watch the official video for "Learn To Love You Better" via YouTube

Download or Stream the single "Learn To Love You Better"

Pre-save / pre-order Click Click Domino

Ida Mae will stream a full-band live performance of their new record via Mandolin on June 24th at 8PM Eastern time. Along with a pre-show cocktail hour and Q&A with Christopher Turpin and Stephanie Jean, the performance will be interspersed with documentary tour footage and track-by-track insight into each of the songs, making the event a truly immersive cinematic experience. Filmed in a secret studio in the wilds of the English countryside, this will be the first opportunity for fans to see Ida Mae perform these songs, accompanied by Ethan Johns on Drums and Nick Pini on double bass and electric bass. Tickets are currently available for purchase here.

Ida Mae will be performing at the Newport Folk Festival, which will take place July 23 - 26 in Newport, RI. “It’s our great honor to announce we will be performing at the world renowned Newport Folk Festival this year in Rhode Island,” said Ida Mae. “Having studied the performances of John Lee Hooker, Bob Dylan, Rev. Gary Davis and so many others at Newport it means a great deal to be included in this year’s lineup.”

Click Click Domino has earned early acclaim from outlets including Under the Radar, American Songwriter, Wonderland, Clash Magazine,  as well as Rolling Stone who writes of the title track, “With guitar assistance from shred wizard Marcus King, the tune is a heaving mass of scuzzy blues-rock riffs and thunderous drums that indicts social media for its isolating, alienating effects… Somewhere, Jack White is busy looking for new amp settings.”

Watch the videos for “Click Click Domino,” “Road to Avalon” and “Little Liars.”

For nearly two straight years following the release of their critically acclaimed debut, Chasing Lights, Ida Mae lived on the road, crisscrossing the US from coast to coast as they performed hundreds of dates with everyone from Willie Nelson and Alison Krauss to Marcus King and Greta Van Fleet. While those shows were electrifying for the duo, it was what happened in between - the countless hours spent driving through small towns and big cities, past sprawling suburbs and forgotten ghost towns, across deserts and mountains and forests and prairies - that truly laid the creative groundwork for Click Click Domino.

Written primarily in the backseat of a moving car, Click Click Domino embodies all the momentum and possibility of the great American unknown, offering up a series of cinematic vignettes full of hope and disappointment, promise and regret, connection and loneliness. The songs here are raw and direct, fueled by an innovative mix of vintage instruments and modern electronics, and the performances are loose and exhilarating to match, drawing on early rock and roll, classic country, British folk, and 50’s soul to forge a sound that’s equal parts Alan Lomax field recording and 21st century garage band.

When it came time to record, the band planned on working once again with legendary producer Ethan Johns (Ray LaMontagne, Laura Marling, Kings of Leon), who’d helmed Chasing Lights back in England. With COVID-19 taking international travel off the table, though, Turpin and Jean decided to go ahead and make the record themselves, leaning on everything they’d learned working with Johns and other top shelf producers over the years like T Bone Burnett (Elvis Costello, Robert Plant & Alison Krauss), M. Ward, Ryan Hadlock (The Lumineers, Brandi Carlile), Jake Gosling (Ed Sheeran, Shawn Mendes), and Mike Crossey (The 1975, Arctic Monkeys). Working out of their house in Nashville, they set up a series of bare bones recording stations and began cutting tracks together in one or two take performances, balancing the spontaneity of the moment with the energy and intuition of the live show they’d spent the past few years perfecting

The new album follows the release of their highly-praised EP Raining For You last year, which was praised by Rolling Stone, Guitar World and Wide Open Country among others, and garnered huge support from Spotify, featured across playlists such as "The Most Beautiful Songs In The World", "Lost in The Woods", and Blues & Roots Rock playlists

Ida Mae's 2019 debut record Chasing Lights reached #10 on Billboard's "Heatseekers" album chart. The record has been widely acclaimed by publications including The Independent, Billboard, and Rolling Stone Country, who dubbed Ida Mae one of "10 New Country and Americana Artists You Need to Know," as well as NPR Music's All Songs Considered.

Sun, 07/18/2021 - 1:02 pm

The Accidentals, an indie folk-pop, rock trio, announce the October 1 release of their new album Vessel, co-produced by John Congleton (St. Vincent, Lana Del Rey) and Tucker Martine (Decemberists, First Aid Kit). Following their critically acclaimed release Time Out Session 1, the new album blasts through the isolation of the last eighteen months with a shot of alt-rock muscle. “Go Getter,” the first single off the album, has a catchy-as-hell melody with a much-needed message – “Shake off the pressure, sometimes you’ve gotta burn it down to build it better.”

While the accompanying music video for “Go Getter” features Goonies-era cinematography and a relentless search for the elusive “goat," the song’s lyrics compel the listener to keep moving forward even as life gets heavy.

Watch the “Go Getter” video via YouTube HERE.

“‘Go Getter’ is all about not getting bogged down in the details,” the band explains. “Each single art on the Vessel album is a piece of the final album art. When the album comes out the whole picture is revealed.” They continue, “The Vessel album is about letting go of the small stuff and keeping an eye on the wider perspective. ‘Go Getter’ just feels like it embodies the spirit of the album; it says, “we’ve got this.’”

Vessel was in the process of being recorded with celebrated producers John Congleton (St. Vincent, Lana Del Rey) and Tucker Martine (The Decemberists, First Aid Kit) when the pandemic shut things down indefinitely. Rather than press pause, the trio transformed their attic space into a state-of-the-art recording studio with gear from their sponsors to finish the album on their own. Sav and Katie took the reins as co-producers and engineers, switching off not only strings and vocals, but also acoustic and electric guitar, bass, violin, viola, cello, mandolin and the occasional banjo, with Michael laying the foundation on drums.   

Vessel is a testament to the group’s ability to not only persevere, but to thrive in moments of uncertainty. “The whole album is about perspective,” they explain. “It’s about the parallax effect of feeling like you’re moving in slow motion while simultaneously things are flying by at an incredible pace.” They continue, “Depending on where you’re standing, your perspective on what’s really happening changes. If you simply widen your viewpoint, things become clearer.”

Since releasing their debut album in 2012, The Accidentals have built a grassroots following while touring almost nonstop and playing more than 200 shows a year. In addition to teaching workshops across the country, performing with symphonies and scoring an indie film, the group has become a go-to string team, composing and collaborating with everyone from BTS to Keller Williams. With three previous full-length releases, The Accidentals have garnered critical acclaim from Billboard, HuffPost, Rolling Stone, Under The Radar and NPR Music, who called them “some of the most compelling writers of our time.”

The Accidentals have hit the road in support of their new album, see a full list of tour dates below.

Vessel Tracklist

1. Vessel
2. Go Getter
3. Wildfire
4. Rollercoaster
5. Marrow
6. Count the Rings
7. The Line
8. Damascus Blades
9. Slow And Steady
10. Cityview
11. Fractals
12. Waste
13. Simple Terms
14. Bird’s Eye View

The Accidentals – 2021 Tour Dates

July 16 – Bentonville, AR – The Momentary
July 18 – Fort Worth, TX – The Post @ River East
July 24 – Austin, TX – Together Again Benefit Concert @ The Long Center
July 28 – Mackinac Island, MI – Silver Birches
July 29 – Mackinac Island, MI – Marquette Park
July 30 – Petoskey, MI – Bay View Music Festival
Aug. 5 – Kentwood, MI – Kentwood City Hall
Aug. 6 – Appleton, WI – Mile of Music Festival
Aug. 19 – Mount Pleasant, MI – Max & Emily’s Summer Concert Series
Aug. 20 – Hastings, MI – Thornapple Plaza
Aug. 21 – Fort Wayne, IN – C2G Music Hall
Aug. 26 – Beulah, MI – Beulah Park
Aug. 27 – Howell, MI – Concerts at the Courthouse
Aug. 28 – Aurora, IL – Roots Music Festival
Aug. 29 – Chillicothe, IL – Blue Ridge Community Farm
Aug. 31 – Cambridge, IL – Cambridge Schools
Sep. 1 – Cambridge, IL – Cambridge Schools
Sep. 2 – Goshen, IN – Ignition Music Garage
Sep. 3 – Columbus, OH – Natalie’s Grandview (Music Hall and Kitchen)
Sep. 10 – Chatfield, MN – Chatfield Center for the Arts
Sep. 11 – Wisconsin Rapids, WI – Friends of Rapids Music Festival
Sep. 18 – Sanford, NC – Carolina Indie Fest
Sep. 19 – Charleston, WV – Mountain Stage
Sep. 29 – Traverse City, MI – Traverse City Opera House  
Sep. 30 – Traverse City, MI – Traverse City Opera House
Oct. 1 – Bay City, MI – State Theatre
Oct. 2 – Ann Arbor, MI – The Ark                      
Oct. 3 – Cleveland, OH – Beachland Tavern
Oct. 7 – Petoskey, MI – Great Lakes Center For The Arts (Blissfest)
Oct. 8 – Cheboygan, MI – Cheboygan Opera House (Blissfest)
Oct. 9 – Grand Rapids, MI – Calvin University
Oct. 10 – Chicago, IL – City Winery
Oct. 13 – Benton Harbor, MI – Lake Michigan College Mendel Center
Oct. 14 – Wakeman, OH – Riverdog Concert Series    
Oct. 16 –  Pawling, NY – Daryl's House
Oct. 17 – Boston, MA – Club Passim
Oct. 20 – New York, NY – City Winery Loft
Oct. 21 – Holyoke, MA – Gateway City Arts
Oct. 22 – Albany, NY – The Linda                                               
Oct. 23 – Ogunquit, ME – Jonathon's                                                          
Oct. 24 – Bridgeport, CT – Voices Cafe Presents @ The Bijou        
Oct. 26 – Philadelphia, PA – Ardmore Music Hall
Oct. 27 – Annapolis, MD – Ramshead Tavern
Oct. 28 – Washington, D.C. – City Winery Main Room
Oct. 30 – Charlotte, NC – Evening Muse
Oct. 31 – Atlanta, GA – City Winery Main Room
Nov. 3 – Nashville, TN – City Winery Main Room
Nov. 7 – Memphis, TN – The Quonset

Sun, 07/18/2021 - 1:46 pm

NPR/West Virginia Public Broadcasting's live performance radio show Mountain Stage has announced they will present at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C.. The show will take place on Sunday, October 24th at the prestigious venue's Concert Hall and is among 120+ events celebrating The Kennedy Center's 50th Anniversary 2021-2022 Season.

Grammy winner and West Virginia native Kathy Mattea will host the show and welcome guest appearances by legendary Texas swing group Asleep At The Wheel, who are also about to celebrate the 50th anniversary milestone with their new release Half A Hundred Years. Also appearing on the show will be roots music multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Tim O'Brien with Jan Fabricius, and genre-blending singer-songwriter Carsie Blanton. The rest of the line-up will be announced soon.

Event pre-sale for Mountain Stage Members starts on Thursday, July 22 at 10am EST with general on-sale beginning Friday, July 23 at 10am EST. For more details and to purchase tickets, visit The Kennedy Center website HERE.

For nearly 40 years, Mountain Stage has been the home of live music on public radio. Since its inception in 1983, Mountain Stage has been under the creative direction of host and co-founder Larry Groce. Mountain Stage is a production of West Virginia Public Broadcasting and is distributed weekly to radio stations across the country by NPR Music. Each two-hour episode of Mountain Stage is recorded in front of an audience and features a variety of musical styles, in genres ranging from traditional roots, folk, blues, and country, to indie rock, alternative, synth pop, world music, and beyond. Country music singer and Grammy-winner Kathy Mattea, a native of West Virginia, has been a frequent guest-host since March 2019, will be hosting this special episode from The Kennedy Center.

Sat, 07/24/2021 - 7:02 pm

Jackson Browne released his new album Downhill From Everywhere via Inside Recordings. In support of the record, Browne will tour the US with James Taylor starting next week on Thursday, July 29 at the United Center in Chicago. He will also play a run of shows in September for his "Evening With" tour, featuring Browne backed by his full band. Ticket information is available at jacksonbrowne.com.
 
Stream/Purchase Downhill From Everywhere HERE
 
Album single "My Cleveland Heart" was released earlier this year with a music video directed by Alissa Torvinen Kouame and featuring a cameo by Phoebe Bridgers. Browne recently performed the song on Jimmy Kimmel Live!
 
Watch "My Cleveland Heart" music video HERE

Like much of Browne’s catalog, Downhill From Everywhere is fueled by a search—for connection, for purpose, for self—but there’s a heightened sense of urgency written between the lines, a recognition of the sand slipping through the hourglass that elevates the stakes at every turn. “Time rolling away, time like a river, time like a train,” he sings. “Time like a fuse burning shorter every day.”

And while such ruminations might suggest a meditation on aging and mortality from a rock icon in his early 70s, the truth is that Browne isn’t looking in the mirror; he’s singing about us, about a world fast approaching a social, political, and environmental point of no return. Clean air, fresh water, racial equity, democracy—it’s all on the line, and nothing is assured.
 
“I see the writing on the wall,” says Browne. “I know there’s only so much time left in my life. But I now have an amazing, beautiful grandson, and I feel more acutely than ever the responsibility to leave him a world that’s inhabitable.”
 
While the issues Browne tackles on the album are often sweeping and existential, he writes on a far more intimate scale, consistently zeroing in on the human experience at the heart of it all. “There’s a deep current of inclusion running through this record,” Browne explains. “I think that idea of inclusion, of opening yourself up to people who are different than you, that’s the fundamental basis for any kind of understanding in this world.”
 
Browne’s never been one to rest on his laurels, and as Downhill From Everywhere proves, he’s still pushing himself into his storied career, which includes 14 studio albums, 4 collections of live performances, and 2 “best of” compilations. Recorded with a core band that included guitarists Greg Leisz (Eric Clapton, Bill Frisell) and Val McCallum (Lucinda Williams, Sheryl Crow), bassist Bob Glaub (Linda Ronstadt, CSNY, John Fogerty), keyboardist Jeff Young (Sting, Shawn Colvin), drummer Mauricio Lewak (Sugarland, Melissa Etheridge), and longtime vocalists Chavonne Stewart and Alethea Mills, the record is a truly collaborative work, one driven by group chemistry and an openness to new sounds and ideas.
 
Jackson Browne is on tour with James Taylor & his All Star Band this Summer and Fall. See full list of tour dates below. For more information, please visit www.jacksonbrowne.com

Jackson Browne “Evening With” Tour:
August 8 - Mashantucket, CT @ Foxwoods Grand Theater
September 5 - Santa Barbara, CA @ Santa Barbara Bowl
September 8 - Paso Robles, CA @ Vina Robles Amphitheatre
September 10 - Napa, CA @ Oxbow Riverstage
September 11 - Stateline, NV @ Harveys Outdoor Arena
September 14 - Prescott, AZ @ Findlay Toyota Center
September 15 - Tucson, AZ @ Tucson Music Hall
September 17 - Phoenix, AZ @ The Celebrity Theatre
September 18 - Phoenix, AZ @ The Celebrity Theatre
September 20 - Albuquerque, NM @ Kiva Auditorium
 
Jackson Browne with James Taylor Tour:
July 29 - Chicago, IL @ United Center
July 31 - Cuyahoga Falls, OH @ Blossom Music Center
August 1 - Detroit, MI @ DTE Energy Center
August 3 - Pittsburgh, PA @ PPG Paints Arena
August 4 - Dayton, OH @ Nutter Center
August 6 - Charleston, WV @ Charleston Coliseum
August 11 - Roanoke, VA @ Berglund Ctr Coliseum
August 13 - Louisville, KY @ KFC Yum Center
August 14 - Memphis, TN @ FedEx Forum
August 16 - Nashville, TN @ Bridgestone Arena
August 17 - Atlanta, GA @ Infinite Energy Center
August 19 - Hershey, PA @ Giant Center
August 21 - Bethel, NY @ Bethel Woods Center For The Arts
August 25 - Camden, NJ @ BB&T
August 27 - Wantagh, NY @ Jones Beach
August 28 - Holmdel, NJ @ PNC Bank Arts
October 16 - New Orleans, LA @ Smoothie King Center
October 17 - Houston, TX @ Toyota Center
October 19 - Fort Worth, TX @ Dickies Arena
October 22 - Salt Lake City, UT @ Maverik Center
October 23 - Boise, ID @ ExtraMile Arena
October 25 - Portland, OR @ Moda Center
October 27 - Tacoma, WA @ Tacoma Dome
October 29 - San Francisco, CA @ Chase Center
October 30 - Anaheim, CA @ Honda Center
November 1 - San Diego, CA @ Pechanga Arena

Wed, 07/28/2021 - 7:27 am

Last week, Jackson Browne released his new album Downhill From Everywhere via Inside Recordings. Ahead of his tour with James Taylor, which kicks off tomorrow at the United Center in Chicago, Browne shared a ‘live from home’ video for the album single “My Cleveland Heart.” The video features Browne along with his longtime guitarist and “My Cleveland Heart” co-writer Val McCallum, and engineer Kevin Smith.

Watch “My Cleveland Heart” live video HERE

Stream/Purchase Downhill From Everywhere HERE

Browne will tour with James Taylor & His All-Star Band this summer and fall, and recently announced the “Evening With” tour, a run of headline shows with his full band in September. See full list of tour dates below. For more information, please visit www.jacksonbrowne.com

Jackson Browne “Evening With” Tour:

August 8 - Mashantucket, CT @ Foxwoods Grand Theater
September 5 - Santa Barbara, CA @ Santa Barbara Bowl
September 8 - Paso Robles, CA @ Vina Robles Amphitheatre
September 10 - Napa, CA @ Oxbow Riverstage
September 11 - Stateline, NV @ Harveys Outdoor Arena
September 14 - Prescott, AZ @ Findlay Toyota Center
September 15 - Tucson, AZ @ Tucson Music Hall
September 17 - Phoenix, AZ @ The Celebrity Theatre
September 18 - Phoenix, AZ @ The Celebrity Theatre
September 20 - Albuquerque, NM @ Kiva Auditorium

Jackson Browne with James Taylor Tour:

July 29 - Chicago, IL @ United Center
July 31 - Cuyahoga Falls, OH @ Blossom Music Center
August 1 - Detroit, MI @ DTE Energy Center
August 3 - Pittsburgh, PA @ PPG Paints Arena
August 4 - Dayton, OH @ Nutter Center
August 6 - Charleston, WV @ Charleston Coliseum
August 11 - Roanoke, VA @ Berglund Center Coliseum
August 13 - Louisville, KY @ KFC Yum Center
August 14 - Memphis, TN @ FedEx Forum
August 16 - Nashville, TN @ Bridgestone Arena
August 17 - Atlanta, GA @ Infinite Energy Center
August 19 - Hershey, PA @ Giant Center
August 21 - Bethel, NY @ Bethel Woods Center For The Arts
August 25 - Camden, NJ @ BB&T
August 27 - Wantagh, NY @ Jones Beach
August 28 - Holmdel, NJ @ PNC Bank Arts
October 16 - New Orleans, LA @ Smoothie King Center
October 17 - Houston, TX @ Toyota Center
October 19 - Fort Worth, TX @ Dickies Arena
October 22 - Salt Lake City, UT @ Maverik Center
October 23 - Boise, ID @ ExtraMile Arena
October 25 - Portland, OR @ Moda Center
October 27 - Tacoma, WA @ Tacoma Dome
October 29 - San Francisco, CA @ Chase Center
October 30 - Anaheim, CA @ Honda Center
November 1 - San Diego, CA @ Pechanga Arena

Mon, 08/16/2021 - 3:32 pm

The Country Music Hall of Fame has announced that Ray Charles has been inducted as an official member. Charles, who revolutionized the country genre and brought it to new audiences with albums like 1962’s Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music, will be inducted in the "Veterans Era Artist" category.

Election to the Country Music Hall of Fame is country music’s highest honor. The Country Music Association (CMA), the country music industry’s trade organization, created the accolade to recognize significant contributions to the advance of country music.

Ray Charles’s recordings are major landmarks in American culture. By blending country and roots with other popular sounds, this visionary singer, songwriter, pianist and composer brought his expansive musical vision to a worldwide audience. Ray’s album Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music was the first certified Gold album in country music history, and included the first world-wide hit record in country music with the single “I Can’t Stop Loving You.”  According to the great Willie Nelson, “Ray Charles did more for country music than any other artist.”

"I'd like to thank everyone who voted to induct Ray Charles into the Country Music Hall of Fame," said Valerie Ervin, Ray Charles Foundation President. "Needless to say, Ray Charles loved Country Music. As a matter of fact, he risked a lot in 1962 when he decided to record Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music. I cannot express enough how happy and honored Ray Charles would be at this moment in time, as I am for him. Congratulations to all the fellow inductees and as Ray Charles would say, 'That is so nice.'"

Ray further helped bring Americans together with his rendition of “America the Beautiful,” and he remains the only artist in history to create and define a national anthem.  Charles was also one of the first recording artists to have ownership of his masters as well as complete creative freedom.

Charles’ staggering achievements over a 58-year career include 17 GRAMMY Awards, induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, a Lifetime Achievement and the President’s Merit Award, the Presidential Medal for the Arts, France’s Legion of Honor, the Kennedy Center Honors, the NAACP Image Awards’ “Hall of Fame Award,” and numerous other music Halls of Fame, including those for Jazz and Rhythm & Blues, all testament to his enormous influence. In 2019, he was honored by the Grand Ole Opry with An Opry Salute to Ray Charles, which was broadcast across PBS stations.

One of the greatest artists of all time, Charles successfully mastered and forever changed the blues, jazz, gospel, rock, pop, and country music landscapes. He teamed up with the best of the best in each stylistic genre, including B.B. King, Aretha Franklin, Lou Rawls, Hank Williams Jr, Willie Nelson, Stevie Wonder, and countless others. As he described himself. “I’m not a country singer. I’m a singer who sings country songs. I’m not a blues singer, but I can sing the blues. I’m not really a crooner, but I can sing love songs. I’m not a specialist, but I’m a pretty good utility man. I can play first base, second base, shortstop. I can catch and maybe even pitch a little.”

In conjunction with this announcement Tangerine Records has released a new lyric video for Ray Charles’ “Crying Time,” a signature country performance from Charles which was first recorded by Buck Owens in 1964. Also available to stream is a sampler playlist of some of his most beloved country recordings which features “Together Again,” “Take These Chains” and “Ring of Fire,” along with “Crying Time.” Additional singles will follow in the coming weeks, showcasing Ray’s works in the Classic Pop genre.

Stream: “Crying Time” (Lyric Video)

Stream: Ray Charles “Country” Sampler Playlist

In addition to his incredible contributions to Country Music, Ray Charles continued to do something no other artist had done before or since, conquering all genres of music, from gospel and R&B to soul, country, jazz, blues, and pop, which led Frank Sinatra to dub Ray Charles, the only “True Genius” in music.

These songs and many more are featured on True Genius, a newly remastered, limited-edition set featuring 90 of the greatest songs from his legendary career and all of Ray’s biggest hits, to be released on September 10th and available for pre-order here.

The digital release of True Genius marks the first time this incredible collection of Ray Charles most important works will be widely available on streaming platforms, bringing classic hits such as “Hit The Road Jack,” “Crying Time,” “Busted,” “America The Beautiful,” “A Song for You,” “Unchain My Heart,” and many, many more back to streaming after more than a decade.

Ray Charles was more than just the Genius of Soul; he was the True Genius of Music.

Fri, 08/20/2021 - 12:46 pm

Today, The Felice Brothers have released “To-Do List,” the final pre-release single from their forthcoming album From Dreams To Dust out on September 17, 2021 via Yep Roc Records. The band also announced that Al Olender and Nik Freitas will support their national tour which kicks off on September 15 at Space Ballroom in Hamden, CT and will make stops in New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, D.C. and many more. Tickets are on sale now. Find a full list of tour dates below and at TheFeliceBrothers.com.

Listen To “To-Do List” Here

Pre-Order/Pre-Save From Dreams To Dust HERE

“This song is about taking something so deprived of poetic value like a To-Do list and making it work as a lyric,” explains Ian Felice. “The take we chose was the first time we had ever played the song. It had a very loose and playful quality that we liked. We had just learned the chord progression like five minutes before playing it. We listened back to more takes but this one had the best feeling.”

Recently, the band released self-directed music videos for “Jazz On The Autobahn,” a stop motion video hand painted and constructed by Ian Felice that took over a month to complete, and “Silverfish,” which compiled found footage and micro insect video shot by James Felice himself.

From Dreams To Dust has been praised by Consequence of Sound, Brooklyn Vegan, Cool Hunting, PopMatters and Rolling Stone, who described the album’s first single "Inferno" as “a swirl of blurry adolescent recollection and Nineties pop culture ephemera” and “...a promising taste of what’s to come.”

From Dreams To Dust sees the continuation of the new lineup of The Felice Brothers that debuted with Undress, consisting of Ian Felice, who shares songwriting and vocal duties in the band with his brother James Felice, bassist Jesske Hume (Conor Oberst, Jade Bird) and drummer Will Lawrence. The album was written and produced by The Felice Brothers, and features Bright Eyes’ Nathaniel Walcott on trumpet and Mike Mogis, who mixed the album, on pedal steel.

The 12 songs that make up From Dreams To Dust follow the band’s tradition of opting to record in unconventional spaces, similar to their debut album which was recorded in an old theater in New York and their self-titled, which was recorded in a chicken coop. The Felice Brothers found their new recording home in an 1873 church in upstate New York that Ian renovated himself. Though the church had fallen into disrepair, it was Ian’s dream to acquire the property and renovate the 30x40 one-room church.

Tour Dates:
9/15 - Hamden, CT - Space Ballroom *
9/16 - New York, NY - Bowery Ballroom *
9/17 - Woodstock, NY - Levon Helm Studios * ~SOLD OUT~
9/18 - Woodstock, NY - Levon Helm Studios ^ ~SOLD OUT~
9/19 - Woodstock, NY - Levon Helm Studios
9/24-25 - Boise, ID - Treefort Festival
9/28 - Seattle, WA - The Crocodile Second Stage *+
9/29 - Portland, OR - Doug Fir Lounge *+
10/1 - San Francisco, CA - Great American Music Hall *+
10/2 - Felton, CA - Felton Music Hall *+
10/3 - Los Angeles, CA - Pico Union Project *+
10/4 - Vista, CA - Booze Brothers Brewing Co. *+
10/10 - Peekskill, NY - First River Festival
10/12 - Asbury Park, NY - Asbury Lanes *
10/13 - Philadelphia, PA - World Cafe Live *
10/14 - Washington, DC - DC9 *
10/15 - Richmond, VA - Richmond Music Hall *
10/16 - Durham, NC - Motorco Music Hall *
10/17 - Asheville, NC - The Grey Eagle *
10/19 - Louisville, KY - Zanzabar *
10/20 - Chicago, IL - Lincoln Hall *#
10/21 - Fort Wayne, IN - The Brass Rail *
10/22 - Cleveland, OH - Happy Dog *
10/23 - Pittsburgh, PA - Club Cafe *
10/24 - Millersville, PA - Phantom Power *
10/25 - Millersville, PA - Phantom Power

* - with Al Olender
^ - with William Lawrence
+ - with Nik Freitas
# - with Sima Cunningham
 
From Dreams To Dust Tracklist:
01) Jazz On The Autobahn
02) To-Do List
03) All The Way Down
04) Money Talks
05) Be At Rest
06) Valium
07) Inferno
08) Silverfish
09) Celebrity X
10) Land Of Yesterdays
11) Blow Him Apart
12) We Shall Live Again

Fri, 08/27/2021 - 10:39 am

With his new remix album, Deciphering The Message, the Chicago-based drummer, producer, and beat scientist Makaya McCraven digs through the vaults of the legendary jazz label Blue Note Records to put a modern bounce on classics by Art Blakey, Horace Silver, Hank Mobley, Kenny Burrell, and Eddie Gale, among others. The album’s lead single “Frank's Tune” (AKA “De’Jeff’s Tune”) is available to stream or download today. Deciphering The Message will be released November 19 and can be pre-ordered now on vinyl, CD, and digital download.

Across numerous albums and mixtapes, McCraven has proven his mastery of the loop akin to hip-hop’s most celebrated beatmakers like J Dilla and Madlib, both of whom also found inspiration in the Blue Note catalog. With acclaimed releases like In The Moment (2015) and Universal Beings (2018), McCraven created his own lane in jazz by sampling his band playing improvised sessions throughout the world, then molding the audio several times to pull contrasting moods from it. For his most recent project McCraven remixed Gil Scott-Heron’s final album I’m New Here into the equally emotive LP We’re New Again (2020).

McCraven has always been a collaborative artist and Deciphering The Message features newly recorded elements from vibraphonist Joel Ross, trumpeter Marquis Hill, alto saxophonist Greg Ward, guitarists Matt Gold and Jeff Parker, bassist Junius Paul, and De’Sean Jones on tenor saxophone and flute. In that way, Deciphering The Message connects the past and present, proving that musicians become legends by trekking the same roads with like-minded creators all moving toward the same goal.

That throughline is evident on the lead single in which Jack Wilson’s hard bop cut “Frank’s Tune”—from the pianist’s little-known 1967 album Easterly Winds—is remade into “De’Jeff’s Tune,” an ‘80s R&B-inspired arrangement with a two-stepping dance groove, wafting guitar chords courtesy of Parker, and delicate flute from Jones. The track opens and closes with the voice of Blue Note legend Art Blakey, the irrepressible bandleader of The Jazz Messengers, addressing his audience: “We want you to leave your worldly troubles outside and come in here and swing... So as the message is being delivered, ladies and gentlemen, you may pat your feet and have a ball.”

While Deciphering The Message collects songs from several years of Blue Note history, it plays like a continuous set taking place in one show at one venue. “When piecing everything together, I wanted to create a narrative that made the listener feel like they were falling into this space or a movement,” McCraven says. “I was really trying to make a record out of it, not just a series of tracks.”

McCraven hopes the album is both educational and an outright good listen. “I always want to make music that will connect with people in one way, where it makes them nod or feel something or transport them somewhere,” he says. “I also hope this makes them check out the source of this music if they have it. The music that we’re making now is part of the same route and is connected, so I want to honor tradition and release something that people can vibe to.”

The track listing for Deciphering The Message is as follows:

1. A Slice Of The Top (AKA “Sliced Off The Top”)
[from A Slice Of The Top by Hank Mobley]

2. Sunset (AKA “Son Set”)
[from Whistle Stop by Kenny Dorham]

3. When Your Lover Has Gone (AKA “When You’ve Left Your Lover”)
[from A Night In Tunisia by Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers]

4. Ecaroh (AKA “Revlis”)
[from Horace Silver Trio by Horace Silver]

5. Tranquillity (AKA “Corner Of The World”)
[from Components by Bobby Hutcherson]

6. Wail Bait (AKA “Wait Bail”)
[from The Memorial Album by Clifford Brown]

7. Coppin' The Haven (AKA “At The Haven Coppin’”)
[from One Flight Up by Dexter Gordon]

8. Frank's Tune (AKA “De’Jeff’s Tune”)
[from Easterly Winds by Jack Wilson]

9. Autumn In New York (AKA “Spring In Chicago”)
[from Blue Lights, Vol.1 by Kenny Burrell]

10. Monaco (AKA “Monte Negro”)
[from ‘Round About Midnight At The Cafe Bohemia by Kenny Dorham]

11. Mr. Jin (AKA “Mr. Gin”)
[from Indestructible by Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers]

12. C.F.D. (AKA “D.F.C.”)
[from Something Personal by Jack Wilson]

13. Black Rhythm Happening
[from Black Rhythm Happening by Eddie Gale]

Stream the playlist Deciphering The Message: The Originals

Sun, 08/29/2021 - 12:36 pm

Tangerine Records has released a new lyric video for Ray Charles’ Grammy-winning 1993 recording of “A Song For You,” which was first written and recorded by Leon Russell. The song will be featured on True Genius, a newly remastered, limited edition set featuring 90 of the greatest songs from his legendary career and all of Ray’s biggest hits. The set also includes a special bonus disc of eight previously unreleased tracks recorded live in Stockholm in 1972. True Genius will be released on September 10, 2021, in celebration of what would have been Ray Charles’ 90th birthday year, and is currently available for pre-order here.  
 
Also available to stream today is a sampler playlist of some of Charles’ most timeless recordings of classic pop tracks, featuring “Busted,” “Eleanor Rigby” and “Hallelujah I Love Her So (Live),” along with “A Song For You.”

Stream: “A Song For You” (Lyric Video)

Stream: Ray Charles “Pop Classics” Sampler Playlist

Pre-Order Box Set Now
 

“We’re extremely proud to present this collection, which maps the breadth and depth of Ray Charles’ music, presented in chronological order so the listener can join Ray on his journey through the most expansive and creative period of his legendary career. I’m also thrilled that this music will be widely available on all streaming services for the very first time, so that new and future audiences will continue to discover the True Genius of Ray Charles.”  - Valerie Ervin, President Ray Charles Foundation
 
The digital release of True Genius marks the first time this incredible collection of Ray Charles most important works will be widely available on streaming platforms, bringing classic hits such as “Hit The Road Jack,” “Crying Time,” “Busted,” “America The Beautiful,” “A Song for You,” “Unchain My Heart,” and many, many more back to streaming after more than a decade.  
 
The box set also includes a beautifully designed coffee table style book with rare, unseen photos, and detailed liner notes by Ray Charles Foundation President Valerie Ervin, legendary writer and music journalist A. Scott Galloway, and featuring a special message from Quincy Jones.
 
Tangerine Records will also release True Genius: Sides of Ray on November 19th, a double disc vinyl collection that illustrates Charles’ many musical “sides” by focusing each album side on the genre categories he visited most: soul, jazz & blues, country, and pop, available for pre-order here.
 
On August 16th, The Country Music Hall of Fame announced that Ray Charles has been inducted as an official member. Charles, who revolutionized the country genre and brought it to new audiences with albums like 1962’s Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music, was inducted in the "Veterans Era Artist" category.
 
Ray Charles’s recordings are major landmarks in American culture. By blending country and roots with other popular sounds, this visionary singer, songwriter, pianist and composer brought his expansive musical vision to a worldwide audience. Charles’ albums, released during the heart of the Civil Rights Movement, broke down both racial and genre barriers. The incredible crossover success of Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music, Volumes 1 & 2 led Willie Nelson to remark, “Ray Charles did more for country music than any other artist.” Ray continued to do something no other artist had done before or since, conquering all genres of music, from gospel and R&B to soul, country, jazz, blues, and pop, which led Frank Sinatra to dub Ray Charles, the only “True Genius” in music.
 
Ray further helped bring Americans together with his rendition of “America the Beautiful,” and he remains the only artist in history to create and define a national anthem.  Charles was also one of the first recording artists to have ownership of his masters as well as complete creative freedom.
 
Charles’ staggering achievements over a 58-year career include 17 GRAMMY Awards, induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, a Lifetime Achievement and the President’s Merit Award, the Presidential Medal for the Arts, France’s Legion of Honor, the Kennedy Center Honors, the NAACP Image Awards’ “Hall of Fame Award,” and numerous other music Halls of Fame, including those for Jazz and Rhythm & Blues, all testament to his enormous influence. In 2019, he was honored by the Grand Ole Opry with An Opry Salute to Ray Charles, which was broadcast across PBS stations.
 
One of the greatest artists of all time, Charles successfully mastered and forever changed the blues, jazz, gospel, rock, pop, and country music landscapes. He teamed up with the best of the best in each stylistic genre, including B.B. King, Aretha Franklin, Lou Rawls, Hank Williams Jr, Willie Nelson, Stevie Wonder, and countless others. As he described himself. “I’m not a country singer. I’m a singer who sings country songs. I’m not a blues singer, but I can sing the blues. I’m not really a crooner, but I can sing love songs. I’m not a specialist, but I’m a pretty good utility man. I can play first base, second base, shortstop. I can catch and maybe even pitch a little.”
 
Ray Charles was more than just the Genius of Soul; he was the Genius of Music.

Wed, 09/01/2021 - 8:42 am

Jackson Browne has announced that Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter Leslie Mendelson will join his “Evening With” tour this September. The tour is in support of Browne’s new album Downhill From Everywhere (Inside Recordings), which includes a duet with Mendelson on the song “A Human Touch.” See full list of tour dates below. For more information, please visit www.jacksonbrowne.com
   
Leslie Mendelson is riding a wave of acclaim for her most recent studio album If You Can’t Say Anything Nice…, as well as her solo acoustic EP In The Meantime, which was recorded during the 2020 lockdown. All Music writes that Leslie evokes “1970s songwriter influences in the vein of Carole King and Carly Simon,” while The Aquarian calls her “the closest thing one can get to a truly honest musical experience.”
   
Leslie Mendelson’s previous work, including 2009 Grammy-nominated debut album Swan Feathers and 2017 album, Love & Murder dealt with matters of the heart. When it came time to compose the songs that comprise ‘If You Can’t Say Anything Nice…,’ however, she and her longtime writing partner Steve McEwan set out to examine the anxiety stemming from the current socio-political climate with songs like "Medication," "I Need Something To Care About" and "Would You Give Up Your Gun.” It's a fitting extension of a more socially conscious outlook offered on “A Human Touch”—Leslie’s duet with Jackson Browne for the documentary film, ‘5B,’ which is also included on his 2021 album, Downhill From Everywhere.

Jackson Browne “Evening With” Tour:
September 5 - Santa Barbara, CA @ Santa Barbara Bowl
September 8 - Paso Robles, CA @ Vina Robles Amphitheatre
September 10 - Napa, CA @ Oxbow Riverstage
September 14 - Prescott, AZ @ Findlay Toyota Center
September 15 - Tucson, AZ @ Tucson Music Hall
September 17 - Phoenix, AZ @ The Celebrity Theatre
September 18 - Phoenix, AZ @ The Celebrity Theatre
September 20 - Albuquerque, NM @ Kiva Auditorium
   
Jackson Browne with James Taylor Tour:
October 16 - New Orleans, LA @ Smoothie King Center
October 17 - Houston, TX @ Toyota Center
October 19 - Fort Worth, TX @ Dickies Arena
October 22 - Salt Lake City, UT @ Maverik Center
October 23 - Boise, ID @ ExtraMile Arena
October 25 - Portland, OR @ Moda Center
October 27 - Tacoma, WA @ Tacoma Dome
October 29 - San Francisco, CA @ Chase Center
October 30 - Anaheim, CA @ Honda Center
November 1 - San Diego, CA @ Pechanga Arena
November 10 - Sunrise, FL @ BB&T Center
November 11 - Tampa, FL @ Amalie Arena
November 13 - Jacksonville, FL @ VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena
November 14 - Orlando, FL @ Amway Center
November 16 - Greenville, SC @ Bon Secours Wellness Arena
November 17 - Charleston, SC @ North Charleston Coliseum
November 19 - Greensboro, NC @ Greensboro Coliseum
November 20 - Norfolk, VA @ Scope Arena
November 29 - St. Paul, MN @ Xcel Energy Center
November 30 - Green Bay, WI @ Resch Center
December 2 - Milwaukee, WI @ Fiserv Forum
December 4 - St. Louis @ Enterprise Center
December 5 - Kansas City, MO @ T-Mobile Center
December 7 - Omaha, NE @ Chi Health Center
December 8 - Des Moines, IA @ Wells Fargo Arena
December 10 - Grand Rapids, MI @ Van Andel Arena
December 11 - Columbus, OH @ Nationwide Arena
December 13 - Buffalo, NY @ KeyBank Center

Fri, 09/10/2021 - 1:19 pm

Today, Austin-based musician Danny Golden released his new single “Las Vegas” recorded with Chris Boosahda (best known for his work with Shakey Graves). Glide Magazine praised the song saying “infusing his music with indie rock, pop and Americana, Golden conjures up his own sound that features an appropriate amount of guitar rocking alongside lyrics that resonate as sharply as a strong hangover.” Danny is also about to set out on tour with David Ramirez, full list of tour dates below.

Listen to Danny Golden’s “Las Vegas” here.

"The song itself is an anti-Western,” Danny explains. "The story I was playing with in my head was about being stuck in Las Vegas forever. I was thinking of someone reliving a groundhog day in Las Vegas and the different potential outcomes. I was imagining what it might  be like for someone who was lucky, unlucky, rich, poor etc… Las Vegas is so full of material for artists. It’s a city of luck, sin, pleasure, misdirection, value, and emptiness. To me it's a microcosm of America.”

"I’ve known Chris Boosahda for a few years now but we never had the chance to work together as he was on the road with Shakey Graves 8-9 months out of the year,” Danny continues. "After almost a decade of touring, the pandemic gave him a much needed break from that schedule. He and I were catching up about a year into the pandemic and he mentioned being eager to get recording again. I jumped at the opportunity to work with him.” Additional personnel on the track include guitarist Ben Brown (PR Newman) and bassist Sam Pankey (Balmorhea, Mother Falcon).

“Las Vegas” follows Golden’s recently released 2021 EP Changes. The EP was acclaimed by MXDWN, The Boot, and Under The Radar, who praised it’s “inviting melodies and plainspoken lyrical approach,” along with its “towering layers of shoegaze guitars and crashing percussion.”  

Tour Dates (with David Ramirez):
9/13 - Denver, CO - Bluebird Theater
9/14 - Colorado Springs, CO - Lulu’s Downstairs
9/16 - Wichita, KS - Wave Outdoor
9/17 - Fort Smith, AR - TempleLive
9/18 - Memphis, TN - Hernando’s Hideaway
9/19 - Louisville, KY - Zanzabar
9/24 - Chattanooga, TN - Songbirds
9/25 - Knoxville, TN - Pretentious Beer Co
9/27 - Atlanta, GA - Aisle 5
9/29 - Birmingham, AL - Zydeco
9/30 - Jackson, MS - Duling Hall
10/2 - Waco, TX - Common Grounds
10/3 - Denton, TX - Andy’s

Sat, 09/11/2021 - 5:05 pm

Just yesterday beloved singer-songwriter Martin Sexton released his new EP 2020 Vision, available everywhere through Kitchen Table Records. His first new release in six years, the 4-song collection snapshots moments of clarity during the past year and beyond. Stream or purchase 2020 Vision HERE.
 
2020 Vision features lead single "Hold On," a sun-shining-through-the-rain song brimming with soul guitar fixings, punchy horns, and a touching narrative about the simple pleasures of spending time with loved ones. American Songwriter stated, "'Hold On' opens 2020 Vision with the soulful beauty of a moment in time." The EP also includes "Calling On America," which follows in the grand tradition of tender R&B cultural commentary epitomized by soul poets like Curtis Mayfield and Marvin Gaye. Featuring a guest appearance from longtime friend and supporter John Mayer on guitar, it's a scene-setting song panning through visual vignettes of love and harmony while also contemplating division. Relix called it "a vivid, varied look at life during the quarantine."
 
Martin Sexton has nurtured a critically-acclaimed trademark aesthetic of soul, folk, blues, rock, pop, and sweet balladry for over three decades. A constant theme throughout his music has been the celebration of America. His 1996 album Black Sheep featured a rendition of "America The Beautiful," and his major-label debut was simply called The American. Martin getting his start in music through leaving his upstate New York hometown with seventy-five bucks and a Stratocaster to chase his aspirations also brims with anthemic American Dream overtones. 2020 Vision continues this American story.
 
The ability to hone in on defining moments has long been evident in Martin's songwriting. Produced by three-time Grammy-nominee John Alagia (John Mayer, Paul Simon, Lukas Nelson), 2020 Vision is a poetically emotive and an elegantly evocative pandemic scrapbook. "In one song, I'm building a treehouse with my son. In another song, I'm crossing America and seeing the beauty in people rising through adversity and loving each other," detailed Martin.

Extensive touring in support of 2020 Vision will begin this fall throughout the US. Tickets are on sale now for select dates with more shows announcing soon. For more information, visit www.martinsexton.com/tour.
 
2020 Vision will always have its lessons and remain in Martin's sight, even as the miles out on the road put pandemic life in the rearview mirror. One of those lessons is the power of togetherness. "My mission statement for the past 15 years has been unity through music, and I am committed to sharing peace and harmony through my songs."
 
Track List:
01) Hold On
02) Calling On America
03) Riding Through The Rain
04) Penny from the Land of Plenty
 
Tour Dates:
09/12 - Montgomery, NY @ City Winery Hudson Valley
10/16 - Syracuse, NY @ Westcott Theater
10/17 - Buffalo, NY @ Buffalo Iron Works
10/21 - Salisbury, MA @ Blue Ocean Music Hall
10/22 - Providence, RI @ Columbus Theatre
10/23 - Portland, ME @ Aura
11/10 - Charlotte, NC @ Visulite Theatre
11/11 - Rocky Mount, VA @ Harvester Performance Center
11/12 - Charlottesville, VA @ The Southern
11/13 - Richmond, VA @ The Tin Pan
12/08 - Wilmington, DE @ The Queen
12/09 - South Orange, NJ @ SOPAC
12/10 - Old Saybrook, CT @ The Kate
12/11 - Tarrytown, NY @ Tarrytown Music Hall (w/ KT Tunstall)
12/17 - Northampton, MA @ Academy Of Music Theatre

Sat, 09/18/2021 - 3:12 pm

Cody Fry shares his ambitious cover of The Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby,” along with an accompanying ‘score video.’ The track features Fry’s patented live orchestral touch, arranged with a 60-piece orchestra as well as a nearly 400-person choir made up of his fans who submitted audio files from all over the world.
 
Watch the score video for “Eleanor Rigby” HERE
Stream/Purchase "Eleanor Rigby" HERE
 
Building on what George Martin accomplished with The Beatles, Fry’s version of “Eleanor Rigby” was inspired by the pandemic, amplifying the original to ecstatic heights, driven by the notion of “all the lonely people,” and the fear and dread of living in a dying town or not fitting in. “It’s almost like a ‘Fantasia’ version of the song, especially the outro, where the melody is trying to find its place in the chord changes, but never really does,” explains Fry. “Things feel a little topsy-turvy, and the tension just keeps ratcheting up. That’s such a rich song. There’s so much going on in it.”
 
One of the most evident examples of Fry’s love for orchestral music can be found at the very end of his 2017 album Flying, on the aptly titled track “I Hear A Symphony,” which Fry began noticing unusual Spotify activity on earlier this year with its streams climbing incrementally, eventually hitting a peak of 400,000 streams per day. Going down the internet rabbit hole, he discovered some comments on his YouTube videos that led him to TikTok, where “I Hear a Symphony” had been adopted, first by a K-Pop fan community, then by anime aficionados, who used the song in their video montages – more than 45,000 of them, representing millions of streams. That activity has spurred his four-year-old album Flying to garner over 50 million streams and counting.

That has earned Cody the luxury to choose his own creative path, and the result is a new record of fully arranged covers and originals recorded with a 60-piece orchestra, which Cody is excited to start unveiling.
 
“I’ve run the gamut of emotions, from confusion to thunderstruck excitement to the fear of how long will this last?” admits the Chicago-raised Fry, following in the footsteps of his father, Gary Fry, a successful commercial jingle writer turned symphonic composer who writes for orchestras around the world, and conducts on his son’s two live videos. “This has totally changed my life. It’s allowed me to say no to things I don’t want to do and be able to pursue what I do.”
 
Although major record labels came calling following his viral success, Cody has decided to remain independent for the time being. “I didn’t feel right about the offers,” he says. “I wanted to see what I could do on my own now that I can support myself this way. Even though record companies can add tremendous value, it was too tantalizing for me to be able to make the music I wanted, without any outside interference.”

Sat, 09/18/2021 - 3:43 pm

The Felice Brothers have released their new album From Dreams To Dust. Kicking off with shows in Connecticut and New York City, the band began their national tour this week, which will make stops in Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, D.C. and many more with support from Al Olender and Nik Freitas. Tickets are on sale now. Find a full list of tour dates below and at TheFeliceBrothers.com.

Listen to From Dreams To Dust HERE

From Dreams To Dust has been praised by Rolling Stone, Consequence of Sound, Brooklyn Vegan, Cool Hunting, PopMatters, The Bluegrass Situation, Mojo, and The New York Times, who called the album’s last single “To-Do List” “...romping honky-tonk existentialism.”

UNCUT called the album a “minor masterpiece,” and continued to say, “[From Dreams To Dust] might be the best album this consistently weird and interesting bunch have made.” In their four star review, American Songwriter praised the album’s “fascinating, articulate, never pretentious wordplay” and said, “This album demands the full attention of the listener, an old-school concept; those that put the most into it will get the most out of it.”

In the leadup to this release the band have shared self-directed music videos for “Jazz On The Autobahn,” a stop motion video hand painted and constructed by Ian Felice that took over a month to complete, and “Silverfish,” which compiled found footage and micro insect video shot by James Felice himself.

From Dreams To Dust sees the continuation of the new lineup of The Felice Brothers that debuted with Undress, consisting of Ian Felice, who shares songwriting and vocal duties in the band with his brother James Felice, bassist Jesske Hume (Conor Oberst, Jade Bird) and drummer Will Lawrence. The album was written and produced by The Felice Brothers, and features Bright Eyes’ Nathaniel Walcott on trumpet and Mike Mogis, who mixed the album, on pedal steel.

The 12 songs that make up From Dreams To Dust follow the band’s tradition of opting to record in unconventional spaces, similar to their debut album which was recorded in an old theater in New York and their self-titled, which was recorded in a chicken coop. The Felice Brothers found their new recording home in an 1873 church in upstate New York that Ian renovated himself. Though the church had fallen into disrepair, it was Ian’s dream to acquire the property and renovate the 30x40 one-room church.

Tour Dates:
9/17 - Woodstock, NY - Levon Helm Studios * ~SOLD OUT~
9/18 - Woodstock, NY - Levon Helm Studios ^ ~SOLD OUT~
9/19 - Woodstock, NY - Levon Helm Studios
9/24-25 - Boise, ID - Treefort Festival
9/28 - Seattle, WA - The Crocodile Second Stage *+
9/29 - Portland, OR - Doug Fir Lounge *+
10/1 - San Francisco, CA - Great American Music Hall *+
10/2 - Felton, CA - Felton Music Hall *+
10/3 - Los Angeles, CA - Pico Union Project *+
10/4 - Vista, CA - Booze Brothers Brewing Co. *+
10/10 - Peekskill, NY - First River Festival
10/12 - Asbury Park, NY - Asbury Lanes *
10/13 - Philadelphia, PA - World Cafe Live *
10/14 - Washington, DC - DC9 *
10/15 - Richmond, VA - Richmond Music Hall *
10/16 - Durham, NC - Motorco Music Hall *
10/17 - Asheville, NC - The Grey Eagle *
10/19 - Louisville, KY - Zanzabar *
10/20 - Chicago, IL - Lincoln Hall *#
10/21 - Fort Wayne, IN - The Brass Rail *
10/22 - Cleveland, OH - Happy Dog *
10/23 - Pittsburgh, PA - Club Cafe *
10/24 - Millersville, PA - Phantom Power *
10/25 - Millersville, PA - Phantom Power

* - with Al Olender
^ - with William Lawrence
+ - with Nik Freitas
# - with Sima Cunningham
 
From Dreams To Dust Tracklist:
01) Jazz On The Autobahn
02) To-Do List
03) All The Way Down
04) Money Talks
05) Be At Rest
06) Valium
07) Inferno
08) Silverfish
09) Celebrity X
10) Land Of Yesterdays
11) Blow Him Apart
12) We Shall Live Again

Sun, 09/19/2021 - 1:10 pm

The feature-length documentary The Story of Plastic has been nominated for an Emmy Award in the Outstanding Writing: Documentary category. This must-see documentary tells the hidden story of plastic pollution, from production to incineration. The trailer for the documentary features Jackson Browne’s “Downhill From Everywhere,” the title track of his new album, which shares the film's vision in confronting our personal and societal dependence on plastic and consider its devastating effect on the oceans.

In celebration of the Emmy nomination, Discovery has made the full documentary free to stream on their Youtube channel through September 30.

Watch the trailer for The Story of Plastic featuring “Downhill From Everywhere”

Watch The Story of Plastic FREE through September 30

“I’m playing ‘Downhill From Everywhere’ every night and I see a willingness on the part of the audience to be engaged on the subject of plastic,” says Browne. “But a song is a limited venue for in-depth discussion of what to do about it. That’s why it’s so great that The Story of Plastic has connected so many people with the issues and the strategies being employed in the struggle to stop the plastic scourge.”
 
Downhill From Everywhere debuted at #5 on the Billboard Current Album Chart, the Album Sales Chart, as well as the Americana Album Chart. It’s been embraced by Variety, The Independent, Grammy.com, NPR's Here & Now, Rolling Stone, AllMusic, Under The Radar, No Depression, and many more including Forbes who said, “Downhill From Everywhere is why Browne is in both the Rock And Roll and Songwriters Hall Of Fames,” and the Associated Press who said, “The title track is one of the best political songs he’s ever written, period.”

In support of the record, Browne is currently on his “Evening With” Tour, and then continues his tour with James Taylor through October, November, and December. In conjunction with The GRAMMY Museum, Browne will also take part in a keynote interview at this year’s AmericanaFest taking place in Nashville from September 24. It was also announced that Browne’s performance on Austin City Limits will air on November 13.

Jackson Browne “Evening With” Tour:
September 17 - Phoenix, AZ @ The Celebrity Theatre
September 18 - Phoenix, AZ @ The Celebrity Theatre
September 20 - Albuquerque, NM @ Kiva Auditorium
   
Jackson Browne with James Taylor Tour:
October 16 - New Orleans, LA @ Smoothie King Center
October 17 - Houston, TX @ Toyota Center
October 19 - Fort Worth, TX @ Dickies Arena
October 22 - Salt Lake City, UT @ Maverik Center
October 23 - Boise, ID @ ExtraMile Arena
October 25 - Portland, OR @ Moda Center
October 27 - Tacoma, WA @ Tacoma Dome
October 29 - San Francisco, CA @ Chase Center
October 30 - Anaheim, CA @ Honda Center
November 1 - San Diego, CA @ Pechanga Arena
November 10 - Sunrise, FL @ BB&T Center
November 11 - Tampa, FL @ Amalie Arena
November 13 - Jacksonville, FL @ VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena
November 14 - Orlando, FL @ Amway Center
November 16 - Greenville, SC @ Bon Secours Wellness Arena
November 17 - Charleston, SC @ North Charleston Coliseum
November 19 - Greensboro, NC @ Greensboro Coliseum
November 20 - Norfolk, VA @ Scope Arena
November 29 - St. Paul, MN @ Xcel Energy Center
November 30 - Green Bay, WI @ Resch Center
December 2 - Milwaukee, WI @ Fiserv Forum
December 4 - St. Louis @ Enterprise Center
December 5 - Kansas City, MO @ T-Mobile Center
December 7 - Omaha, NE @ Chi Health Center
December 8 - Des Moines, IA @ Wells Fargo Arena
December 10 - Grand Rapids, MI @ Van Andel Arena
December 11 - Columbus, OH @ Nationwide Arena
December 13 - Buffalo, NY @ KeyBank Center

Thu, 09/23/2021 - 3:56 pm

The most exciting new band in Wales Buzzard Buzzard Buzzard have today announced their hotly anticipated debut album Backhand Deals will be released on February 25, 2022 via Missing Piece Records / Communion. The album’s riotous lead single “You” – and its accompanying Sunny Delight-inspired video – arrives today off the back of summer festival sets in packed-out tents up and down the U.K. and the band’s sold out 1,000 capacity homecoming at Cardiff Castle last month.

Watch Buzzard Buzzard Buzzard “You” (Official Video)

“Backhand Deals is a practice in subverting the ideology of rock music as something that needs to be ‘brought back from the dead,’” says frontman Tom Rees. “Rock should be about enjoying yourself honestly, whether that's washing the dishes, sweeping the yard, or complaining about whoever got elected. Rock is a sweeping power, and is attributed to anyone who performs art honestly, from Lizzo feeling good as hell to AC/DC riding down a highway to hell. The honesty is the same, and the honesty prevails.”

“'You' is a particularly sarcastic song,” Rees continues. “I love how it could be misconstrued as a pro-independence anthem about really taking care of number one, not taking shit from anyone and following your dreams, when in actual fact it's all a ruse to outline the burden of imposed individual responsibility. I think the sarcasm in this setting can confuse people enough into thinking that I am indeed, an idiot. That’s the goal of this whole thing, to break down all of the know-it-all-rock-and-rollers down to what we all are, just people, with opinions… but that's all they are, opinions.”

Earlier in 2021 the band released the singles “Crescent Man vs Demolition Dan” and “New Age Millennial Magic,” both of which are featured on Backhand Deals. The tracks were praised by Under the Radar, The Line Of Best Fit, DIY, Dork, Upset, and Anthony Fantano of The Needle Drop, who named "New Age Millennial Magic" a best new track, praising the song’s “good riffs, good energy, good lead vocals, super catchy chorus, and quite a bit of satire.”

As presented on their 2020 debut The Non-Stop EP, the band – Rees, guitarist Zac White, drummer Ethan Hurst and Rees’ brother and bassist Eddie – draw from classic ‘70s rock with a distinctly 21st century twist, dragging the sounds of T-Rex and Steely Dan kicking and screaming into the 2020s. With Backhand Deals, Buzzard Buzzard Buzzard ripped up the rulebook – a rejection of rock music's more archaic ideals, their debut album plunges into Tom Rees’ exploration of honesty and authenticity, and untangles what it means to be a “rock star.” The key to this demystification is Rees’ sharp wit — using sarcasm and humour to keep the listener in limbo, and in turn, leading their audience to face their own thoughts.

“With the record we’re really obsessed with denying our traditional influences by overwhelming the music with contemporary references so we don’t sound like your dad’s cover band who are really good when they don’t overdo the Guinness and the lead singer remembers his lyric sheet,” says Rees. “We know deep down we love ‘70s music too much to just abandon it in pursuit of being considered relevant so it seems like the right thing to do to use modern recording techniques and contemporary references to make something inherently new.”

Taking lyrical cues from the surreal, never-ending doomsday news cycle, the album pairs their trademark ‘70s references and aesthetic with contemporary storylines, and influences from modern classic songwriters such as Father John Misty, whose 2017 album Pure Comedy was the frontman’s primary obsession around the time Backhand Deals started taking shape.

“The record allowed us to discuss the thoughts we have about our lives, the lives of people from Cardiff, the lives of people from Wales, and the lives of people from everywhere whilst openly admitting that we know nothing and we're just part-time-opinion-havers. The longer we're a band, I realise that all we ever want to do is effect change in people's lives and to do that disingenuously would make me feel slimy. So let's do it honestly in any way possible. Rock isn't dead, it doesn't need ‘resurrecting’ or ‘regurgitating’; it needs acknowledging for what it is, and it's everywhere. If we should ever be considered a band that is ‘bringing rock music back’ I think I would shed a tear — rock should be moving forwards, not backwards.”

Backhand Deals is out February 25, 2022 via Missing Piece Records / Communion.

Fri, 09/24/2021 - 11:13 am

Poetica has released a lyric video for “Magenta and Blue,” the third single from their debut self-titled album (out October 22nd via MPress Records). What began as a remote duo collaboration between poet/vocalist/producer Rachael Sage and three-time Grammy nominated cellist Dave Eggar, Poetica eventually evolved into a full-blown spoken word concept album, with musicians contributing from around the globe. “Magenta and Blue” is a string-laden soundscape that blurs the lines between classical, Americana, jazz and cinematic music genres. Sage and Eggar recorded the song with Appalachian folk fiddler Evie Andrus.

Watch the Lyric Video for “Magenta and Blue”

“‘Magenta and Blue’ puts words and music to the moment when love becomes ego-less, where walls come down completely, and honesty and acceptance are givens,” Sage told Parade. “The piece captures a peaceful, uplifted place where each person is embraced by the other with an expressiveness akin to the watercolor painting process, where colors and lines blur into something dreamlike, becoming more beautiful in the process.”

Cinematic and stylistically expansive, Poetica is a creatively ambitious musical spoken word project distilling a poetic spirit through text, voice and music in the spirit of Leonard Cohen, Patti Smith and Laurie Anderson. Adventurous yet familiar in its intimacy, Sage's voice is perfectly at home in the absence of typical song structure, while her musical arrangements fuse elements of jazz, classical, and Appalachian folk with surprising agility. Only rarely does Sage enlist her more widely-known singing voice to punctuate these recordings, from which her signature piano playing is notably – and intentionally – absent.

Watch the Poetica Album Trailer

Additional contributors to Poetica include renowned klezmer clarinetist David Krakauer, jazz trumpet player Russ Johnson (Elvis Costello), violinist Kelly Halloran (Michael Franti), guitarist James Mastro (Patti Smith), and drummers Doug Yowell (Suzanne Vega) and Quinn (Janelle Monáe).

Tracklisting:
1. Unconditional
2. Beginning
3. Powder
4. Passenger
5. Magenta and Blue
6. Lower East Side Baby
7. Lamentation
8. Handwriting
9. Days of Awe
10. Winemaker
11. Sleep When I'm Tired
12. Butterflies
13. How Songs Are Born
14. engagement
15. Pulpit
16. Thanksgiving
17. Swing Dance
18. untitled
19. a father's nachus (Bonus Track)

Poetica Tour Dates:
9/30 - New York, NY - Rockwood Music Hall Stage 3 (album release show)
10/2 - Beacon, NY - Towne Crier Cafe
10/13 - Spring Lake, MI - Seven Steps Up
10/14 - Chicago, IL - Uncommon Ground Lakeview
10/23 - Charlottesville, VA - The Garage
10/26 -  Knoxville, TN - WDVX Blue Plate Special
10/28 - Nashville, TN - Cabana
10/29 - Duluth, GA - Red Clay Music Foundry
11/9 - New York, NY - The Loft At City Winery

Sun, 09/26/2021 - 1:20 pm

In celebration of what would have been his 91st birthday, Tangerine Records has released a new lyric video for Ray Charles’ timeless recording of “Till There Was You.” The song is included in the recently released limited-edition box set True Genius, which features 90 of the greatest songs from Charles’ legendary career. The highly anticipated set, which has been featured in Rolling Stone and American Songwriter, also includes a special bonus disc of eight previously unreleased tracks recorded live in Stockholm in 1972. True Genius is available now on all digital platforms, making dozens of Ray classics available at streaming services for the first time. Stream or purchase True Genius HERE.

Stream: “Till There Was You” (Lyric Video)

Order Box Set Now

Tonight at 7:00PM Eastern, The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is proud to host a free virtual panel discussion on the life and career of Ray Charles. Panelists will discuss Tangerine Records, the label Charles founded in 1962, his mastery of multiple musical genres, and his enduring cultural legacy. The free virtual event will take place tonight on the Rock Hall’s YouTube channel.
 
Event panelists include John Burk, producer on Charles' seminal duets album Genius Loves Company as well as the “True Genius” box set.  He is also a partner in Exceleration Music.  Joining in the event is David Ritz, music historian & author of Charles' biography Brother Ray. The panel will be moderated by Jason Hanley, the Rock Hall's Vice President of Education and Visitor Engagement and Andy Leach, the Rock Hall's Senior Director of Museum & Archival Collections.

About the Panelists
 
John Burk: John Burk is multi-platinum and multiple GRAMMY award-winning producer as well as one of the founding partners of Concord Music. Under John’s creative direction, Concord diversified its artist roster and grew substantially from a highly respected boutique jazz label to become the largest independent music company in the world. Some of Burk’s notable artist signings include Ray Charles, James Taylor, Paul McCartney, George Benson, All Jarreau, Chick Corea, Keb’ Mo’, Billy Gibbons, Best Coast, Esperanza Spalding, Christian Scott, The Record Company, Southern Avenue, Nubya Garcia, Jazzmeia Horn, Santana, and many more.
 
One of his productions, Ray Charles’ Genius Loves Company, won 8 GRAMMY Awards, including Album of The Year and Record of The Year.

David Ritz: David Ritz, co-composer of “Sexual Healing,” has collaborated on books with, among others, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Willie Nelson, Janet Jackson, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson, Rick James, Buddy Guy, B.B. King, Etta James and Lenny Kravitz. He is currently working with Snoop Dogg and Lil Wayne.

About True Genius

“We’re extremely proud to present this collection, which maps the breadth and depth of Ray Charles’ music, presented in chronological order so the listener can join Ray on his journey through the most expansive and creative period of his legendary career. I’m also thrilled that this music will be widely available on all streaming services for the very first time, so that new and future audiences will continue to discover the True Genius of Ray Charles.”  - Valerie Ervin, President Ray Charles Foundation

The digital release of True Genius marks the first time this incredible collection of Ray Charles most important works will be widely available on streaming platforms, bringing classic hits such as “Hit The Road Jack,” “Crying Time,” “Busted,” “America The Beautiful,” “A Song for You,” “Unchain My Heart,” and many, many more back to streaming after more than a decade.  

The box set also includes a beautifully designed coffee table style book with rare, unseen photos, and detailed liner notes by Ray Charles Foundation President Valerie Ervin, legendary writer and music journalist A. Scott Galloway, and featuring a special message from Quincy Jones.

Tangerine Records will also release True Genius: Sides of Ray on November 19th, a double disc vinyl collection that illustrates Charles’ many musical “sides” by focusing each album side on the genre categories he visited most: soul, jazz & blues, country, and pop, available for pre-order here.

On August 16th, The Country Music Hall of Fame announced that Ray Charles has been inducted as an official member. Charles, who revolutionized the country genre and brought it to new audiences with albums like 1962’s Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music, was inducted in the "Veterans Era Artist" category.

Ray Charles’s recordings are major landmarks in American culture. By blending country and roots with other popular sounds, this visionary singer, songwriter, pianist and composer brought his expansive musical vision to a worldwide audience. Charles’ albums, released during the heart of the Civil Rights Movement, broke down both racial and genre barriers. The incredible crossover success of Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music, Volumes 1 & 2 led Willie Nelson to remark, “Ray Charles did more for country music than any other artist.” Ray continued to do something no other artist had done before or since, conquering all genres of music, from gospel and R&B to soul, country, jazz, blues, and pop, which led Frank Sinatra to dub Ray Charles, the only “True Genius” in music.

Ray further helped bring Americans together with his rendition of “America the Beautiful,” and he remains the only artist in history to create and define a national anthem.  Charles was also one of the first recording artists to have ownership of his masters as well as complete creative freedom.

Charles’ staggering achievements over a 58-year career include 17 GRAMMY Awards, induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, a Lifetime Achievement and the President’s Merit Award, the Presidential Medal for the Arts, France’s Legion of Honor, the Kennedy Center Honors, the NAACP Image Awards’ “Hall of Fame Award,” and numerous other music Halls of Fame, including those for Jazz and Rhythm & Blues, all testament to his enormous influence. In 2019, he was honored by the Grand Ole Opry with An Opry Salute to Ray Charles, which was broadcast across PBS stations.

One of the greatest artists of all time, Charles successfully mastered and forever changed the blues, jazz, gospel, rock, pop, and country music landscapes. He teamed up with the best of the best in each stylistic genre, including B.B. King, Aretha Franklin, Lou Rawls, Hank Williams Jr, Willie Nelson, Stevie Wonder, and countless others. As he described himself. “I’m not a country singer. I’m a singer who sings country songs. I’m not a blues singer, but I can sing the blues. I’m not really a crooner, but I can sing love songs. I’m not a specialist, but I’m a pretty good utility man. I can play first base, second base, shortstop. I can catch and maybe even pitch a little.”

Ray Charles was more than just the Genius of Soul; he was the Genius of Music.

Thu, 09/30/2021 - 2:28 pm

Today bassist, producer, and songwriter Joshua Crumbly released his new song “THREE” with an official video featuring animation by Renata Zeiguer. Featuring Michael Rocketship on synthesizer, “THREE” is the third single off of Crumbly’s upcoming sophomore full-length ForEver (out October 8th via Shahzad Ismaily’s figureight records). So far, the album’s been acclaimed by Cool Hunting, Hypebeast, Popmatters, No Treble, WBGO, MXDWN, and Under The Radar, who said "THREE" is "a welcoming taste of Crumbly’s jazz and soul-tinged explorations, full of warm instrumentation and gentle grooves.” ForEver is available for pre-order digitally and on vinyl at Bandcamp.
 
Watch the video for “THREE”

Joshua is genre-blurring artist and sought after bassist who’s recorded and toured with artists like Kamasi Washington, Leon Bridges, Terence Blanchard, and Bob Dylan, performing in Dylan’s 2021 concert film Shadow Kingdom. Crumbly’s 2020 debut album Rise was met with praise from Hypebeast, Indieshuffle, Jazziz, WBGO, Earmilk, No Treble, Exclaim!, Glide, Ones to Watch, and The FADER, who said Rise featured “explosions of synths mixed with a driving drum pattern that has the dusty texture of a jazz lounge.” Though centred around the bass guitar, ForEver uses additional instrumentation with subtlety and grace.

Joshua made his musical debut aged 10, playing alongside his saxophonist father. A gifted performer, even as a pre-teen, he enjoyed mentorships with renowned bass players Reggie Hamilton (Whitney Houston, Seal) and Al McKibbon (Charlie Parker, Coleman Hawkins) before moving from LA to New York to attend the prestigious Juilliard music school. After years of honing his musicality alongside seminal players, Joshua finally embarked on recording his own solo pieces, beginning with 2020’s Rise. The starting place of ForEver quickly followed, beginning with encouraging words from friend and collaborator Shahzad Ismaily.

“ForEver began with an out of the blue call from Shahzad,” Joshua explains “He told me that I needed to record a solo bass album. It started out as such, then I added some other instruments. It branched out even further when I reached out to a few friends, whose voice I was strongly hearing on particular songs. I’m grateful they were down to be a part of the record.”

figureight records is a creative project led by Shahzad Ismaily. The label has to date released records by múm founding member Gyda Valtysdottir, NYC super-producer Randall Dunn, Jon Hopkins and Brian Eno collaborator Leo Abrahams, Spotify chart-topping indie artist Toth, and more.
 
Tracklisting:
1. ForEver
2. THREE
3. Family
4. Higher
5. The See
6. C.S.C
7. To Morrow
8. Kolkata
9. We'll Be (Good)
10. Reflection
11. CAN

 

Fri, 10/01/2021 - 4:36 pm

Longtime Circle Jerks bassist Zander Schloss is starting a new chapter in his musical career with the release of his first solo recording, Song About Songs, from Blind Owl Records. Along with the announcement, Schloss has shared the lead single and title track along with an accompanying music video.

As Veteran Los Angeles music journalist and critic Chris Morris writes in the album’s liner notes, “Played tenderly, with a striking intimacy, the subtle and affecting material on Song About Songs may well come as a surprise to listeners who know Zander Schloss only from three decades of bash-it-out work with the Circle Jerks and other punk units….Here, we get a long overdue look at a hitherto unheard side of his musical personality. It bears the thrill of discovery.”

Watch the “Song About Songs” music video HERE

Pre-save Song About Songs HERE

Schloss has an impressive résumé that includes his featured acting performance alongside Harry Dean Stanton and Emilio Estevez in Alex Cox’s 1984 cult classic feature Repo Man; work on the soundtracks for Cox’s later films Sid & Nancy, Straight to Hell, Walker; and Highway Patrolman. He is well known as touring musical director and guitarist for Joe Strummer of the Clash, with performances on Strummer’s first solo single “Trash City” and album Earthquake Weather. He also has appearances on record with Low & Sweet Orchestra, Magnificent Bastards, Thelonious Monster and in concert with the Weirdos. In 2021-22, he will be seen on stage during the Circle Jerks’ pandemic-delayed 40th anniversary tour.

But Song About Songs, which features the Los Angeles-based performer as singer, guitarist, and writer of nine striking original compositions, displays a revelatory new aspect of his work. It will surprise listeners accustomed to hearing Schloss in an aggressive hardcore format, but the St. Louis-born musician notes that his early musical inspirations came from a distinctly different realm.

“When I was 12 years old,” he says, “I made enough money as a janitor in a candy factory to buy my first guitar. I drew a picture of myself as Bob Dylan on the cover of Nashville Skyline. I bought the harmonica holder, the harmonica, my guitar, and Bob Dylan’s book Writings and Drawings, his first collection of lyrics, and I learned that album in its entirety, by ear. To me, those songs were tidy and they were concise. They were great examples of what a songwriter could do in two or three minutes.

“Everybody always used to make fun of me because I was a muso. I’d studied Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen and Neil Young and all of those guys back when I was a kid. Then I moved out to California and sunk my teeth into Jimi Hendrix and Jimmy Page and became a rocker. Then in my last year of high school I started listening to Charlie Parker and John Coltrane, moved in with my jazz teacher for a year and became a jazz guy.”
 
The album was recorded at Los Angeles’ Sargent Recorders, owned by producer and fellow Missouri native Gus Seyffert, who also plays bass on the collection; Seyffert has worked with Roger Waters, Norah Jones, Beck, and the Black Keys, among others. The emerging singer-songwriter Bedouine guests as vocalist on the track “I Have Loved the Story of My Life.”
 
As Schloss sees it, the title track of Song About Songs typifies the overall approach on this intensely moving solo bow: “I’ve asked myself many times, who are you, Zander, and what do you want to do? These songs were written for my own therapy. I hope that this music would help people transcend their own sadness through the power of music and into a healing place. I have a huge amount of reverence for music and its healing powers. I obviously have songs that have saved my life.
 
“This is my polar opposite version of punk rock. Punk rock is volume and anger and speed. I wanted to do space and vulnerability and excruciating, almost subconscious emotions, things that I feel so deeply that I would never say them out loud.”

Schloss will also be touring with the Circle Jerks for their 40th anniversary tour which kicks off in October and continues into 2022. See full list of dates here: https://www.circlejerks.net/tour
 
Songs About Songs tracklist:
1. My Dear Blue
2. Not So Long Ago
3. Sin Of Wasting Time
4. Old Cliches & Diamond Rings
5. Dead Friend Letter
6. I Have Loved The Story Of My Life (featuring Bedouine)
7. The Road
8. Married To Sadness
9. Songs About Songs

Sat, 10/09/2021 - 10:34 am

Today, Texas singer/songwriter Thomas Csorba has released his new EP From The Jordan, produced by Beau Bedford (Texas Gentlemen). The EP has been hotly anticipated by many including Rolling Stone, KUTX, The Alternate Root, and Central Track who said “He may be a 20-something-year-old artist, but he’s really just an old soul at heart with his deep-rooted country style.”

Listen to From The Jordan HERE.

Following his marriage in the fall of 2020 Thomas’s mind was on love songs, depictions of romance, and a concept for a collection of his own songs centered around those romantic bonds. Working along with co-writers Beau Bedford, David Ramirez, and Brian Douglas Phillips, Csorba dives into feelings of uncertainty and self doubt, the confidence and trust he has in his partner, and even pays homage to the inspiring love story of his grandparents, who fled persecution in Eastern Europe to build a life together in America. When it came time to find a producer for the project, the answer was simple. “There was never a question about who I wanted to produce this project,” says Csorba. “Beau Bedford has become a great musical partner, co-writer, neighbor and friend since we first met a few years ago at Luck Reunion, and quite simply, I trust him in helping bring these songs to life.”

Last year Csorba released his sophomore record Thomas Csorba, which was praised by many including Rolling Stone, American Songwriter, The Boot, Bluegrass Situation, and more. Americana Highways called Thomas Csorba “a near perfect modern Americana album” and Houston Chronicle asked “Is Houston native Thomas Csorba the next great Texas songwriter?” Ones to Watch wrote, "it is immediately evident that Thomas is a songwriter comfortable in a lineage that celebrates the American experience, or maybe even one who revels in a nostalgia for the everyday that singing poets such as Robert Johnson, Woody Guthrie and Johnny Cash embodied."

From The Jordan EP Tracklist:
1) From The Jordan
2) Backroads
3) Crystal Eyes
4) Goodbye To Goodbye
5) For You

Sat, 10/09/2021 - 11:47 am

Cody Fry has announced his new record The Symphony Sessions will be released on January 21, 2022. The recent success of his song “I Hear A Symphony” on TikTok, which has propelled its streams to well over 55 million on Spotify and counting, has earned Fry the luxury to choose his own creative path, and the result is The Symphony Sessions. The six-song album was recorded with an 80-piece orchestra, and includes fully arranged originals as well as covers of The Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby,”, which has amassed over 2 million streams in just two weeks since being shared on TikTok, and Ben Rector’s “Sailboat,” a song which served as a joint encore on Fry and Rector’s recent tour.
 
Today, Fry and Rector share their new version of “Sailboat” along with the live performance video filmed at Ocean Way Studios, a beautiful 100-year-old grey stone church in Nashville.
 
Watch “Sailboat” featuring Ben Rector HERE

 

“This is a song Ben and I used to perform every night when I was touring in his band,” says Fry. “I’d always wondered what it would sound like with a full orchestra, but I don’t have to wonder anymore!”
 
When his Old Friends Acoustic Tour with Rector was cancelled after just four shows due to the pandemic, Fry retreated to his Nashville home, took the occasional work-for-hire production job, finished up his album Pictures of Mountains (which came out earlier this year) and monitored his Spotify streams. It was there he began noticing unusual activity on “I Hear a Symphony,” the 14th and final track on his 2017 album Flying, recorded with a full orchestra, its streams climbing incrementally, eventually hitting a peak of 400,000 streams per day on Spotify alone.
 
Fry is a singer-songwriter-composer-arranger with five albums under his belt, starting with his 2012 debut, audio:cinema – a perfect description of the idiosyncratic, wide-screen, romantic movie-score approach he takes on “I Hear a Symphony” and “Photograph” (from Pictures of Mountains). Going down the internet rabbit hole, he discovered some comments on his YouTube videos that led him to TikTok, where “I Hear a Symphony” had been adopted, first by a K-Pop fan community, then by anime aficionados, who used the song in their video montages – more than 45,000 of them, representing millions of streams. Unfortunately, Fry only received a check from TikTok for a grand total of $150 so far for the video usage, but that activity spurred his four-year-old Flying album to garner upwards of 50 million streams and counting.
 
All the songs were recorded live in a single day, including several of the lead vocals, with a 80-piece orchestra, including strings, brass, woodwinds and percussion. “When a session is structured in this way, it doesn’t leave much room for error, but luckily the musicians were incredible, and everything turned out better than I could have imagined,” says Cody. “It was a stressful, nerve-wracking, joyful, rewarding experience. I hope I get to continue making more music like this.”
 
The album also features songs reimagined from Fry’s back catalog like audio:cinema’s  “Underground” and “Stop Breathing” (a song he originally recorded as a duet with his now-wife Haley); a new song, “More Than the Day Before” and instrumental interlude, “Caves.” Cody is also posting two live videos of him performing both “I Hear a Symphony” and “Photograph” before a full orchestra.
 
“I’ve run the gamut of emotions, from confusion to thunderstruck excitement to the fear of how long will this last?” admits the Chicago-raised Fry, following in the footsteps of his father, Gary Fry, a successful commercial jingle writer turned symphonic composer who writes for orchestras around the world, and conducts on his son’s two live videos. “This has totally changed my life. It’s allowed me to say no to things I don’t want to do and be able to pursue what I do.”
 
Although major record labels came calling following his viral success, Cody has decided to remain independent for the time being. “I didn’t feel right about the offers,” he says. “I wanted to see what I could do on my own now that I can support myself this way. Even though record companies can add tremendous value, it was too tantalizing for me to be able to make the music I wanted, without any outside interference.”
 
The Symphony Sessions is just that, and Cody hopes it can continue to open doors, with visions of taking his orchestral approach to the Hollywood Bowl and Carnegie Hall, or even on a tour where he plays with local orchestras at each city. “I think the most amazing things humans do are the things that we do together in large groups,” he says. “When else in music do you have 60 people in the same room all working together to make the same piece of art simultaneously? There is an energy that only happens in that setting.”

Sat, 10/09/2021 - 1:23 pm

Nashville-based singer/songwriter Ryan Culwell announced his new album Run Like A Bull will release on January 28th via Missing Piece Records. He also shared the official video for the album’s first single “All I Got,” a grizzled song that finds satisfaction in burning out rather than fading away.
Watch the official video for “All I Got” HERE.

Pre-save/pre-order Run Like A Bull HERE.

“This song has always sounded drunk to me, like that good waxahachie feeling you get a few beers before the room starts spinning,” stated Culwell. “My life feels like that too, real nice if I keep one foot on the ground.”
 
Recorded with longtime friend and collaborator Neilson Hubbard (Mary Gauthier, Kim Richey), Run Like A Bull is raw and magnetic, channeling Neil Young and Billy Joe Shaver as it searches for a middle ground between release and restraint, impulse and inhibition, recklessness and responsibility. Culwell faces down his own worst instincts, grappling with weighty, existential notions the way Flannery O’Connor might, conjuring up images of alternating beauty and brutality.
 
In stark contrast to his approach to his previous album The Last American, which was recorded piecemeal over the course of more than a year of deliberate layering and experimentation, Culwell cut the entirety of Run Like A Bull in just four days. He relied on honest, intuitive performances from his all-star bandmates, including Juan Solorzano (Devon Gilfillian, Becca Mancari), Kris Donegan (Rhett Walker, Brett Eldredge) and Will Kimbrough (Rodney Crowell, Todd Snider) along with spare, unfussy production from Hubbard. Guest vocalists also include Natalie Schlabs, Betsy Phillips, and Caroline Spence. The intimacy is palpable from the outset, but heavy as it may seem at times, Run Like A Bull is at its core a deeply optimistic record. For all the brooding guitars and gut-punch delivery, it’s ultimately a testament to the power of human connection and resilience that find hope and gratitude in quiet moments and subtle gestures.
 
Recently, Ryan Culwell and Aubrie Sellers released a cover of Nine Inch Nails’ “Head Like A Hole,” which Rolling Stone called a “somber, haunted duet.” Run Like A Bull follows Culwell’s critically acclaimed 2018 LP The Last American, which was embraced by BrooklynVegan, The Boot, NPR’s Weekend Edition and many more. Wide Open Country called the album a “poignant masterpiece” and Rolling Stone said, “It took three years for this Texas-born singer-songwriter to follow up his bleak but marvelous LP Flatlands — and this 180 from that 2015 release’s spare sound was worth the wait.”

Track Listing:
01) Colorado Blues
02) All I Got
03) Dead Man
04) Let’s Go Crazy
05) Wild Sometimes
06) What You Waiting For
07) This Town
08) Keep Your Head Up
09) It Won’t Stop
10) Certain Light
11) Don’t Let Go

Tour Dates:
10/06 - Tomball, TX @ Main Street Crossing*
10/08 - Galveston, TX @ Old Quarter Acoustic Cafe
10/09 - Houston, TX @ McGonigel’s Mucky Duck
10/15 - Davenport, IA @ Raccoon Motel
10/21 - Kansas City, MO @ Knuckleheads Saloon
10/23 - Tulsa, OK @ Mercury Lounge
11/03 - Lubbock, TX @ The Blue Light
11/05 - Turkey, TX @ Hotel Turkey
11/06 - Amarillo, TX @ Golden Light Cantina

Wed, 10/13/2021 - 8:15 pm

Today, Tim Kelly announced Ride Through the Rain, his debut album produced by his son, acclaimed artist Ruston Kelly. The album is out on November 5 and includes nine original songs spanning from his teenage years to the present day, showcasing Kelly as an artist with relatable real-life songs and a perspective honed over decades. In addition to the announcement, Tim Kelly has offered the album’s first single, “Leave This Town,” along with a live performance of the song featuring Ruston.

Watch “Leave This Town” Live Performance featuring Ruston Kelly via YouTube

Listen to “Leave This Town” and Preorder Ride Through the Rain

“’Leave This Town’ goes from contemplating a decision to walk away from the familiar, from roots and relationships, to actually doing it, making a major life change with all the uncertainty that goes with it,” explains Kelly, “If the soul is the truth of who we are, then music is the path to the soul for me.”

Drawing on modern sounds as well as the ‘70s songwriters he admires, Tim Kelly is realizing a lifelong dream with Ride Through the Rain. Telling his story in thoughtful songs such as “Leave This Town,” Kelly fulfils the promise he showed many years ago, before he traded his musical ambitions for a manufacturing career that provided for his family but never quite fed his soul. “I kept the day job, but there have been very few days in my life that music hasn’t been some part of it, even if only for an hour,” Kelly says. So, after more than three decades of multi-year work assignments across eight states and Europe, he stepped away, trading an office for a writer’s room in Nashville. After touring with Ruston as his pedal steel guitarist and playing on his last two albums, Kelly was prodded by his son to finally make a record that captured his own expressive voice.

“Seeing this album come to life is a dream come true for both of us. I’ve tried to get him to record these songs for years, over many breakfasts and many conversations on tour,” says Ruston. “His songs are the reason I write songs. They are masterfully written and beautifully performed by a man who has really seen it all. It’s pretty rare for a father’s album to be produced by his son and I definitely don’t take it for granted how special that is. I’m just so proud of him as my dad, as a person, and as an artist fulfilling a lifelong dream.”

Tim Kelly first became curious about the guitar after hearing his brother’s vinyl copy of The Ventures’ Walk, Don’t Run. Later, after hearing Jackson Browne’s version of “Take It Easy” for the first time, Kelly was inspired to learn pedal steel guitar. As a young adult, he played in bands, joined his college pop and jazz ensemble as lead guitarist, and won talent competitions as a singer-songwriter around Texas. However, as a newlywed, he made the decision to follow in his father’s footsteps and take a job in the company where his father had worked for decades.

“I’m incredibly fortunate and grateful to be able to make a record at this point in my life,” says Kelly, “and I don’t think it’s the last thing that I’ll do.”

Fri, 10/15/2021 - 11:37 am

Five-time GRAMMY winner Keb’ Mo’ announced his new album Good To Be, set for release on January 21, 2022 via Concord Records. The announcement arrives with the official video for the first single “Good Strong Woman” featuring Darius Rucker. Written between Nashville and his childhood home in Compton, California, Good To Be is a celebration of roots and resilience, drawing on country, soul, and blues to forge a sound that transcends genre and geography. Good To Be is now available for pre-order.

Watch the official video for “Good Strong Woman” via YouTube.

“I cowrote this with two of Nashville’s best country writers, Jason Nix and Jason Gantt. It’s a song that I didn’t think I’d be recording, but it was just too much fun, and I had to give it a shot. When Darius got involved, it went from fun to stun,” explains Kevin Moore, who is best known by his stage name Keb’ Mo’.

Good To Be was co-produced by Keb’ Mo’ alongside country music legend Vince Gill, who produced three of the album’s 13 tracks, and three-time GRAMMY winner Tom Hambridge (B.B. King, Buddy Guy). Darius Rucker, Kristin Chenoweth, and Old Crow Medicine Show all make guest appearances on the album.

Earlier this year, Keb’ Mo’ released “Sunny and Warm” and “The Medicine Man” (feat. Old Crow Medicine Show), both of which will appear on the forthcoming album. While some of the songs like “Quiet Moments” were written as far back as the early ’70s, others were penned just months ago in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced Keb’ off the road for more than a full year. Dividing his time between Nashville and Compton, where he recently purchased and renovated his late mother’s house, Keb’ often found himself reflecting on the idea of home, contemplating what it means to belong and what it takes to stay true to yourself.

​​“You can’t bring an attitude to Compton,” reflects Keb’. “You can’t pose. You can’t be anything but real when you’re walking down the same streets you used to ride your bike on as a kid. In a lot of ways, coming back there felt like it completed me.”

Last month, Keb’ Mo’ was the recipient of the Americana Music Association’s Lifetime Achievement Performance Award, which was presented to him at the organization’s 20th annual Honors and Awards show in Nashville.

Keb’ Mo’ will be on tour throughout the rest of the year, with additional dates to be announced in the coming months. Find a full list of confirmed tour dates below.

Good To Be Tracklist:
01) Good To Be (Home Again)
02) So Easy
03) Sunny and Warm
04) Good Strong Woman (feat. Darius Rucker)
05) The Medicine Man (feat. Old Crow Medicine Show)
06) Marvelous to Me
07) Lean on Me
08) Like Love
09) Dressed Up in Blue
10) ‘62 Chevy
11) Louder
12) So Good to Me
13) Quiet Moments (feat. Kristin Chenoweth)

Tour Dates:
10/14/21: Austin, TX - Paramount Theatre
10/28/21: Decatur, AL - Princess Theatre Center
11/6/21: Legendary Blues Cruise
11/14/21: Atlanta, GA - City Winery (2 Shows)
11/15/21: Atlanta, GA - City Winery (2 Shows)
11/16/21: Charleston, SC - Gaillard Center
12/09/21: Nashville, TN - Country Music Hall of Fame (Keb’ Mo’ Solo)
12/11/21: Nashville, TN - Country Music Hall of Fame
01/20/22: Alexandria, VA - The Birchmere
01/21/22: Alexandria, VA - The Birchmere
01/22/22: Annapolis, MD - Rams Head On Stage (2 Shows)
01/23/22: Easton, MD - Avalon Theatre
01/25/22: Hartford, CT - Infinity Hall
01/28/22: Portsmouth, NH - The Music Hall
01/30/22: New York, NY - City Winery
01/31/22: New York, NY - City Winery
02/02/22: Fairfield, CT - The Warehouse
02/03/22: East Greenwich, RI - Greenwich Odeum
02/04/22: Brownfield, ME - Stone Mountain Arts Center
02/05/22: Waterville, ME - Waterville Opera House
02/11/22: Orlando, FL - Phillips Center (Keb’ Mo’ Solo)
03/01/22: Fort Lauderdale, FL - Parker Playhouse
03/03/22: Stuart, FL - Start Theatre (6:00 pm)
03/03/22: Stuart, FL - The Lyric Theatre (8:30 pm)
03/04/22: Jacksonville, FL - Florida Theatre
03/05/22: Newberry, SC - Newberry Opera House
4/13/22: Grass Valley, CA - Center For The Arts Grass Valley
4/15/22: Monterey, CA - Golden State Theatre
4/26/22: Solana Beach, CA - Belly Up
4/27/22: Solana Beach, CA - Belly Up
7/14/22: Colorado Springs, CO - Pikes Peak Center

Wed, 10/27/2021 - 1:08 pm

Today, the GRAMMY winning Nashville-based band Old Crow Medicine Show announced they have signed with ATO Records. The band and label previously partnered on Old Crow Medicine Show’s 2012 album Carry Me Back and their 2014 breakthrough Remedy, which won a GRAMMY for Best Folk Album in 2015. The band’s sixth studio album Volunteer was released in 2018 and was followed by Live at the Ryman in 2019. The band also announced today that Sally Williams and Red Light Management have partnered to oversee their management.

Watch a teaser video via YouTube.

Old Crow Medicine Show’s Ketch Secor says, “We are very happy to be coming home to the ATO family. Their passion for music shows in everything they release and we’re just so excited to relaunch our partnership and recommit ourselves to making great records together.”

Jon Salter, President of ATO Records, adds, “OCMS is one of the great and important American bands. They have always challenged themselves creatively and this new project is testament to that. We’re so thrilled and proud to welcome the band back with open arms to the ATO family and we are committed to continue to build their legacy.”

“Old Crow has influenced countless artists and built a devoted following over the years due to their energetic live shows and relatable music,” says Coran Capshaw.  “Red Light is proud to be partnering with Sally Williams to continue the growth of this great band.”

In the last year, the band has released three tracks that all speak to the current state of the world – “Nashville Rising” written after Nashville’s Super Tuesday tornadoes and directly benefiting relief efforts, “Quarantined” a tongue-in-cheek, classic country-inspired number about not being able to kiss your lover while quarantined, and “Pray For America,” which was commissioned by NPR as an inspirational piece for listeners coming out of COVID. They also appeared on a duet with Keb’ Mo’ titled “The Medicine Man,” and recently teamed up with filmmaker Julia Golonka to create a video for their 2008 track “Motel In Memphis,” raising funds for Nashville’s community-based grassroots organization Gideon’s Army.

In early 2020, Old Crow Medicine Show purchased a building in Nashville that has since been dubbed the band’s “Hartland Studio,” where they have been hard at work recording new music and producing their “Hartland Hootenanny” live stream variety shows.

Old Crow Medicine Show are currently on tour and will return to the Ryman Auditorium for their annual New Years Eve performances on December 30 and 31. Find a full list of tour dates below or at www.crowmedicine.com/tour.

Old Crow Medicine Show Tour Dates:
November 12 – Madison, WI @ The Sylvee
November 13 – Nashville, IN @ Brown County Music Center
December 1 – Norfolk, VA @ The NorVa
December 2 – Durham, NC @ The Carolina Theatre
December 3 – Durham, NC @ The Carolina Theatre
December 16 – Kansas City, MO @ Uptown Theater
December 17 – Newkirk, OK @ 7 Clans Casino
December 27 – Greenville, SC @ The Peace Center
December 28 – Knoxville, TN @ Tennessee Theatre
December 30 – Nashville, TN @ Ryman Auditorium
December 31 – Nashville, TN @ Ryman Auditorium

Fri, 10/29/2021 - 9:29 am

With his new remix album, Deciphering The Message the Chicago-based drummer, producer, and beat scientist Makaya McCraven puts a modern bounce on Blue Note classics by Art Blakey, Horace Silver, and Hank Mobley, among others. Today, McCraven has unveiled the album’s fourth and final single "Black Rhythm Happening" which is a funky remake of the title track of a 1969 album by the adventurous trumpeter and Sun Ra associate Eddie Gale. Deciphering The Message will be released November 19 on vinyl, CD, and digital download. 

McCraven hopes the album is both educational and an outright good listen. “I always want to make music that will connect with people in one way, where it makes them nod or feel something or transport them somewhere,” he says. “I also hope this makes them check out the source of this music. The music that we’re making now is part of the same route and is connected, so I want to honor tradition and release something that people can vibe to.”

Across numerous albums and mixtapes, McCraven has proven his mastery of the loop akin to hip-hop’s most celebrated beatmakers like Madlib and J Dilla, both of whom also found inspiration in the Blue Note catalog. With acclaimed releases like In The Moment (2015) and Universal Beings (2018), McCraven created his own lane in jazz by sampling his band playing improvised sessions throughout the world, then molding the audio several times to pull contrasting moods from it. For his previous project McCraven remixed Gil Scott-Heron’s final album I’m New Here into the equally emotive LP We’re New Again (2020).

Sat, 10/30/2021 - 1:34 pm

Minneapolis songwriter Mason Jennings has shared his new video for “On The Brink,” the debut single from his upcoming LP Real Heart. The video is currently available to stream on Relix. Jennings will release Real Heart on February 4, 2022 via Loosegroove Records.

Watch: “On The Brink

Jennings writes: “This song is in response to people I’ve met since I’ve been in the public eye using spirituality or the words “I love you” for their own manipulative gain. I am a very open and trusting person and what I’ve had to learn the hard way over the years is that some people have really dark and selfish motives and they will use a person’s empathy and openness as an entry point for their own agenda. In other words, I’ve had to wake up and learn better discernment.”

"I’m very excited to be working with Loosegroove Records and to have had Regan Hagar and Stone Gossard produce this album,” writes Jennings. "We made the unabashed folk record that I have been wanting to make for years. Kind of a love letter to the acoustic guitar and to musical intimacy. Kind of a love letter to the acoustic guitar and to musical intimacy.”

Jennings and Gossard are ongoing collaborators in the supergroup Painted Shield, who released their 2021 debut album on Loosegroove, the influential indie label that Gossard founded back in 1994 issued records from acts such as Critters Buggin, Malfunkshun, Weapon of Choice and Devilhead, and was the launching point for Queens of the Stone Age’s debut album in 1998.

Real Heart is the sound of a musician easing back into his own skin and marking art not only on his own terms, but on his own turf, too. Jennings began recording the album at his lake house outside St. Paul, Minnesota, strumming each song while staring at the water outside. "I live in a house that's all glass windows, and I'd stare at the big lake while tracing these songs," he explains. "I used one microphone and kept everything very basic, and that's a big part of the record's vibe. You can hear the room itself. It's less about performance and pretense, and it's more like we're sitting in a room together, having a conversation. The cover art is a woven wall-hanging that my wife Josie made that is hanging on our lake house wall. That sets the tone: warmth, home, and intimacy.”

Real Heart Tracklist:
01) Tomorrow
02) Real Heart
03) Second Life
04) On The Brink
05) The Demon
06) I Feel Loved
07) The Game
08) The Wonder
09) Faded
10) How Many Days

Tour Dates:

November 20 - Fargo, ND @ Sanctuary events Center
November 21 - Duluth, NB @ Sacred Heart Music Center
November 27 - Milwaukee, WI @ The Back Room Colectivo
November 28 - Madison, WI @ High Noon Saloon

Thu, 11/18/2021 - 4:56 pm

Tangerine Records has announced True Genius: Sides of Ray, a double disc vinyl set, to be released on November 19th. This newly remastered set includes nearly all of Ray Charles' biggest hits including, Hit The Road Jack, Unchain My Heart, I've Got A Woman, Let's Go Get Stoned, I Can't Stop Loving You, Crying Time, Georgia on My Mind, Hallelujah I Love her So, and many more, making it the ultimate Ray Charles vinyl collection. True Genius: Sides of Ray will be pressed on high qaulity 140gm virgin vinyl in a deluxe gatefold jacket, and is currently available for pre-order here.

Ray’s unique mastery of music allowed him to continue to explore all forms of music, freely floating between jazz, blues, pop, rock, soul and country while continuing to combine them in new, unprecedented ways. In this collection, each album side represents a different side of Ray, while showcasing his most important works within the genres he loved best; Soul, Jazz & Blues, Country and Classic Pop.

True Genius: Sides of Ray follows the September 2021 release of True Genius, a newly remastered, limited edition CD set featuring 90 of the greatest songs from his legendary career and all of Ray’s biggest hits. True Genius also marks the first time this incredible collection of Ray Charles' most important works is widely available on streaming platforms. The collection was met with wide acclaim in publications including Rolling Stone, American Songwriter, Goldmine, and more. True Genius is currently available for purchase here.

Ray Charles’s recordings are major landmarks in American culture. His early blending of Gospel and R&B literally defined Soul music. And by blending country music with other popular sounds, this visionary artist brought his expansive musical vision of country music to a worldwide audience for the first time. The incredible crossover success of Ray's Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music, Volumes 1 & 2 led Willie Nelson to remark, “Ray Charles did more for country music than any other artist.” Ray continued to do something no other artist had done before or since, by conquering all genres of music, from gospel and R&B to soul, country, jazz, blues, and pop, which led Frank Sinatra to dub Ray Charles, the only “True Genius” in music.

Charles’ staggering achievements over a 58-year career include 17 GRAMMY Awards, induction into both the Rock and Roll and Country Hall of Fame, a Lifetime Achievement and the President’s Merit Award, the Presidential Medal for the Arts, France’s Legion of Honor, the Kennedy Center Honors, the NAACP Image Awards’ “Hall of Fame Award,” and numerous other music Halls of Fame, including those for Jazz and Rhythm & Blues, all testament to his enormous influence. In 2019, he was honored by the Grand Ole Opry with An Opry Salute to Ray Charles, which was broadcast across PBS stations. And his dramatic expansion of the boundaries of country music was celebrated in August 2021, when he was officially inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.

One of the greatest artists of all time, Charles had unprecedented impact on nearly every genre of music. Sides of Ray highlights that extraordinary talent more than any other collection on vinyl and is a must-have for all Ray Charles fans.
 
Side One - Soul
1. Hit The Road Jack
2. I Don't Need No Doctor
3. Unchain My Heart
4. No One
5. Hide Nor Hair
6. I've Got A Woman (Live)
 
Side Two - Jazz & Blues
1. Let's Go Get Stoned
2. I'm Gonna Move To The Outskirts Of Town
3. Smack Dab In The Middle
4. Them That Got
5. One Mint Julep
6. I've Got News For You
 
Side Three - Jazz & Blues
1. Here We Go Again
2. You Are My Sunshine
3. Crying Time
4. Take These Chains From My Heart
5. Ring Of Fire
6. I Can't Stop Loving You
 
Side Four - Jazz & Blues
1. Georgia On My Mind
2. Eleanor Rigby
3. Busted
4. Till There Was You
5. Hallelujah I Love Her So (Live)
6. A Song For You

 

Sat, 11/20/2021 - 4:17 pm

Makaya McCraven has released Deciphering The Message, a vibrant new remix project for which the Chicago-based drummer, producer, and beat scientist Makaya McCraven dug through the Blue Note Records vaults to put a modern bounce on classics by Art Blakey, Horace Silver, and Hank Mobley, among others. The album also connects past to present by featuring new contributions from a stellar cast of modern jazz artists including vibraphonist Joel Ross, trumpeter Marquis Hill, guitarists Jeff Parker and Matt Gold, bassist Junius Paul, alto saxophonist Greg Ward, and De’Sean Jones on tenor saxophone and flute. Deciphering The Message is available now on vinyl, CD, and digital formats.
 
“There’s a comradery and social aspect to the music,” Makaya says of this album and his creative method overall. “To me that’s inspiring and in the spirit of collaboration. There are bandleaders, but the collective of individual voices and sounds and the way they influence each other, that’s the fabric of what makes a scene.” Watch Makaya discuss the story behind the album with Blue Note President Don Was on the latest episode of “First Look.”

Across numerous albums and mixtapes, McCraven has proven his mastery of the loop akin to hip-hop’s most celebrated beatmakers like J Dilla and Madlib, both of whom also found inspiration in the Blue Note catalog. With acclaimed releases like In The Moment (2015) and Universal Beings (2018), McCraven created his own lane in jazz by sampling his band playing improvised sessions throughout the world, then molding the audio several times to pull contrasting moods from it. For his previous project McCraven remixed Gil Scott-Heron’s final album I’m New Here into the equally emotive LP We’re New Again (2020).
 
While Deciphering The Message collects songs from several years of Blue Note history, it plays like a continuous set taking place in one show at one venue. “When piecing everything together, I wanted to create a narrative that made the listener feel like they were falling into this space or a movement,” Makaya says. “I always want to make music that will connect with people in one way, where it makes them nod or feel something or transport them somewhere. I also hope this makes them check out the source of this music. The music that we’re making now is part of the same route and is connected, so I want to honor tradition and release something that people can vibe to.”

The track listing for Deciphering The Message is as follows:
 
1. A Slice Of The Top (AKA “Sliced Off The Top”)
[from A Slice Of The Top by Hank Mobley]
 
2. Sunset (AKA “Son Set”)
[from Whistle Stop by Kenny Dorham]
 
3. When Your Lover Has Gone (AKA “When You’ve Left Your Lover”)
[from A Night In Tunisia by Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers]
 
4. Ecaroh (AKA “Revlis”)
[from Horace Silver Trio by Horace Silver]
 
5. Tranquillity (AKA “Corner Of The World”)
[from Components by Bobby Hutcherson]
 
6. Wail Bait (AKA “Wait Bail”)
[from The Memorial Album by Clifford Brown]
 
7. Coppin' The Haven (AKA “At The Haven Coppin’”)
[from One Flight Up by Dexter Gordon]
 
8. Frank's Tune (AKA “De’Jeff’s Tune”)
[from Easterly Winds by Jack Wilson]
 
9. Autumn In New York (AKA “Spring In Chicago”)
[from Blue Lights, Vol.1 by Kenny Burrell]
 
10. Monaco (AKA “Monte Negro”)
[from ‘Round About Midnight At The Cafe Bohemia by Kenny Dorham]
 
11. Mr. Jin (AKA “Mr. Gin”)
[from Indestructible by Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers]
 
12. C.F.D. (AKA “D.F.C.”)
[from Something Personal by Jack Wilson]
 
13. Black Rhythm Happening
[from Black Rhythm Happening by Eddie Gale]

Tue, 11/23/2021 - 3:46 pm

Jackson Browne has received a GRAMMY nomination for Best Americana Album, for Downhill From Everywhere.

"Jackson Browne has uniquely and consistently delivered brilliant albums and songs throughout his career,” said Jed Hilly, Executive Director of the Americana Music Association. “He's been a defining Americana artist, not just for the songs he gives to us but also for his thoughtful lyrics and craftsmanship to address the times we live in.”

Browne’s critically acclaimed new album Downhill From Everywhere has been lauded by Associated Press, NPR's Here & Now, Rolling Stone, No Depression, American Songwriter, and many more.

Downhill From Everywhere

Earlier this year, Browne was the keynote speaker at the AmericanaFest Conference, and made a return performance at Austin City Limits, which aired on November 13.

Browne continues his arena tour with James Taylor through December 13. For more information, please visit www.jacksonbrowne.com

Fri, 12/03/2021 - 10:25 am

Today, Tom Jones released his extended version of Surrounded By Time titled, Surrounded By Time -- The Hourglass Edition, digitally with the physical CD coming February 4th through BMG in the US and Canada.
 
Surrounded By Time - The Hourglass Edition:

Stream/Download HERE | Deluxe CD is available to pre-order HERE
 
Released earlier this year, Surrounded By Time received critical acclaim from People Magazine, The New Yorker, AARP, Fresh Air, The A.V. Club, and Forbes to name a few, firmly cementing the working relationship that both Sir Tom and producer Ethan Johns have cultivated since 2010’s Praise & Blame. Jones also performed songs off the album for NPR Music’s Tiny Desk (Home) Concert, and Jimmy Kimmel Live!.
 
At the age of 81, with a career spanning sixty years, Tom has remarkably received some of his best reviews to date on Surrounded By Time, with the album landing at #1 on the UK album chart, giving Sir Tom the honor of being the eldest artist on record to secure that position with new material.
 
Surrounded by Time marks out new territory with a diverse selection of tracks that have impacted Tom over what has been an extraordinary career. On “Not Dark Yet,” we once again see a wonderful song that befits its addition to the running order.

 
The extended version of Surrounded By Time - The Hourglass Edition includes 2 CDs. CD1 with original album audio and CD2, which includes two new tracks, “Not Dark Yet” and the fittingly titled “One Hell Of A Life.” Additionally, there are four live tracks recorded at this summer’s album showcase at London’s Shepherd’s Bush Empire, book-ended with a captivating conversation with journalist and broadcaster Peter Paphides, exploring the album’s birth and creation along with life through lockdown.
 
In support of the release, Jones is playing a run of shows this December across the UK. See full list and details below.
 
Surrounded By Time - The Hourglass Edition tracklisting:
CD 1 :
1. I Won’t Crumble With You If You Fall
2. The Windmills Of Your Mind
3. PopStar
4. Hole In My Head
5. Talking Reality Television Blues
6. I Won’t Lie
7. This Is The Sea
8. One More Cup Of Coffee
9. Samson And Delilah
10. Ol’ Mother Earth
11. I’m Growing Old
12. Lazarus Man
 
CD 2:
1. Not Dark Yet
2. One Hell Of A Life
3. I Won’t Crumble With You If You Fall (Live from Shepherd’s Bush Empire)
4. Samson And Delilah (Live from Shepherd’s Bush Empire)
5. Ol’ Mother Earth (Live from Shepherd’s Bush Empire)
6. This Is The Sea (Live from Shepherd’s Bush Empire)
7. In Conversation -  15 minutes interview piece of Sir Tom Jones with journalist Pete Paphides
 
Tom Jones tour dates:
12/5 - Glasgow @ SSE Hydro
12/6 - Manchester @ AO Arena
12/8 - Birmingham @ Utilita Arena Birmingham
12/9 - London @ The O2
12/17 - Cardiff @ Principality Stadium
12/18 - Cardiff @ Principality Stadium

 

Fri, 12/10/2021 - 12:43 pm

London-based GRAMMY and MOBO nominated Jazztronica duo Blue Lab Beats have announced their long-awaited new album and full-length Blue Note Records debut Motherland Journey, out February 25th. The announcement comes with the album’s title track featuring Ghanaian producer KillBeatz and vocals of the late Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti.

Listen to “Motherland Journey” featuring Fela Kuti and KillBeatz

An album that has quite literally been years in the making, Motherland Journey is the result of tireless days in the studio - a celebration of pushing boundaries, taking risks and overcoming adversity. What started as over 70 demos has since been meticulously whittled down to the 17-track iteration that remains. It is still Blue Lab Beats’ largest project to date, and the fact it is delivered via the legendary Blue Note imprint reiterates its importance.

The LP includes several previously released singles including “Labels,” a majestic sonic creation that combines Kofi Stone’s slick bars and Tiana Major9’s head-turning vocals with the smoothest of production. Further singles have come in the form of “Blow You Away (Delilah)” and “Sensual Loving,” both featuring the unmistakable vocals of Afrobeats prince Ghetto Boy, and “Dat It,” a potent combination of sly piano lines and funk-drenched synths courtesy of Stones Throw affiliate and Drake collaborator, Kiefer.

There are a host of star-studded collaborative tracks on Motherland Journey. Perhaps the most prominent is the title track, co-written in Accra, Ghana with Ghanaian production talent KillBeatz at 3am in the morning. It features the vocals of none other than that of the late Fela Kuti, with the estate of the Afrobeat pioneer giving BLB their blessing to release the song.

“Motherland Journey is an extremely special album to us,” Blue Lab Beats enthuse. “This album took us two-and-a-half years to finish, our longest process to make an album, but it was so worth it. On this album you’ll hear many fusions of genres and inspirations that we gathered throughout that time frame and especially to work on so many of the songs during the first lockdown it was a test in itself. We had to figure out so many different ways to achieve what we exactly wanted sonically and having Blue Note to help us achieve that was an absolute blessing. Many of the vocal features and instrumentalists on this album are great friends of ours and it’s just so amazing to have family on this album.”

One of the fastest-rising production duos in the world right now, with a Grammy nomination for their work on the Angelique Kidjo album Mother Nature, and a MOBO nomination for ‘Best Jazz Act’ in 2021 testament to their rise, Blue Lab Beats consists of producer NK-OK and multi-instrumentalist Mr DM. Starting out as bedroom producers, remixing tracks from A-listers such as Dua Lipa and Rag’N’Bone Man, the pair quickly grew into something far more potent - crafting a supple, wide-ranging sound inspired by the pioneers of hip-hop and the music of the African diaspora while staying true to their London roots.

With over 32 million streams and having played Glastonbury as well as supporting the likes of Roy Ayers and Thundercat, Blue Lab Beats releases such as 2017 EP Freedom, with its stand out track “Sam Cooke & Marvin Gaye,” and 2018’s “XOver,” a debut album brimming with hits including the eight-million-times-streamed “Pineapple,” have proved how popular their sound has quickly become. Releases such as the 2019 EP Vibe Central, which has features from Grammy-nominated trumpeter Theo Croker, and statement track “Hi There,” a soulful instrumental sermon that also appears on Blue Lab’s 2020 album Voyage, has brought them further success. Following their appearance on 2020’s acclaimed Blue Note Re:imagined project, the duo released their debut EP for Blue Note Records We Will Rise earlier this year. They also performed a sold out hometown show at Hootananny Brixton in November, sounding off what was another career-defining year in style.

Their biggest and most complete undertaking yet, Motherland Journey is a spellbinding LP that sees Blue Lab Beats further refine their Jazztronica sound.

Tracklist
1. Sky Reflections (Intro)
2. Labels Feat. Tiana Major9 & Kofi Stone
3. I’ll be here for you Feat. Teni Tinks
4. Gotta Go Fast Feat. Poppy Daniels
5. A Vibe
6. Don’t Let It Get Away Feat. Emmavie
7. Inhale & Exhale (Interlude)               
8. Blow You Away (Delilah) Feat. Ghetto Boy
9. Sensual Loving Feat. Ghetto Boy
10. Motherland Journey Feat. KillBeatz & Fela Kuti
11. Ultramarine (interlude)
12. Warp Feat. Jackson Mathod & Kaidi Akinnibi
13. Slow Down Feat. Ego Ella May
14. Dat It Feat. Kiefer
15. Home Feat. Pip Millett & Dylan Jones
16. Real Good Feat. Jerome Thomas
17. Reflection (Outro)

Fri, 12/10/2021 - 3:23 pm

Today, Minneapolis songwriter Mason Jennings has shared his new single, “Tomorrow.” The track is currently streaming via Glide who describes it as “straddling the line between lushness and simplicity, Jennings conjures a stirring work of folk that showcases his enchanting vocals and his lyrical craftsmanship.” Jennings will release Real Heart on February 4, 2022 via Loosegroove Records and is available to pre-order here.

Jennings writes that, while the track is a love song for his wife, “it’s also a song about the loss we all felt during the pandemic. It’s a borrowed world we live in and that became apparent over the last two years. It can be taken from us at any time. It was a good reminder to myself to have awareness of that and to lead with love. To have gratitude for the little things in life. And gratitude for each other and our time together.”

Jennings recently released a video for lead single “On The Brink,” which was featured on  Relix, American Blues Scene, and KCMP The Current, and more.

"I’m very excited to be working with Loosegroove Records and to have had Regan Hagar and Stone Gossard produce this album,” writes Jennings. "We made the unabashed folk record that I have been wanting to make for years. Kind of a love letter to the acoustic guitar and to musical intimacy. Kind of a love letter to the acoustic guitar and to musical intimacy.”

Jennings and Gossard are ongoing collaborators in the supergroup Painted Shield, who released their 2021 debut album on Loosegroove, the influential indie label that Gossard founded back in 1994 issued records from acts such as Critters Buggin, Malfunkshun, Weapon of Choice and Devilhead, and was the launching point for Queens of the Stone Age’s debut album in 1998.

Real Heart is the sound of a musician easing back into his own skin and marking art not only on his own terms, but on his own turf, too. Jennings began recording the album at his lake house outside St. Paul, Minnesota, strumming each song while staring at the water outside. "I live in a house that's all glass windows, and I'd stare at the big lake while tracing these songs," he explains. "I used one microphone and kept everything very basic, and that's a big part of the record's vibe. You can hear the room itself. It's less about performance and pretense, and it's more like we're sitting in a room together, having a conversation. The cover art is a woven wall-hanging that my wife Josie made that is hanging on our lake house wall. That sets the tone: warmth, home, and intimacy.”

Real Heart Tracklist:
01) Tomorrow
02) Real Heart
03) Second Life
04) On The Brink
05) The Demon
06) I Feel Loved
07) The Game
08) The Wonder
09) Faded
10) How Many Days

Tue, 12/14/2021 - 11:41 am

On Wednesday, December 15 at 1pm ET, Jackson Browne will take part in “The Sound of Activism With Tom Morello,” a virtual event from The New York Times, hosted by the acclaimed musician, activist and current Times Opinion contributor Tom Morello as he welcomes Browne and other special guests Nadya Tolokonnikova of Pussy Riot and 11-year-old drumming prodigy Nandi Bushell for an evening of conversation and song. R.S.V.P. HERE
 
Browne will round out the year with a headlining performance at The Capitol Theater in Portchester, NY for “The Capitol Sessions: Songs from a Rock Palace That Impacted the World.” The show will benefit HeadCount, a non-partisan voter registration advocacy organization that stages voter registration drives at more than 1,000 live events each year and collaborates with cultural leaders to promote civic engagement on a national scale.
 
Last month, Browne’s new album Downhill From Everywhere received a GRAMMY nomination for Best Americana Album. The album has been lauded by Associated Press, NPR's Here & Now, Rolling Stone, No Depression, American Songwriter, and many more. Browne was also the keynote speaker at this year’s AmericanaFest Conference, and made a return performance at Austin City Limits, which aired on November 13.
 
Browne recently wrapped his extensive US arena tour with James Taylor, which they are bringing to Canada in Spring 2022. Get full list of dates and details here: https://tour.jacksonbrowne.com/

Thu, 12/16/2021 - 12:50 pm

The Seattle-based soul-jazz groove-machine Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio announced their new album Cold As Weiss, out February 11, 2022 via Colemine Records. Cold As Weiss is the band’s first release featuring new drummer Dan Weiss, also of the powerhouse soul and funk collective The Sextones. A natural fit for the Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio's groove-oriented rhythms, Dan’s smoldering drumming locks in the trio’s explosive chemistry. DLO3’s lineup is completed by organist Delvon Lamarr and guitarist Jimmy James. The album announcement comes with the first single “Pull Your Pants Up.” “On every DLO3 tour, at some point, we have to tell Jimmy James to pull his pants up,” says Lamarr. “After being blinded by his backside over and over and over again, we decided to write a song about it!”

Listen to “Pull Your Pants Up

Cold As Weiss follows the band’s 2021 sophomore studio album I Told You So, which debuted atop multiple Billboard Charts: #1 on the Contemporary Jazz Album chart, #3 on the Jazz Album chart, #4 on the Tastemaker Album chart, and #12 on the Heatseeker Album chart. I Told You So was praised by NPR, Under the Radar, All Music, American Songwriter, Popmatters, KEXP, Live For Live Music, Jazziz, Jambase, and Glide Magazine, who said “the unrelenting, intoxicating grooves of The Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio are everything one would want from an organ trio – a pinch of late ’60s, some elements of more modern funk, and a riveting, magnetic swagger that won’t let go.”

Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio—or as it is sometimes referred to, DLO3—specialize in the lost art of “feel good music.” The ingredients of this intoxicating cocktail include a big helping of the 1960s organ jazz stylings of Jimmy Smith and Baby Face Willette; a pinch of the snappy soul strut of Booker T. & The M.G.’s, The Meters, and sprinkles Motown, Stax Records, blues, and cosmic Jimi Hendrix-style guitar. It’s a soul-jazz concoction that goes straight to your heart and head, making your body break out in a sweat.

The band features organist Delvon Lamarr, a self-taught virtuosic musician, with perfect pitch who taught himself jazz and has effortlessly been able to play a multitude of instruments. On guitar is the dynamo Jimmy James, who eases through Steve Cropper-style chanking guitar, volcanic acid-rock freak-out lead playing, and slinky Grant Green style jazz. From Reno, Nevada is drummer Dan Weiss whose smoldering pocket-groove drumming locks in the trio’s explosive chemistry.

Founded by Larmarr’s wife and manager Amy Novo, the trio started from humble beginnings in 2015, but since then has released two Billboard charting albums and toured the world to sold out venues. Now, with permanent drummer Dan Weiss behind to kit, DLO3 is proud to present Cold As Weiss, their third studio album to date that finds them tighter than ever, and continuing to push funky instrumental music to a new generation of fans.

Cold As Weiss Tracklist:
1. Pull Your Pants Up
2. Don't Worry 'Bout What I Do
3. I Wanna Be Where You Are
4. Big TT's Blues
5. Get Da Steppin'
6. Uncertainty
7. Keep On Keepin' On
8. Slip 'N' Slide
9. This Is Who I Is

Fri, 01/07/2022 - 1:13 pm

Today Petaluma Records announced an April 1st release date for the soundtrack to Take Me To The River: New Orleans — a forthcoming feature documentary film celebrating the undeniable musical history, heritage, legacy, culture, and influence of New Orleans and Louisiana. The Take Me To The River: New Orleans album features new recordings from PJ Morton, The Neville Brothers, G-Eazy, Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah, Snoop Dogg, Dumpstaphunk, Dirty Dozen Brass Band, William Bell, Ani DiFranco, Donald Harrison, Ledisi, the late Dr. John, and many more (full tracklisting below). The album announcement comes with the first single “Act Like You Know” featuring Dee-1, Mannie Fresh, Big Freedia, and Galactic. You can also watch a clip of the artists performing “Act Like You Know” taken from the film HERE.

Listen to “Act Like You Know” ft. Dee-1, Mannie Fresh, Big Freedia, and Galactic

Take Me To The River: New Orleans follows director Martin Shore’s 2014 award-winning film Take Me To The River which documented the musical influence of Memphis. “Memphis told the American music story. New Orleans is a story of how World music was created,” says Shore on his decision to document New Orleans. Watch a teaser trailer for the film HERE.

The deluxe soundtrack release is a true collaboration that celebrates the melting pot that is the musical DNA of NOLA. From traditional jazz to Second line, From Rhythm and Blues to Hip Hop and Rap, from Funk/Soul to Rock and Roll, the producers of this wholly unique and unprecedented project have paired legendary legacy musicians with the rising stars of the 21st Century to create a historic musical collaboration unlike any that has come before. The album features brand new recordings of the final performances from the Neville Brothers and one of the last studio sessions with Dr. John as well as all new collaborative performances from a range of great New Orleans artists. The music of New Orleans is a wholly unique worldwide collaboration, and Take Me To The River: New Orleans gives the viewer an insightful historical perspective of how global influences shaped, and continue to shape, a musical quilt that formed the music of this extraordinary city.

On April 1, 2022, the Take Me To The River: New Orleans soundtrack will be released on CD, deluxe vinyl set featuring 2 LPs and a large format 60 page book, and digital album via Petaluma Records.

Tracklisting:

CD ONE:  
1. Cyril Neville with Voices of the Wetlands - “In Love with My NOLA”
2. Dee-1, Mannie Fresh, Big Freedia, Galactic - “Act Like You Know”   
3. The Neville Brothers with Ivan Neville, Ian Neville, and George Porter Jr. - “(Hey Mama) Wild Tchoupitoulas”
4. Irma Thomas with Ledisi, featuring George Porter Jr., Eric Krasno, Ian Neville, and Ivan Neville - “I Wish Someone Would Care”
5. Dr. John and Davell Crawford - “Jock-A-Mo”
6. Soul Rebels featuring 5th Ward Weebie - “504 Enjoy Yourself”
7. Cyril Neville with Dumpstaphunk - “Street Parade”
8. PJ Morton featuring Cheeky Blakk and the New Breed Brass Band - “New Orleans Girl”
9. Aaron Neville with the Dirty Dozen Brass Band - “Stompin Ground”
10. Walter Wolfman Washington - “Funk is in the House”  
11. Snoop Dogg, G-Eazy, William Bell - “Yes We Can Can”  
12. Davell Crawford - “We Shall Gather at the River”   
13. 79rs - “Wrong Part of Town”  
14. New Orleans Drummers - “Lil Liza Jane” *

CD TWO:
1. Anders Osborne - “Improvise”  *
2. Voices of the Wetlands with Cyril Neville - "Late in the Evening” *
3. Ledisi with George Porter Jr, Ian Neville, and Ivan Neville - "Knockin” *
4. Davell Crawford - "One More Time”  *
5. Ani DiFranco with Lost Bayou Ramblers and Roots of Music - "Little Plastic Castles”  *
6. Donald Harrison with the Tipitina's Interns - "Donald's Tune” *
7. Dr. John - "Someone to Love”  *
8. Big Chief Monk Boudreaux with Voices of the Wetlands - "Firewater”  
9. Donald Harrison and Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah - "Sand Castle Headhunters”
10. Lost Bayou Ramblers with Ani DiFranco, Walter "Wolfman" Washington, and the Roots of Music - "Blue Moon Special”  
11. Donald Harrison and Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah with the Tipitina's Interns - "When the Saints Go Marching In”  
12. Irma Thomas with Cyril Neville, George Porter Jr., Ian Neville and Ivan Neville - "Carnival Time”

(* Tracks not on LP version, but available via included download card)

Fri, 01/07/2022 - 5:13 pm

Today, the Seattle-based soul-jazz groove-machine Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio released their new song “Don’t Worry ‘Bout What I Do,” the second single from their upcoming album Cold As Weiss (out February 11, 2022 via Colemine Records). Cold As Weiss is the band’s first release featuring new drummer Dan Weiss, also of the powerhouse soul and funk collective The Sextones. A natural fit for the Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio's groove-oriented rhythms, Dan’s smoldering drumming locks in the trio’s explosive chemistry. DLO3’s lineup is completed by organist Delvon Lamarr and guitarist Jimmy James.

Listen to “Don’t Worry ‘Bout What I Do”

“‘Don't Worry ‘Bout What I Do’ is a famous quote by the great guitarist Jimmy James,” explains Delvon Lamarr. “No matter what you say to this cat: ‘Yo bro your butt crack is showing,’ he always says the same thing: ‘Man... don't worry ‘bout what I do.’” The new song follows the album’s first single “Pull Your Pants Up,” which was praised by Jambase, Relix, Glide, Jazziz, Northern Transmissions, and Live For Live Music, who said “splicing the DNA of old-school funk forefathers The Meters with the acid rock stylings of Jimi Hendrix along with the jazz explorations of Jimmy Smith, Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio delivers a concoction both new and familiar.”

Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio—or as it is sometimes referred to, DLO3—specializes in the lost art of “feel good music.” The band features organist Delvon Lamarr, a self-taught virtuosic musician, with perfect pitch who taught himself jazz and has effortlessly been able to play a multitude of instruments. On guitar is the dynamo Jimmy James, who eases through Steve Cropper-style chanking guitar, volcanic acid-rock freak-out lead playing, and slinky Grant Green style jazz. From Reno, Nevada is drummer Dan Weiss whose smoldering pocket-groove drumming locks in the trio’s explosive chemistry.

In 2021, DLO3 released their sophomore studio album I Told You So, which debuted atop multiple Billboard Charts: #1 on the Contemporary Jazz Album chart, #3 on the Jazz Album chart, #4 on the Tastemaker Album chart, and #12 on the Heatseeker Album chart. I Told You So was praised by Under the Radar, All Music, American Songwriter, Popmatters, KEXP, Live For Live Music, Jazziz, Jambase, Glide Magazine, and NPR, who named it one of their favorite albums from the first half of 2021.

Founded by Larmarr’s wife and manager Amy Novo, the trio started from humble beginnings in 2015, but since then has released two Billboard charting albums and toured the world to sold out venues. Now, with permanent drummer Dan Weiss behind to kit, DLO3 is proud to present Cold As Weiss, their third studio album to date that finds them tighter than ever, and continuing to push funky instrumental music to a new generation of fans.

Cold As Weiss Tracklist:
1. Pull Your Pants Up
2. Don't Worry 'Bout What I Do
3. I Wanna Be Where You Are
4. Big TT's Blues
5. Get Da Steppin'
6. Uncertainty
7. Keep On Keepin' On
8. Slip 'N' Slide
9. This Is Who I Is

Tour Dates:
02/04/22: Seattle, WA - The Crocodile
02/06/22: Eugene, OR - Hult Center
02/09/22: Santa Cruz, CA - Moe’s Alley
02/11/22: Album Release Day Live Stream
02/24/22: Seattle, WA - ​​Climate Pledge Arena (playing Seattle Kraken pre-game, National Anthem, and intermission)

Sat, 01/15/2022 - 4:53 pm

Penny and Sparrow share “Voodoo,” the latest single off the band’s forthcoming album Olly Olly, which releases January 21 via Thirty Tigers. With spare vocals over an impressionistic acoustic arrangement, “Voodoo” offers a mesmerizing reimagination of The Beatitudes as an ode to sexual empowerment. The song was recently featured on Apple Music’s Record Bin Radio with Kelly McCartney.

Listen to “Voodoo” via YouTube HERE.

Pre-order Olly Olly HERE.

“Voodoo is a sex parable,” explains the duo of Andy Baxter and Kyle Jahnke. “It follows two lovers in a bedroom under a glow-in-the-dark-star-green ceiling. Somebody puts a D’angelo vinyl on and the listener is invited to remember, ponder, grapple with and/or celebrate the erotic right alongside the characters. Bonus fact: using Beatitudinal language to poetically describe a scene like this scene was immensely satisfying. It feels like reclamation.”

Penny and Sparrow have previously released four songs from their forthcoming album: “Need You,” “Alabama Haint,” “Gogogo” and “Adeline,” which Atwood Magazine called “Intimate and effervescent…a beautiful show of emotional radiance.”

Olly Olly marks the first time the pair has worked without an outside producer and recorded songs that completely forgo the use of acoustic instruments. The 12 songs that comprise the album were written during the last year, when the band found their calendar completely empty. The duo found themselves amidst a tumultuous period where Jahnke moved to Waco, TX and became intensely lonely in a new city he could not explore or build a community in, while Baxter was based in Florence, AL where he had just begun therapy for the first time.

“Andy and I talk about the process of making this record like a sort of musical Rumspringa,” Jahnke says. “It was an opportunity to truly become ourselves, to evolve outside of the roles we’d been put in—or put ourselves in—because of the way we’d grown up.”

“The idea of calling out to everyone in hiding to reveal themselves and be free just resonated with us on a fundamental level,” says Baxter about the central theme surrounding the album and its title Olly Olly. “In a sense, that’s what we’re doing with this album.”

Olly Olly follows Penny and Sparrow’s critically acclaimed 6th studio album Finch which debuted at #2 on the Billboard Heatseekers Chart and #4 on the Billboard Vinyl Album Sales Chart, and has since racked up more than 40 million streams. The album was praised by NPR Music, The Associated Press, No Depression, Paste and many more. NPR’s World Cafe called the album “a collection of new songs that showcase the duo's celestial harmonies, songs with stories that unfold like wild, vivid dreams,” while Atwood Magazine called it a “masterpiece.”

Penny and Sparrow World Tour Dates:

03/18: Birmingham, AL - Saturn *
03/19: Atlanta, GA - Variety Playhouse *
03/21: Bluffton, SC - Roasting Room *
03/22: Charlotte, NC - Neighborhood Theater *
03/24: Asheville, NC - Orange Peel *
03/25: Chattanooga, TN - Walker Theater *
03/26: Raleigh, NC - Cat’s Cradle *
03/27: Annapolis, MD - Ram’s Head *
03/29: Washington, DC - Union Stage
03/30: New York, NY - LPR
04/01: Boston, MA - Brighton Music Hall
04/02: Montreal, QC - Ritz ^
04/03: Toronto, ON - Adelaide Hall ^
04/05: Ann Arbor, MI - The Ark *
04/06: Chicago, IL - Lincoln Hall *
04/08: Minneapolis, MN - Cedar Cultural Center *
04/09: Kansas City, MO - recordBar *
04/10: St. Louis, MO - Old Rock House *
04/12: Louisville, KY - Headliners *
04/13: Cincinnati, OH - Ludlow Garage *
04/21: Florence, AL - Shoals Theater *
04/22: Nashville, TN - Basement East *
04/23: Knoxville, TN - Bijou Theater *
04/28: Houston, TX - Heights Theater *
04/29: Austin, TX - Paramount Theater *
04/30: Dallas, TX - Majestic Theater *
05/10: Phoenix, AZ - Crescent Ballroom *
05/11: San Diego, CA - Belly Up *
05/13: Los Angeles, CA - Regent Theater *
05/14: San Francisco, CA - Chapel Theater *
05/17: Portland, OR - Aladdin Theater *
05/18: Seattle, WA - Neumos *
05/20: Salt Lake City, UT - State Room *
05/21: Fort Collins, CO - The Armory *
05/22: Denver, CO - Gothic Theater
09/07: London, UK - Nell’s
09/08: Manchester, UK - Night & Day
09/09: Dublin, IE - Academy 2
09/10: Glasgow, UK - Attic Bar
09/14: Paris, FR - Les Estoiles
09/15: Amsterdam, NL - Melkweg
09/16: Cologne, DE - Theater der Wohngemeinschaft
09/17: Hamburg, DE - Haekken
09/19: Stockholm, SE - Nalen Klubb
09/21: Oslo, NO - Krøsset
09/22: Berlin, DE - Privetclub
09/23: Prague, CZ - Cafe V Lese
09/24: Vienna, AT - B72
09/25: Munich, DE - Heppel & Ettlich
09/28: Zurich, CH - Papiersaal
09/29: Stuttgart, DE - Club Cann
09/30: Milan, IT - Arci Bellezza
10/01: Frankfurt, DE - St. Peters Kirche

* - with Lera Lynn
^ - with Annika Bennett

Olly Olly Tracklist:
01) Adeline
02) Alabama Haint
03) Need You
04) Baking In The Summer
05) Cheyenne
06) Lacuna
07) Eden/Lia
08) Voodoo
09) Over-Under-Lude (feat. Tobe Nwigwe)
10) Gogogo
11) Innkeepers
12) Get Along

Sat, 01/15/2022 - 5:10 pm

Today, five-time GRAMMY winner Keb’ Mo’ released his new single “Good to Be (Home Again).” The song will appear on his forthcoming album Good To Be, out January 21 via Rounder Records (currently available for pre-order). "'Good To Be (Home Again)' feels like the title track to my life,” explains Kevin Moore, who is best known by his stage name Keb’ Mo’.
 
Listen to “Good to Be (Home Again)”
 
Late last year Keb’ Mo’ announced Good To Be with the official video for “Good Strong Woman” featuring Darius Rucker. The single was praised by American Songwriter, Billboard, Wide Open Country and Guitar World, who said the song “...flexes the guitarist’s impeccable blues-based abilities via some pinpoint slide licks, as well as his supremely soulful vocals.” In 2021 Keb’ Mo’ also released the singles “Sunny and Warm,”  “The Medicine Man” (feat. Old Crow Medicine Show), and a cover of Bill Withers’ “Lean on Me,” all of which will appear on the forthcoming album.

 
Good To Be was co-produced by Keb’ Mo’ alongside country music legend Vince Gill, who produced three of the album’s 13 tracks, and three-time GRAMMY winner Tom Hambridge (B.B. King, Buddy Guy). Darius Rucker, Kristin Chenoweth, and Old Crow Medicine Show all make guest appearances on the album.
 
The album was written between Nashville and his childhood home in Compton, which Keb’ recently purchased and renovated. He often found himself reflecting on the idea of home and contemplating what it means to belong and what it takes to stay true to yourself. ​​“You can’t bring an attitude to Compton,” reflects Keb’. “You can’t pose. You can’t be anything but real when you’re walking down the same streets you used to ride your bike on as a kid. In a lot of ways, coming back there felt like it completed me.”
 
Good To Be Tracklist:
01) Good To Be (Home Again)
02) So Easy
03) Sunny and Warm
04) Good Strong Woman (feat. Darius Rucker)
05) The Medicine Man (feat. Old Crow Medicine Show)
06) Marvelous to Me
07) Lean on Me
08) Like Love
09) Dressed Up in Blue
10) ‘62 Chevy
11) Louder
12) So Good to Me
13) Quiet Moments (feat. Kristin Chenoweth)
 
Tour Dates:
01/20/22: Alexandria, VA - The Birchmere
01/21/22: Alexandria, VA - The Birchmere
01/22/22: Annapolis, MD - Rams Head On Stage (2 Shows)
01/23/22: Easton, MD - Avalon Theatre
01/25/22: Hartford, CT - Infinity Hall
01/26/22: Boston, MA - City Winery
01/27/22: Boston, MA - City Winery
01/28/22: Portsmouth, NH - The Music Hall
01/30/22: New York, NY - City Winery
01/31/22: New York, NY - City Winery
02/02/22: Fairfield, CT - The Warehouse
02/03/22: East Greenwich, RI - Greenwich Odeum
02/04/22: Brownfield, ME - Stone Mountain Arts Center
02/05/22: Waterville, ME - Waterville Opera House
02/07/22: Princeton, NJ - McCarter Theatre
02/21/22: Various, US & Jamaica - Bonamassa Cruise
02/26/22: Orlando, FL - Plaza Live
02/28/22: Clearwater, FL - Ruth Eckerd Hall
03/01/22: Fort Lauderdale, FL - Parker Playhouse
03/03/22: Stuart, FL - The Lyric
03/04/22: Jacksonville, FL - Florida Theatre
03/05/22: Newberry, SC - Newberry Opera House
03/25/22: Honolulu, HI - Blue Note
03/26/22: Honolulu, HI - Blue Note
03/27/22: Honolulu, HI - Blue Note
03/29/22: Seattle, WA - The Moore Theater
03/30/22: Portland, OR - Revolution Hall
03/31/22: Eugene, OR - Shedd/Jaqua Concert Hall
04/10/22: Orange, CA - Musco/Chapman University
04/13/22: Grass Valley, CA - Center For The Arts Grass Valley
04/14/22: Turlock, CA - Turlock Theatre
04/15/22: Monterey, CA - Golden State Theatre
04/16/22: Napa, CA - Uptown Theatre
04/19/22: San Luis Obispo, CA - Fremont Theatre
04/21/22: San Francisco, CA - SF Jazz
04/22/22: San Francisco, CA - SF Jazz
04/23/22: San Francisco, CA - SF Jazz
04/24/22: San Francisco, CA - SF Jazz
04/26/22: Solana Beach, CA - Belly Up
04/27/22: Solana Beach, CA - Belly Up
04/28/22: Scottsdale, AZ - Scottsdale Center For The Performing Arts
04/29/22: Tucson, AZ - Fox Tucson
07/14/22: Colorado Springs, CO - Pikes Peak Center

Sun, 01/23/2022 - 1:03 pm

Brad Barr - the lead singer, guitarist, and songwriter of The Barr Brothers and The Slip - shared the haunting video for his new single "TWO HUNDRED AND SIXTEEN." The track is the latest song to release from The Winter Mission, Barr's brand new instrumental solo guitar album releasing on January 21st through Secret City Records. Directed and filmed by his wife Brigitte Henry, Barr stated, "One of the most rewarding aspects of releasing this record is the opportunity to collaborate again with my wife, multi-media artist Brigitte Henry, who designed the cover art for this new album. Her touch is unmistakable and has played an important role in the Montreal arts and music community for the last two decades. Her process is always about discovering a new analogue approach to explore and reveal the mysteries of the natural world. So when she suggested that, for this video, we take a walk in the forest with a cluster of old audio tape, a piece of string, and a flying camera, I put my boots on."

Watch "TWO HUNDRED AND SIXTEEN" HERE.

 

Pre-order The Winter Mission HERE.

"For me, the song 'TWO HUNDRED AND SIXTEEN' is the centerpiece of the album," continued Barr. "It contains all the themes and tenor that I set out to impart. The video was shot in Sutton, QC in the fall of 2021. Brigitte was really able to convey the gauche, Arcadian ramble that characterizes this song. And I think I did a pretty good in my role as man-beast walking alone in the forest following a thread towards the secret world of mystic numerology. We hope you enjoy watching."
 
"TWO HUNDRED AND SIXTEEN" follows the release of lead single "ANCIENT CALENDARS," which Barr described as a reference to the significance of the number 216 in the ancient Mayan Long Count calendar, more specifically, "how a single cycle, or 'age,' consisted of 2,160 years. It's also believed that the entire calendar of five great cycles is equal to 2,160 orbits of Jupiter.”
 
For more than 20 years, Brad Barr has been counting the number 216. It's a mysterious number that seems to show up everywhere—from clocks and licence plates to Ouija boards and receipts—and now it's also sewn the fabric of his new album, like the 216 stitches on a baseball. Inspired by artists like Caetano Veloso, Mississippi Fred McDowell, D'Gary, and John Frusciante, Barr set out to make music that was naked and unprocessed, but also occasionally loud—alive with a sense of wakeful intimacy. The number 216 was a constant theme. The guitarist first encountered the so-called "magic square" during a teenage acid trip; in the years since then it's become a talisman—one of the few areas where Barr feels mystical, sensing a genuine order in the universe. These songs pay tribute to that order—from 216's lofty mathematical and astrological properties to its function as an area-code (for Cleveland).

Barr spent decades developing his visceral approach to the guitar, first with The Slip and then across three records with The Barr Brothers. The Winter Mission—the follow-up to The Fall Apartment, Barr's 2008 solo debut—had its origins in a commission from Michael Wolk, Artistic Director at New York City's All For One Theater. It "felt like a gift," Barr recalls—to have a sound he could explore all by himself, away from the road, during COVID's strange intermission.

“I discovered a magic record a while back: The Fall Apartment by Brad Barr," stated Wolk. "I knew Brad was one of the fabulous Barr Brothers - but this was something altogether different – this was Brad’s extraordinary solo instrumental voice. When AFO sought distinctive music to introduce and accompany our events, I thought immediately of Brad. Turns out, Brad was bottled up with brilliant but unassembled solo guitar masterpieces, and my request was all that was needed to uncork them! So, here, thankfully, is more of Brad’s beautiful, brave, and extraordinary solo guitar.”

Brad Barr is the lead singer and songwriter of The Barr Brothers, a folk-Americana band that’s been around for over a decade. They have toured with The War on Drugs, Calexico, Shakey Graves, and Patrick Watson. Their TV performances include The Late Show with David Letterman and CBS This Morning Saturday. They’ve received constant support from press and radio including the entire BBC network, key stations such as KCRW, KEXP, WFUV, WXPN, World Café, Sirius XM, NPR as well as Paste Magazine, Time Magazine, Washington Post, Rolling Stone, Q Magazine, Exclaim!, MOJO, Uncut, Brooklyn Vegan and more.

Track List:
01) 3,4,5...6
02) YOUR DAD'S AWAKE
03) THE COLOR OF NINE
04) ANCIENT CALENDARS
05) CLEVELAND, OH
06) BASEBALL
07) TWO HUNDRED AND SIXTEEN
08) MAGIC SQUARE
09) AUTONOMIE
10) UNTOUCHABLE NUMBER
11) SAFE
12) PRAYER BEADS

Sun, 01/23/2022 - 1:13 pm

Poetica has just released an official video for "Sleep When I'm Tired", the latest track from their self-titled album, out now via MPress/ILS/Universal. A musical spoken-word concept album, the new 18-track collection has been described as "magnetic and soothing...cinematic and stylistically expansive" (Parade). Filmed in the Hudson Valley of New York, the video – filmed by Michael Flanagan, art directed by Rachael Sage and directed by award-winning Nick Clark – premiered in Bluegrass Situation and Americana UK. The video will also debut on DittyTV on January 30.

With its instantly hummable melody, Poetica's "Sleep When I'm Tired" harnesses Eastern European & flamenco musical flavors to capture the feelings that arise from physical & mental exhaustion. Singer/producer Rachael Sage and 3x Grammy® winning cellist Dave Eggar channel smoky bar vibes, depicting love’s resilience in the face of duress. Beatbox grooves, acoustic guitar, & blues harmonica provide colorful accompaniment, which features Will Wilde on harmonica, Russ Johnson on trumpet, Jeff Allen on upright bass, Dave Eggar on cello, Jack Petruzzelli on piano, Doug Yowell on drums, and Gerry Leonard on electric guitars. Stream/download the track HERE.
Watch the video for "Sleep When I'm Tired"

Equal parts Nick Cave and Patti Smith, Poetica's clip for "Sleep When I'm Tired" is a cinematic escape from the mundane that takes us on a visually beautiful but slightly disturbing trip into the unknown, encouraging us to slow down and notice the inspiring relics left along our own paths by others, especially in these often surreal and disorienting times. As Sage explained to The Bluegrass Situation, "It was important to me that when we made the video, there'd be a surrealistic, dream-like quality to it, prompting the viewer to ask 'where exactly are we and what's going on?' while also feeling a kind of dissociation between the performance and the environment.This is a reversal of what we're used to, where home protects us from the elements. But as we all learned during these unusual times, whether we're alone or with others, we all need wide open spaces, nature, and plenty of imagination to stave off the blues."

Cinematic and stylistically expansive, Poetica is a creatively ambitious musical spoken word project distilling a poetic spirit through text, voice and music. Diverse contributors to Poetica include renowned klezmer clarinetist David Krakauer, jazz trumpet player Russ Johnson (Elvis Costello), violinist Kelly Halloran (Michael Franti), multi-instrumentalist Jack Petruzzelli (Rufus Wainwright), guitarists James Mastro (Patti Smith) and Gerry Leonard (David Bowie), and drummers Doug Yowell (Suzanne Vega) and Quinn (Janelle Monáe). Stream and order the album HERE. Also just out is Poetica Instrumentals. This richly arranged and meditative companion release to Poetica is available digitally, as well as included in the Poetica Deluxe CD package.

Beginning as a duo collaboration under lockdown between Sage and her longtime cellist Dave Eggar (Esperanza Spalding, Paul Simon), Poetica soon evolved into a full-blown, cinematic spoken word album, with Sage producing and engineering the project in isolation with limited gear she happened to have with her while on tour, while sending files back and forth to musicians from Tennessee to England. From over 200 poems written both during and prior to lockdown, Eggar – whose parents are both poetry professors – volunteered to help Sage select the 18 spoken-word pieces that eventually comprised the album. The project was mixed by Grammy® winner Andy Zulla (The Sweet Remains, Stephen Kellogg) and mastered by multiple Grammy® winning engineer Alan Silverman. For more information, visit poeticaproject.com.

Tour Dates: (* appearing with Howard Jones)
2/10/22 - Beacon, NY - The Dogwood (Winter Residency)
2/11/22 - Ithaca, NY - Hangar Theatre*
2/12/22 - Saratoga, NY - Universal Preservation Hall*
2/14/22 - Boston, MA - City Winery*
2/15/22 - Norwalk, CT - Wall Street Theater*
2/17/22 - Pawling, NY - Daryl's House*
2/18/22 - Huntington, NY - The Paramount*
2/19/22 - New York, NY - Sony Hall*
2/20/22 - Sellersville, PA - Sellersville Theater*
2/21/22 - Alexandria, VA - The Birchmere*
2/22/22 - Richmond, VA - The Tin Pan*
3/1/22 - New York, NY - Joe's Pub
3/4/22 - Beacon, NY - The Dogwood (Winter Residency)
4/9/22 - Binghamton, NY - Atomic Tom's

Sun, 01/23/2022 - 3:41 pm

Austin-based songwriter Tody Castillo announces a new record entitled Old Rodriguez will be released on April 8 via Strolling Bones Records. Castillo produced the album himself and recorded the songs with Grammy Award-winning engineer Steve Christensen (Steve Earle, Robert Ellis, Khruangbin, Paul McCartney). He’s released a video for the first single, “March for Miles,” a narrative, guitar-lead track inspired by his grandfather’s time as a glider volunteer in the South Pacific during WWII.

Watch “March for Miles” Official Video
Preorder and presave Old Rodriguez

“This song is about a young man off to war during WWII” explains Castillo. “He is longing to come home, and hoping that his lady friend will wait for him. It’s a look back at the style of the 40’s, and the way things were made back then. It’s also a dream of being there with my loved ones,” he continues. “Thematically, it chronicles a young man’s journey. Musically, it’s a straight-ahead rocker.”

Fatherhood, cross-country road trips, wartime stories passed from one generation to the next and philosophical skatepark conversations stitch together the fabric of Old Rodriguez. On his first body of work in 13 years, the Kingsville-born and Austin-based singer and songwriter ponders the past, present and future across ten tracks. He began work on Old Rodriguez in 2009, recording with Grammy Award-winning engineer Steve Christensen (Steve Earle, Robert Ellis, Khruangbin, Paul McCartney); the album was finished and mastered twice by 2014, yet Castillo felt it best to let the material sit until it felt ready. Eventually, Old Rodriguez landed in the hands of Strolling Bones who signed Castillo in 2021 with a plan to release not only this latest LP, but also properly re-release Tody Castillo and Windhorse.

“I sat on this record, because I knew it was too good for me just to put out on my own.” says Castillo. “I’m 47, and I just got a record deal… I’ve had a passion and desire to get that since the beginning.”

Old Rodriguez track list:
1. Airstreamer
2. March For Miles
3. What It Means To Be A Man
4. Old Rodriguez
5. Landlocked
6. Highway 59
7. 10 People
8. Waving Through The Window
9. Nightfall Seattle
10. Do You Ever Get The Feeling

Mon, 01/24/2022 - 12:46 pm

Colin Hay is excited to announce that his upcoming album Now And The Evermore will be released on March 18, 2022 via Lazy Eye/Compass Records. Along with the announcement, Hay shared the album’s title track from the album, featuring a guest appearance from Ringo Starr who played drums on the track.

Listen to “Now And The Evermore” HERE

"’Now And The Evermore’ is a reminder to myself, to make the most of what time I have left walking around on top of the planet,” says Hay. “When I listen to it, it transports me back to when I thought I had all the time in the world. It is a song which is unashamedly inspired by the majesty of The Beatles, and the gift they gave us all. Having Ringo Starr play on the track is more than icing on the cake."
 
“I’m deeply grateful for the life I have, and I think my natural tendency has always been towards optimism and humor. Lately, though, I’ve had to be more intentional about it. I’ve had to actively seek out the positive, to let new rays of hope shine on some seemingly dark situations.”
 
That’s precisely what Hay does with his new album. Facing down struggle, loss, and even his own mortality with grit and wit at every turn. Written and recorded in Hay’s adopted hometown of Los Angeles, the collection is a defiantly joyful celebration of life and love, one that insists on finding silver linings and reasons to smile. The music is vibrant and animated, brimming with fanciful melodies and lush orchestration. Hay’s performances draw on vintage pop charm, pub rock muscle, and folk sincerity to forge a sound that’s at once playful and profound, clever and compassionate, whimsical and earnest. At its most basic level, Now And The Evermore offers a deeply personal acknowledgement of the relentless march of time, but zoom out and you’ll see that Hay’s contemplations of identity and eternity are in fact broader reflections on our shared humanity, on letting go of dead weight and reaching for the light no matter how dark things may get.
 
Born in Scotland, Hay moved with his family as a teenager to Australia, where he first came to international fame with seminal ’80s hitmakers Men At Work. While the band would reach the heights of stardom—they took home a GRAMMY Award for Best New Artist and sold more than 30 million records worldwide on the strength of #1 singles like “Who Can It Be Now?” and “Down Under”—by 1985, they’d called it quits and gone their separate ways.
 
Hay released his solo debut the following year and, over the course of the next three-and-a-half decades, went on to record twelve more critically acclaimed studio albums that would help establish him as one of his generation’s most hardworking and reliable craftsmen. Rolling Stone praised his “witty, hooky pop” tunes, while NPR’s World Café lauded his “distinctive voice,” and late night hosts from David Letterman and Craig Ferguson to Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel have all welcomed him for performances.
 
Over the course of his career, Hay has developed a reputation as a gifted raconteur with serious comedy chops, and his frequent appearances at LA’s Largo club helped garner him a legion of fans in the entertainment world. Among them was actor/director Zach Braff, who called Hay’s mix of heartfelt songwriting and hilarious storytelling “one of the most amazing things I had ever seen.” Braff would go on to feature Hay’s music prominently in the GRAMMY-winning soundtrack for Garden State and invite him to appear as himself on the hit series Scrubs, which helped introduce his music to a whole new generation of listeners.
 
On top of his rigorous schedule as a solo artist, Hay has also managed to tour the world several times over with Ringo Starr & His All–Star Band, release an audiobook of Aesop’s Fables, star in the award-winning documentary Waiting For My Real Life, and even provide the voice for Fergus Flamingo in Disney’s The Wild.
 
In support of the album, Hay will embark on an extensive US tour starting in March, and will join up with Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band for a run of dates in June. See list of tour dates below, and for the full itinerary, visit his website: https://www.colinhay.com/tour

Now And The Evermore Tracklist:
1. Now And The Evermore
2. Love Is Everywhere
3. Into The Bright Lights
4. The Sea Of Always
5. Starfish And Unicorns
6. A Man Without A Name
7. Undertow
8. All I See Is You
9. Agatha Bell
10. When Does The End Begin?

Tour Dates:
March 18 - Fort Collins, CO @ The Lincoln Theater
March 19 - Denver, CO @ Paramount Theater
March 21 - Belleville, IL @ Lincoln Theatre
March 22 - Madison, WI @ Barrymore Theatre
March 24 - Minneapolis, MN @ Pantages Theatre
March 25 - Milwaukee, WI @ The Pabst Theater
March 26 - Chicago, IL @ Thalia Hall
March 27 - Royal Oak, MI @ Royal Oak Music Theatre
March 29 - Cincinnati, OH @  The Andrew J Brady Music Center
March 30 - Pittsburgh, PA @ Carnegie Music Hall
April 1 - Patchogue, NY @ Patchogue Theatre for the Performing Arts
April 2 - Washington, DC @ Lincoln Theatre
April 5 - Annapolis, MD @ Maryland Hall For the Creative Arts
April 6 - Glenside, PA @ Keswick Theatre
April 7 - Tarrytown, NY @ Tarrytown Music Hall
April 8 - Concord, NH @ Capitol Center for the Arts
April 9 - Boston, MA @ The Wilbur
April 10 - Boston, MA @ The Wilbur
April 12 - New York City, NY @ City Winery
April 13 - New York City, NY @ City Winery
April 14 - West Long Branch, NJ @ Monmouth University
April 21 - Clearwater, FL @ Capitol Theatre
April 22 - Fort Lauderdale, FL @ Amaturo Theater at Broward Center for the Performing Arts
April 23 - Orlando, FL @ The Plaza Live
April 24 - Ponte Vedra, FL @ Ponte Vedra Concert Hall
April 27 - Charleston, SC @ Charleston Music Hall
April 29 - Atlanta, GA @ Buckhead Theatre
May 1 - Nashville, TN @ City Winery Nashville
May 2 - Nashville, TN @ City Winery Nashville
May 4 - Birmingham, AL @ The Lyric Theatre
May 5 - Baton Rouge, LA @ Manship Theatre
May 6 - Houston, TX @ The Heights Theater
May 7 - Austin, TX @ Texas Union
May 8 - Dallas, TX @ Majestic Theatre
May 10 - Albuquerque, NM @ Albuquerque Journal Theatre
May 12 - Scottsdale, AZ @ Virginia G. Piper Theater

Mon, 01/24/2022 - 2:02 pm

On Friday, five-time GRAMMY winner Keb’ Mo’ released his new full-length Good To Be via Rounder Records. The album release was accompanied by the official video for the single “Good to Be (Home Again),” which made its broadcast premiere on CMT Music, CMT.com, and ViacomCBS Times Square billboards. The clip was filmed in Mo’s hometown of Compton, California, and features the famed Compton Cowboys. Last week Keb’ Mo’ performed “Good To Be (Home Again)” on The Kelly Clarkson Show.
 
Listen to Good To Be
 
Watch The Official Video For “Good to Be (Home Again)”

"'Good To Be (Home Again)' feels like the title track to my life,” explains Kevin Moore, who is best known by his stage name Keb’ Mo’. “I'm so excited to share the experience of a day in my neighborhood with the Compton Cowboys.” Smiling, he says, “What's great about Compton is you never know when someone's going to come riding down the block on a horse."
 
So far, Good To Be has been praised by American Songwriter, Billboard, Wide Open Country Guitar World and many more. No Depression called it “...a collection of originals that defies genre pigeonholing,” while Folk Alley said, “Mo’’s mellifluous vocals sing directly to the deepest part of us, and his music creates an aura that wraps us in the warmth of that delivery.”
 
In 2021 Keb’ Mo’ released the album’s singles “Good Strong Woman” featuring Darius Rucker, “Sunny and Warm,”  “The Medicine Man” featuring Old Crow Medicine Show, and a cover of Bill Withers’ “Lean on Me,” all of which appear on the album.
 
Good To Be was co-produced by Keb’ Mo’ alongside country music legend Vince Gill, who produced three of the album’s 13 tracks, and three-time GRAMMY winner Tom Hambridge (B.B. King, Buddy Guy). Darius Rucker, Kristin Chenoweth, and Old Crow Medicine Show all make guest appearances on the album.
 
The album was written between Nashville and his childhood home in Compton, which Keb’ recently purchased and renovated. He often found himself reflecting on the idea of home and contemplating what it means to belong and what it takes to stay true to yourself. ​​“You can’t bring an attitude to Compton,” reflects Keb’. “You can’t pose. You can’t be anything but real when you’re walking down the same streets you used to ride your bike on as a kid. In a lot of ways, coming back there felt like it completed me.”

Good To Be Tracklist:
01) Good To Be (Home Again)
02) So Easy
03) Sunny and Warm
04) Good Strong Woman (feat. Darius Rucker)
05) The Medicine Man (feat. Old Crow Medicine Show)
06) Marvelous to Me
07) Lean on Me
08) Like Love
09) Dressed Up in Blue
10) ‘62 Chevy
11) Louder
12) So Good to Me
13) Quiet Moments (feat. Kristin Chenoweth)

Tour Dates:
01/25/22: Hartford, CT - Infinity Hall
01/26/22: Boston, MA - City Winery
01/27/22: Boston, MA - City Winery
01/28/22: Portsmouth, NH - The Music Hall
01/30/22: New York, NY - City Winery
01/31/22: New York, NY - City Winery
02/02/22: Fairfield, CT - The Warehouse
02/03/22: East Greenwich, RI - Greenwich Odeum
02/04/22: Brownfield, ME - Stone Mountain Arts Center
02/05/22: Waterville, ME - Waterville Opera House
02/07/22: Princeton, NJ - McCarter Theatre
02/21/22: Various, US & Jamaica - Bonamassa Cruise
02/26/22: Orlando, FL - Plaza Live
02/28/22: Clearwater, FL - Ruth Eckerd Hall
03/01/22: Fort Lauderdale, FL - Parker Playhouse
03/03/22: Stuart, FL - The Lyric
03/04/22: Jacksonville, FL - Florida Theatre
03/05/22: Newberry, SC - Newberry Opera House
03/25/22: Honolulu, HI - Blue Note
03/26/22: Honolulu, HI - Blue Note
03/27/22: Honolulu, HI - Blue Note
03/29/22: Seattle, WA - The Moore Theater
03/30/22: Portland, OR - Revolution Hall
03/31/22: Eugene, OR - Shedd/Jaqua Concert Hall
04/10/22: Orange, CA - Musco/Chapman University
04/13/22: Grass Valley, CA - Center For The Arts Grass Valley
04/14/22: Turlock, CA - Turlock Theatre
04/15/22: Monterey, CA - Golden State Theatre
04/16/22: Napa, CA - Uptown Theatre
04/19/22: San Luis Obispo, CA - Fremont Theatre
04/21/22: San Francisco, CA - SF Jazz
04/22/22: San Francisco, CA - SF Jazz
04/23/22: San Francisco, CA - SF Jazz
04/24/22: San Francisco, CA - SF Jazz
04/26/22: Solana Beach, CA - Belly Up
04/27/22: Solana Beach, CA - Belly Up
04/28/22: Scottsdale, AZ - Scottsdale Center For The Performing Arts
04/29/22: Tucson, AZ - Fox Tucson
07/14/22: Colorado Springs, CO - Pikes Peak Center

Wed, 01/26/2022 - 2:37 pm

Old Crow Medicine Show releases “Bombs Away,” the latest single from the GRAMMY award-winning band’s seventh studio album Paint This Town (out April 22 via ATO Records). Featuring Molly Tuttle on banjo, the band’s devil-may-care twist on a classic divorce song is accompanied by a live performance video. The group discussed the song’s “Origins” with Consequence this morning. “Bombs Away” follows their debut single “Paint This Town,” which is currently the #1 most added song on Commercial AAA Radio, and has been featured at Billboard, Rolling Stone, SPIN and more.

Listen to “Bombs Away” via YouTube HERE.

Watch the “Bombs Away” live performance video HERE.

Pre-order Paint This Town HERE.

"I realized something about my song ‘Bombs Away’ when my new girlfriend played the Kacey Musgraves’ album Star-Crossed on a recent road trip; I realized that ‘Bombs Away’ is a song about divorce,” explains Ketch Secor. “Bobby Braddock wrote what I believe to be the genre’s epitome when he spelled it D-I-V-O-R-C-E, but my song about life's detour through Splitsville is far more breakneck, full of fiery fiddling, lyrics more spat than intoned, focusing upon that final phase of the Big D.”

He continues, “‘Bombs Away’ is a song about acceptance. And not of the keel over and die variety, instead it’s a whole-hearted without-a-net leap, a jump-from-the-airplane kind of acceptance, one in which the singer obliges his fate and decides that ‘If I can’t learn to fly let me fall.’ We all crash. We all burn. And if you can accept that, then you might just get through it, hobble home from the impact site, and start living again. Because the only trail down the mountain spelled D-I-V-O-R-C-E  is the one spelled S-U-R-V-I-V-E, and since that’s the path to take, you might as well start now, pierce the air, take the plunge, commence falling. What are you waiting for? Bombs away.”

Paint This Town showcases Old Crow Medicine Show’s ability to merge profound introspection with a rapturous string band revival sound, shining a light on the darker aspects of the American experience with character-driven songs underpinned by visions for a more harmonious future. The album unlocks a new level of creative freedom for the band, who took a far more insular approach than on previous releases as they recorded in their own Hartland Studio and co-produced it with Matt Ross-Spang (John Prine, Jason Isbell). The process revived the band’s spirit of pure abandon and marks a return to the deliberate unpredictability of their earliest busking days.

Old Crow Medicine Show will be touring this spring, with more dates to come. Find a full list of tour dates below or at www.crowmedicine.com/tour.

Paint This Town Tracklist
1. Paint This Town
2. Bombs Away
3. Gloryland
4. Lord Willing and the Creek Don’t Rise
5. Honey Chile
6. Reasons To Run
7. Painkiller
8. Used To Be A Mountain
9. DeFord Rides Again
10. New Mississippi Flag
11. John Brown’s Dream
12. Hillbilly Boy

Old Crow Medicine Show Tour Dates:
March 25 – Richmond, KY @ EKU Center for the Arts
March 26 – Greenville, SC @ The Peace Center
April 23-24 – Charleston, SC @ High Water Festival
April 30 – Wilkesboro, NC @ MerleFest
June 4 – McKinney, TX @ KHYI's 26th Texas Music Revolution
July 8 – Marshfield, MA @ Levitate Music and Arts Festival
July 15 – Grass Valley, CA @ California WorldFest 2022
July 30 – Floyd, VA @ Floydfest

Fri, 01/28/2022 - 11:05 am

Today Petaluma Records released the official video for “Stompin' Ground” featuring Aaron Neville and Dirty Dozen Brass Band. The new recording is the second single unveiled from the upcoming soundtrack release Take Me To The River: New Orleans. The music video for “Stompin' Ground” features footage taken from the forthcoming feature documentary film Take Me To The River: New Orleans, which celebrates the undeniable musical history, heritage, legacy, culture, and influence of New Orleans and Louisiana. The album and film feature new recordings from PJ Morton, The Neville Brothers, G-Eazy, Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah, Snoop Dogg, Dumpstaphunk, Dirty Dozen Brass Band, William Bell, Ani DiFranco, Donald Harrison, Ledisi, Big Freedia, Galactic, the late Dr. John, and many more (full tracklisting below).

Watch “Stompin' Ground” ft. Aaron Neville and Dirty Dozen Brass Band

Take Me To The River: New Orleans follows director Martin Shore’s 2014 award-winning film Take Me To The River, which documented the musical influence of Memphis. “Memphis told the American music story. New Orleans is a story of how World music was created,” says Shore on his decision to document New Orleans. Watch a teaser trailer for the film HERE.

“Stompin’ Ground” follows the first single “Act Like You Know” featuring Dee-1, Mannie Fresh, Big Freedia, and Galactic, which was released earlier this month. "The most amazing part of the ‘Stompin' Ground’ session and the song is how seamlessly and quickly all the musicians came together, but it's no surprise when you are talking about New Orleans music royalty under the musical direction of Producer Eric Krasno!” Shore told Relix. “Aaron Neville, Charles Neville, Ivan Neville, Ian Neville, George Porter Jr., and The Dirty Dozen Brass Band, were simply amazing. After a short rehearsal it was a one take wonder! Everybody involved was on their A-Game. ‘Stompin' Ground’ really embodies what Take Me to the River: New Orleans film, record, and live show represents. Demonstrating diverse inclusive collaborations highlighting one of the World's most important cultural jewels and music community, New Orleans!"

The deluxe soundtrack release is a true collaboration that celebrates the melting pot that is the musical DNA of NOLA. From traditional jazz to Second line, From Rhythm and Blues to Hip Hop and Rap, from Funk/Soul to Rock and Roll, the producers of this wholly unique and unprecedented project have paired legendary legacy musicians with the rising stars of the 21st Century to create a historic musical collaboration unlike any that has come before. The album features brand new recordings of the final performances from the Neville Brothers and one of the last studio sessions with Dr. John as well as all new collaborative performances from a range of great New Orleans artists. The music of New Orleans is a wholly unique worldwide collaboration, and Take Me To The River: New Orleans gives the viewer an insightful historical perspective of how global influences shaped, and continue to shape, a musical quilt that formed the music of this extraordinary city.

Take Me To The River: New Orleans

On April 1, 2022, the Take Me To The River: New Orleans soundtrack will be released on CD, deluxe vinyl set featuring 2 LPs and a large format 60 page book, and digital album via Petaluma Records.

Tracklisting:

CD ONE:  
1. Cyril Neville with Voices of the Wetlands - “In Love with My NOLA”
2. Dee-1, Mannie Fresh, Big Freedia, Galactic - “Act Like You Know”   
3. The Neville Brothers with Ivan Neville, Ian Neville, and George Porter Jr. - “(Hey Mama) Wild Tchoupitoulas”
4. Irma Thomas with Ledisi, featuring George Porter Jr., Eric Krasno, Ian Neville, and Ivan Neville - “I Wish Someone Would Care”
5. Dr. John and Davell Crawford - “Jock-A-Mo”
6. Soul Rebels featuring 5th Ward Weebie - “504 Enjoy Yourself”
7. Cyril Neville with Dumpstaphunk - “Street Parade”
8. PJ Morton featuring Cheeky Blakk and the New Breed Brass Band - “New Orleans Girl”
9. Aaron Neville with the Dirty Dozen Brass Band - “Stompin' Ground”
10. Walter Wolfman Washington - “Funk is in the House”  
11. Snoop Dogg, G-Eazy, William Bell - “Yes We Can Can”  
12. Davell Crawford - “We Shall Gather at the River”   
13. 79rs - “Wrong Part of Town”  
14. New Orleans Drummers - “Lil Liza Jane” *

 CD TWO:
1. Anders Osborne - “Improvise”  *
2. Voices of the Wetlands with Cyril Neville - "Late in the Evening” *
3. Ledisi with George Porter Jr, Ian Neville, and Ivan Neville - "Knockin” *
4. Davell Crawford - "One More Time”  *
5. Ani DiFranco with Lost Bayou Ramblers and Roots of Music - "Little Plastic Castles”  *
6. Donald Harrison with the Tipitina's Interns - "Donald's Tune” *
7. Dr. John - "Someone to Love”  *
8. Big Chief Monk Boudreaux with Voices of the Wetlands - "Firewater”  
9. Donald Harrison and Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah - "Sand Castle Headhunters”
10. Lost Bayou Ramblers with Ani DiFranco, Walter "Wolfman" Washington, and the Roots of Music - "Blue Moon Special”  
11. Donald Harrison and Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah with the Tipitina's Interns - "When the Saints Go Marching In”  
12. Irma Thomas with Cyril Neville, George Porter Jr., Ian Neville and Ivan Neville - "Carnival Time”

(* Tracks not on LP version, but available via included download card)

Tue, 02/01/2022 - 3:10 pm

On January 21, five-time GRAMMY winner Keb’ Mo’ released his new full-length Good To Be via Rounder Records. The album debuted atop multiple Billboard Charts: #1 on the Blues Album chart, #5 on the Americana/Folk chart, and #11 on the Heatseekers Chart. Over the weekend, Mo’ spoke with Weekend Edition about the new album.

Listen to Good To Be

The album release was accompanied by the official video for the single “Good to Be (Home Again),” which made its broadcast premiere across CMT Music, CMT.com, and ViacomCBS Times Square billboards. The clip was filmed in Mo’s hometown of Compton, California, and features the famed Compton Cowboys. Last month, Keb’ Mo’ performed “Good To Be (Home Again)” on The Kelly Clarkson Show.

Watch The Official Video For “Good to Be (Home Again)”

"'Good To Be (Home Again)' feels like the title track to my life,” explains Kevin Moore, who is best known by his stage name Keb’ Mo’. “I'm so excited to share the experience of a day in my neighborhood with the Compton Cowboys.” Smiling, he says, “What's great about Compton is you never know when someone's going to come riding down the block on a horse."

So far, Good To Be has been praised by American Songwriter, Billboard, Wide Open Country Guitar World and many more. No Depression called it “...a collection of originals that defies genre pigeonholing,” while Folk Alley said, “Mo’’s mellifluous vocals sing directly to the deepest part of us, and his music creates an aura that wraps us in the warmth of that delivery.”

In 2021 Keb’ Mo’ released the album’s singles  “Good Strong Woman” featuring Darius Rucker, “Sunny and Warm,”  “The Medicine Man” featuring Old Crow Medicine Show, and a cover of Bill Withers’ “Lean on Me,” all of which appear on the album.

Good To Be was co-produced by Keb’ Mo’ alongside country music legend Vince Gill, who produced three of the album’s 13 tracks, and three-time GRAMMY winner Tom Hambridge (B.B. King, Buddy Guy). Darius Rucker, Kristin Chenoweth, and Old Crow Medicine Show all make guest appearances on the album.

Credit: Jeremy Cowart

The album was written between Nashville and his childhood home in Compton, which Keb’ recently purchased and renovated. He often found himself reflecting on the idea of home and contemplating what it means to belong and what it takes to stay true to yourself. ​​“You can’t bring an attitude to Compton,” reflects Keb’. “You can’t pose. You can’t be anything but real when you’re walking down the same streets you used to ride your bike on as a kid. In a lot of ways, coming back there felt like it completed me.”

Good To Be Tracklist:
01) Good To Be (Home Again)
02) So Easy
03) Sunny and Warm
04) Good Strong Woman (feat. Darius Rucker)
05) The Medicine Man (feat. Old Crow Medicine Show)
06) Marvelous to Me
07) Lean on Me
08) Like Love
09) Dressed Up in Blue
10) ‘62 Chevy
11) Louder
12) So Good to Me
13) Quiet Moments (feat. Kristin Chenoweth)

Tour Dates:
02/02/22: Fairfield, CT - The Warehouse
02/03/22: East Greenwich, RI - Greenwich Odeum
02/04/22: Brownfield, ME - Stone Mountain Arts Center
02/05/22: Waterville, ME - Waterville Opera House
02/07/22: Princeton, NJ - McCarter Theatre
02/21/22: Various, US & Jamaica - Bonamassa Cruise
02/26/22: Orlando, FL - Plaza Live
02/28/22: Clearwater, FL - Ruth Eckerd Hall
03/01/22: Fort Lauderdale, FL - Parker Playhouse
03/03/22: Stuart, FL - The Lyric
03/04/22: Jacksonville, FL - Florida Theatre
03/05/22: Newberry, SC - Newberry Opera House
03/25/22: Honolulu, HI - Blue Note
03/26/22: Honolulu, HI - Blue Note
03/27/22: Honolulu, HI - Blue Note
03/29/22: Seattle, WA - The Moore Theater
03/30/22: Portland, OR - Revolution Hall
03/31/22: Eugene, OR - Shedd/Jaqua Concert Hall
04/10/22: Orange, CA - Musco/Chapman University
04/13/22: Grass Valley, CA - Center For The Arts Grass Valley
04/14/22: Turlock, CA - Turlock Theatre
04/15/22: Monterey, CA - Golden State Theatre
04/16/22: Napa, CA - Uptown Theatre
04/19/22: San Luis Obispo, CA - Fremont Theatre
04/21/22: San Francisco, CA - SF Jazz
04/22/22: San Francisco, CA - SF Jazz
04/23/22: San Francisco, CA - SF Jazz
04/24/22: San Francisco, CA - SF Jazz
04/26/22: Solana Beach, CA - Belly Up
04/27/22: Solana Beach, CA - Belly Up
04/28/22: Scottsdale, AZ - Scottsdale Center For The Performing Arts
04/29/22: Tucson, AZ - Fox Tucson
07/14/22: Colorado Springs, CO - Pikes Peak Center

Fri, 02/04/2022 - 10:55 am

Today, Minnesota songwriter Mason Jennings has released his new album Real Heart via Loosegroove Records. The record has been acclaimed by outlets like Relix, American Songwriter, No Depression, and Glide who calls it “a record that both reclaims and redefines Mason Jennings’ role as a leading light in the folk community.” Real Heart is available to stream and purchase here.

Jennings previously shared a video for lead single “On The Brink.”

"I’m very excited to be working with Loosegroove Records and to have had Regan Hagar and Stone Gossard produce this album,” writes Jennings. "We made the unabashed folk record that I have been wanting to make for years. Kind of a love letter to the acoustic guitar and to musical intimacy. Kind of a love letter to the acoustic guitar and to musical intimacy.”

Jennings and Gossard are ongoing collaborators in the supergroup Painted Shield, who released their 2021 debut album on Loosegroove, the influential indie label that Gossard founded back in 1994 issued records from acts such as Critters Buggin, Malfunkshun, Weapon of Choice and Devilhead, and was the launching point for Queens of the Stone Age’s debut album in 1998. The group has announced their second album will be released on April 22nd.

Real Heart is the sound of a musician easing back into his own skin and marking art not only on his own terms, but on his own turf, too. Jennings began recording the album at his lake house outside St. Paul, Minnesota, strumming each song while staring at the water outside. "I live in a house that's all glass windows, and I'd stare at the big lake while tracing these songs," he explains. "I used one microphone and kept everything very basic, and that's a big part of the record's vibe. You can hear the room itself. It's less about performance and pretense, and it's more like we're sitting in a room together, having a conversation. The cover art is a woven wall-hanging that my wife Josie made that is hanging on our lake house wall. That sets the tone: warmth, home, and intimacy.”

Real Heart Tracklist:
01) Tomorrow
02) Real Heart
03) Second Life
04) On The Brink
05) The Demon
06) I Feel Loved
07) The Game
08) The Wonder
09) Faded
10) How Many Days

Sun, 02/06/2022 - 9:22 am

Today, acclaimed americana duo The Cactus Blossoms have shared their new video for “Is It Over.” The Cactus Blossoms, comprised of brothers Jack Torrey and Page Burkum, will release their new album One Day on February 11th, currently available to pre-order here.

Watch: “Is It Over” on YouTube

The Cactus Blossoms write, "The song is about an old country crooner who wants to relive his glory years but wonders if his best days are in the past. It seemed fitting to start with a corny country TV style performance before breaking the 4th wall to wander through the photo studio on our way to the curtain call. When we started the band we were doing a lot of Hank Williams era stuff and wearing cowboy hats, so it’s kind of a nod to those times as well. We’ve enjoyed Joshua Shoemaker’s one shot music videos for years, so it was great to finally get a chance to work with him."

The Cactus Blossoms announced the new record along with the release of the single “Hey Baby,” which was acclaimed by Guitar World, The Boot, The Bluegrass Situation, as well as The Minneapolis Star-Tribune and more, and maintaining high placement in the AMA’s Top 200 Singles Chart. “That idea of finding a silver lining comes up a lot on this record,” says Torrey about the single. “It’s an acknowledgment that no matter how messed up things might be, people still want to believe in the world and find ways to feel lucky and joyful.”

Their next single “Everybody” (featuring Jenny Lewis) was featured on Stereogum, Under The Radar, Brooklyn Vegan and others.  

While The Cactus Blossoms have drawn frequent comparisons to other musical siblings like the Everlys and Louvins over the years, One Day often suggests a more soulful, ’70s-inspired palette, hinting at times to Bobby Charles or JJ Cale with its playful Wurlitzer, breezy guitars, and lean, muscular percussion. The band’s classic country and old-school pop roots are still there, of course, but the growth and evolution underlying One Day is obvious, not only in the duo’s writing, but in their core philosophy, as well.

Lockdown hit the brothers hard. Quarantine put a sudden halt to their plans to record a new studio record, and as Minneapolis began to erupt in social and political unrest following the police killing of George Floyd, music began to seem like the least of the duo’s concerns.

“It felt like the whole world was falling apart,” says Burkum. “We had to put things on hold just so we could try to wrap our heads around everything that was happening in Minneapolis and beyond.”

As 2020 stretched on, Torrey and Burkum slowly began to regain their footing, and when it felt safe enough to get together in person, they started kicking ideas back and forth, inviting each other into their respective writing processes earlier than ever before. When it came time to record, the brothers called on longtime collaborator/engineer Alex Hall, who brought his mobile rig up from Chicago so they could cut the album quick and dirty in Burkum’s basement. They kept their circle tight for the sessions, working with their core touring band—which included both their older brother and their cousin—to capture the songs with a feel as close to the live show as possible.

“From the start, we knew we wanted to keep the instrumentation minimal and consistent across the whole album and embrace the dryness that came with recording in Page’s basement,” says Torrey. “We wanted it to sound raw.”

The Cactus Blossoms built a devoted local following in the years leading up to their first national release, 2016’s You’re Dreaming, which was produced by friend and tourmate JD McPherson. Dates with Kacey Musgraves, Jenny Lewis, and Lucius followed, as did rave reviews from NPR, who extolled “the brothers’ extraordinary singing,” and the New York Times, who praised their “tightly woven harmonies.” The band was further catapulted into the spotlight the following year, when David Lynch tapped them to perform in the highly-anticipated return of Twin Peaks, and continued to build on their success with their 2019 follow-up LP, Easy Way, which featured co-writes with Dan Auerbach and led Rolling Stone to laud the duo’s “rock-solid, freak of genetics harmonies.”

Sat, 02/12/2022 - 1:57 pm

Zander Schloss released a new single “Dead Friend Letter” from his forthcoming debut solo record Song About Songs, which will be out on March 4 via Blind Owl Records. Pre-save the album HERE

Marking the beginning of a new chapter for the longtime Circle Jerks bassist, Schloss says of the album, “This is my polar opposite version of punk rock. Punk rock is volume and anger and speed. I wanted to do space and vulnerability and excruciating, almost subconscious emotions, things that I feel so deeply that I would never say them out loud.”

Stream/purchase “Dead Friend Letter” HERE

“‘Dead Friend Letter’ was a bit of a departure for me,” states Schloss. “It’s musically, one of the most upbeat songs on the album. In juxtaposition, it tackles the most serious subject. Suicide, and some of the circumstances and thought patterns that may lead to it. It is written in the third party about a fictional character that, as it turns out, is someone that many people who have approached me about the song have known at some point. If you relate to the song or know someone like this who is struggling with drug addiction, alcoholism, loneliness or hopelessness and is looking for a very severe, permanent solution, please seek help instead.”

“Dead Friend Letter” follows previous singles “I Have Loved The Story Of My Life,” which singer-songwriter Bedouine makes an appearance on, and the title track “Song About Songs”, which was excitedly picked up by BrooklynVegan, Northern Transmissions (Song of the Day), Punktuation!, antiMusic, Ghettoblaster, Blabbermouth, and more.

Schloss has an impressive résumé that includes his featured acting performance alongside Harry Dean Stanton and Emilio Estevez in Alex Cox’s 1984 cult classic feature Repo Man; work on the soundtracks for Cox’s later films Sid & Nancy, Straight to Hell, Walker; and Highway Patrolman. He is well known as touring musical director and guitarist for Joe Strummer of the Clash, with performances on Strummer’s first solo single “Trash City” and album Earthquake Weather. He also has appearances on record with Low & Sweet Orchestra, Magnificent Bastards, Thelonious Monster and in concert with the Weirdos. In 2022, he will be seen on stage during the Circle Jerks’ pandemic-delayed 40th anniversary tour. See full list of dates here: https://www.circlejerks.net/tour

But Song About Songs, which features the Los Angeles-based performer as singer, guitarist, and writer of nine striking original compositions, displays a revelatory new aspect of his work. It will surprise listeners accustomed to hearing Schloss in an aggressive hardcore format, but the St. Louis-born musician notes that his early musical inspirations came from a distinctly different realm.

“Everybody always used to make fun of me because I was a muso,” he says. “I’d studied Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen and Neil Young and all of those guys back when I was a kid. Then I moved out to California and sunk my teeth into Jimi Hendrix and Jimmy Page and became a rocker. Then in my last year of high school I started listening to Charlie Parker and John Coltrane, moved in with my jazz teacher for a year and became a jazz guy.
 
As Veteran Los Angeles music journalist and critic Chris Morris writes in the album’s liner notes, “Played tenderly, with a striking intimacy, the subtle and affecting material on Song About Songs may well come as a surprise to listeners who know Zander Schloss only from three decades of bash-it-out work with the Circle Jerks and other punk units….Here, we get a long overdue look at a hitherto unheard side of his musical personality. It bears the thrill of discovery.”
 
The album was recorded at Los Angeles’ Sargent Recorders, owned by producer and fellow Missouri native Gus Seyffert, who also plays bass on the collection; Seyffert has worked with Roger Waters, Norah Jones, Beck, and the Black Keys, among others.
 
Song About Songs tracklist
1. My Dear Blue
2. Not So Long Ago
3. Sin Of Wasting Time
4. Old Cliches & Diamond Rings
5. Dead Friend Letter
6. I Have Loved The Story Of My Life (featuring Bedouine)
7. The Road
8. Married To Sadness
9. Song About Songs

Sat, 02/12/2022 - 2:45 pm

Today, the Seattle-based soul-jazz groove-machine Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio released their new full length Cold As Weiss via Colemine Records. Cold As Weiss is the band’s first release featuring new drummer Dan Weiss, also of the powerhouse soul and funk collective The Sextones. A natural fit for the Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio's groove-oriented rhythms, Dan’s smoldering drumming locks in the trio’s explosive chemistry. DLO3’s lineup is completed by organist Delvon Lamarr and guitarist Jimmy James.

Listen to Cold As Weiss

So far, Cold As Weiss has been praised by Jambase, Relix, Glide, Jazziz, Northern Transmissions,  Seattle Times, and American Songwriter, who said "It’s another home run for Lamarr’s trio who hasn’t made a misstep yet. Get on board and bring a friend as these guys generate the fiery funk/soul/jazz heat.”

Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio—or as it is sometimes referred to, DLO3—specializes in the lost art of “feel good music.” The band features organist Delvon Lamarr, a self-taught virtuosic musician, with perfect pitch who taught himself jazz and has effortlessly been able to play a multitude of instruments. On guitar is the dynamo Jimmy James, who eases through Steve Cropper-style chanking guitar, volcanic acid-rock freak-out lead playing, and slinky Grant Green style jazz. From Reno, Nevada is drummer Dan Weiss whose smoldering pocket-groove drumming locks in the trio’s explosive chemistry.

In 2021, DLO3 released their sophomore studio album I Told You So, which debuted atop multiple Billboard Charts: #1 on the Contemporary Jazz Album chart, #3 on the Jazz Album chart, #4 on the Tastemaker Album chart, and #12 on the Heatseeker Album chart. I Told You So was praised by Under the Radar, All Music, American Songwriter, Popmatters, KEXP, Jazziz, Jambase, Glide Magazine, and NPR, who named it one of their favorite albums from the first half of 2021.

Founded by Larmarr’s wife and manager Amy Novo, the trio started from humble beginnings in 2015, but since then has released two Billboard charting albums and toured the world to sold out venues. Now, with permanent drummer Dan Weiss behind to kit, DLO3 is proud to present Cold As Weiss, their third studio album to date that finds them tighter than ever, and continuing to push funky instrumental music to a new generation of fans.

Cold As Weiss Tracklist:
1. Pull Your Pants Up
2. Don't Worry 'Bout What I Do
3. I Wanna Be Where You Are
4. Big TT's Blues
5. Get Da Steppin'
6. Uncertainty
7. Keep On Keepin' On
8. Slip 'N' Slide
9. This Is Who I Is

Tour Dates:
02/24/22: Seattle, WA - ​​Climate Pledge Arena (playing Seattle Kraken pre-game, National Anthem, and intermission)
03/10/22 : Oxford, MS - Proud Larry’s
03/11/22: Athens, GA - Live Wire Athens
03/12/22: Waycross, GA - Swamptown Getdown Music Festival
06/15/22: San Francisco, CA - SF Jazz
06/17/22: Santa Barbara, CA - Live Oak Music Festival
06/18/22: Venice, CA - The Venice West
06/19/22: San Juan Capistrano, CA - The Coach House

Thu, 02/17/2022 - 8:06 am

Today, Colin Hay shared “Love Is Everywhere,” the latest single from his upcoming album Now And The Evermore, out on March 18, 2022 via Lazy Eye/Compass Records. The sunny track mixes rootsy guitars and gospel harmonies as it reminds us there’s always joy and gratitude to be found if we’re willing to seek it out.

“Love Is Everywhere” follows the release of the title track, which features a guest appearance from Ringo Starr on drums.

Watch “Love Is Everywhere” Music Video via YouTube HERE

Speaking about “Love Is Everywhere,” Colin Hay explains:

Michael G came round to the house with this idea pretty fully formed. Firstly, let me speak a little of the relationship between myself and my oftentimes writing partner, Michael Georgiades. Nothing gives me more joy than to experience Michael, excitedly coming through the door with his latest idea. An idea that he’s been playing around with over and over, at his place up the road and round the bend. More often than not, I can immediately hear the song, just sitting there in front of me, or suddenly darting round the corner, wanting to be followed, discovered, to be written down. That’s a rare thing.

Back to this tune. He had the guitar parts in a cool C tuning, and he played it on a blond Gibson J200. An old one – quite an old one. He had the line “Love Is Everywhere”. And it is. You may have to look at simple things for a bit longer to feel it, but it’s there. Of course there are heinous acts of oppression and cruelty being committed all the time, all over the world, by all kinds of people. I think what this song is attempting to counter, by at least some measure, is the end result of the continued tragic global catastrophe of separation. The colossal calamity of believing yourself to be separate from everything and everybody else. Refusing to consider the possibility that we all are part of this planet’s structural fabric. Every day I feel love, and I’m happy that I do. I feel it in the indifference of nature, especially in the early morning, when I’m walking the dog. I see it when considering the amazing molecular structure of a California oak. I hear it every time I listen to “Love Me Do”. I try and recognize it with all my senses, as much and as often as I can. You see that way, I feel better, my skin even tingles. It’s good when that happens. Michael G and I wrote the words together, in our beautiful bickering way. But we got it done love.

In the nearly 40 years since he took home the GRAMMY for Best New Artist with seminal Aussie hitmakers Men At Work, Colin Hay has established himself as one of his generation’s most hardworking and reliable craftsmen. Rolling Stone praised his “witty, hooky pop” tunes; NPR’s World Café lauded his “distinctive voice;” actor/director Zach Braff featured his music in the GRAMMY-winning Garden State soundtrack and invited him to appear on Scrubs; and late night hosts from David Letterman and Craig Ferguson to Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel have all welcomed him for performances.
 
And Hay’s work continues to find different avenues of resurfacing into the mainstream, most recently with Australian EDM producer Luude’s remix of Men At Work’s “Down Under.” The remix is currently going viral on TikTok and has racked up over 40M streams on Spotify alone.
 
On top of his rigorous schedule as a solo artist, Hay has also managed to tour the world several times over with Ringo Starr & His All–Star Band, release an audiobook of Aesop’s Fables, star in the award-winning documentary Waiting For My Real Life, and even provide the voice for Fergus Flamingo in Disney’s The Wild.
 
With his touching new solo album, Now And The Evermore, Hay proves that his gifts have only grown stronger with time. Written and recorded in Hay’s adopted hometown of LA, the collection is a defiantly joyful celebration of life and love, one that faces down struggle, loss, and mortality with grit and humor at every turn. The songs are vibrant and animated, brimming with fanciful melodies and lush orchestration, and Hay’s performances are likewise buoyant, drawing on vintage pop charm and pub rock muscle to forge a sound that’s at once playful and profound, clever and compassionate, whimsical and earnest. At its core, the album offers a deeply personal look at the relentless march of time, but zoom out and you’ll find that these contemplations of identity and eternity are in fact broader reflections on our shared humanity, on ditching dead weight and reaching for the light no matter how dark things may get.
 
In support of the album, Hay will embark on an extensive US tour starting in March, and will join up with Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band for a run of dates in June. See list of tour dates below, and for the full itinerary, visit his website: https://www.colinhay.com/tour/

Now And The Evermore Tracklist:
1. Now And The Evermore
2. Love Is Everywhere
3. Into The Bright Lights
4. The Sea Of Always
5. Starfish And Unicorns
6. A Man Without A Name
7. Undertow
8. All I See Is You
9. Agatha Bell
10. When Does The End Begin?

Tour Dates:
March 18 - Fort Collins, CO @ The Lincoln Theater
March 19 - Denver, CO @ Paramount Theater
March 21 - Belleville, IL @ Lincoln Theatre
March 22 - Madison, WI @ Barrymore Theatre
March 24 - Minneapolis, MN @ Pantages Theatre
March 25 - Milwaukee, WI @ The Pabst Theater
March 26 - Chicago, IL @ Thalia Hall
March 27 - Royal Oak, MI @ Royal Oak Music Theatre
March 29 - Cincinnati, OH @  The Andrew J Brady Music Center
March 30 - Pittsburgh, PA @ Carnegie Music Hall
April 1 - Patchogue, NY @ Patchogue Theatre for the Performing Arts
April 2 - Washington, DC @ Lincoln Theatre
April 5 - Annapolis, MD @ Maryland Hall For the Creative Arts
April 6 - Glenside, PA @ Keswick Theatre
April 7 - Tarrytown, NY @ Tarrytown Music Hall
April 8 - Concord, NH @ Capitol Center for the Arts
April 9 - Boston, MA @ The Wilbur
April 10 - Boston, MA @ The Wilbur
April 12 - New York City, NY @ City Winery
April 13 - New York City, NY @ City Winery
April 14 - West Long Branch, NJ @ Monmouth University
April 21 - Clearwater, FL @ Capitol Theatre
April 22 - Fort Lauderdale, FL @ Amaturo Theater at Broward Center for the Performing Arts
April 23 - Orlando, FL @ The Plaza Live
April 24 - Ponte Vedra, FL @ Ponte Vedra Concert Hall
April 27 - Charleston, SC @ Charleston Music Hall
April 29 - Atlanta, GA @ Buckhead Theatre
May 1 - Nashville, TN @ City Winery Nashville
May 2 - Nashville, TN @ City Winery Nashville
May 4 - Birmingham, AL @ The Lyric Theatre
May 5 - Baton Rouge, LA @ Manship Theatre
May 6 - Houston, TX @ The Heights Theater
May 7 - Austin, TX @ Texas Union
May 8 - Dallas, TX @ Majestic Theatre
May 10 - Albuquerque, NM @ Albuquerque Journal Theatre
May 12 - Scottsdale, AZ @ Virginia G. Piper Theater

Fri, 02/18/2022 - 8:31 am

Today Petaluma Records released the official video for “Carnival Time” featuring Irma Thomas, Cyril Neville, George Porter Jr., Ian Neville and Ivan Neville. The new recording is the third single unveiled from the upcoming soundtrack release Take Me To The River: New Orleans. The music video for “Carnival Time” features footage taken from the forthcoming feature documentary film Take Me To The River: New Orleans, which celebrates the undeniable musical history, heritage, legacy, culture, and influence of New Orleans and Louisiana. The album and film feature new recordings from PJ Morton, The Neville Brothers, G-Eazy, Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah, Snoop Dogg, Dumpstaphunk, Dirty Dozen Brass Band, William Bell, Ani DiFranco, Donald Harrison, Ledisi, Big Freedia, Galactic, the late Dr. John, and many more (full tracklisting below).

Watch “Carnival Time” featuring Irma Thomas, Cyril Neville, George Porter Jr., Ian Neville and Ivan Neville

Take Me To The River: New Orleans follows director Martin Shore’s 2014 award-winning film Take Me To The River, which documented the musical influence of Memphis. “Memphis told the American music story. New Orleans is a story of how World music was created,” says Shore on his decision to document New Orleans. Watch a teaser trailer for the film HERE.

“Carnival Time” follows the first two singles “Act Like You Know” featuring Dee-1, Mannie Fresh, Big Freedia, and Galactic, and “Stompin’ Ground” featuring Aaron Neville and Dirty Dozen Brass Band. “Carnival Time was the perfect combination of New Orleans' musical royalty, with a contagious performance by The New Breed Brass Band,” says Martin Shore. “The song is a whole party in itself.”

The deluxe soundtrack release is a true collaboration that celebrates the melting pot that is the musical DNA of NOLA. From traditional jazz to Second line, From Rhythm and Blues to Hip Hop and Rap, from Funk/Soul to Rock and Roll, the producers of this wholly unique and unprecedented project have paired legendary legacy musicians with the rising stars of the 21st Century to create a historic musical collaboration unlike any that has come before. The album features brand new recordings of the final performances from the Neville Brothers and one of the last studio sessions with Dr. John as well as all new collaborative performances from a range of great New Orleans artists. The music of New Orleans is a wholly unique worldwide collaboration, and Take Me To The River: New Orleans gives the viewer an insightful historical perspective of how global influences shaped, and continue to shape, a musical quilt that formed the music of this extraordinary city.

On April 1, 2022, the Take Me To The River: New Orleans soundtrack will be released on CD, deluxe vinyl set featuring 2 LPs and a large format 60 page book, and digital album via Petaluma Records.

Tracklisting:

CD ONE:  
1. Cyril Neville with Voices of the Wetlands - “In Love with My NOLA”
2. Dee-1, Mannie Fresh, Big Freedia, Galactic - “Act Like You Know”   
3. The Neville Brothers with Ivan Neville, Ian Neville, and George Porter Jr. - “(Hey Mama) Wild Tchoupitoulas”
4. Irma Thomas with Ledisi, featuring George Porter Jr., Eric Krasno, Ian Neville, and Ivan Neville - “I Wish Someone Would Care”
5. Dr. John and Davell Crawford - “Jock-A-Mo”
6. Soul Rebels featuring 5th Ward Weebie - “504 Enjoy Yourself”
7. Cyril Neville with Dumpstaphunk - “Street Parade”
8. PJ Morton featuring Cheeky Blakk and the New Breed Brass Band - “New Orleans Girl”
9. Aaron Neville with the Dirty Dozen Brass Band - “Stompin' Ground”
10. Walter Wolfman Washington - “Funk is in the House”  
11. Snoop Dogg, G-Eazy, William Bell - “Yes We Can Can”  
12. Davell Crawford - “We Shall Gather at the River”   
13. 79rs - “Wrong Part of Town”  
14. New Orleans Drummers - “Lil Liza Jane” *

 
CD TWO:
1. Anders Osborne - “Improvise”  *
2. Voices of the Wetlands with Cyril Neville - "Late in the Evening” *
3. Ledisi with George Porter Jr, Ian Neville, and Ivan Neville - "Knockin” *
4. Davell Crawford - "One More Time”  *
5. Ani DiFranco with Lost Bayou Ramblers and Roots of Music - "Little Plastic Castles”  *
6. Donald Harrison with the Tipitina's Interns - "Donald's Tune” *
7. Dr. John - "Someone to Love”  *
8. Big Chief Monk Boudreaux with Voices of the Wetlands - "Firewater”  
9. Donald Harrison and Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah - "Sand Castle Headhunters”
10. Lost Bayou Ramblers with Ani DiFranco, Walter "Wolfman" Washington, and the Roots of Music - "Blue Moon Special”  
11. Donald Harrison and Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah with the Tipitina's Interns - "When the Saints Go Marching In”  
12. Irma Thomas with Cyril Neville, George Porter Jr., Ian Neville and Ivan Neville - "Carnival Time”

(* Tracks not on LP version, but available via included download card)

Wed, 02/23/2022 - 4:52 pm

Nonprofit philanthropic organization Live Music Society (LMS) announced today the Spring 2022 recipients of the small music venue grant program. Their third round of grantees since establishing just under two years ago, LMS supplies philanthropic aid to music venues that have been in operation for three years or more with a sellable capacity of 300 occupants or less. The new round of recipients include such unique and established venues as Flint Local 432 (Flint, MI), DROM (New York, NY), and Volcanic Theatre Pub (Bend, OR) among many others.

“We are encouraged by a new sense of optimism as Covid restrictions ease, but conscious of the recent surge’s impact on venues that continue to face canceled performances and attendance below prior levels. We are committed to creating programs that assist venues as they recover from the pandemic,” said LMS board member Adam Fell.

Since its inception in 2020, LMS has committed to awarding one million dollars per year in grants to venues that promote and preserve the live music experience in intimate settings, where artists of all levels and all genres get their start, connect with their audiences and maintain their careers as performers. Individual grants range from $10,000-$50,000. To date, Live Music Society has provided funding to 126 venues in 34 states across the country totaling over $2.3 million.

Ramona LaBarre, of Godfrey Daniels in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, said, “We are honored to receive this funding as our mission is closely aligned with that of Live Music Society - to support the magic of live music in small venues where we all work passionately to bring artists and appreciative audiences together.”
 

Spring 2022 Live Music Society Grant Recipients:
118 North (Wayne, PA)
Black Cat (San Francisco, CA)
Bronx Music Heritage Center (Bronx, NY)
Chocolate Church Arts Center (Bath, ME)
C’mon Everybody (Brooklyn, NY)
DROM (New York, NY)
Flat Iron (Greensboro, NC)
Flint Local 432 (Flint, MI)
Godfrey Daniels (Bethlehem, PA)
ISSUE Project Room (Brooklyn, NY)
MOTR Pub (Cincinnati, OH)
nublu (New York, NY)
Real Art Tacoma (Tacoma, WA)
Rosa’s Lounge (Chicago, IL)
Soda Bar (San Diego, CA)
Songbyrd Music House (Washington, DC)
The Jazz Gallery (New York, NY)
Volcanic Theatre Pub (Bend, OR)

 
Past LMS grantees have included noted music stages such as Sunset Tavern (Seattle, WA), a 200-seat room known for its rock/punk/indie shows that’s become a piece of Ballard history; Jazz Showcase (Chicago, IL), the 170-seat landmark opened in 1947 by the late Joe Segal; Hotel Cafe (Los Angeles, CA) the intimate performance space featuring acoustic-based songwriters; and Caffe Lena (Saratoga Springs, NY), the 110-seat coffeehouse where Bob Dylan performed in his folk-singing days. See the full list of all LMS grantees HERE.

Grants from LMS have played a key role in providing resources for venues to transition to live-streaming shows as a way to continue navigating this current phase. Director Gabe Pollack from Cleveland’s BOP STOP said, “The funds we received from LMS were vital and allowed us to continue to operate and support Cleveland's music community." Jim Wooster, of Club Passim, also relied on live-streams to “keep music flowing online between artists and audience at a time when it was especially needed.”

Live Music Society also supports Empty Spaces, a documentary series that highlights the stories of small venues across the nation, their significance to their community, local and touring artists, and the effect the pandemic has had on the venue and their staff. The latest episode features Seven Steps Up, a special listening room located in The Village of Spring Lake, MI known for their unparalleled hospitality and warm atmosphere. Watch previous episodes HERE.

Sat, 02/26/2022 - 1:08 pm

Today, the internationally acclaimed Irish performer, Pierce Turner, releases his 15th album entitled Terrible Good via StorySound Records. The record was created with legendary guitarist Gerry Leonard (David Bowie, Suzanne Vega, Rufus Wainwright). Both Irish expats who’ve made home in New York City, the two set out to create an Irish rock album with a New York attitude. The album features performances from Tony Shanahan on bass (Patti Smith), and Yuval Lion on drums (David Byrne).

Stream Terrible Good

“This is really my first real electric guitar album, it's an album with a New York edge,” explains Turner. “Gerry Leonard and I have honed our adult tastes in these rent subsidized, red brick railroad apartments. We’ve carried amps from CBGB’s to Max’s Kansas City and the Mudd Club, cheered on Television and the Ramones while we found footing for our Irish feet in New York’s fashion and filth. We have become New Yorkers without really knowing it,” he continues. “Now all those influences have melded together under one roof, and you are holding the results. It has been terrible good for us to finally work together.”

An Irish-American musician in the truest, and most literal, sense, Pierce Turner lives half the year in his hometown of Wexford, Ireland, and the other half in his longtime adopted hometown of New York City. Both places are reflected in his songs, which frequently move between these two different worlds. Since he began his solo career in the 80’s, he’s worked on a broad range of projects including writing for opera, scoring movies, and composing a contemporary Mass. His genre-bending songwriting has led Turner to collaborate with legendary producer John Simon (The Band, Leonard Cohen, Cass Elliot) on 1991’s Now Is Heaven and composer Philip Glass on projects such as 1986’s It’s Only a Long Way Across and “Yogi with a Broken Heart.”

Turner wrote the songs for Terrible Good over a four-year period, in a process complicated by living and working in two different countries and during a pandemic. Electric guitars are central to Terrible Good, arising from his collaboration with guitarist/producer Gerry Leonard (David Bowie, Rufus Wainwright, Suzanne Vega). Turner has previously shared four singles from the album; the soulful “Where It Should Be,” the optimistic “Set A Few Things Up,” the philosophical “Love Of Angels”  and the raucous eulogy “Tommy and Timmy.” Glide Magazine premiered the latter saying “Pierce Turner’s songs are like a soundtrack to a pub rock documentary – mixing the pent up singing of Joe Strummer atop the supercharged guitar sounds. It’s no surprise that Turner splits his time between Ireland and NYC, as his contagious old school rock statement is as much hustle and bustle as it is explosively passionate.”

In a dual-celebration of his new album and St. Patrick’s Day, Pierce will perform at the famed Joe’s Pub in New York City on March 17 with an all-star band. Tickets are available here.

Terrible Good tracklist:
1. Where It Should Be
2. Set a Few Things Up
3. Love Never Fails
4. Love Of Angels
5. Stephen
6. Rocket Man
7. Don’t Get Too Fallen
8. Australia
9. More
10. Tommy and Timmy

Sat, 02/26/2022 - 3:20 pm

GRAMMY-nominated singer-songwriter Becca Stevens and GRAMMY Award-winning Attacca Quartet announced their collaborative album Becca Stevens | Attacca Quartet, out April 22nd via GroundUP Music. Nearly a decade ago, Stevens was approached to reimagine a selection of her songs with string arrangements for a performance at San Diego’s Mainly Mozart Festival. It would end up being a life-changing opportunity—introducing Stevens to her future husband, the acclaimed violist, composer, and Attacca Quartet member Nathan Schram. The concert would also inspire a career-spanning passion project—one which blossomed alongside her relationship with Nathan and resulted in what will be the couple’s first collaborative full-length, Becca Stevens | Attacca Quartet. The album announcement comes with the first single “45 Bucks” and an accompanying live performance video shot at Skillman Studios in Brooklyn, NY.

Listen to “45 Bucks”
Watch the “45 Bucks” live video

In 2013, pianist, composer, and conductor Steven Prutsman proposed the initial string arrangement appearance to Becca. In collaboration with her father, composer William Stevens, they arranged material from her first two albums: 2008’s Tea Bye Sea and 2011’s Weightless. The following summer, as the festival approached, they enlisted string players from the heralded Decoda ensemble, including Nathan. There was an immediate connection between the two musicians, but it would be another year before they met again in a serendipitous twist of fate.

In 2015, Becca traveled to her hometown of Winston-Salem, NC, where her brother—producer, engineer, and composer Bill Stevens—was set to record string arrangements at his studio, Ovation Sound. This time, the stars were aligned for Becca and Nathan. While those early recordings were never released, they set the stage for Becca Stevens | Attacca Quartet and ignited a romance between the two musicians, who married in 2017.

The couple would then return to Bill’s studio in December 2018, but this time, they were joined by Nathan’s Attacca bandmates: cellist Andrew Yee and violinists Amy Schroeder and Keiko Tokunaga (whose seat is now filled by Domenic Salerni). Hailed for their stylistic versatility, the quartet was the perfect foil for Becca, who had long explored a wide range of genres—from folk and jazz to funk and pop. With more than a decade’s worth of music to choose from, the breadth of Becca’s capabilities was more palpable than ever, and the members of Attacca were ready for the challenge.

The album’s tracklist honors the project’s origins while reflecting Becca’s development as an artist. “I originally wrote ‘45 Bucks’ for my album Regina back in 2016,” Stevens explains. “The song started as an attempt to ‘take the high road’ by putting frustrations to music rather than escalating a no-win situation with a next-door neighbor, and evolved into an ode to several folks who have let me down throughout my life. When the Attacca Quartet and I were choosing songs for this album, my dad William Stevens suggested this song and said he would like to have a go at arranging it since it is outside his usual classical style and would be a fun challenge. The blend of my dad’s unique style, wittiness, and understanding of my musical voice made him the perfect candidate for this arrangement.”

Since the recording of Becca Stevens | Attacca Quartet, much has transpired. Among the highlights are Becca’s first GRAMMY® nod (2020’s WONDERBLOOM) and Attacca’s first GRAMMY® win (2019’s Orange). Nathan also released a solo debut, Oak and the Ghost, while Becca earned praise for her latest record, Becca Stevens & The Secret Trio. The quartet meanwhile continues to push their creative boundaries—particularly with their latest record, Real Life, which finds them further exploring the work of electronic artists.

Tracklist:
1. Be Still (arr. Liam Robinson)
2. Reminder (arr. Bill Stevens)
3. Canyon Dust (arr. Stephen Prutsman)
4. For You The Night Is Still (arr. Becca Stevens)
5. No More (arr. William Stevens)
6. Venus (arr. Michael Ippolito)
7. I Am No Artist (arr. Nathan Schram)
8. 2 + 2 = 5 (arr. Nathan Schram)
9. 45 Bucks (arr. William Stevens)
10. 105 (arr. William Stevens)
11. Klapp Klapp (arr. Nathan Schram)
12. We Knew Love (arr. Bill Stevens)
13. Tillery (arr. Timo Andres)
14. Traveler’s Blessings (arr. Stephen Prutsman)

Sun, 02/27/2022 - 2:50 pm

Petaluma Records released The Neville Brothers’ rendition of “Hey Mama (Wild Tchoupitoulas),” a new single taken from the upcoming soundtrack release Take Me To The River: New Orleans. “Hey Mama (Wild Tchoupitoulas)” is one of The Neville Brothers’ final performances, recorded before the passing of Charles and Art Neville in 2018 and 2019. The song features Art, Charles, Aaron, and Cyril Neville performing together with Ivan Neville, Ian Neville, George Porter Jr., Big Sam, and Terence Higgins.

Listen to The Neville Brothers’ “Hey Mama (Wild Tchoupitoulas)” featuring Ivan Neville, Ian Neville, and George Porter Jr.

Take Me To The River: New Orleans is a forthcoming feature documentary film celebrating the undeniable musical history, heritage, legacy, culture, and influence of New Orleans and Louisiana. The album and film feature new recordings from PJ Morton, G-Eazy, Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah, Snoop Dogg, Dumpstaphunk, Dirty Dozen Brass Band, William Bell, Ani DiFranco, Donald Harrison, Ledisi, Big Freedia, Galactic, the late Dr. John, and many more (full tracklisting below).

Take Me To The River: New Orleans follows director Martin Shore’s 2014 award-winning film Take Me To The River, which documented the musical influence of Memphis. “Memphis told the American music story. New Orleans is a story of how World music was created,” says Shore on his decision to document New Orleans. Watch a teaser trailer for the film HERE.

“Hey Mama (Wild Tchoupitoulas)” follows the first three singles “Carnival Time” featuring Irma Thomas, Cyril Neville, George Porter Jr., Ian Neville and Ivan Neville,  “Act Like You Know” featuring Dee-1, Mannie Fresh, Big Freedia, and Galactic, and “Stompin’ Ground” featuring Aaron Neville and Dirty Dozen Brass Band. “"The Neville Brothers last recording and performance was a once in a lifetime experience, and it really shows in the recording and in the film,” says Martin Shore. “You feel the joy, you feel the love, and how special it was to have Ian and Ivan together with their fathers and uncles. Words can't describe it. Truly epic. The Neville Family is New Orleans music royalty, period.”

The deluxe soundtrack release is a true collaboration that celebrates the melting pot that is the musical DNA of NOLA. From traditional jazz to Second line, From Rhythm and Blues to Hip Hop and Rap, from Funk/Soul to Rock and Roll, the producers of this wholly unique and unprecedented project have paired legendary legacy musicians with the rising stars of the 21st Century to create a historic musical collaboration unlike any that has come before. Along with the final performances from the Neville Brothers, the album features one of the last studio sessions with Dr. John, as well as all new collaborative performances from a range of great New Orleans artists. The music of New Orleans is a wholly unique worldwide collaboration, and Take Me To The River: New Orleans gives the viewer an insightful historical perspective of how global influences shaped, and continue to shape, a musical quilt that formed the music of this extraordinary city.

On April 1, 2022, the Take Me To The River: New Orleans soundtrack will be released on CD, deluxe vinyl set featuring 2 LPs and a large format 60 page book, and digital album via Petaluma Records.

Tracklisting:

CD ONE:  
1. Cyril Neville with Voices of the Wetlands - “In Love with My NOLA”
2. Dee-1, Mannie Fresh, Big Freedia, Galactic - “Act Like You Know”   
3. The Neville Brothers with Ivan Neville, Ian Neville, and George Porter Jr. - “(Hey Mama) Wild Tchoupitoulas”
4. Irma Thomas with Ledisi, featuring George Porter Jr., Eric Krasno, Ian Neville, and Ivan Neville - “I Wish Someone Would Care”
5. Dr. John and Davell Crawford - “Jock-A-Mo”
6. Soul Rebels featuring 5th Ward Weebie - “504 Enjoy Yourself”
7. Cyril Neville with Dumpstaphunk - “Street Parade”
8. PJ Morton featuring Cheeky Blakk and the New Breed Brass Band - “New Orleans Girl”
9. Aaron Neville with the Dirty Dozen Brass Band - “Stompin' Ground”
10. Walter Wolfman Washington - “Funk is in the House”  
11. Snoop Dogg, G-Eazy, William Bell - “Yes We Can Can”  
12. Davell Crawford - “We Shall Gather at the River”   
13. 79rs - “Wrong Part of Town”  
14. New Orleans Drummers - “Lil Liza Jane” *
 
CD TWO:
1. Anders Osborne - “Improvise”  *
2. Voices of the Wetlands with Cyril Neville - "Late in the Evening” *
3. Ledisi with George Porter Jr, Ian Neville, and Ivan Neville - "Knockin” *
4. Davell Crawford - "One More Time”  *
5. Ani DiFranco with Lost Bayou Ramblers and Roots of Music - "Little Plastic Castles”  *
6. Donald Harrison with the Tipitina's Interns - "Donald's Tune” *
7. Dr. John - "Someone to Love”  *
8. Big Chief Monk Boudreaux with Voices of the Wetlands - "Firewater”  
9. Donald Harrison and Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah - "Sand Castle Headhunters”
10. Lost Bayou Ramblers with Ani DiFranco, Walter "Wolfman" Washington, and the Roots of Music - "Blue Moon Special”  
11. Donald Harrison and Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah with the Tipitina's Interns - "When the Saints Go Marching In”  
12. Irma Thomas with Cyril Neville, George Porter Jr., Ian Neville and Ivan Neville - "Carnival Time”

Sun, 03/06/2022 - 2:50 pm

Revered Austin, TX singer-songwriter Darden Smith has shared the official music video for “Miles Between,” the latest single from Smith’s forthcoming album Western Skies, due March 25. The song was co-written with country star Jack Ingram, who recently welcomed Smith on The Jackin’ Around Show which is now available to watch/stream today.

Comprising a new studio record, a book of photography, lyrics, and essays, Western Skies is an immersive journey through a world both real and imagined, inspired by the west Texas landscape. Its visually striking companion book will be available to purchase on March 5. Pre-order the Western Skies album HERE, and the book HERE.

Watch the “Miles Between” Music Video HERE

“Jack and I have known each other for years, written songs together, spent hours talking. He’s the real deal,” says Smith. “The day we wrote this song, I was trying to think about his life and write the song from his perspective, but it wound up being as much about me as him. Sometimes that’s the way it is with songs. And though I didn’t know it at the time, when we wrote this one, it was really the beginning of Western Skies."

As showcased on “Miles Between” and lead single “Running Out of Time,” which quickly racked up over 200K views on YouTube, the songs on Western Skies are spare and deliberate, often marked by a distinct sense of motion and transience. The performances are similarly raw and intimate, reflecting the desolate beauty of the region that so captured Smith’s imagination as he crisscrossed it time and again.

It was those drives—a series of solo odysseys from Austin to southern Arizona and back—that would spark the entire Western Skies project. Born out of necessity, the trips began in early 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic made air travel a risky proposition and Smith needed to get himself across nearly 1,000 miles of flatlands and desert for writing projects with veterans through his SongwritingWith:Soldiers program, which he co-founded.

With a clear vision of Western Skies burning in his brain, Smith assembled an all-star band—guitarist Charlie Sexton (Bob Dylan, Elvis Costello), drummer Ramy Antoun (Seal, Pat Benatar), bassist Glen Fukunaga (Robert Plant, Shawn Colvin), and pedal steel guitarist Ricky Ray Jackson (Steve Earle, Phosphorescent)—to help flesh out his solo recordings, capturing the rest of the music back in Austin in a matter of days with the help of co-producers Michael Ramos and Stewart Lerman. With the basic tracking completed, Smith then dubbed much of his own harmonies along with help from acclaimed songwriter James House (“Ain’t That Lonely Yet,” “This Is Me Missing You”), who contributed additional vocals from Nashville.

“I showed everybody my photos and explained the vibe to them and they just got it immediately,” says Smith. “I kept telling them ‘Open and empty, open and empty.’” That spacious sound, at times reminiscent of Neil Young or JJ Cale, permeates the record, which finds Smith playing more piano than ever before.

Smith’s photographs document the moment through his eyes: stark, black and white, devoid of people, often with the straight line of the horizon looming somewhere in the distance. His essays, meanwhile, tap into something deeper about the American experience and our relationship with the West, locating “narrative gems hidden in plain sight,” as Rodney Crowell puts it in the book’s foreword. Written with rhythm and melody and line breaks that feel more like poetry than prose, the pieces can at times evoke Steinbeck or McCarthy, recognizing our smallness in the face of the geography and geology and mythology of a land that will go on existing long after humanity’s reign has ceased.

Read more about the project at Darden Smith’s website: https://www.dardensmith.com/bio/

Western Skies Tracklist:
1. Miles Between
2. Running Out Of Time
3. Western Skies
4. I Can’t Explain
5. Not Tomorrow Yet
6. Turn The Other Cheek
7. Perfect For A Little While
8. The High Road
9. Los Angeles
10. I Don’t Want To Dream Anymore
11. Hummingbird

Tour Dates:
March 5 - Houston, TX @ Red Bud Gallery
March 16 - Austin, TX @ Lucy’s Fried Chicken
April 1 - Houston, TX @ The Mucky Duck
April 2 - Austin, TX @ Stateside At The Paramount
April 8 - San Antonio, TX @ Sam’s Burger Joint
April 9 - Fort Worth, TX @ The Post
May 3 - Austin, TX @ The Saxon Pub
May 11 - Austin, TX @ Chez Zee (Texas Author Series)
May 13 - La Grange, TX @ Bugle Boy
May 14 - Austin, TX @ Wyldwood Shows
May 15 - New Braunfels, TX @ Red Bird Listening Room (Early Show)
May 27 - Galveston, TX @ The Old Quarter
May 28 - Waring, TX @ The Church at Waring
June 4 - Kerrville, TX @ The Kerrville Folk Festival
June 7 - Austin, TX @ Saxon Pub

Wed, 03/09/2022 - 3:26 pm

GRAMMY award-winning band Old Crow Medicine Show releases “Honey Chile,” the latest single from their new album Paint This Town out April 22 via ATO Records. Showcasing soaring harmonies and swooning fiddle melodies, the melancholy love song is accompanied by a live performance video featured this morning at Garden & Gun, who said “Musically, the song is something of a salvo for the whole of Paint This Town, rising out of the gates with a bold swell before settling into a traditional Americana-tinged groove.” Along with the new single, the band has announced a coast to coast spring/summer tour kicking off in April that will make stops in Philadelphia, New York, Portland, Seattle and many more. Tickets are on sale now and find a full list of tour dates below.

Listen to “Honey Chile” via YouTube HERE.

Watch the “Honey Chile” live performance video HERE.

Pre-order Paint This Town HERE.

Bandleader Ketch Secor explains the new single: “When you mine the musical traditions of the South as we have you’re always going to run head on into the region’s most successful export: Southern Rock, and my favorite performers of this style are the Charlie Daniels Band, who Old Crow was lucky enough to open for back in the early 2000’s. We’ll miss Charlie around these parts, but he lives on in songs like ‘Honey Chile,’ a backwoods slow burn about good lovin' and other hard habits to break.”

Paint This Town showcases Old Crow Medicine Show’s long-standing ability to merge profound introspection with a rapturous string band revival sound. The album shines a light on the darker aspects of the American experience, with character-driven songs underpinned by the band’s vision for a more harmonious future. The debut single “Paint This Town” has maintained the #1 slot on the Americana Singles Radio Chart for three weeks in a row, garnering praise from press including Billboard, Rolling Stone, SPIN and more. The band’s latest single “Bombs Away” (feat. Molly Tuttle on banjo) was recently hailed by Consequence, who said it’s “brimming with the euphoria of new beginnings, a tongue-in-cheek tale of throwing caution to the wind and starting over.”

Old Crow Medicine Show took a far more insular approach to their new album than on previous releases, recording in their own East Nashville-based Hartland Studio and co-producing with Matt Ross-Spang (John Prine, Jason Isbell). The process unlocked a new level of creative freedom, reviving their spirit of pure abandon as the band rediscovers the deliberate unpredictability of their earliest busking days.

Find a full list of tour dates below or at www.crowmedicine.com/tour.

Old Crow Medicine Show 2022 Tour Dates:
March 25 – Richmond, KY @ EKU Center for the Arts
March 26 – Greenville, SC @ The Peace Center
April 23 – Decatur, GA @ Amplify Decatur Music Festival
April 24 – Charleston, SC @ High Water Festival
April 28 – Charlottesville, VA @ Ting Pavilion
April 29 – Outer Banks, NC @ Roanoke Island Festival Park
April 30 – Wilkesboro, NC @ MerleFest
May 4 – Philadelphia, PA @ Brooklyn Bowl Philadelphia
May 6 – New York, NY @ Webster Hall
May 7 – Portland, ME @ State Theatre
May 8 – Rahway, NJ @ Union County Performing Arts Center
May 20 – Raleigh, NC @ North Carolina Museum of Art
May 21 – Beaufort, NC @ Beaufort Music Festival
June 3 – New Braunfels, TX @ Gruene Hall
June 4 – McKinney, TX @ KHYI's 26th Texas Music Revolution
June 11 – Ellijay, GA @ Holla Yella Festival
June 24 – Eau Claire, WI @ Blue Ox Music Festival
July 8 – Marshfield, MA @ Levitate Music and Arts Festival
July 12 – Santa Rosa, CA @ Luther Burbank Center for the Arts
July 13 – Saratoga, CA @ The Mountain Winery
July 15 – Grass Valley, CA @ California WorldFest 2022
July 16 – Jacksonville, OR @ Britt Music & Arts Festival
July 17 – Portland, OR @ Pioneer Courthouse Square
July 18 – Seattle, WA @ Woodland Park Zoo
July 20 – Bonner, MT @ KettleHouse Amphitheater
July 21 – Bozeman, MT @ The ELM
July 22 – Jackson, WY @ Jackson Hole Center for the Arts
July 24 – Beaver Creek, CO @ Vilar Performing Arts Center
July 29 – Washington, DC @ The Anthem
July 30 – Floyd, VA @ Floydfest

Paint This Town Tracklist
1. Paint This Town
2. Bombs Away
3. Gloryland
4. Lord Willing and the Creek Don’t Rise
5. Honey Chile
6. Reasons To Run
7. Painkiller
8. Used To Be A Mountain
9. DeFord Rides Again
10. New Mississippi Flag
11. John Brown’s Dream
12. Hillbilly Boy

Fri, 03/11/2022 - 8:34 am

Today Petaluma Records released the official video for “New Orleans Girl” featuring PJ Morton, Cheeky Blakk, and Rebirth Brass Band. The new recording is the fifth single unveiled from the upcoming soundtrack release Take Me To The River: New Orleans. The music video for “New Orleans Girl” features footage taken from the forthcoming feature documentary film Take Me To The River: New Orleans, which celebrates the undeniable musical history, heritage, legacy, culture, and influence of New Orleans and Louisiana. The album and film feature new recordings from The Neville Brothers, Big Freedia, G-Eazy, Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah, Snoop Dogg, Dumpstaphunk, Dirty Dozen Brass Band, William Bell, Ani DiFranco, Donald Harrison, Ledisi, Galactic, the late Dr. John, and many more (full tracklisting below).

Watch “New Orleans Girl” featuring PJ Morton, Cheeky Blakk & Rebirth Brass Band

Take Me To The River: New Orleans follows director Martin Shore’s 2014 award-winning film Take Me To The River, which documented the musical influence of Memphis. “Memphis told the American music story. New Orleans is a story of how World music was created,” says Shore on his decision to document New Orleans. Watch a teaser trailer for the film HERE.

"PJ Morton is absolutely a maestro!” Shore told Vibe. “His ability to seamlessly fuse genres together is simply amazing. Rebirth Brass Band always brings a party and a smile to their music. And there is nobody more legit in New Orleans bounce than Cheeky Blakk. It's really one of the theme songs for the film and record. New Orleans is the girl! And it needs to continue all around the world."

The deluxe soundtrack release is a true collaboration that celebrates the melting pot that is the musical DNA of NOLA. From traditional jazz to Second line, From Rhythm and Blues to Hip Hop and Rap, from Funk/Soul to Rock and Roll, the producers of this wholly unique and unprecedented project have paired legendary legacy musicians with the rising stars of the 21st Century to create a historic musical collaboration unlike any that has come before. The album features brand new recordings of the final performances from the Neville Brothers and one of the last studio sessions with Dr. John as well as all new collaborative performances from a range of great New Orleans artists. The music of New Orleans is a wholly unique worldwide collaboration, and Take Me To The River: New Orleans gives the viewer an insightful historical perspective of how global influences shaped, and continue to shape, a musical quilt that formed the music of this extraordinary city.

On April 29, 2022, the Take Me To The River: New Orleans soundtrack will be released on CD, deluxe vinyl set featuring 2 LPs and a large format 60 page book, and digital album via Petaluma Records. The documentary Take Me To The River: New Orleans will open exclusively at The Broad Theater in New Orleans on April 22, and will then continue to roll out in select theaters nationwide.

The Take Me To The River: All-Stars band will perform at the House of Blues in New Orleans on May 5, kicking off the second weekend of The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. The ensemble is made up of North Mississippi Allstars brothers Luther and Cody Dickinson, Galactic bassist Robert Mercurio, and Joe Ashlar who is known for his work with Dr. John. The Dirty Dozen Brass Band will serve as the special guest for the evening, and the performance will also feature Ivan Neville, George Porter Jr., Ian Neville, Big Chief Monk Boudreaux, Anjelika "Jelly" Joseph, and Walter “Wolfman” Washington.

Tracklisting:

CD ONE:  
1. Cyril Neville with Voices of the Wetlands - “In Love with My NOLA”
2. Dee-1, Mannie Fresh, Big Freedia, Galactic - “Act Like You Know”   
3. The Neville Brothers with Ivan Neville, Ian Neville, and George Porter Jr. - “(Hey Mama) Wild Tchoupitoulas”
4. Irma Thomas with Ledisi, featuring George Porter Jr., Eric Krasno, Ian Neville, and Ivan Neville - “I Wish Someone Would Care”
5. Dr. John and Davell Crawford - “Jock-A-Mo”
6. Soul Rebels featuring 5th Ward Weebie - “504 Enjoy Yourself”
7. Cyril Neville with Dumpstaphunk - “Street Parade”
8. PJ Morton featuring Cheeky Blakk and Rebirth Brass Band - “New Orleans Girl”
9. Aaron Neville with the Dirty Dozen Brass Band - “Stompin' Ground”
10. Walter Wolfman Washington - “Funk is in the House”  
11. Snoop Dogg, G-Eazy, William Bell - “Yes We Can Can”  
12. Davell Crawford - “We Shall Gather at the River”   
13. 79rs - “Wrong Part of Town”  
14. New Orleans Drummers - “Lil Liza Jane” *

 CD TWO:
1. Anders Osborne - “Improvise”  *
2. Voices of the Wetlands with Cyril Neville - "Late in the Evening” *
3. Ledisi with George Porter Jr, Ian Neville, and Ivan Neville - "Knockin” *
4. Davell Crawford - "One More Time”  *
5. Ani DiFranco with Lost Bayou Ramblers and Roots of Music - "Little Plastic Castles”  *
6. Donald Harrison with the Tipitina's Interns - "Donald's Tune” *
7. Dr. John - "Someone to Love”  *
8. Big Chief Monk Boudreaux with Voices of the Wetlands - "Firewater”  
9. Donald Harrison and Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah - "Sand Castle Headhunters”
10. Lost Bayou Ramblers with Ani DiFranco, Walter "Wolfman" Washington, and the Roots of Music - "Blue Moon Special”  
11. Donald Harrison and Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah with the Tipitina's Interns - "When the Saints Go Marching In”  
12. Irma Thomas with Cyril Neville, George Porter Jr., Ian Neville and Ivan Neville - "Carnival Time”

(* Tracks not on LP version, but available via included download card)

Tue, 03/15/2022 - 3:21 pm

Jackson Browne announces his "Evening With" full band 2022 tour with dates running from June through September. The tour supports his GRAMMY-nominated album Downhill From Everywhere. Tickets go on sale Saturday, March 19 at 10 AM local time.  Presale ticket information is available at jacksonbrowne.com.
 
Browne and his band will also join James Taylor & his All Star Band for a run of dates across Canada this Spring. See full list of tour dates below.

Jackson Browne Tour:
June 3 - Maryland Heights, MO @ Saint Louis Music Park
June 4 - Camdenton, MO @ Lake Ozarks Amphitheater
June 6 - Salina, KS @ Stiefel Theatre for the Performing Arts
June 7 - Kansas City, MO @ Kansas City Music Hall
June 10 - Rochester Hills, MI @ Oakland University - Meadow Brook Amphitheatre
June 11 - Huber Heights, OH @ Rose Music Center at The Heights
June 14 - Waite Park, MN @ The Ledge Waite Park Amphitheater
June 15 - Milwaukee, WI @ Riverside Theater
June 17 - Highland Park, IL @ Ravinia Festival
June 18 - Appleton, WI @ Fox Cities Performing Arts Center
June 21 - Fort Wayne, IN @ Foellinger Theater
June 22 - Indianapolis, IN @ TCU Amphitheater at White River State Park
June 24 - Cincinnati, OH @ Andrew J Brady ICON Music Center
June 25 - Northfield, OH @ MGM Northfield Park - Center Stage
July 13 - Bridgeport, CT @ Hartford HealthCare Amphitheater
July 14 - Boston, MA @ Leader Bank Pavilion
July 16 - Canandaigua, NY @ Constellation Brands-Marvin Sands Performing Arts Cntr
July 17 - Philadelphia, PA @ TD Pavilion at the Mann
July 19 - Richmond, VA @ Altria Theater
July 20 - Vienna, VA @ Filene Center at Wolf Trap
July 22 - Baltimore, MD @ MECU Pavilion
July 23 - Selbyville, DE @ The Freeman Stage at Bayside
July 26 - New York, NY @ The Beacon Theater
July 27 - New York, NY @ The Beacon Theater
July 29 - New York, NY @ The Beacon Theater
July 30 - New York, NY @ The Beacon Theater
August 31 - San Diego, CA @ Humphrey's
September 1 - San Diego, CA @ Humphrey's
September 3 - Costa Mesa, CA @ Pacific Amphitheatre
September 4 - Los Angeles, CA @ Greek Theatre
September 7 - Santa Barbara, CA @ Santa Barbara Bowl
September 9 - Berkeley, CA @ The Greek Theatre
September 10 - Stateline, NV @ Lake Tahoe Outdoor Arena at Harveys (rescheduled)
September 13 - Eugene, OR @ Cuthbert Amphitheatre
September 14 - Troutdale, OR @ McMenamins Edgefield
September 16 - Seattle, WA @ Venue TBD
September 17- Seattle, WA @ Venue TBD
September 20 - Walla Walla, WA @ Wine Country Amphitheater
September 21 - Boise, ID @ Outlaw Field at the Idaho Botanical Garden
September 23 - Sandy, UT @ Sandy City Amphitheater
September 25 - Morrison, CO @ Red Rocks Amphitheatre
 
Jackson Browne with James Taylor Canada Tour:
April 21 - St. John’s, NL @ Mile One Centre
April 24 - Halifax, NS @ Scotiabank Centre
April 25 - Moncton, NB @ Avenir Centre
April 27 - Ottawa, ON @ Canadian Tire Center
April 28 - Montreal, QC @ Centre Bell
April 30 - London, ON @ Budweiser Gardens
May 1 - Toronto, ON @ Scotiabank Arena
May 5 - Winnipeg, MB @ Canada Life Centre
May 7 - Calgary, AB @ Scotiabank Saddledome
May 9 - Edmonton, AB @ Rogers Place
May 11 - Victoria, BC @ Save-On-Foods Memorial Centre
May 12 - Vancouver, BC @ Rogers Arena

Thu, 03/17/2022 - 1:42 pm

Today, acclaimed americana duo The Cactus Blossoms have released a new video for the song “Everybody,” featuring Jenny Lewis. The song is featured on their recently released album One Day, currently available to stream and download here. The video is currently streaming via Rolling Stone who writes, “The song plays out like a conversation, nodding to Elvis Presley’s “Suspicious Minds” in the opening line — “Here we go again/Asking where I’ve been” — and then ultimately recognizing the other person’s agency and best intentions in the three-part harmonies of the chorus.”

The Cactus Blossoms will also be kicking off the next leg of their U.S. tour on March 19th starting in Red Wing, MN. Full tour dates are below.

Watch: “Everybody” - Official Video

Tour Dates:
03/19/22 - Red Wing, MN @ Tower View Barn
03/23/22 - Milwaukee, WI @ Colectivo +
03/24/22 - Ann Arbor, MI @ The Ark +
03/25/22 - Toronto, ON @ Horseshoe Tavern +
03/26/22 - Pittsburgh, PA @ Thunderbird Cafe +
03/29/22 - Troy, NY @ The Hangar +
03/30/22 - New York City, NY @ Bowery Ballroom +
03/31/22 - Philadelphia, PA @ World Cafe Live +
04/02/22 - Asheville, NC @ Grey Eagle +
04/03/22 - Nashville, TN @ 3rd & Lindsley
04/06/22 - Louisville, KY @ Zanzabar +
04/07/22 - Chicago, IL @ Lincoln Hall
04/08/22 - Madison, WI @ High Noon Saloon
04/29/22 - Indio, CA @ Stagecoach
05/14/22 - Minneapolis, MN @ First Avenue
06/04/22 - McGill, NV @ Schellraiser Music Festival
06/08/22 - Kansas City, MO @ Knuckleheads Saloon ▲
06/09/22 - Oklahoma City, OK @ Ponyboy ▲
06/10/22 - Dallas, TX @ Sons Of Hermann Hall ▲
06/11/22 - Austin, TX @ 3TEN ▲
06/12/22 - Houston, TX @ White Oak Music Hall ▲
06/15/22 - St. Louis, MO @ Off Broadway ▲
06/16/22 - Iowa City, IA @ Gabes ▲
06/17/22 - Des Moines, IA @ xBk ▲
06/18/22 - Omaha, NE @ Reverb Lounge ▲

*  w/ The Still Tide
∞ w/ Kacy & Clayton
+ w/ Alexa Rose

Fri, 03/18/2022 - 9:16 am

Colin Hay has released his new album Now And The Evermore via Lazy Eye/Compass Records. In support, he’s touring the US with shows running from now until May.

Leading up to the album, Hay shared a number of singles including the “joyful rootsy rocker” (Forbes) “A Man Without A Name,” the “cheery” (Rock Cellar Magazine) “Love Is Everywhere,” and the “orch-pop” (BrooklynVegan) title track which features a guest appearance from Ringo Starr on drums.

Stream/purchase Now And The Evermore HERE

“I’m deeply grateful for the life I have,” says Hay, “and I think my natural tendency has always been towards optimism and humor. Lately, though, I’ve had to be more intentional about it. I’ve had to actively seek out the positive, to let new rays of hope shine on some seemingly dark situations.”

That’s precisely what Hay does with his extraordinary new album Now And The Evermore, facing down struggle, loss, and even his own mortality with grit and wit at every turn. Written and recorded in Hay’s adopted hometown of Los Angeles, the collection is a defiantly joyful celebration of life and love, one that insists on finding silver linings and reasons to smile. That’s not to say the record deludes itself about the realities of our modern world, but rather that it consistently chooses to respond to pain with beauty and doubt with wonder.

The music is vibrant and animated, brimming with fanciful melodies, lush orchestration, and even a guest appearance from Ringo Starr, who kicks the whole thing off with a signature drum fill. Hay’s performances are likewise buoyant and full of life, drawing on vintage pop charm, pub rock muscle, and folk sincerity to forge a sound that’s at once playful and profound, clever and compassionate, whimsical and earnest.

Hay and the album have been praised by Stereogum, Salon, Forbes, Ultimate Classic Rock, BrooklynVegan, No Depression, ABC Audio News, Rock Cellar Magazine, WFPK, Best Classic Bands, and many more. He was also a recent guest on Office Hours w/ Tim Heidecker where he performed the album’s title track, and covered The Kinks’ “Waterloo Sunset” (from Hay’s 2021 covers album I Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself) with Tim and co-hosts backing him up.

In the nearly 40 years since he took home the GRAMMY for Best New Artist with seminal Aussie hitmakers Men At Work, Colin Hay has established himself as one of his generation’s most hardworking and reliable craftsmen. Rolling Stone praised his “witty, hooky pop” tunes; NPR’s World Café lauded his “distinctive voice;” actor/director Zach Braff featured his music in the GRAMMY-winning Garden State soundtrack and invited him to appear on Scrubs; and late night hosts from David Letterman and Craig Ferguson to Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel have all welcomed him for performances.
 
The most recent example of Hay’s work resurfacing to the mainstream is the remix of Men At Work’s “Down Under” by Australian EDM producer Luude. The remix is currently viral on TikTok and has racked up over 91.4 million streams across platforms.

On top of his rigorous schedule as a solo artist, Hay has also managed to tour the world several times over with Ringo Starr & His All–Star Band, who he’ll join back up with for a run of dates in June. See list of Hay’s own headline tour dates below, and for the full itinerary, visit his website: https://www.colinhay.com/tour/

Now And The Evermore Tracklist:
1. Now And The Evermore
2. Love Is Everywhere
3. Into The Bright Lights
4. The Sea Of Always
5. Starfish And Unicorns
6. A Man Without A Name
7. Undertow
8. All I See Is You
9. Agatha Bell
10. When Does The End Begin?

Tour Dates:
March 18 - Fort Collins, CO @ The Lincoln Theater
March 19 - Denver, CO @ Paramount Theater
March 21 - Belleville, IL @ Lincoln Theatre
March 22 - Madison, WI @ Barrymore Theatre
March 24 - Minneapolis, MN @ Pantages Theatre
March 25 - Milwaukee, WI @ The Pabst Theater
March 26 - Chicago, IL @ Thalia Hall
March 27 - Royal Oak, MI @ Royal Oak Music Theatre
March 29 - Cincinnati, OH @  The Andrew J Brady Music Center
March 30 - Pittsburgh, PA @ Carnegie Music Hall
April 1 - Patchogue, NY @ Patchogue Theatre for the Performing Arts
April 2 - Washington, DC @ Lincoln Theatre
April 5 - Annapolis, MD @ Maryland Hall For the Creative Arts
April 6 - Glenside, PA @ Keswick Theatre
April 7 - Tarrytown, NY @ Tarrytown Music Hall
April 8 - Concord, NH @ Capitol Center for the Arts
April 9 - Boston, MA @ The Wilbur
April 10 - Boston, MA @ The Wilbur
April 12 - New York City, NY @ City Winery
April 13 - New York City, NY @ City Winery
April 14 - West Long Branch, NJ @ Monmouth University
April 21 - Clearwater, FL @ Capitol Theatre
April 22 - Fort Lauderdale, FL @ Amaturo Theater at Broward Center for the Performing Arts
April 23 - Orlando, FL @ The Plaza Live
April 24 - Ponte Vedra, FL @ Ponte Vedra Concert Hall
April 27 - Charleston, SC @ Charleston Music Hall
April 29 - Atlanta, GA @ Buckhead Theatre
May 1 - Nashville, TN @ City Winery Nashville
May 2 - Nashville, TN @ City Winery Nashville
May 4 - Birmingham, AL @ The Lyric Theatre
May 5 - Baton Rouge, LA @ Manship Theatre
May 6 - Houston, TX @ The Heights Theater
May 7 - Austin, TX @ Texas Union
May 8 - Dallas, TX @ Majestic Theatre
May 10 - Albuquerque, NM @ Albuquerque Journal Theatre
May 12 - Scottsdale, AZ @ Virginia G. Piper Theater

Sat, 03/26/2022 - 1:38 pm

Five-time GRAMMY winner Keb’ Mo’ and global youth climate activists have teamed up with the Plastic Pollution Coalition for a new music video to get “Louder” about their demands for urgent climate action. The video was launched today, just ahead of the Fridays for Future global climate strike on March 25, and features dozens of youth activists from around the world, including Xiye Bastida, Jerome Foster II, Lilly Platt, Lauren Ritchie, Hannah Testa, Greta Thunberg, Alexandria Villaseñor, Melati Wijsen, and more. Numerous organizations and partners endorsed the video, including Break Free From Plastic (BFFP), Fridays For Future, Re-Earth Initiative, Sunrise Movement, and more. The song appears on Keb’ Mo’s critically acclaimed new album Good To Be that was released earlier this year on Rounder Records.
 

Watch the video for “Louder” via YouTube.

In January, Keb’ Mo’ spoke with NPR’s Weekend Edition about “Louder” and explained: “You know, at one time, I was part of a new generation. You know, in my 20s and in my teens, part of the - you know, the Vietnam War and things against nuclear weapons and nuclear power plants and polluted oceans, and they were talking about it back then. And we were mad at the previous generation because they let that happen, so to speak. And then we became the old generation, and we didn't do anything, you know? So I'm just kind of calling us out - calling everybody out (laughter) so to speak, kind of apologizing to the new generation.”
 
“I’m so moved by the ‘Louder’ video, because I feel for young people navigating the world today. We must support them in every way possible as they advocate for a better future, and we must invest our resources and power to co-create that better future with them,” explains Dianna Cohen, Co-Founder and CEO of the Plastic Pollution Coalition.
 
In January, Kevin Moore, who is best known by his stage name Keb’ Mo’, released his new album Good To Be which debuted at #1 on the Billboard Blues Album Chart and #11 on the Billboard Heatseekers Chart. Around the album’s release, Moore and his band appeared on The Kelly Clarkson Show to perform the album’s title track “Good To Be (Home Again)” and also sat down for a career-spanning interview on PBS Newshour.
 
No Depression called Good To Be “...a collection of originals that defies genre pigeonholing,” while Folk Alley said, “Mo’s mellifluous vocals sing directly to the deepest part of us, and his music creates an aura that wraps us in the warmth of that delivery.”
 
Keb’ Mo’ is currently on tour now and will make spots in Seattle, Portland, San Francisco and more. Find a full list of tour dates below or visit KebMo.com.
 
Tour Dates:
03/23/22: Maui, HI - Maui Arts & Cultural Center
03/25/22: Honolulu, HI - Blue Note
03/26/22: Honolulu, HI - Blue Note
03/27/22: Honolulu, HI - Blue Note
03/29/22: Seattle, WA - The Moore Theater
03/30/22: Portland, OR - Revolution Hall
03/31/22: Eugene, OR - Shedd/Jaqua Concert Hall
04/10/22: Orange, CA - Musco/Chapman University
04/13/22: Grass Valley, CA - Center For The Arts Grass Valley
04/14/22: Turlock, CA - Turlock Theatre
04/15/22: Monterey, CA - Golden State Theatre
04/16/22: Napa, CA - Uptown Theatre
04/19/22: San Luis Obispo, CA - Fremont Theatre
04/21/22: San Francisco, CA - SF Jazz
04/22/22: San Francisco, CA - SF Jazz
04/23/22: San Francisco, CA - SF Jazz
04/24/22: San Francisco, CA - SF Jazz
04/26/22: Solana Beach, CA - Belly Up
04/27/22: Solana Beach, CA - Belly Up
04/28/22: Scottsdale, AZ - Scottsdale Center For The Performing Arts
04/29/22: Tucson, AZ - Fox Tucson
06/25/22: Aspen, CO - Belly Up
06/26/22: Boulder, CO - Chautauqua Auditorium
06/29/22: Denver, CO - Denver Botanic Gardens
06/30/22: Colorado Springs, CO - Pikes Peak Center
07/09/22: Indianapolis, IN - TCU Amphitheater
08/03/22: Los Angeles, CA - Hollywood Bowl #
 
# - with Sheryl Crow

Tue, 03/29/2022 - 1:55 pm

GRAMMY award-winning band Old Crow Medicine Show has announced a special performance called Old Crow Medicine Show’s Hootenanny At The Caverns Amphitheater, taking place on June 25 in Grundy County, TN. This will be the first full capacity show at the venue, which originally opened in the fall of 2020 as a socially-distanced venue in response to COVID-19 with limited capacity. Tickets are on sale this Friday, April 1, with presale on Wednesday, March 30 HERE. Overnight packages with lodging and transportation as well as on-site camping passes are available.

Old Crow Medicine Show are touring this spring/summer in support of their new album Paint This Town, which releases on April 22 via ATO Records. Showcasing the band’s long-standing ability to merge profound introspection with a rapturous string band revival sound, Paint This Town has already garnered coverage from Billboard, Consequence of Sound, Rolling Stone, SPIN and many more. In their March cover story, The East Nashvillian proclaimed, “The band’s playing is at its finest, while Secor’s celebrated voice crackles with a renewed vigor,” while Garden & Gun said, "Paint This Town is an album that explores the rich history of American country and roots music while not shying away from the South’s darker corners. The album is full of stompers and moments of sheer exultation right beside intimate character studies and songs that tackle more topical themes."

Paint This Town was recorded in the band’s own East Nashville-based Hartland Studio and co-produced with Matt Ross-Spang (John Prine, Jason Isbell). The band has shared three singles from the album, including “Honey Chile,” “Bombs Away” and “Paint This Town,” which has been at the top of the Americana Singles Radio Chart for well over a month.

Pre-order Paint This Town: https://atorecords-ffm.com/album_ptt

Find a full list of tour dates: www.crowmedicine.com/tour

About The Caverns:
Located in Grundy County, Tennessee, The Caverns is a world-renowned destination known for live music in beautiful natural settings, the Emmy-winning PBS television series Bluegrass Underground, and a magical cave system for different skill levels of exploration. Inside The Caverns subterranean venue, guests to “The Greatest Show Under Earth” revel in the prehistoric venue’s natural acoustics and otherworldly beauty. The outdoor amphitheater sits at the foot of the Cumberland Plateau with the rolling Tennessee hills as a backdrop. Whether underground or above ground, live music at The Caverns is a bucket list experience that keeps fans coming back time and again. Daily guided walking tours and adventure cave tours of The Caverns cave system offered 7 days a week.

Fri, 04/01/2022 - 6:36 am

Zero was formed in the early 1980s by guitarist Steve Kimock and drummer Greg Anton after playing with Keith & Donna Godchaux’s Heart Of Gold Band. Various San Francisco Bay and international artists have played with Zero, including Nicky Hopkins (The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who) Pete Sears (Jefferson Starship), John Cipollina (Quicksilver Messenger Service), John Kahn (Jerry Garcia Band), and Vince Welnick (The Tubes, Grateful Dead).

Considering the Zero family tree, it seemed inevitable that Rock and Roll Hall Of Famer and Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter would add his lyrics to their instrumentals. It was a magic ingredient and Zero took off. After nine albums and over 1,300 shows, Zero was more than a conglomerate of talented musicians, they became a San Francisco institution.

Zero - photo credit: Rob Cohn

Now Zero is back again, hitting the road in 2022 and in celebration, is releasing two shows that were recorded at The Great American Music Hall in 1992. One show was released as Chance In A Million in 1994 and now, the other set appears as Naught Again in 2022.

Naught Again is newly mixed by Emmy®-nominated Brian Risner from the original multi- track tapes which were recorded by Dan Healy and Don Pearson (Grateful Dead). The digital/double-CD versions will be available on May 20, while the double-vinyl edition will be released on Friday, October 14, the night before the band’s 30th Anniversary show at The Fillmore in San Francisco. Along with the announcement, Zero have also shared the first single from the release, “End Of The World Blues.”

Stream/purchase “End Of The World Blues” HERE

The full lineup on the record includes: Steve Kimock on guitar; Greg Anton on drums; Martin Fierro on tenor saxophone; Judge Murphy on vocals; Pete Sears on organ, piano, backup vocals; Nicky Hopkins on piano; Vince Welnick on piano, vocals; and John Kahn, Bobby Vega, plus Liam Hanrahan on bass.

An evening from the past ushers in a new era for Zero. Naught Again is a music treasure trove, featuring original Robert Hunter/Zero songs, Kimock & Anton instrumental compositions, as well as covers from The Who, Jimi Hendrix, and so much more. "Zero can put the whammy on the crowd,” as Robert Hunter states. “I've seen a lot of crowds in my life, but they can do something that I've never seen before."

Zero have a number of tour dates scheduled for 2022. More shows are being added, but catch Zero near you if you can. See full list of dates below. For more info, visit Zero’s website: http://www.thebandzero.com/

Watch the trailer here: https://youtu.be/84v5DZIM1bE
Pre-Order the CD or Digital version here: http://www.omnivorerecordings.com/shop/naught-again
Save the single ‘End of the World Blues’ here: hyperurl.co/ZeroEOTHB

Tour Dates:
May 14 - Crystal Bay, NV @ Crystal Bay Club Casino - Crown Room
May 15 - Berkeley, CA @ The UC Theatre
July 28 - Seattle, WA @ Neptune Theatre
July 29- Portland, OR @ Aladdin Theater
July 30 - Eugene, OR @ WOW Hall
October 15 - San Francisco, CA @ The Fillmore

Track List:
DISC 1
1. Prologue by Robert Hunter
2. Cole’s Law
3. Interlude
4. Tangled Hangers
5. End Of The World Blues
6. Golden Road

DISC 2
1. Gregg’s Egg’s
2. Baba O’Riley
3. Little Wing
4. Epilogue by Robert Hunter
5. Tear Tags Off Mattresses
6. Roll Me Over
7. Roll Me After

Fri, 04/01/2022 - 1:32 pm

Today, Painted Shield released their new single “Til God Turns The Lights On.” The group, which features Pearl Jam guitarist Stone Gossard, acclaimed songwriter Mason Jennings, Matt Chamberlain and Seattle soul prodigy Brittany Davis, has announced the release of their second album Painted Shield 2 for April 22nd, via Loosegroove Records. The album is currently available to pre-save here.

Stream “Til God Turns The Lights On” via YouTube HERE.

“This was originally a Brit track,” writes Jennings about the single. “They had the music and the tag on the choruses. I felt like it needed a ‘low to the ground’ vocal approach from me so I tried some old lyrics of mine on it and it felt right. I’d been trying to make these lyrics work on a song for like 20 years but it wasn’t until working with Painted Shield that the music felt right for them. Channeling my inner John Lee Hooker.”

The group also recently released the single “Life In Rewind.” Where most Painted Shield songs are fronted by singer Mason Jennings, “Life In Rewind” spotlights non-binary band member Brittany Davis, an incredibly gifted multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, producer, and engineer based in Seattle. Davis is also blind, and describes themself as “a vessel of sound” who experiences music in spirit and colors.

Commenting on Davis’ role in the group Gossard writes, “They're just a phenomenal musician and a charming and energizing human being. They're an incredible engineer, write the most bad-ass beats and can jam like a complete crazy person. They can fit in on any song and find a spot and be so powerful."

Painted Shield previously released the riff-heavy single “Dead Man’s Dream” which was acclaimed by Loudwire, and Guitar World who raved that Painted Shield “returns sooner than expected, and with an altogether rockier edge – vocalists Mason Jennings and Brittany Davis really let rip, while Gossard indulges his love of The Who and Led Zeppelin with chunky Les Paul tones and windmill-worthy ringing chords.”

The group released their self-titled debut album in 2020 to wide acclaim from outlets including Rolling Stone, Consequence of Sound, Spin, The Seattle Times, and NPR’s All Songs Considered. The album was noted for its wide array of sonic textures, frenetic energy, and eclectic approach to songwriting, all of which is elevated to a new level on Painted Shield 2.

"It's the assassination of genre," says Davis, pointing to a track list that includes full-throttle guitar rock ("Dead Man's Dream"), nocturnal funk-pop ("Til God Turns the Lights On"), and percussive, synth-driven atmospherics ("Alien"). "We kill the idea that there's a formula you're supposed to follow," Davis continues. "We make things our own. It's like saying a word in another language, when the word in English doesn't exist. Even if you can't always translate it, you can still feel it."

The four musicians, several of whom hadn't even played together in person, tracked Painted Shield 2 at their respective home studios across America. Chamberlain, his tour dates as a member of Bob Dylan's band brought to a halt by the Covid-19 pandemic, found himself at home in Los Angeles, creating beats, instrumental beds, and looped soundscapes using drums and modular synthesizers. A thousand miles to the north, Gossard — still fresh from the upper reaches of the Billboard Top 200, where Pearl Jam's eleventh album, Gigaton, had climbed to Number 5 in 2020 — was generating ideas of his own in a Seattle studio. Jennings added melodies and lyrics. Brittany Davis did the same, tossing funky bass parts and synthesized guitar solos into the mix. They both sang, too — sometimes separately, sometimes blending their voices into lockstep harmonies.

The result is an album that takes aim at the head, the heart, and the hips. It's a mix of the electronic and the organic — a moody rock album that genuinely moves, from the funky fire and industrialized guitar strut that gives "Til God Turns the Lights On" its unique swagger to the garage-rock abandon that supercharges "Falling Out of the Sky." That sense of movement can be soft and deliberate, too. "Life in Rewind" is a fever dream of a slow-simmering soul song — equal parts gospel grace, 1960s R&B spirit, and dreamy reverb — and "White" is a leisurely piece of left-field folk, laced with watercolor streaks of digital noise.

"I'm so inspired by working with such inspiring, creative people," says Jennings. "I've been releasing albums for nearly 25 years, but I haven't done anything like this before. It's very much an active project, too. We're halfway through 'Album Three' already."

Painted Shield 2 Tracklist:
01) Drink The Ocean
02) Alien
03) Til God Turns The Lights On
04) Bird’s Nest
05) Fourth of July
06) Dead Man’s Dream
07) Life In Rewind
08) Fallin’ Out Of The Sky
09) White
10) Full Moon In Daylight

Mon, 04/04/2022 - 8:34 am

Ray Charles’ Tangerine Records has announced today that it is celebrating the 50th Anniversary of one of Charles most important and impactful albums; A Message from The People. This special remastered 50th Anniversary edition of the landmark recording, will be available June 17th on Vinyl, CD and all streaming services for the first time in more than 10 years.

Originally released on April 4, 1972, A Message from The People remains one of Charles’ most celebrated albums, as well as the most socially conscious work of his six-decade career. The record directly confronts societal ills of poverty and injustice while offering a universal message of brotherhood and hope for peace; topics that are as relevant today as they were 50 years ago. The album includes classic tracks like “They’ll Be No Peace on Earth Without All Men As One,” “Abraham, Martin and John,” the Gospel infused “Lift Every Voice and Sing” and “Heaven Help Us All.” The album also includes Ray’s recording of “Hey Mister,” which was played during a Congressional joint hearing in 1972 to speak on behalf of common citizens to a government that was widely seen as ignoring their needs. Perhaps most impactful track is Ray’s classic rendition of “America the Beautiful,” which quickly became our second national anthem and has inspired countless generations since its release 50 years ago. A new video of the iconic track has also been shared today in honor of this historic release.

According to PopMatters: “If one human voice could dignify the plight of the impoverished, celebrate the brief respite of the working class and honor the patriotism of a people, in that post-turbulent era of the early ‘70’s - that instrument would belong to the singer-pianist Ray Charles.”

Ray Charles Live In Stockholm 1972

The unprecedented success of A Message from The People made 1972 a seminal year for Ray Charles.  Also recorded that same year was the previously unreleased Ray Charles Live In Stockholm 1972, just discovered in 2021. This recording captures Charles at the height of his powers in one of his best live recordings ever. Recorded on a magical night in Stockholm, this set faithfully captures great moments and arrangements often heard in Ray’s live performances but rarely, if ever, on record. The evening begins with a rip-roaring rendition of Ray’s classic concert opener, “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” followed by an electrifying “What’d I Say”.  Ray then delivers two more rarities, a gut-wrenching bluesy rendition of “I’ve Had My Fun” followed by “Games People Play,” a number that features each of Ray’s legendary 1972 Raelettes. The set continues with Ray’s unique live arrangements of “Don’t Change On Me” and “I Can’t Stop Loving You” before closing with the hard-swinging band feature “Marie” followed by an extended 8-minute version of “I’ve Got A Woman” that sees Ray riffing on his 1954 hit, building to a finale that brings the house down. These live recordings were only recently available exclusively on True Genius, a 6-CD limited edition box set released by Tangerine Records in 2021. More info on True Genius is available here.

Ray Charles Live In Stockholm 1972 will be released on May 6th on vinyl and on all streaming services for the very first time.

About Ray Charles: One of the greatest artists of all time, Charles successfully mastered and forever changed the blues, jazz, gospel, rock, pop, and country music landscapes. Charles’ staggering achievements over a 58-year career include 17 GRAMMY Awards, induction into both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Country Music Hall of Fame, a Lifetime Achievement and the President’s Merit Award, the Presidential Medal for the Arts, France’s Legion of Honor, the Kennedy Center Honors, the NAACP Image Awards’ “Hall of Fame Award,” and numerous other music Halls of Fame, including those for Jazz and Rhythm & Blues, all testament to his enormous influence.

Sat, 04/09/2022 - 10:57 am

Today Petaluma Records released the official video for “Knockin’” featuring Ledisi, George Porter Jr, Ian Neville, and Ivan Neville. The new recording is the sixth single unveiled from the upcoming soundtrack release Take Me To The River: New Orleans. The music video for “Knockin’” features footage taken from the forthcoming feature documentary film Take Me To The River: New Orleans, which celebrates the undeniable musical history, heritage, legacy, culture, and influence of New Orleans and Louisiana. The album and film feature new recordings from The Neville Brothers, PJ Morton, Big Freedia, G-Eazy, Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah, Snoop Dogg, Dumpstaphunk, Dirty Dozen Brass Band, William Bell, Ani DiFranco, Donald Harrison, Galactic, the late Dr. John, and many more. A Take Me To The River: All Stars tour is also set for this May, and select musicians featured in the project will perform at music venues across the country.

Watch “Knockin’” Featuring Ledisi, George Porter Jr, Ian Neville, and Ivan Neville

Take Me To The River: New Orleans follows director Martin Shore’s 2014 award-winning film Take Me To The River, which documented the musical influence of Memphis. “Memphis told the American music story. New Orleans is a story of how World music was created,” says Shore on his decision to document New Orleans. Watch a teaser trailer for the film HERE.

The deluxe soundtrack release is a true collaboration that celebrates the melting pot that is the musical DNA of NOLA. From traditional jazz to Second line, From Rhythm and Blues to Hip Hop and Rap, from Funk/Soul to Rock and Roll, the producers of this wholly unique and unprecedented project have paired legendary legacy musicians with the rising stars of the 21st Century to create a historic musical collaboration unlike any that has come before. The album features brand new recordings of the final performances from the Neville Brothers and one of the last studio sessions with Dr. John as well as all new collaborative performances from a range of great New Orleans artists. The music of New Orleans is a wholly unique worldwide collaboration, and Take Me To The River: New Orleans gives the viewer an insightful historical perspective of how global influences shaped, and continue to shape, a musical quilt that formed the music of this extraordinary city.

On April 29, 2022, the Take Me To The River: New Orleans soundtrack will be released digitally, with a CD and deluxe vinyl set to follow later in May. The documentary Take Me To The River: New Orleans will open exclusively at The Broad Theater in New Orleans on April 22, and will then continue to roll out in select theaters nationwide.

The Take Me To The River: All Stars band will perform at the House of Blues in New Orleans on May 5, kicking off the second weekend of The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. The ensemble is made up of North Mississippi Allstars brothers Luther and Cody Dickinson, Galactic bassist Robert Mercurio, and Joe Ashlar who is known for his work with Dr. John. The Dirty Dozen Brass Band will serve as the special guest for the evening, and the performance will also feature Ivan Neville, George Porter Jr., Ian Neville, Big Chief Monk Boudreaux, Anjelika "Jelly" Joseph, and Walter “Wolfman” Washington. A Take Me To The River: All Stars tour will follow, with Ivan Neville, Ian Neville, Jon Cleary, Robert Mercurio, Terence Higgins, and more set to perform at venues across the country this May (full list of tour dates below).

Take Me To The River: All Stars Tour:
5/5/22 - New Orleans, LA - House of Blues New Orleans
5/10/22 - Chicago, IL - City Winery
5/11/22 - Philadelphia PA - Ardmore Music Hall
5/12/22 - Brooklyn NY - Brooklyn Bowl
5/13/22 - St. Louis MO - The Grandel
5/18/22 - Nashville TN - Brooklyn Bowl

Album Tracklisting:

CD ONE:  
1. Cyril Neville with Voices of the Wetlands - “In Love with My NOLA”
2. Dee-1, Mannie Fresh, Big Freedia, Galactic - “Act Like You Know”   
3. The Neville Brothers with Ivan Neville, Ian Neville, and George Porter Jr. - “(Hey Mama) Wild Tchoupitoulas”
4. Irma Thomas with Ledisi, featuring George Porter Jr., Eric Krasno, Ian Neville, and Ivan Neville - “I Wish Someone Would Care”
5. Dr. John and Davell Crawford - “Jock-A-Mo”
6. Soul Rebels featuring 5th Ward Weebie - “504 Enjoy Yourself”
7. Cyril Neville with Dumpstaphunk - “Street Parade”
8. PJ Morton featuring Cheeky Blakk and Rebirth Brass Band - “New Orleans Girl”
9. Aaron Neville with the Dirty Dozen Brass Band - “Stompin' Ground”
10. Walter Wolfman Washington - “Funk is in the House”  
11. Snoop Dogg, G-Eazy, William Bell - “Yes We Can Can”  
12. Davell Crawford - “We Shall Gather at the River”   
13. 79rs - “Wrong Part of Town”  
14. New Orleans Drummers - “Lil Liza Jane” *

CD TWO:
1. Anders Osborne - “Improvise”  *
2. Voices of the Wetlands with Cyril Neville - "Late in the Evening” *
3. Ledisi with George Porter Jr, Ian Neville, and Ivan Neville - "Knockin” *
4. Davell Crawford - "One More Time”  *
5. Ani DiFranco with Lost Bayou Ramblers and Roots of Music - "Little Plastic Castles”  *
6. Donald Harrison with the Tipitina's Interns - "Donald's Tune” *
7. Dr. John - "Someone to Love”  *
8. Big Chief Monk Boudreaux with Voices of the Wetlands - "Firewater”  
9. Donald Harrison and Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah - "Sand Castle Headhunters”
10. Lost Bayou Ramblers with Ani DiFranco, Walter "Wolfman" Washington, and the Roots of Music - "Blue Moon Special”  
11. Donald Harrison and Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah with the Tipitina's Interns - "When the Saints Go Marching In”  
12. Irma Thomas with Cyril Neville, George Porter Jr., Ian Neville and Ivan Neville - "Carnival Time”

(* Tracks not on LP version, but available via included download card)

Thu, 04/14/2022 - 1:24 pm

Bay Area-based Monophonics released “Love You Better,” the second single from their upcoming full-length Sage Motel (out May 13th via Colemine Records). The world's premier psychedelic soul band, Monophonics cordially invites you to attend the grand re-opening of the once thriving, once vibrant establishment, the legendary Sage Motel. A place where folks experience the highs and lows of human existence. A place where big dreams and broken hearts live, where people arrive without ever knowing how they got there. It's where individuals find themselves at a crossroads in life.

Listen to “Love You Better”

“The song ‘Love You Better’ is rooted in the spirit of soul music and hip hop,” Monophonics explain. “It’s a braggadocio tune with a clear message to the one you loved that no one will ever be as good to them. It is that feeling of knowing you gave your all to your partner and really tried to love them the right way, only to be hurt and taken for granted. It’s empowering and important to have that self worth and remind somebody that they really missed out on a really good thing.” The Sage Motel album announcement came last month with a video for the first single “Warpaint.”

What started as a quaint motor lodge and a common pitstop for travelers and truckers in the 1940s, Sage Motel morphed into a bohemian’s hang by the 1960s and 1970s. Artists, musicians, and vagabonds of all types would stop there as seedy ownership pumped obnoxious amounts of money into high end renovations, eventually attracting some of the most prominent acts of the era. But when the money ran out, The Sage Motel devolved into a place where you rent by the hour.

Sage Motel, Monophonics' fifth studio album since 2012, tells its story. Once again produced by brilliant bandleader Kelly Finnigan, the album captures a timeless sound that blends heavy soul with psych-rock. With their previous album, It’s Only Us, selling over 10,000 physical units and garnering over 20 million streams, Monophonics have built a reputation over the past decade as one of the most impactful bands in the country. It’s Only Us was praised by Billboard, FLOOD, Cool Hunting, and American Songwriter, who said “Take some Norman Whitfield-era Temptations, add Sly and the Family Stone circa There’s a Riot Goin’ On’s greasy funk, inject early 70s Curtis Mayfield Superfly, Marvin Gaye vocal dynamics and Isaac Hayes’ Hot Buttered Soul dust, sprinkle in a pinch of Isley Brothers’ silky ballads and you’ve got a reasonable aural idea of the ballpark Monophonics are playing in.”

If these walls of the Sage Motel could talk, this is what they'd say. So join us as we examine where the stories are told and experiences unfold.....and sink into a soft pillow of soulful psychedelia.....down at the Sage Motel.

Sage Motel Tracklist:
1. Check In
2. Sage Motel (Street day focus track)
3. Let That Sink In
4. The Shape Of My Teardrops
5. Broken Boundaries
6. Love You Better (Releasing 4/12/22)
7. Never Stop Saying These Words
8. Warpaint (Releasing 3/15/22)
9. Crash & Burn
10. Check Out

Tour Dates:
Apr 21 - Mystic Theatre - Petaluma, CA
Apr 22 - Felton Music Hall - Felton, CA
Apr 23 - Ventura Music Hall - Ventura, CA
May 14 - Brooklyn Made - New York, NY
May 26 - Chop Shop - Chicago, IL
Jun 1 - Teragram Ballroom - Los Angeles, CA
Jun 4 - The Chapel - San Francisco, CA

Mon, 04/18/2022 - 2:26 pm

Singer songwriter Jackson Browne will perform a special benefit concert with his band for the new Kingdom County Productions (KCP) film, “Lost Nation,” on Monday, July 11 at the Flynn Center for the Arts in Burlington, VT.  Showtime is 7:30pm. Tickets are on sale this Friday, April 22 at 10 AM local time at the Flynn Center box office (https://www.flynnvt.org/Events). For more information visit www.jacksonbrowne.com.
 
Billed as “An Evening with Jackson Browne” the concert will benefit Vermont filmmaker Jay Craven’s new film, “Lost Nation,” a multi-racial narrative set in New England during the American Revolution. Its potent and timely story charts the parallel and intersecting journeys of enigmatic, larger-than-life Vermont founding father, Ethan Allen and early Vermont woman-of-words, Lucy Terry Prince, whose poem, “Bars Fight” is the first known work of African-American literature.  
 
“’Lost Nation’ will capture an indelible moment that conveys the complexity and power of the early American dream,” said Craven “and the challenge to fulfill the promise of the American Revolution.”  The film was produced through KCP’s unique-in-the-nation Semester Cinema program, where 30 professionals mentor and collaborate with 45 students from 14 colleges, to make an ambitious feature film for national release.
 
KCP’s benefit concert is being produced in association with Higher Ground and singer/songwriter/actress and Northeast Kingdom homesteader Ariel Zevon who has collaborated on several KCP films including “Lost Nation,” “Jack London’s Martin Eden,” “Wetware” and the 2020 documentary theater project, “The Same Moon.”

Jackson Browne Tour:
June 3 - Maryland Heights, MO @ Saint Louis Music Park
June 4 - Camdenton, MO @ Lake Ozarks Amphitheater
June 6 - Salina, KS @ Stiefel Theatre for the Performing Arts
June 7 - Kansas City, MO @ Kansas City Music Hall
June 10 - Rochester Hills, MI @ Oakland University - Meadow Brook Amphitheatre
June 11 - Huber Heights, OH @ Rose Music Center at The Heights
June 14 - Waite Park, MN @ The Ledge Waite Park Amphitheater
June 15 - Milwaukee, WI @ Riverside Theater
June 17 - Highland Park, IL @ Ravinia Festival
June 18 - Appleton, WI @ Fox Cities Performing Arts Center
June 21 - Fort Wayne, IN @ Foellinger Theater
June 22 - Indianapolis, IN @ TCU Amphitheater at White River State Park
June 24 - Cincinnati, OH @ Andrew J Brady ICON Music Center
June 25 - Northfield, OH @ MGM Northfield Park - Center Stage
July 11 - Burlington, VT @ Flynn Center for the Arts
July 13 - Bridgeport, CT @ Hartford HealthCare Amphitheater
July 14 - Boston, MA @ Leader Bank Pavilion
July 16 - Canandaigua, NY @ Constellation Brands – Marvin Sands Performing Arts Center
July 17 - Philadelphia, PA @ TD Pavilion at the Mann
July 19 - Richmond, VA @ Altria Theater
July 20 - Vienna, VA @ Filene Center at Wolf Trap
July 22 - Baltimore, MD @ MECU Pavilion
July 23 - Selbyville, DE @ The Freeman Stage at Bayside
July 26 - New York, NY @ The Beacon Theater
July 27 - New York, NY @ The Beacon Theater
July 29 - New York, NY @ The Beacon Theater
July 30 - New York, NY @ The Beacon Theater
August 31 - San Diego, CA @ Humphrey's
September 1 - San Diego, CA @ Humphrey's
September 3 - Costa Mesa, CA @ Pacific Amphitheatre
September 4 - Los Angeles, CA @ Greek Theatre
September 7 - Santa Barbara, CA @ Santa Barbara Bowl
September 9 - Berkeley, CA @ The Greek Theatre
September 10 - Stateline, NV @ Lake Tahoe Outdoor Arena at Harveys (rescheduled)
September 13 - Eugene, OR @ Cuthbert Amphitheatre
September 14 - Troutdale, OR @ McMenamins Edgefield
September 16 - Seattle, WA @ Venue TBD
September 17- Seattle, WA @ Venue TBD
September 20 - Walla Walla, WA @ Wine Country Amphitheater
September 21 - Boise, ID @ Outlaw Field at the Idaho Botanical Garden
September 23 - Sandy, UT @ Sandy City Amphitheater
September 25 - Morrison, CO @ Red Rocks Amphitheatre

Jackson Browne with James Taylor Canada Tour:
April 21 - St. John’s, NL @ Mile One Centre
April 24 - Halifax, NS @ Scotiabank Centre
April 25 - Moncton, NB @ Avenir Centre
April 27 - Ottawa, ON @ Canadian Tire Center
April 28 - Montreal, QC @ Centre Bell
April 30 - London, ON @ Budweiser Gardens
May 1 - Toronto, ON @ Scotiabank Arena
May 5 - Winnipeg, MB @ Canada Life Centre
May 7 - Calgary, AB @ Scotiabank Saddledome
May 9 - Edmonton, AB @ Rogers Place
May 11 - Victoria, BC @ Save-On-Foods Memorial Centre
May 12 - Vancouver, BC @ Rogers Arena

Sun, 04/24/2022 - 9:35 am

Sir Tom Jones announced his first North American tour in many years following the release Surrounded By Time - The Hourglass Edition, out now via BMG. The tour will kick off on September 9 in Atlantic City, NJ and will make stops in New York City, Boston, Toronto, Los Angeles and more. Tickets are on sale now. Find a full list of tour dates below or visit TomJones.com

Released last year, Surrounded By Time received critical acclaim from People Magazine, The New Yorker, AARP, Fresh Air, The A.V. Club, Forbes and many more, firmly cementing the working relationship that both Sir Tom and producer Ethan Johns have cultivated since 2010’s Praise & Blame. Jones also performed songs off the album for NPR Music’s Tiny Desk (Home) Concert, and Jimmy Kimmel Live!.

At the age of 81, with a career spanning sixty years, Tom has remarkably received some of his best reviews to date on Surrounded By Time, with the album landing at #1 on the UK album chart, giving Sir Tom the honor of being the eldest artist on record to secure that position with new material.

The extended version of Surrounded By Time - The Hourglass Edition includes 2 CDs. CD1 with original album audio and CD2, which includes two new tracks “Not Dark Yet” and the fittingly titled “One Hell Of A Life.” Additionally, there are four live tracks recorded at this summer’s album showcase at London’s Shepherd’s Bush Empire, book-ended with a captivating conversation with journalist and broadcaster Peter Paphides, exploring the album’s birth and creation along with life through lockdown.

Tour Dates:
09/09 – Atlantic City, NJ @ Borgata
09/10 – Forest Hills, NY @ Forest Hills Stadium *
09/13 – Hershey, PA @ Hershey Theatre
09/14 – Boston, MA @ Orpheum Theatre
09/17 – Vienna, VA @ Wolf Trap
09/19 – Toronto, ON @ Massey Hall
09/21 – Montreal, QC @ Théâtre St-Denis
09/24 – Northfield, OH @ MGM Northfield Park
09/26 – Indianapolis, IN @ Murat Theatre
09/29 – St. Louis, MO @ Stifel Theatre
10/01 – Fort Worth, TX @ Billy Bob’s
10/04 – Los Angeles, CA @ YouTube Theater
10/05 – Santa Barbara, CA @ Arlington Theatre
10/11 – Saratoga, CA @ Mountain Winery
10/12 – San Francisco, CA @ The Masonic

Sun, 04/24/2022 - 11:19 am

The Cactus Blossoms performed their hit single “Hey Baby” from their critically-acclaimed album One Day on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert’s #LateShowMeMusic Series. The Americana duo of brothers Jack Torrey and Page Burkum is currently on tour and will be performing at Stagecoach Festival on April 29. See below for a complete list of tour dates.

Watch: The Cactus Blossoms Perform “Hey Baby” For The Late Show With Stephen Colbert

The Cactus Blossoms announced One Day along with the release of the single “Hey Baby,” which was acclaimed by Guitar World, The Boot, The Bluegrass Situation, as well as The Minneapolis Star-Tribune and more, and maintaining top-ten placement for numerous weeks in the AMA’s Top 200 Singles Chart. Their next single “Everybody” (featuring Jenny Lewis) was featured on Rolling Stone, Stereogum, Under The Radar, Brooklyn Vegan and others. They recently also released a video for their latest single “Is It Over.”

“The Blossoms’ natural minimalism - combined with Torrey and Burkum’s transcendent voices - make One Day an early contender for Americana album of the year,” writes Holler Country.

One Day is currently available to stream and download here.

Watch: “Is It Over” - Official Video

Watch: “Everybody (Featuring Jenny Lewis)” - YouTube Visualizer

The Cactus Blossoms built a devoted local following in the years leading up to their first national release, 2016’s You’re Dreaming, which was produced by friend and tourmate JD McPherson. Dates with Kacey Musgraves, Jenny Lewis, and Lucius followed, as did rave reviews from NPR, who extolled “the brothers’ extraordinary singing,” and the New York Times, who praised their “tightly woven harmonies.” The band was further catapulted into the spotlight the following year, when David Lynch tapped them to perform in the highly-anticipated return of Twin Peaks, and continued to build on their success with their 2019 follow-up LP, Easy Way, which featured co-writes with Dan Auerbach and led Rolling Stone to laud the duo’s “rock-solid, freak of genetics harmonies.”

One Day Tracklist:
01) Hey Baby
02) One Day
03) Is It Over
04) Everybody (featuring Jenny Lewis)
05) Runaway
06) Ballad Of An Unknown
07) Not The Only One
08) Love Tomorrow
09) Lonely Heart
10) I Could Almost Cry
11) If I Saw You

Tour Dates:
04/29/22 - Indio, CA @ Stagecoach
05/14/22 - Minneapolis, MN @ First Avenue
06/04/22 - McGill, NV @ Schellraiser Music Festival
06/08/22 - Kansas City, MO @ Knuckleheads Saloon ▲
06/09/22 - Oklahoma City, OK @ Ponyboy ▲
06/10/22 - Dallas, TX @ Sons Of Hermann Hall ▲
06/11/22 - Austin, TX @ 3TEN ▲
06/12/22 - Houston, TX @ White Oak Music Hall ▲
06/15/22 - St. Louis, MO @ Off Broadway ▲
06/16/22 - Iowa City, IA @ Gabes ▲
06/17/22 - Des Moines, IA @ xBk ▲
06/18/22 - Omaha, NE @ Reverb Lounge ▲

▲ w/ Esther Rose

Fri, 04/29/2022 - 1:54 pm

The unprecedented success of A Message from The People made 1972 a seminal year for Ray Charles.  Also recorded that same year was the previously unreleased Ray Charles Live In Stockholm 1972, just discovered in 2021. This recording captures Charles at the height of his powers in one of his best live recordings ever. Recorded on a magical night in Stockholm, this set faithfully captures great moments and arrangements often heard in Ray’s live performances but rarely, if ever, on record. The evening begins with a rip-roaring rendition of Ray’s classic concert opener, “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” followed by an electrifying “What’d I Say”.  Ray then delivers two more rarities, a gut-wrenching bluesy rendition of “I’ve Had My Fun” followed by “Games People Play,” a number that features each of Ray’s legendary 1972 Raelettes. The set continues with Ray’s unique live arrangements of “Don’t Change On Me” and “I Can’t Stop Loving You” before closing with the hard-swinging band feature “Marie” followed by an extended 8-minute version of “I’ve Got A Woman” that sees Ray riffing on his 1954 hit, building to a finale that brings the house down. These live recordings were only recently available exclusively on True Genius, a 6-CD limited edition box set released by Tangerine Records in 2021. More info on True Genius is available here.

Ray Charles Live In Stockholm 1972 will be released on May 6th on vinyl and on all streaming services for the very first time.

About Ray Charles: One of the greatest artists of all time, Charles successfully mastered and forever changed the blues, jazz, gospel, rock, pop, and country music landscapes. Charles’ staggering achievements over a 58-year career include 17 GRAMMY Awards, induction into both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Country Music Hall of Fame, a Lifetime Achievement and the President’s Merit Award, the Presidential Medal for the Arts, France’s Legion of Honor, the Kennedy Center Honors, the NAACP Image Awards’ “Hall of Fame Award,” and numerous other music Halls of Fame, including those for Jazz and Rhythm & Blues, all testament to his enormous influence.

Mon, 05/02/2022 - 1:54 pm

Today, drummer, vocalist, and composer Bryan Carter released his rendition of the Burt Bacharach & Carol Beyer Seger-penned composition “Making Love.” The song is the third single from Carter’s upcoming LP I Believe, due out June 2022 via La Reserve Records. Jazziz called the song “Quote.”

Listen to “Making Love” by Bryan Carter

With fearless storytelling and breathtaking musicality, “Making Love” is the next chapter in Carter’s semi-autobiographical, coming out and coming of age LP I Believe. It is hard to wrap your mind around just how many roles Carter is playing. He is singing. He is drumming. He is orchestrating for a full band, complete with a gorgeous, ten-piece string section. And all of it is in service of his storytelling. In addition to his career as a solo artist, Bryan is active as a performer, composer, arranger and music director in the world of film/television, working with pop icons like Nick Jonas, Steve Martin, Jimmy Fallon & Tina Fey, Martin Short & Maya Rudolph, and on series like Live with Kelly and Ryan, HBO Music Box, and Sesame Street.  

With “Making Love,” Carter captures the vulnerability, both exhilarating and frightening, inherent in a first relationship. “I’m embarrassed to hold your hand, I feel uncomfortable,” Carter says, expounding on the song’s message. “Yes, I like you, I have feelings for you, but there’s all this baggage that I still carry, cause it’s so new to me that, like, this feels wrong. A lesser known song from Burt Bacharach & Carol Beyer Seger, “Making Love” was composed as the title track for the film of the same name — Making Love was one of the first studio produced films that dealt with the topic of homosexuality. 

“‘There’s more to love, I know, than making love,’” Carter continues, reciting the lyric. “It’s more than just the hookup. How do I have a normal socialized relationship with this person? How do I learn to hold their hand at dinner in the park? Can I kiss them in the park? Is that okay? Is someone going to say something? I think that’s what that song is about.” 

“Making Love” is a showcase for Carter’s grand sense of vision, a key feature of his upcoming LP I Believe. It’s music and storytelling done on a scale few can execute, let alone imagine, and Carter does it all. “My chief principle thing that I wanna do is — I’m a storyteller,” he reflects. “I think that music, and jazz specifically, are a vehicle for me to tell a story. And I don’t see stories like this in jazz being told, so I think it’s really, really important that we nail it and tell it the right way.”

Bryan is also active in the world of theater, having worked with Broadway Stars like Tituss Burgess, Laura Osnes, Gavin Creel, Aaron Tveit & Ariana DeBose, and as an orchestrator he’s currently working on several projects including a new show coming to Broadway next fall. 

I Believe Tracklist:
1. You & I
2. Not Yet
3. Jeremy’s Lullaby
4. Making Love
5. Crazy ‘Bout My Baby
6. Bye Bye Love
7. The Storm
8. I Believe

Thu, 05/12/2022 - 1:24 am

Today, the GRAMMY-nominated alternative blues/hip-hop artist G. Love has shared the official music video for his new single “Laughing In The Sunshine,” the next preview from his upcoming album Philadelphia Mississippi, due out June 24 via Philadelphonic Records/Thirty Tigers. The breezy new track which was featured by American Songwriter is a serotonin-boosting ode to loyalty and friendship. Philadelphia Mississippi is available for pre-order.

Watch the official video for "Laughing In the Sunshine" via YouTube.

Pre-order Philadelphia Mississippi.

"'Laughing in The Sunshine' was written with Chuck Treece and it's a summertime classic, a cool glass of lemonade and love,” says G. Love. “Performed by an all-star cast including myself, Chuck, Luther Dickinson, Tikyra Jackson, Boo Mitchell, Amy Bellamy and Sharisse Norman, it's sure to get you off your seat and looking for a backyard BBQ to strut your stuff. Living, Loving, Laughing people all around enjoying a perfect day."

“Laughing In The Sunshine” follows lead single “Love From Philly” (feat. Schoolly D & Chuck Treece), a signature dose of hip-hop and the blues that garnered support from outlets like Guitar Player, Relix and The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Philadelphia Mississippi was produced by North Mississippi All-Stars’ Luther Dickinson (son of Jim Dickinson who produced G. Love’s sophomore album Coast to Coast Motel) and bridges both sides of G. Love’s eclectic career, mixing old school Hill Country and Delta Blues with new school hip-hop and funk. These 13 songs are loose, spontaneous and written on the fly in the studio during improvisatory fits of inspiration. The freewheeling performances bring together a slew of special guests from blues torchbearers like Alvin Youngblood Hart, Cam Kimbrough, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, Jontavious Willis, R.L. Boyce and Trenton Ayers, rap icons Schoolly D, Freddie Foxx and Speech from Arrested Development, to ace musicians such as fifemaster Sharde Thomas and GRAMMY-nominated Southern Avenue drummer/singer Tikyra Jackson.

“I grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but I’ve spent my entire life steeped in the music of the Delta,” he explains, “so the idea that there was this whole other Philadelphia down there always fascinated me. For the last thirty years, I’ve wanted to make a pilgrimage—not just a musical one, but a spiritual one—to the heart of the blues, and that’s exactly what this album is.” 

G. Love’s upcoming album Philadelphia Mississippi will be available as a limited edition NFT. After purchasing the initial "Origin" NFT, token holders will be airdropped a second NFT which unlocks both a downloadable and streaming version of the new record, as well as a 180-gram vinyl. A limited number of token holders will be randomly selected to win special edition vinyl pressings, ticket bundles, and more. Recently, G. Love stopped by Pop Dust’s It’s Real With Jordan and Demi podcast to discuss venturing into the NFT space, staying creative and his new music.

G. Love will be touring throughout the year as a solo performer, with a new rotating cast of players called The Juice, or with his longtime trio G. Love and Special Sauce. Beginning on July 15 he will hit the road solo for a national tour supporting O.A.R. and Dispatch. Find a full list of tour dates below or at philadelphonic.com.

Tour Dates:
6/11 - Annapolis, MD - Bands in the Sands +
6/24 - Des Moines, IA - Des Moines Art Festival %
6/25 - Rochester, NY - Rochester Int'l Jazz Festival %
7/3 - Scranton, PA - The Peach Music Festival +
7/8 - Peoria, IL - Lakeview Park
7/9 - Jay, VT - Jeezum Crow Festival %
7/12 - Harwich, MA - Cape Cod Jazz Festival
7/15 - Mesa, AZ - Mesa Amphitheatre #
7/16 - Los Angeles, CA - Hollywood Palladium #
7/17 - San Diego, CA - Cal Coast Credit Union Open Air Theatre #
7/19 - Paso Robles, CA - Vina Robles Amphitheatre #
7/20 - Rohnert Park, CA - SOMO Concerts #
7/22 - Bend, OR - Hayden Homes Amphitheater #
7/23 - Redmond, WA - Marymoor Park #
7/24 - Bonner, MT - KettleHouse Amphitheater #
7/26 - Whitefish, MT - The Remington Bar
7/28 - Nampa, ID - Ford Idaho Center Amphitheatre #
7/29 - Salt Lake City, UT - Red Butte Garden #
7/30 - Denver, CO - Fiddler's Green Amphitheatre #
7/31 - Breckenridge, CO - Riverwalk Center
8/3 - Kansas City, MO - The Record Bar
8/4 - Memphis, TN - The Crosstown Theater
8/5 - Atlanta, GA - Coca-Cola Roxy #
8/6 - Nashville, TN - Ascend Amphitheater #
8/7 - Columbus, OH - KEMBA Live! #
8/9 - Indianapolis, IN - TCU Amphitheater at White River State Park #
8/10 - St. Louis, MO - St. Louis Music Park # 
8/12 - Cleveland, OH - Jacobs Pavilion at Nautica #
8/13 - Highland Park, IL - Ravinia Festival #
8/14 - Sterling Heights, MI - Michigan Lottery Amphitheatre at Freedom Hill #
8/15 - Pittsburgh, PA - Stage AE #
8/18 - Philadelphia, PA - TD Pavilion at the Mann #
8/19 - Gilford, NH - Bank of New Hampshire Pavilion #
8/20 - Mansfield, MA - Xfinity Center #
8/21 - Saratoga Springs, NY - Saratoga Performing Arts Center #
8/23 - Lewiston, NY - Artpark #
8/25 - Bridgeport, CT - Hartford HealthCare Amphitheater #
8/26 - Columbia, MD - Merriweather Post Pavillion #
8/27 - Wantagh, NY - Northwell Health at Jones Beach Theater #
8/28 - Holmdel, NJ - PNC Bank Arts Center #
8/30 - Asheville, NC - Salvage Station #
8/31 - Charlotte, NC - Charlotte Metro Credit Union Amphitheater #
9/1 - Isle of Palms, SC - The Windjammer
9/2 - Virginia Beach, VA - Veterans United Home Loans Amphitheatre #
9/3 - Wilmington, NC - Live Oak Bank Pavilion at Riverfront Park #
9/4 - St. Augustine, FL - St. Augustine Amphitheatre #
9/8 - Austin, TX - ACL Live at The Moody Theater #
9/9 - Houston, TX - The Lawn at White Oak Music Hall #
9/10 - Irving, TX - The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory #

+ G. Love & The Juice
% G. Love & Special Sauce
# G. Love solo supporting O.A.R. and Dispatch

Fri, 05/13/2022 - 3:03 am

Today, five-time GRAMMY winner Keb’ Mo’ released a live performance video for the contemplative and optimistic “Marvelous To Me” from his critically acclaimed new album Good To Be out now via Rounder Records. Keb’ Mo’ is currently in the midst of a European tour and will kick off a US tour this June, including a number of dates supporting Sheryl Crow. Find a full list of tour dates below or visit KebMo.com.

Watch the video for “Marvelous To Me” via YouTube.

The inspirational song finds Kevin Moore, best known by his stage name Keb’ Mo’, hopeful for a brighter future during troubled times:

It's a crazy world, a crazy time
Maybe this is the way it was meant to be
I got a hopeful heart, got my head up high
And the future, looks marvelous to me

There's a deeper conversation
Going on in every nation
Joy & jubilation and a way to change the world

“‘Marvelous To Me’ is a tribute to heroes – people who put themselves on the line, and who we’ve lost in a series of tragic events. It’s a positive look at negative things that have happened. The value of these people’s sacrifices is sometimes underestimated in the moment, but in the future they’re hailed as stepping stones to more change, freedom, understanding and a better society for us all,” explains Keb’ Mo’. 

Good To Be debuted atop multiple Billboard Charts including #1 on the Blues Album chart and #11 on the Heatseekers Chart. In their 4.5 out of 5 star review, American Songwriter called the album “...effortlessly engaging while imbuing consistent good vibes and an ease brought about through infectious enthusiasm,” while Folk Alley proclaimed “...Mo’s mellifluous vocals sing directly to the deepest part of us, and his music creates an aura that wraps us in the warmth of that delivery.”

Upon release, Keb’ Mo’ performed his single “Good To Be (Home Again)” on The Kelly Clarkson Show, sat down with PBS Newshour for a career-spanning interview and was featured on NPR’s Weekend Edition.

US Tour Dates:
6/25: Aspen, CO - Belly Up Aspen
6/27: Boulder, CO - Chautauqua Auditorium
6/29: Denver, CO - Denver Botanic Gardens 
6/30: Colorado Springs, CO - Pikes Peak Center
7/05: Waste Park, MN - The Ledge Amphitheater +
7/07: Highland Park, IL - Ravinia Festival +
7/09: Indianapolis, IN - TCU Amphitheater +
7/10: Columbus, OH - Columbus Commons +
7/12: Chautauqua, NY - Chautauqua Institution Amphitheater +
7/13: Portland, ME - Thompson’s Point +
7/16: Westhampton Beach, NY - Westhampton Beach PAC
7/17: Selbyville, DE - Freeman Arts Pavillion + *SOLD OUT*
7/19: Atlanta, GA - Cadence Bank Amphitheater +
8/02: San Diego, CA - The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park +
8/03: Los Angeles, CA - Hollywood Bowl +
9/11: Chattanooga, TN - Moon River Festival

+ - With Sheryl Crow

Sun, 05/15/2022 - 11:51 pm

Bay Area-based Monophonics released their new full-length Sage Motel via Colemine Records. The world's premier psychedelic soul band, Monophonics cordially invites you to attend the grand re-opening of the once thriving, once vibrant establishment, the legendary Sage Motel. A place where folks experience the highs and lows of human existence. A place where big dreams and broken hearts live, where people arrive without ever knowing how they got there. It's where individuals find themselves at a crossroads in life. The Sage Motel album announcement came in March with a video for the first single “Warpaint.”
 
Listen to Monophonics - Sage Motel 
 
What started as a quaint motor lodge and a common pitstop for travelers and truckers in the 1940s, Sage Motel morphed into a bohemian’s hang by the 1960s and 1970s. Artists, musicians, and vagabonds of all types would stop there as seedy ownership pumped obnoxious amounts of money into high end renovations, eventually attracting some of the most prominent acts of the era. But when the money ran out, The Sage Motel devolved into a place where you rent by the hour.
 
Sage Motel, Monophonics' fifth studio album since 2012, tells its story. Once again produced by brilliant bandleader Kelly Finnigan, the album captures a timeless sound that blends heavy soul with psych-rock. With their previous album, It’s Only Us, selling over 10,000 physical units and garnering over 20 million streams, Monophonics have built a reputation over the past decade as one of the most impactful bands in the country. It’s Only Us was praised by Billboard, FLOOD, Cool Hunting, and American Songwriter, who said “Take some Norman Whitfield-era Temptations, add Sly and the Family Stone circa There’s a Riot Goin’ On’s greasy funk, inject early 70s Curtis Mayfield Superfly, Marvin Gaye vocal dynamics and Isaac Hayes’ Hot Buttered Soul dust, sprinkle in a pinch of Isley Brothers’ silky ballads and you’ve got a reasonable aural idea of the ballpark Monophonics are playing in.”
 
If these walls of the Sage Motel could talk, this is what they'd say. So join us as we examine where the stories are told and experiences unfold.....and sink into a soft pillow of soulful psychedelia.....down at the Sage Motel.
 
Sage Motel Tracklist:
1. Check In 
2. Sage Motel
3. Let That Sink In
4. The Shape Of My Teardrops 
5. Broken Boundaries 
6. Love You Better 
7. Never Stop Saying These Words
8. Warpaint
9. Crash & Burn
10. Check Out
 
Tour Dates:
May 14 - Brooklyn Made - New York, NY
May 26 - Chop Shop - Chicago, IL
Jun 1 - Teragram Ballroom - Los Angeles, CA
Jun 4 - The Chapel - San Francisco, CA
Jun 11 - Wichita River Festival - Wichita, KS
Aug 7 - Stern Grove Festival - San Francisco, CA

Fri, 05/20/2022 - 4:20 am

Today, Bay Area-based Monophonics released their video for “Sage Motel,” the title track from their new full-length out now via Colemine Records. The world's premier psychedelic soul band, Monophonics cordially invites you to attend the grand re-opening of the once thriving, once vibrant establishment, the legendary Sage Motel. A place where folks experience the highs and lows of human existence. A place where big dreams and broken hearts live, where people arrive without ever knowing how they got there. It's where individuals find themselves at a crossroads in life. 

Watch Monophonics’ Video for “Sage Motel”

“We decided to make a film that captures the song’s spirit - encompassing all the desperation, lust, and messiness that can often be met when falling for someone; especially at the wrong time,” says Kassy Mahea, director of the “Sage Motel” music video. “The Sage Motel that I envisioned is set in rural nowhere America, and is frequented by characters that are flawed but, at the same time, interesting and beautiful. This video is an ode to the gritty, the passionate, the lost, the hopeful, and is another glimpse into the world within The Sage Motel.“
 
What started as a quaint motor lodge and a common pitstop for travelers and truckers in the 1940s, Sage Motel morphed into a bohemian’s hang by the 1960s and 1970s. Artists, musicians, and vagabonds of all types would stop there as seedy ownership pumped obnoxious amounts of money into high end renovations, eventually attracting some of the most prominent acts of the era. But when the money ran out, The Sage Motel devolved into a place where you rent by the hour. Sage Motel, Monophonics' fifth studio album since 2012, tells its story. 
 
“‘Sage Motel’ was the second song we wrote for the album and ultimately was the spark that started this whole concept and story,” says Monophonics bandleader Kelly Finnigan. “It’s a song about a complicated relationship created out of incomparable physical chemistry, lust, passion & love. It’s the struggle of chasing something that will never be a reality, no matter how bad you want it. Some things are meant to happen, but not meant to be… and it all goes down at the Sage Motel.”
 
Produced by Kelly Finnigan, Sage Motel captures a timeless sound that blends heavy soul with psych-rock. With their previous album, It’s Only Us, selling over 10,000 physical units and garnering over 20 million streams, Monophonics have built a reputation over the past decade as one of the most impactful bands in the country. It’s Only Us was praised by Billboard, FLOOD, Cool Hunting, and more.
 
If these walls of the Sage Motel could talk, this is what they'd say. So join us as we examine where the stories are told and experiences unfold.....and sink into a soft pillow of soulful psychedelia.....down at the Sage Motel.
 
Sage Motel Tracklist:
1. Check In 
2. Sage Motel
3. Let That Sink In
4. The Shape Of My Teardrops 
5. Broken Boundaries 
6. Love You Better 
7. Never Stop Saying These Words
8. Warpaint
9. Crash & Burn
10. Check Out
 
Tour Dates:
Jun 1 - Teragram Ballroom - Los Angeles, CA
Jun 4 - The Chapel - San Francisco, CA
Jun 11 - Wichita River Festival - Wichita, KS
Aug 7 - Stern Grove Festival - San Francisco, CA

Wed, 05/25/2022 - 2:38 pm

Australia’s beloved psychedelic-surf-rockers Ocean Alley have released a new single “Deepest Darkness,” their first new music of 2022. The track is accompanied by a video directed by W.A.M Bleakley (Courtney Barnett, DMA's, Middle Kids). The cinematic video tells the story of a bored mechanic finding a community that understands her and shares her “shining qualities;” it includes scenes shot with vintage Panavision lenses (one of which was used during filming of the original Star Wars movie). The band has plans for an extensive US tour this summer. Tickets are available now.

Watch the official “Deepest Darkness” video

Stream “Deepest Darkness”

Commanding attention from its opening riff, “Deepest Darkness” is a love song about how someone can bring the best out of you, even in your darkest moments. It features the hallmarks that have long-defined Ocean Alley’s psychedelic-leaning sound — from intoxicating echoing vocals to layered instrumentation, laden with fuzz and reverb. The band’s latest effort dials up the ferocity across each chorus, continually increasing the crunch and intensity.

Reflecting on its creation, frontman Baden Donegal shared “This song is about being so deeply in love with someone and realising how important their support can be to you… that you literally go through the deepest and darkest times together, and that unity makes you so much stronger. It’s from the perspective of imagining what it would feel like to go through life’s tough spots on your own, and having a huge appreciation for the support you receive.”

Guitarist Mitch Galbraith added, “At conception, the song was super chilled - just based off chords Lach was working at on the keyboard and some lyrics Baden wrote during early COVID. It felt right as we kept adding thickness to the chorus, so we just went with it, and now it’s really captivating and powerful. It’s obviously a very different feeling to ‘Touch Back Down’ which is uplifting and playful, whereas ’Deepest Darkness' has a heavy mysteriousness to it, but we consciously wanted to give listeners a taste of the other vibes we’ve been experimenting with while writing new music.”

The band has plans to cross the pond this summer for a North American tour, hitting major cities including New York and Chicago. The dates will close out a huge year of touring for the beloved six-piece, which embarked on an Australian tour in February, selling more than 35,000 tickets and clocking up 7 sold out shows around the country. Their recent stops in the UK and New Zealand sold more than 10,000 tickets each, including shows at the iconic Roundhouse in London and Spark Arena in Auckland. Canadian dates in Vancouver and Nelson have already sold out. Due to overwhelming demand, the band added a second dace in Vancouver and upgraded venues in Philadelphia to make room for more fans.

Since the release of their Gold-certified breakthrough Chiaroscuro (2018) which saw the band take the #1 spot in triple j’s Hottest 100 of 2018 for their double platinum smash ‘Confidence’, the six-piece have performed major festivals including Reading & Leeds (UK), Splendour In The Grass (AUS) and Sziget (HU), debuted at #3 on the ARIA charts for their critically acclaimed 2020 album Lonely Diamond, have received Gold certification on five singles and been nominated for 2 ARIA Awards. Stateside, the band has received praise from Billboard and American Songwriter. Ocean Alley’s evolution has been driven by an endless pursuit to push their sound and abilities to new limits. Operating as a proudly independent band, their output has always been underscored by a refreshingly chilled authenticity and relatability that has seen them achieve more than 500 million catalog streams.

Upcoming Tour Dates:
6/10 - Victoria, BC @ Capital Ballroom,
6/11 - Vancouver, BC @ Commodore Ballroom - SOLD OUT
6/12  - Vancouver, BC @ Commodore Ballroom
6/14 - Nelson, BC @ The Hume Hotel - SOLD OUT
6/16 - Edmonton, AB @ Union Hall
6/17 - Red Deer, AB  @ Bo’s Bar & Stage
6/18 - Calgary, AB @ The Palace
6/20 - Winnipeg, MB @ Park Theatre
6/22 - Minneapolis, MN @ 7th Street Entry
6/23 - Chicago, IL @ Lincoln Hall
6/24 - Nashville, TN @ The Basement East
6/25 - Atlanta, GA @ Terminal West
6/28 - Washington, DC @ Union Stage
6/29 - Philadelphia, PA @ Theatre of the Living Arts - VENUE UPGRADE
7/1 - New York, NY @ Music Hall of Williamsburg
7/2 - Boston, MA @ The Sinclair
7/5 - Montreal, QC @ Corona Theatre
7/9 - Toronto, ON @ The Opera House
7/7 - Ottawa, ON @ RBC Ottawa Bluesfest
7/8 - Quebec City, QC @ Festival d'ete International de Quebec
7/9 - Toronto, ON @ The Opera House

Fri, 06/03/2022 - 9:34 am

Today, Jackson Browne released the music video for “Minutes To Downtown.” Rolling Stone said, “Browne’s spare and striking new video for ‘Minutes to Downtown’ leaves little room for misinterpretation. Directed by his son Ryan, it simply features Browne tooling around Los Angeles, with no beginning, middle or end.”
 
“The song is about wanting to be somewhere else, but for whatever reasons, you’re tied to the place where you live and the things you do,” Browne says of the Downhill From Everywhere track. “So I wanted it to be me driving around. To me, the video has a distinctive feature, which is that nothing happens. You don’t arrive anywhere, right?”

Watch “Minutes To Downtown” Music Video HERE

 
Browne’s extensive US full band tour kicks off tonight at Saint Louis Music Park in Maryland Heights, MO, with dates running through September. The tour supports Browne’s acclaimed, GRAMMY-nominated album Downhill From Everywhere. Ticket information is available at jacksonbrowne.com.

Jackson Browne Tour:
June 3 - Maryland Heights, MO @ Saint Louis Music Park
June 4 - Camdenton, MO @ Lake Ozarks Amphitheater
June 6 - Salina, KS @ Stiefel Theatre for the Performing Arts
June 7 - Kansas City, MO @ Kansas City Music Hall
June 10 - Rochester Hills, MI @ Oakland University - Meadow Brook Amphitheatre
June 11 - Huber Heights, OH @ Rose Music Center at The Heights
June 14 - Waite Park, MN @ The Ledge Waite Park Amphitheater
June 15 - Milwaukee, WI @ Riverside Theater
June 17 - Highland Park, IL @ Ravinia Festival
June 18 - Appleton, WI @ Fox Cities Performing Arts Center
June 21 - Fort Wayne, IN @ Foellinger Theater
June 22 - Indianapolis, IN @ TCU Amphitheater at White River State Park
June 24 - Cincinnati, OH @ Andrew J Brady ICON Music Center
June 25 - Northfield, OH @ MGM Northfield Park - Center Stage
July 13 - Bridgeport, CT @ Hartford HealthCare Amphitheater
July 14 - Boston, MA @ Leader Bank Pavilion
July 16 - Canandaigua, NY @ Constellation Brands – Marvin Sands Perf. Arts Center
July 17 - Philadelphia, PA @ TD Pavilion at the Mann
July 19 - Richmond, VA @ Altria Theater
July 20 - Vienna, VA @ Filene Center at Wolf Trap
July 22 - Baltimore, MD @ MECU Pavilion
July 23 - Selbyville, DE @ The Freeman Stage at Bayside
July 26 - New York, NY @ The Beacon Theater
July 27 - New York, NY @ The Beacon Theater
July 29 - New York, NY @ The Beacon Theater
July 30 - New York, NY @ The Beacon Theater
August 31 - San Diego, CA @ Humphrey's
September 1 - San Diego, CA @ Humphrey's
September 3 - Costa Mesa, CA @ Pacific Amphitheatre
September 4 - Los Angeles, CA @ Greek Theatre
September 7 - Santa Barbara, CA @ Santa Barbara Bowl
September 9 - Berkeley, CA @ The Greek Theatre
September 10 - Stateline, NV @ Lake Tahoe Outdoor Arena at Harveys (rescheduled)
September 13 - Eugene, OR @ Cuthbert Amphitheatre
September 14 - Troutdale, OR @ McMenamins Edgefield
September 16 - Woodinville, WA @ Chateau Ste. Michelle Winery Amphitheatre
September 17 - Woodinville, WA @ Chateau Ste. Michelle Winery Amphitheatre
September 20 - Walla Walla, WA @ Wine Country Amphitheater
September 21 - Boise, ID @ Outlaw Field at the Idaho Botanical Garden
September 23 - Sandy, UT @ Sandy City Amphitheater
September 25 - Morrison, CO @ Red Rocks Amphitheatre

Sat, 06/04/2022 - 4:35 pm

Organ great Ronnie Foster returns to Blue Note Records with the July 15 release of Reboot, his first new album in 36 years which arrives 50 years after his 1972 Blue Note debut Two Headed Freap. The nine-song album was recorded at the legendary Capitol Studios and marks a fresh start for Foster, who has whipped up an omnidirectional brew of Hammond Organ Groove that pays homage to the past but more often reflects his restlessness for ushering in the new. The album’s grooving title track “Reboot” is out now featuring Foster on organ, his son Chris Foster on drums, and Michael O’Neill on guitar. Reboot is available for pre-order now on D2C exclusive red vinyl, black vinyl, CD, and digital download.

Listeners the world over have heard Foster’s soulful playing, whether from his standout performance on “Summer Soft” from Stevie Wonder’s 1976 masterwork Songs In The Key Of Life, best-selling George Benson albums including Breezin’, or A Tribe Called Quest’s classic hip-hop track “Electric Relaxation” which sampled Foster’s “Mystic Brew” from Two Headed Freap, which was reissued last week as part of Blue Note’s Classic Vinyl Reissue Series.

The Buffalo, New York born keyboardist first caught the ear of Blue Note co-founder Francis Wolff when he made his first-ever recording as a sideman on guitar legend Grant Green’s searingly funky Blue Note LP, Alive! in 1970. After Wolff passed away a few months later, Ronnie was officially signed to Blue Note by George Butler making him the next in an illustrious lineage of Hammond B3 organ artisans the label had presented which included Jimmy Smith, Larry Young, and Dr. Lonnie Smith. Two Headed Freap was the first in a run of five stellar jazz-funk albums Foster would make for Blue Note throughout the 1970s including Sweet Revival, Live: Cookin’ with Blue Note at Montreux, On the Avenue, and Cheshire Cat. Stream our playlist Ronnie Foster: The Finest featuring highlights from the organist’s Blue Note discography.

Mightily hoisting the Blue Note organ torch once again, Foster gives thanks to the musical osmosis that was poured into him by all of the greats that preceded him. In the album’s liner notes, Ronnie makes sure to pay homage to one very important person in his life who passed away in 2021: “This album is dedicated to the memory of my brother, friend, Buffalo Homie and hero Dr. Lonnie Smith, who was one of the best in the world on the Hammond B3 organ.”

Reboot out July 15

Thu, 06/09/2022 - 10:36 am

GRAMMY-nominated alternative blues/hip-hop artist G. Love has shared his new single “Mississippi,” the next preview from his forthcoming album Philadelphia Mississippi, due out June 24 via Philadelphonic Records/Thirty Tigers. The intoxicating blues track features Speech, Alvin Youngblood Hart and R.L. Boyce, bringing together four different voices to reflect on the state’s painful past and rich cultural legacy. Philadelphia Mississippi is available for pre-order.

Listen to "Mississippi" (feat. Speech, Alvin Youngblood Hart and R.L. Boyce)

Pre-order Philadelphia Mississippi.

"It's hill country blues meets the golden age of hip-hop on 'Mississippi,’” shares G. Love. “It's the quintessential hip-hop blues track with a greasy lowdown groove laid down by Philly legend Chuck Treece, Alvin Youngblood Hart and producer Luther Dickinson, with epic vocal performances by Speech of Arrested Development, hill country blues master R.L. Boyce, Alvin and myself. Each lyricist tackles their own personal feelings and emotions on the history of Mississippi and the blues it gave birth to, with Boyce crying throughout… 'Po Po Mississippi.'"

This follows the playful "Laughing In The Sunshine" which was featured over at American Songwriter and “Love From Philly" (feat. Schoolly D, Chuck Treece and Trenton Ayers),  a signature dose of hip-hop and the blues that garnered support from outlets like Guitar Player, Relix and The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Philadelphia Mississippi was produced by North Mississippi All-Stars’ Luther Dickinson (son of Jim Dickinson who produced G. Love’s sophomore album Coast to Coast Motel) and bridges both sides of G. Love’s eclectic career, mixing old school Hill Country and Delta Blues with new school hip-hop and funk. These 13 songs are loose, spontaneous and written on the fly in the studio during improvisatory fits of inspiration. The freewheeling performances bring together a slew of special guests from blues torchbearers like Alvin Youngblood Hart, Cam Kimbrough, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, Jontavious Willis, R.L. Boyce and Trenton Ayers, rap icons Schoolly D, Freddie Foxx and Speech from Arrested Development, to ace musicians such as fifemaster Sharde Thomas and GRAMMY-nominated Southern Avenue drummer/singer Tikyra Jackson.

“I grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but I’ve spent my entire life steeped in the music of the Delta,” he explains, “so the idea that there was this whole other Philadelphia down there always fascinated me. For the last thirty years, I’ve wanted to make a pilgrimage—not just a musical one, but a spiritual one—to the heart of the blues, and that’s exactly what this album is.”

G. Love’s upcoming album Philadelphia Mississippi will be available as a limited edition NFT. After purchasing the initial "Origin" NFT, token holders will be airdropped a second NFT which unlocks both a downloadable and streaming version of the new record, as well as a 180-gram vinyl. A limited number of token holders will be randomly selected to win special edition vinyl pressings, ticket bundles, and more. Recently, G. Love stopped by Pop Dust’s It’s Real With Jordan and Demi podcast to discuss venturing into the NFT space, staying creative and his new music.

G. Love will be touring throughout the year as a solo performer, with a new rotating cast of players called The Juice, or with his longtime trio G. Love and Special Sauce. Beginning on July 15 he will hit the road solo for a national tour supporting O.A.R. and Dispatch. Find a full list of tour dates below or at philadelphonic.com.

Tour Dates:
6/11 - Annapolis, MD - Bands in the Sands +
6/24 - Des Moines, IA - Des Moines Art Festival %
6/25 - Rochester, NY - Rochester Int'l Jazz Festival %
7/3 - Scranton, PA - The Peach Music Festival +
7/8 - Peoria, IL - Lakeview Park
7/9 - Jay, VT - Jeezum Crow Festival %
7/12 - Harwich, MA - Cape Cod Jazz Festival
7/15 - Mesa, AZ - Mesa Amphitheatre #
7/16 - Los Angeles, CA - Hollywood Palladium #
7/17 - San Diego, CA - Cal Coast Credit Union Open Air Theatre #
7/19 - Paso Robles, CA - Vina Robles Amphitheatre #
7/20 - Rohnert Park, CA - SOMO Concerts #
7/22 - Bend, OR - Hayden Homes Amphitheater #
7/23 - Redmond, WA - Marymoor Park #
7/24 - Bonner, MT - KettleHouse Amphitheater #
7/26 - Whitefish, MT - The Remington Bar
7/28 - Nampa, ID - Ford Idaho Center Amphitheatre #
7/29 - Salt Lake City, UT - Red Butte Garden #
7/30 - Denver, CO - Fiddler's Green Amphitheatre #
7/31 - Breckenridge, CO - Riverwalk Center
8/3 - Kansas City, MO - The Record Bar
8/4 - Memphis, TN - The Crosstown Theater
8/5 - Atlanta, GA - Coca-Cola Roxy #
8/6 - Nashville, TN - Ascend Amphitheater #
8/7 - Columbus, OH - KEMBA Live! #
8/9 - Indianapolis, IN - TCU Amphitheater at White River State Park #
8/10 - St. Louis, MO - St. Louis Music Park #
8/12 - Cleveland, OH - Jacobs Pavilion at Nautica #
8/13 - Highland Park, IL - Ravinia Festival #
8/14 - Sterling Heights, MI - Michigan Lottery Amphitheatre at Freedom Hill #
8/15 - Pittsburgh, PA - Stage AE #
8/18 - Philadelphia, PA - TD Pavilion at the Mann #
8/19 - Gilford, NH - Bank of New Hampshire Pavilion #
8/20 - Mansfield, MA - Xfinity Center #
8/21 - Saratoga Springs, NY - Saratoga Performing Arts Center #
8/23 - Lewiston, NY - Artpark #
8/25 - Bridgeport, CT - Hartford HealthCare Amphitheater #
8/26 - Columbia, MD - Merriweather Post Pavillion #
8/27 - Wantagh, NY - Northwell Health at Jones Beach Theater #
8/28 - Holmdel, NJ - PNC Bank Arts Center #
8/30 - Asheville, NC - Salvage Station #
8/31 - Charlotte, NC - Charlotte Metro Credit Union Amphitheater #
9/1 - Isle of Palms, SC - The Windjammer
9/2 - Virginia Beach, VA - Veterans United Home Loans Amphitheatre #
9/3 - Wilmington, NC - Live Oak Bank Pavilion at Riverfront Park #
9/4 - St. Augustine, FL - St. Augustine Amphitheatre #
9/8 - Austin, TX - ACL Live at The Moody Theater #
9/9 - Houston, TX - The Lawn at White Oak Music Hall #
9/10 - Irving, TX - The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory #

+ G. Love & The Juice
% G. Love & Special Sauce
# G. Love solo supporting O.A.R. and Dispatch

Philadelphia Mississippi Tracklist:
1) Love From Philly (feat. Chuck Treece, Schoolly D and Trenton Ayers)
2) Mississippi (feat. Speech, Alvin Youngblood Hart and R.L. Boyce)
3) My Ball (feat. Freddie Foxx and Jontavious Willis)
4) Guitar Man (feat. Christone “Kingfish” Ingram)
5) Kickin’
6) HipHopHarpin’ (feat. Alvin Youngblood Hart)
7) Laughing In The Sunshine
8) I Ain’t Living (feat. Tikyra Jackson)
9) Lemonades (feat. Cam Kimbrough, Luther Dickinson and Chuck Treece)
10) If My Mind Don’t Change (feat. Sharde Thomas)
11) Sauce Up! (feat. Trenton Ayers)
12) The Philly Sound
13) Shouts Out

Thu, 06/09/2022 - 3:38 pm

Blue Note Re:imagined returns in 2022 with a new 16-track compilation featuring fresh takes on music from the illustrious Blue Note Records vaults recorded by a heavyweight line-up of the UK jazz, soul, and R&B scene’s most hotly-tipped rising stars. Arriving off the back of the widespread international success of the first volume, which topped jazz charts around the globe, Blue Note Re:imagined II once again infuses the spirit of the new UK jazz generation into the legendary label’s iconic catalog, balancing the genre’s tradition with its future and reflecting the melting pot of talent and diversity within the current scene.

The first track to be released is South London vocalist Ego Ella May’s reimagining of visionary drummer Chico Hamilton’s “The Morning Side Of Love,” which first appeared on Hamilton’s 1975 Blue Note album Peregrinations. Mirroring the understated, laid-back groove of the original while showcasing Ella May’s arresting vocals, the track is out today and available to listen to HERE.

“For more than eight decades the artists of Blue Note Records have continually pushed the envelope of contemporary music,” said Blue Note President Don Was. “Blue Note Re:imagined II once again honors that legacy by letting the UK’s most creative young artists reinvent the treasures of the Blue Note catalog through their own lens.”

Additional tracks on the album will include funk-pop duo Franc Moody’s version of Donald Byrd’s “Cristo Redentor,” fast-emerging vocalist Cherise’s take on Norah Jones’ “Sunrise,” Maya Delilah covering Neil Young’s “Harvest Moon,” which was recorded by Cassandra Wilson on her 1995 Blue Note album New Moon Daughter, Birmingham-born pianist Reuben James’ reimagining of Wayne Shorter’s ballad “Infant Eyes,” London tuba player and Sons of Kemet member Theon Cross with a version of Thelonious Monk’s composition “Epistrophy,” and 9-piece afro-jazz outfit Nubiyan Twist’s fresh spin on Donald Byrd’s “Through The Noise (Chant 2)."

Blue Note is celebrated almost as much for its visionary album art as for its legendary recordings. Designer for the Blue Note Re:imagined campaign Jay Vaz said “The Blue Note Re:imagined identity explores an abstract graphic notation score, aiming to represent the exciting energy and diverse range of artists that the new wave of jazz offers. The LP cover pays homage to a selection of legendary Reid Miles covers [in particular, Jackie McLean - It’s Time] that I felt perfectly executed the energy of this compilation.”

Blue Note Re:imagined II – Tracklisting

1. Yazz Ahmed “It” – From Chick Corea Is (1969)
2. Conor Albert “You Make Me Feel So Good”- From Bobbi Humphrey Fancy Dancer (1975)
3. Parthenope “Don’t Know Why” - From Norah Jones Come Away With Me (2002)
4. Swindle “Miss Kane” – From Donald Byrd Street Lady (1973)
5. Nubiyan Twist “Through The Noise (Chant No.2)” – From Donald Byrd A New Perspective (1963)
6. Ego Ella May “The Morning Side Of Love” - From Chico Hamilton Pereginations (1975)
7. Oscar Jerome & Oscar #Worldpeace “(Why You So) Green With Envy” – From Grant Green Green Street (1961)
8. Daniel Casimir ft. Ria Moran “Lost” – From Wayne Shorter The Soothsayer (1965)
9. Theon Cross “Epistrophy” – From Thelonious Monk Genius Of Modern Music, Vol. 1 (1948)
10. Maya Delilah “Harvest Moon” – From Cassandra Wilson New Moon Daughter (1995)
11. Kay Young “Feel Like Making Love” - From Marlena Shaw Who Is This Bitch, Anyway? (1974)
12. Venna & Marco Bernardis “Where Are We Going” – From Donald Byrd Black Byrd (1972)
13. Reuben James “Infant Eyes” - From Wayne Shorter Speak No Evil (1964)
14. Binker Golding “Fort Worth” - From Joe Lovano From The Soul (1991)
15. Cherise “Sunrise” - From Norah Jones Feels Like Home (2004)
16. Franc Moody “Cristo Redentor”– From Donald Byrd A New Perspective (1963)

Additional singles will be released across the coming weeks. The full Blue Note Re:imagined II album will be released on September 30, 2022.

Mon, 06/20/2022 - 5:07 pm

The Harlem Gospel Travelers announced their new album Look Up!, out September 16th via Colemine Records. Produced by acclaimed soul singer-songwriter Eli Paperboy Reed, Look Up! marks the group’s first full-length release as a trio, as well as their first collection of totally original material. The music still draws deeply on the gospel quartet tradition of the ’50s and ’60s, but there’s a distinctly modern edge to the record, an unmistakable reflection of the tumultuous past few years of pandemic anxiety, political chaos, and social unrest. The album announcement comes with a video for the title track.

Watch The Harlem Gospel Travelers’ Video for “Look Up!”

Born out of an non-profit music education program led by Reed, The Harlem Gospel Travelers—singers Thomas Gatling, George Marage, and Dennis Bailey—released their debut LP, He’s On Time, to rave reviews in 2019, with PopMatters hailing the album’s “musical transcendence” and AllMusic praising it as “dreamlike and joyous.” The record charted on Billboard, earned the Travelers high profile fans like Elton John (who invited them to appear on his Rocket Hour radio show on Apple Music), and landed them festival slots everywhere from Pilgrimage to Telluride Jazz.

It’d be easy to classify Look Up! as “retro” or “vintage,” but the truth is that the young men of The Harlem Gospel Travelers aren’t just reviving sounds from the past, they’re revitalizing them for the present and reminding us just how relevant this music is (and always has been) in times of hardship and uncertainty. “Gospel’s at the root of everything,” says Gatling. “Country, folk, rock, soul, blues; we love it all, and it’s all in there.”

Gatling and his fellow Travelers were all familiar with gospel music to one degree or another growing up, but it wasn’t until their introduction to Reed that they began to learn about the rich history of the gospel quartet and timeless groups like The Soul Stirrers, The Dixie Hummingbirds, and The Swan Silvertones. In high school Gatling and Marage were participants in a non-profit music education program known as Gospel For Teens, which invited kids from all over New York to come to Harlem and sing after school.

“I was invited to visit the program and I thought it was great,” says Reed, “but it was all choir music. I asked if they’d ever consider doing a quartet program for young men, and they told me they’d love to but they didn’t have a teacher.” So Reed became the teacher, working with five or six teenagers at a time for semester-long programs focused on widening the students’ perspective of what gospel music could be and tapping into the true power of their voices. Participants came and went over the years, but some stuck around and began to suggest the kind of talent and ambition that reached beyond a simple after school program.

“I started working with Thomas when he was 13 or 14,” recalls Reed, “and he was the driving force behind this turning into more than just a class. He was bringing in song ideas of his own, and as he and George and some of the guys in the group began to age out of the program, I realized we needed to get them into the studio.” Thus, The Harlem Gospel Travelers were born, with Bailey (a college friend of Gatling’s) joining the group after the release of He’s On Time.

The Harlem Gospel Travelers’ full-length Look Up! is out September 16th via Colemine Records.

Look Up! Tracklist:
1. Look Up!
2. Hold On (Joy Is Coming)
3. God's in Control
4. Help Me To Understand
5. Nothing But His Love
6. Fight On!
7. Hold Your Head Up
8. That's the Reason
9. Let Me Tell You
10. God Will Take Care of You
11. I'm Grateful

Tour Dates:
July 23: Staten Island, NY - Maker Park Radio
August 3: Bloomington, IN - Buskirk Chumley Theater
August 4: Springfield, IL - Levitt Pavilion
August 5: Chicago, IL - Chop Shop
September 1: Brooklyn, NY - Baby’s Alright
 

Tue, 06/21/2022 - 2:43 pm

Two-time GRAMMY award-winning band Old Crow Medicine Show has shared the music video for “Used To Be A Mountain” off their critically acclaimed new album Paint This Town (ATO Records). A galvanizing meditation on environmental catastrophe, the video shines a light on the impact of mining in the Appalachian region.

Watch the official video for “Used To Be A Mountain” via YouTube.

Along with the video, the band has announced their partnership with Cumberland River Compact, a non-profit organization dedicated to enhancing water resources through education and cooperation. The partnership serves to bring awareness to the effects of climate change, connecting fans with ways to get involved in the local climate movement through local action. Cumberland River Compact will be present to share more information at the band’s upcoming June 25 performance at The Caverns Amphitheater in Grundy County, TN. See details HERE.

"I’ve been playing Appalachian music in Appalachia since I was a kid. West Virginia, Kentucky, Southwest Virginia, and East Tennessee are the places I love to play most. When you saw a fiddle in these settings it always feels like a homecoming. But time has dealt a hard hand to the region that gave birth to country music, and 'Used To Be a Mountain' is a song that wrestles with the issues facing Appalachia today,” explains Ketch Secor. "I think that the Intrepid spirit of the mountaineers of the coal fields of the Southern Highlands and Appalachia are some of the hardest and most important for bearers of the American dream. I think that when you take away the natural beauty and destroy the ecology of places, you don't have a whole lot left to rebuild with. I know there's a lot of folks that are hurting right now in the communities of the coal fields. This song is there to both reflect that hurt and to ask the question, can we do something better for these folks? Can we do something better for these mountains, these hills, the flora and fauna, for anybody who wants to breathe clean air and drink clean water in Appalachia?"

Earlier this spring, Old Crow Medicine Show released their seventh studio album Paint This Town, which debuted at #1 on Billboard’s Bluegrass Albums Chart, earning the band’s ninth career #1 and passing Steep Canyon Rangers for the most in the chart's history. The album has garnered widespread acclaim from press including Associated Press, Consequence, SPIN, Rolling Stone, NPR Music, Bandcamp, Garden & Gun and more, with many calling it their best to date. The group was recently featured on NPR’s World Cafe, guitarist Mike Harris gave a behind-the-scenes look at his gear for Premier Guitar’s Rig Rundown, and drummer Jerry Pentecost discussed the importance of honoring DeFord Bailey for WNXP’s Free Samples. Old Crow Medicine Show was also just announced to appear in the anticipated second season of CMT Campfire Sessions, airing on August 5.  
 
"If this is any indication of what Old Crow Medicine Show still has in store so many recordings in its career, we should count ourselves lucky.” – NPR Music

“Paint This Town could be considered the group’s most emphatic effort yet, given its music and messaging. Simply put, it’s also their best to boot.”
– American Songwriter (★★★★)

“Their best yet…Paint This Town is the work of a group who understand that the genre is sufficiently robust to withstand an amount of affectionate roughing up.” – UNCUT

"This medicine show’s passion and energy are a potent tonic, especially on songs about right and wrong.” – The Associated Press

"Old Crow Medicine Show just keeps getting better with each album, and Paint This Town is a superb testament to the band’s sterling musicianship and ingenious songwriting. This is one of the best albums of the year so far.” – No Depression

"Nearly two decades later, the ever-evolving cast of O.C.M.S. is still spreading the string-band gospel, and their new album Paint This Town sounds like a mid-career revival, thanks to a reinvigorated punk spirit, the addition of permanent drummer Jerry Pentecost, and a thematic turn toward heavy issues like addiction, divorce, climate change, and racism in America.” – Bandcamp

The band is currently on the road for a coast to coast tour in support of Paint This Town. Find a full list of tour dates below or at www.crowmedicine.com/tour.

Old Crow Medicine Show 2022 Tour Dates:
June 23 – Grand Rapids, MI @ Frederik Meijer Gardens
June 24 – Eau Claire, WI @ Blue Ox Music Festival
June 25 - Grundy Co, TN @ The Caverns Amphitheater
July 1 – Indianapolis, IN @ Rock The Ruins
July 2 – Highland Park, IL @ Ravinia Festival
July 8 – Marshfield, MA @ Levitate Music and Arts Festival
July 9 – Pasadena, CA @ Palomino Festival
July 10 – San Francisco, CA @ Stern Grove Festival
July 12 – Santa Rosa, CA @ Luther Burbank Center for the Arts
July 13 – Saratoga, CA @ The Mountain Winery
July 15 – Grass Valley, CA @ California WorldFest 2022
July 16 – Jacksonville, OR @ Britt Music & Arts Festival
July 17 – Portland, OR @ Pioneer Courthouse Square
July 18 – Seattle, WA @ Woodland Park Zoo
July 20 – Bonner, MT @ KettleHouse Amphitheater
July 21 – Bozeman, MT @ The ELM
July 22 – Jackson, WY @ Jackson Hole Center for the Arts
July 23 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Red Butte Garden Outdoor Concert Series
July 24 – Beaver Creek, CO @ Vilar Performing Arts Center
July 29 – Washington, DC @ The Anthem
July 30 – Floyd, VA @ Floydfest
August 5 – Little Rock, AR @ Simmons Bank Arena
August 7 – Edmonton, AB @ Edmonton Folk Festival
August 13 – French Lick, IN @ French Lick Resort
August 26 – Rochester Hills, MI @ Meadow Brooke Amphitheatre
August 27 – Canandaigua, NY @ CMAC
August 28 – Jay, VT @ Stateside Amphitheater
September 4 – Villa Grove, CO @ Seven Peaks Festival
September 9 – Richmond, VA @ Maymont
September 10 – Columbia, SC @ Township Auditorium
September 23 – North Adams, MA @ MASS MoCA
September 30 – St. Cloud, MN @ Paramount Center for the Arts
October 1 – Minot, ND @ Norsk Hostfest
October 9 – Columbia, MO @ Roots N Blues Festival
November 12 – Highlands, NC @ Kelsey-Hutchinson Founders Park

Sat, 06/25/2022 - 12:13 pm

Organ great Ronnie Foster returns to Blue Note Records with the July 15 release of Reboot, his first new album in 36 years, which arrives 50 years after his 1972 Blue Note debut Two Headed Freap. The nine-song album marks a fresh start for Foster, who has whipped up an omnidirectional brew of Hammond Organ Groove that pays homage to the past but more often reflects his restlessness for ushering in the new. Today, Foster released his rendition of Stevie Wonder’s “Isn’t She Lovely,” originally released on Wonder’s 1976 masterwork Songs In The Key Of Life — Foster had originally played on Songs In The Key Of Life album track “Summer Soft.” Foster covered a Stevie Wonder song on several of his Blue Note albums (“Superwoman” on 1972’s Sweet Revival, “Golden Lady” on 1974’s On The Avenue, “Tuesday Heartbreak” on 1975’s Cheshire Cat), and “Isn’t She Lovely” on 2022’s Reboot carries this tradition.

The Buffalo, New York born keyboardist first caught the ear of Blue Note co-founder Francis Wolff when he made his first-ever recording as a sideman on guitar legend Grant Green’s searingly funky Blue Note LP, Alive! in 1970. After Wolff passed away a few months later, Ronnie was officially signed to Blue Note by George Butler making him the next in an illustrious lineage of Hammond B3 organ artisans the label had presented which included Jimmy Smith, Larry Young, and Dr. Lonnie Smith. Two Headed Freap was the first in a run of five stellar jazz-funk albums Foster would make for Blue Note throughout the 1970s including Sweet Revival, Live: Cookin’ with Blue Note at Montreux, On the Avenue, and Cheshire Cat. Stream our playlist Ronnie Foster: The Finest featuring highlights from the organist’s Blue Note discography.

In addition to his work with Stevie Wonder, listeners the world over have heard Foster’s soulful playing on best-selling George Benson albums including Breezin’, and A Tribe Called Quest’s classic hip-hop track “Electric Relaxation” which sampled Foster’s “Mystic Brew” from Two Headed Freap, which was reissued last week as part of Blue Note’s Classic Vinyl Reissue Series.

Mightily hoisting the Blue Note organ torch once again, Foster gives thanks to the musical osmosis that was poured into him by all of the greats that preceded him. In the album’s liner notes, Ronnie makes sure to pay homage to one very important person in his life who passed away in 2021: “This album is dedicated to the memory of my brother, friend, Buffalo Homie and hero Dr. Lonnie Smith, who was one of the best in the world on the Hammond B3 organ.”

Sat, 06/25/2022 - 1:03 pm

Blue Note Re:imagined returns in 2022 with a new 16-track compilation featuring fresh takes on music from the illustrious Blue Note Records vaults recorded by a heavyweight line-up of the UK jazz, soul, and R&B scene’s most hotly-tipped rising stars. Arriving off the back of the widespread international success of the first volume, which topped jazz charts around the globe, Blue Note Re:imagined II once again infuses the spirit of the new UK jazz generation into the legendary label’s iconic catalog, balancing the genre’s tradition with its future and reflecting the melting pot of talent and diversity within the current scene.
 
Today, Blue Note released the second track from the album — it’s London tuba player Theon Cross’ reimagining of Thelonious Monk’s “Epistrophy,” which first appeared on Monk’s 1948 Blue Note album Genius Of Modern Music, Vol. 1. Cross is known as a core member of Sons of Kemet, and he’s collaborated with artists like Moses Boyd, Nubya Garcia,  Jon Batiste, Emeli Sandé, Kano, Lafawndah, and Makaya McCraven. The pre-order launches today for the 7” vinyl release out July 8 of Theon Cross’ “Epistrophy” paired with Ego Ella May’s reimagining of visionary drummer Chico Hamilton’s “The Morning Side Of Love," which was the first single released off the album.

Listen to Theon Cross’ Reimagining of Thelonious Monk’s “Epistrophy”

“For more than eight decades the artists of Blue Note Records have continually pushed the envelope of contemporary music,” said Blue Note President Don Was. “Blue Note Re:imagined II once again honors that legacy by letting the UK’s most creative young artists reinvent the treasures of the Blue Note catalog through their own lens.”

Additional tracks on the album will include funk-pop duo Franc Moody’s version of Donald Byrd’s “Cristo Redentor,” fast-emerging vocalist Cherise’s take on Norah Jones’ “Sunrise,” Maya Delilah covering Neil Young’s “Harvest Moon,” which was recorded by Cassandra Wilson on her 1995 Blue Note album New Moon Daughter, Birmingham-born pianist Reuben James’ reimagining of Wayne Shorter’s ballad “Infant Eyes,” and 9-piece afro-jazz outfit Nubiyan Twist’s fresh spin on Donald Byrd’s “Through The Noise (Chant 2)."

Blue Note is celebrated almost as much for its visionary album art as for its legendary recordings. Designer for the Blue Note Re:imagined campaign Jay Vaz said “The Blue Note Re:imagined identity explores an abstract graphic notation score, aiming to represent the exciting energy and diverse range of artists that the new wave of jazz offers. The LP cover pays homage to a selection of legendary Reid Miles covers [in particular, Jackie McLean - It’s Time] that I felt perfectly executed the energy of this compilation.”
 
Blue Note Re:imagined II – Tracklisting
 
1. Yazz Ahmed “It” – From Chick Corea Is (1969)
2. Conor Albert “You Make Me Feel So Good”- From Bobbi Humphrey Fancy Dancer (1975)
3. Parthenope “Don’t Know Why” - From Norah Jones Come Away With Me (2002)
4. Swindle “Miss Kane” – From Donald Byrd Street Lady (1973)
5. Nubiyan Twist “Through The Noise (Chant No.2)” – From Donald Byrd A New Perspective (1963)
6. Ego Ella May “The Morning Side Of Love” - From Chico Hamilton Pereginations (1975)
7. Oscar Jerome & Oscar #Worldpeace “(Why You So) Green With Envy” – From Grant Green Green Street (1961)
8. Daniel Casimir ft. Ria Moran “Lost” – From Wayne Shorter The Soothsayer (1965)
9. Theon Cross “Epistrophy” – From Thelonious Monk Genius Of Modern Music, Vol. 1 (1948)
10. Maya Delilah “Harvest Moon” – From Cassandra Wilson New Moon Daughter (1995)
11. Kay Young “Feel Like Making Love” - From Marlena Shaw Who Is This Bitch, Anyway? (1974)
12. Venna & Marco Bernardis “Where Are We Going” – From Donald Byrd Black Byrd (1972)
13. Reuben James “Infant Eyes” - From Wayne Shorter Speak No Evil (1964)
14. Binker Golding “Fort Worth” - From Joe Lovano From The Soul (1991)
15. Cherise “Sunrise” - From Norah Jones Feels Like Home (2004)
16. Franc Moody “Cristo Redentor”– From Donald Byrd A New Perspective (1963)
 
Additional singles will be released across the coming weeks. The full Blue Note Re:imagined II album will be released on September 30, 2022.

Sat, 06/25/2022 - 2:21 pm

Ray Charles’ Tangerine Records is celebrating the 50th Anniversary of one of Charles most important and impactful albums; A Message from The People. This special remastered 50th Anniversary edition of the landmark recording, is now available on Vinyl, CD and all streaming services for the first time in more than 10 years.

Order / Download A Message From The People

Originally released on April 4, 1972, A Message from The People remains one of Charles’ most celebrated albums, as well as the most socially conscious work of his six-decade career. The record directly confronts societal ills of poverty and injustice while offering a universal message of brotherhood and hope for peace; topics that are as relevant today as they were 50 years ago. The album includes classic tracks like “They’ll Be No Peace on Earth Without All Men As One,” “Abraham, Martin and John,” the Gospel infused “Lift Every Voice and Sing” and “Heaven Help Us All.” The album also includes Ray’s recording of “Hey Mister,” which was played during a Congressional joint hearing in 1972 to speak on behalf of common citizens to a government that was widely seen as ignoring their needs. Perhaps most impactful track is Ray’s classic rendition of “America the Beautiful,” which quickly became our second national anthem and has inspired countless generations since its release 50 years ago. A new video of the iconic track has also been shared today in honor of this historic release.

Watch: Ray Charles - “America The Beautiful”

According to PopMatters: “If one human voice could dignify the plight of the impoverished, celebrate the brief respite of the working class and honor the patriotism of a people, in that post-turbulent era of the early ‘70’s - that instrument would belong to the singer-pianist Ray Charles.”

The unprecedented success of A Message from The People made 1972 a seminal year for Ray Charles.  Also recorded that same year was the previously unreleased Ray Charles Live In Stockholm 1972, just discovered in 2021. This recording captures Charles at the height of his powers in one of his best live recordings ever. Recorded on a magical night in Stockholm, this set faithfully captures great moments and arrangements often heard in Ray’s live performances but rarely, if ever, on record. The evening begins with a rip-roaring rendition of Ray’s classic concert opener, “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” followed by an electrifying “What’d I Say”.  Ray then delivers two more rarities, a gut-wrenching bluesy rendition of “I’ve Had My Fun” followed by “Games People Play,” a number that features each of Ray’s legendary 1972 Raelettes. The set continues with Ray’s unique live arrangements of “Don’t Change On Me” and “I Can’t Stop Loving You” before closing with the hard-swinging band feature “Marie” followed by an extended 8-minute version of “I’ve Got A Woman” that sees Ray riffing on his 1954 hit, building to a finale that brings the house down. These live recordings were only recently available exclusively on True Genius, a 6-CD limited edition box set released by Tangerine Records in 2021. More info on True Genius is available here.

Ray Charles Live In Stockholm 1972 is currently available on vinyl and on all streaming services.

Thu, 06/30/2022 - 3:18 pm

The Gabbard Brothers released “Pockets of Your Mind,” the second single from their upcoming debut self-titled album (out July 15th via Karma Chief / Colemine Records). From the ashes of the acclaimed Ohio rock band Buffalo Killers, singers/ songwriters/siblings Zachary and Andrew Gabbard have re-emerged as The Gabbard Brothers. And while there are still similarities to their previous band — with nods to greats like Neil Young, James Gang, and Buffalo Springfield — there's a hazier, organic, earthy-psych vibe running through the brothers' new music.

Listen to “Pockets of Your Mind” by The Gabbard Brothers

Like virtually every other recording act, the pandemic cast a shadow of uncertainty over the duo's new work. "I think it would’ve been impossible to do this record with other people included, at the time it was created," Andy admits. "But since it was just us two playing all the instruments we knew we could be safe and also split the recording process easily between our home studios."
 
The Gabbard Brothers released their two debut singles "Sell Your Gun Buy A Guitar" and "Too Much To Feel" in 2019 and 2020. While comparisons to so many greats have always come easy with their previous work, the brothers seem to be settling into their own signature sound. Zachary and Andrew also served as The Black Keys' bassist and guitarist, respectively, in their expanded tour group in 2019 and are slated to join Dan & Patrick on the road again for the Keys' extensive upcoming 2022 summer/fall Dropout Boogie Tour.
 
The Gabbard Brothers drops on July 15th via Karma Chief Records.
 
The Gabbard Brothers Tracklist:
1. Hang On, Mama
2. Feel Better Love Better
3. Pockets Of Your Mind
4. Little Mama
5. Said Too Much
6. Hazard KY Bluegrass Grandma
7. Early Pages
8. Lovin' Arms
9. Yer A Rockstar
10. Gimme Some Of That
11. Easter's Child
12. Lay Down

Fri, 07/08/2022 - 8:18 am

Today, Jack Tempchin (known for co-writing with Glenn Frey) and San Diego-based band Mrs. Henry shared a new single, “Bob Dylan’s Whiskey,” their second single following “Waiting,” which marked their first collaboration.

“In my opinion, ‘Bob Dylan's Whiskey’ is the epitome of the Jack Tempchin and Mrs. Henry collaboration,” says Mrs. Henry’s Daniel Cervantes. “A true nod to our initial inspiration of Bob Dylan and the Band - a great songwriter backed by a great band. Live, real, raw, honest and full of emotion. We all know what to do and how to do it. The artwork is by my good friend Alan Forbes and design by Aurora Rocío Pacheco - Both are always down to whip something together on the fly and inspired by the power of music.”

Watch “Bob Dylan’s Whiskey” Live Video HERE

Jack Tempchin is a legendary hit songwriter, whose compositions “Peaceful Easy Feeling” and “Already Gone” are synonymous with the Southern California Sound. These songs can be found on the Eagles’ compilation Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975, which the RIAA named the Best-Selling U.S. Album of the 20th Century. In addition to the Eagles, Tempchin has written songs for artists such as George Jones, Glenn Campbell, Emmylou Harris, Tanya Tucker, Patty Loveless, and many others. In 2019, he was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in New York City.

San Diego, CA-based Mrs. Henry is a hard-hitting rock and roll band, a quartet of singular spirits on a shared journey, paying homage to a historic legacy as they introduce a new chapter in American roots music. With spring-loaded authority, bassist Blake Dean and drummer Chad Lee balance the spiraling keyboard dexterity of Jody Bagley and the scorching guitar of Daniel Cervantes. All four, compelling lead singers, possess individual voices that intersect and complement one another, singular identities that unite in celebratory choruses.  
 
Mrs. Henry is at the center of a creative collective of like-minded music makers, a number of them signees to Blind Owl Records, a label founded by Cervantes. An eclectic roster of notable San Diego artists joined the ambitious 2017 project, Mrs. Henry presents The Last Waltz, a live recreation of The Band’s fabled 1976 swan song, staged as a concert at the Belly Up in Solana Beach, CA, recorded as a two-CD, triple vinyl set, and filmed as a documentary short that premiered at the Oceanside International Film Festival.
 
It was at the rehearsals for Mrs. Henry presents The Last Waltz where the band met Tempchin, and their collaboration was born. During a rehearsal, Tempchin started to quietly strum and sing an original of his, and Mrs. Henry joined in. It then occurred to them that the rehearsal space had great acoustics for live recordings, so they recruited an engineer friend to record a handful of songs.
 
“They’re all live recordings and no overdubs. It’s just us,” says Tempchin. “The thing that excites me most about [Mrs. Henry] is the singing all four of those guys can do. They can instantly slap incredible harmonies on anything. I feel like this band backing me up lifts my songs to completely new places and gives them a lot more meaning.”

Wed, 07/13/2022 - 6:36 pm

Today, Rhett Miller announced his new album The Misfit with the dreamy and reflective debut single “Follow You Home,” featuring vocals from Cassandra Jenkins and Annie Nero. The album marks his first solo full length album in four years and will be released on September 16 via ATO Records. The Misfit, now available for pre-order, was co-written and produced by Miller’s Hudson Valley, NY neighbor Sam Cohen (Kevin Morby, Sharon Van Etten, Danger Mouse) and continues their musical partnership that began on 2018’s The Messenger.

Listen to “Follow You Home” via YouTube.

“When you’re young, you imagine a perfect scenario for how your life will unfold, and of course it doesn’t turn out that way,” explains Miller. “I never thought I’d live out in the country north of New York City, or that I’d be one of only a handful of middle-class musicians who are able to make a good living. ‘Follow You Home’ came from wrestling with the idea of home as a place I never would’ve pictured—and yet I can’t imagine having wound up anywhere else.”

The 11 songs that comprise The Misfit are an elegant blurring of psychedelia, dream pop, and electronic-leaning indie rock, grounded by the vulnerable songwriting and unaffected vocal presence Miller has perfected as the frontman for legendary alt-country band Old 97's for the last three decades.

“Making this album was the closest thing I’d ever experienced to being part of something magic,” Miller explains of his collaborative process with Sam Cohen. “As we were working we kept returning to the relationship between David Bowie and Brian Eno and the records they made together, and how fearless they were in their approach to finding the songs,” says Miller of the collaborative process. “It turned into a routine where every morning I’d leave home and drive over the mountain to his house, and by that evening we’d have a rough mix of a new song. The speed of creation was absolutely wild; in some ways I can’t even believe it happened.”  

In selecting the cover art for The Misfit, Miller reached out to globally renowned painter Ashley Longshore, who he first connected with on his podcast, “Wheels Off.” “I knew The Misfit needed a cover that was otherworldly in its colors and its feel, so I contacted Ashley knowing it was a long shot. She connected with the songs, and the piece she created was so beautiful and thoughtful and perfect. It adds a whole new level of artistry to the album, and now anyone who gets the vinyl can have an Ashley Longshore painting of their own.”

The Misfit tracklist:
1) Heart Attack Days
2) Follow You Home
3) Go Through You
4) Already There
5) Just When It Gets Good
6) Beautiful Life
7) Fascination
8) The White Tops
9) Let Me Go There With You
10) Twelve Thirty Four
11) You’ll Be Glad

Upcoming Rhett Miller Tour Dates:
7/13 - Richmond, VA - Richmond Music Hall
7/14 - Asheville, SC - The Grey Eagle
7/15 - Greenville, SC - The Radio Room
7/16 - Chapel Hill, NC - Local 506
7/16 - Annapolis, MD - Rams Head On Stage
7/17 - Amagansett, NY - The Stephen Talkhouse
7/28 - Aurora, IL - The Venue
7/29 - Evanston, IL - SPACE
7/30 - Wapakoneta, OH - Route 33 Rhythm & Brews
11/5 - Beacon NY - Towne Crier

Upcoming Old 97’s Tour Dates:
8/18 - Columbia, MO - Rose Park
8/19 - St Louis, MO - The Factory at the District
8/20 - Little Rock, AR - The Rev Room
9/13 - Montgomery, NY - City Winery Hudson Valley
9/14 - Syracuse, NY - The Lost Horizon
9/15 - Buffalo, NY  - Rec Room
9/16 - Ardmore, PA - Ardmore Music Hall
9/17 - Hummelstown, PA - The Englewood Barn
9/18 - Baltimore, MD - Baltimore Soundstage
9/20 - Newport, KY - The Southgate House
9/21 - Columbus, OH - The Bluestone
9/22 - Cleveland, OH - House of Blues
9/23 - Detroit, MI - St. Andrew’s Hall
9/24 - Grand Rapids, MI - Elevation at The Intersection
9/25 - Milwaukee, WI - The Rave II
9/27 - Madison, WI - Majestic Theatre
9/28 - LaCrosse, WI - Cavalier Theater
9/29 - Des Moines, IA - Wooly's
9/30 - La Cygne, KS - Firewater Music Festival
10/1 - Indianapolis, IN - The Hi-Fi Annex
10/2 - Chicago, IL - Thalia Hall

Mon, 07/18/2022 - 1:26 pm

GRAMMY Award-winning band Old Crow Medicine Show have announced their return to the famed Ryman Auditorium stage in Nashville for their 15th annual New Year’s Eve show on December 31. Tickets are on sale this Friday, July 22, with an artist presale beginning on Tuesday, July 19 at 10:00 am.

“I'm over the moon about this year's New Year’s bash at the Ryman,” shared Ketch Secor. “After 14 consecutive seasons of ringing in the new year from the stage of the world-renowned Mother Church of Country Music, our band has figured out a few secrets to throwing a great party in Downtown Nashville. Every year proves to be something bigger and better and even as we close in on our second decade of year-end Ryman performances, we’re still humbled every time we set foot in the place. It’s just plain holy ground. What better place to start anew at the stroke of midnight, January 1?”

Earlier this spring, Old Crow Medicine Show released their seventh studio album Paint This Town, which just hit #1 on the Americana Radio Albums Chart, earning the band’s 10th career #1. The album also debuted at the top of Billboard’s Bluegrass Albums Chart, passing Steep Canyon Rangers for the most #1s in the chart's history. Paint This Town has garnered widespread acclaim from press including Associated Press, Consequence, SPIN, Rolling Stone, NPR Music, Bandcamp, Garden & Gun and more, with many calling it their best release to date. The band recently sat down with NPR’s World Cafe, guitarist Mike Harris shared insight into his gear for Premier Guitar’s Rig Rundown, and drummer Jerry Pentecost talked about the importance of honoring DeFord Bailey for WNXP’s Free Samples. Additionally, Old Crow Medicine Show was recently announced to appear in the anticipated second season of CMT Campfire Sessions, set to air on August 5.

Paint This Town was recorded in the band’s own East Nashville-based Hartland Studio and co-produced with Matt Ross-Spang (John Prine, Jason Isbell).

Listen to Paint This Town: https://atorecords-ffm.com/album_ptt

Old Crow Medicine Show is currently on the road for a coast to coast tour in support of Paint This Town. Find a full list of tour dates below or at www.crowmedicine.com/tour.

Old Crow Medicine Show 2022 Tour Dates:
July 18 – Seattle, WA @ Woodland Park Zoo
July 20 – Bonner, MT @ KettleHouse Amphitheater
July 21 – Bozeman, MT @ The ELM
July 22 – Jackson, WY @ Jackson Hole Center for the Arts
July 23 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Red Butte Garden Outdoor Concert Series
July 24 – Beaver Creek, CO @ Vilar Performing Arts Center
July 29 – Washington, DC @ The Anthem
July 30 – Floyd, VA @ Floydfest
August 5 – Little Rock, AR @ Simmons Bank Arena
August 7 – Edmonton, AB @ Edmonton Folk Festival
August 13 – French Lick, IN @ French Lick Resort
August 26 – Rochester Hills, MI @ Meadow Brooke Amphitheatre
August 27 – Canandaigua, NY @ CMAC
August 28 – Jay, VT @ Stateside Amphitheater
September 4 – Villa Grove, CO @ Seven Peaks Festival
September 9 – Richmond, VA @ Maymont
September 10 – Columbia, SC @ Township Auditorium
September 16 – Redondo Beach, CA @ BeachLife Ranch
September 22 – Harrisburg, PA @ XL Live
September 23 – North Adams, MA @ MASS MoCA
September 24 – New London, CT @ Garde Arts Center
September 30 – St. Cloud, MN @ Paramount Center for the Arts
October 1 – Minot, ND @ Norsk Hostfest
October 7 – Germantown, TN @ Duncan-Williams Performance Hall
October 9 – Columbia, MO @ Roots N Blues Festival
October 14 – St. Augustine, FL @ St. Augustine Amphitheatre
October 15 – Apopka, FL @ Apopka Amphitheater
October 18 – Key West, FL @ Coffee Butler Amphitheater
November 12 – Highlands, NC @ Kelsey-Hutchinson Founders Park
December 31 – Nashville, TN @ Ryman Auditorium

Thu, 07/21/2022 - 1:54 pm

Today, Nashville-based trio The Lone Bellow released their new single titled “Gold.” The first new release since their triumphant 2020 album Half Moon Light, “Gold” embodies an unvarnished intensity with a galvanizing look at the real-life impact of the opioid crisis. Recorded with their longtime bassist Jason Pipkin and drummer Julian Dorio, the chorus explodes in a wild collision of bright piano tones, potent beats, and massively stacked guitars.
 
Listen To “Gold” HERE.

 
“We don’t ever try to write songs with an agenda, so with ‘Gold’ the idea was to tell the story from the perspective of someone in a hard situation—in this case, a guy who’s stuck in the downward spiral of addiction,” stated guitarist Brian Elmquist. “We’ve sung ‘Gold’ as a folk song in the past, but for the recording we wanted to really experiment and push our sound as far as it could go.”
 
The Lone Bellow are currently on tour this summer supporting Maren Morris with upcoming dates that include Salt Lake City, Boise, San Diego, and Phoenix among others. They have also announced their fall headline tour which kicks off on October 22nd in Stoughton, WI and includes stops at Chicago’s Thalia Hall, Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium, DC’s 9:30 Club, and NYC’s Webster Hall among others. Tickets go on sale Friday at 10am local. For more information or to purchase tickets, visit www.thelonebellow.com/tour.
 
Founded by Zach Williams, Kanene Donehey Pipkin, and Brian Elmquist, The Lone Bellow made their auspicious debut in 2013 with the self-titled, Charlie Peacock-produced album that quickly landed at No. 64 on the Billboard 200. It later turned up on best-of-the-year lists from the likes of Paste and PopMatters. With over 100 million career streams to date, The Lone Bellow’s past output also includes the Aaron Dessner-produced Then Came the Morning (a 2015 effort that earned them an Americana Music Award nomination) and Walk Into a Storm (a 2017 release produced by Dave Cobb and hailed by NPR for its “warmly rousing, gospel-inflected Americana”).
 
Tour Dates:
07/23 - Lincoln City, IN @ Lincoln Amphitheatre
08/16 - Vail, CO @ Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater *
08/18 - Salt Lake City, UK @ Red Butte Garden *
08/19 - Boise, ID @ Idaho Botanical Garden: Outlaw Field *
08/20 - Missoula, MT @ Big Sky Brewing Company Amphitheater *
08/23 - Walla Walla, WA @ Wine Country Amphitheater *
08/28 - Troutdale, OR @ McMenamins Edgefield Amphitheater *
09/01 - Stowe, VT @ Spruce Peak Summer Concert Series
09/03 - Nantucket, MA @ The Dreamland Theater
09/15 - Santa Barbara, CA @ Santa Barbara Bowl *
09/16 - San Diego, CA @ Cal Coast Credit Union Open Air Theatre *
09/17 - Berkeley, CA @ The Greek Theatre *
09/18 - Grass Valley, CA @ The Center For The Arts
09/20 - Pioneertown, CA @ Pappy & Harriet’s
09/23 - Phoenix, AZ @ Arizona Federal Theatre *
10/19 - Morrison, CO @ Red Rocks Amphitheatre *
10/21 - Minneapolis, MN @ The Armory *
10/22 - Stoughton, WI @ Stoughton Opera House
10/23 - Chicago, IL @ Thalia Hall
10/24 - Chicago, IL @ Thalia Hall
10/26 - Cincinnati, OH @ Memorial Hall
10/27 - Pittsburgh, PA @ Mr. Smalls Theatre
10/28 - Indianapolis, IN @ Vogue
10/29 - St. Louis, MO @ Sheldon Concert Hall
11/02 - Louisville, KY @ Bomhard Theatre
11/03 - Knoxville, TN @ Bijou Theater
11/04 - Nashville, TN @ Ryman Auditorium
11/05 - Atlanta, GA @ Variety Playhouse
11/06 - Birmingham, AL @ Saturn
11/11 - Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club
11/12 - Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club
11/13 - New York, NY @ Webster Hall
11/15 - Philadelphia, PA @ Union Transfer
11/16 - Portland, ME @ State Theater
11/17 - Boston, MA @ Paradise Rock Club
11/18 - Fairfield, CT @ Warehouse
11/19 - Richmond, VA @ The National

*supporting Maren Morris

Sat, 07/23/2022 - 2:49 pm

Today, acclaimed artist Andrew Combs shares “Anna Please,” the latest single from his forthcoming album Sundays (August 19th, Tone Tree (US), Loose Records (UK/EU)). The song’s sparse, cinematic silence is reminiscent of Ingmar Bergman’s work, and the accompanying music video pays homage to the Swedish filmmaker’s 1972 film Cries and Whispers.

Watch the official “Anna Please” music video via YouTube

Stream “Anna Please”

Preorder Sundays on CD and Vinyl

“This tune is written from a dying woman’s point of view,” explains Combs. “It is an ode to her caretaker, who seems to have more compassion for her than the rest of her kin do. It was inspired by Ingmar Bergman’s film Cries and Whispers, and the video by Austin Leih is an homage to the Swedish filmmaker.”

Sundays came together on the heels of a mental breakdown that Combs experienced at the end of 2020 amid the long, monotonous grind of an ongoing global pandemic. As he turned to the practice of transcendental meditation to help find balance, Combs began going into the studio every Sunday with the goal of capturing a song he penned the previous week. The resulting 11-song collection offers a deep dive into his fragmented subconscious, centered around a pervasive sense of quiet hope that is succinctly summarized in his recent singles “The Ship” and “(God)less,” which was praised by Atwood Magazine for “finding beauty in the chaos of our world.”

Recorded entirely in mono, Sundays was collaboratively produced by Combs and Jordan Lehning (Caitlin Rose, Caroline Spence, Rodney Crowell) with additional arrangements from Dominic Billett (drums for Erin Rae, Julia Jacklin, Courtney Marie Andrews). The minimal approach lies in stark contrast to the maximalist production of his earlier work, including 2015’s All These Dreams, which received extensive praise from NPR and American Songwriter, and 2019’s Ideal Man, which impressed the likes of Rolling Stone and No Depression. Leaning away from the linear Americana-inflected instrumentation of lush strings, longing pedal steel and fingerpicked acoustic guitar, Sundays heads into darker and more sparse territory with a lonely, thumb-strummed electric sound colored by brooding woodwinds. As we make our way through the album, it feels as though an almost-imperceptible progression is happening, a movement toward some kind of resolve, at least, if not peace.

Sundays Tracklist:
1. (God)less
2. Anna Please
3. Mark Of The Man
4. Still Water
5. The Ship
6. Truth And Love
7. Adeline
8. Down Among The Dead
9. Drivel To A Dream
10. I See Me
11. Shall We Go

Mon, 07/25/2022 - 7:52 am

Tangerine Records has announced the re-release of the transformative mashup album Ray Sings, Basie Swings, for September 23rd, 2022. Originally released in 2006, the uniquely inspired album mixes previously unreleased Ray Charles vocal performances from the seventies with newly recorded instrumental tracks by the contemporary Count Basie Orchestra, and will be available on all streaming services for the first time in over a decade, as well as on CD and in a double-vinyl package. Ray Sings, Basie Swings is currently available for pre-order here.

Tangerine Records has also released a new video for the signature track “Let The Good Times Roll.”

In 2005, then Concord Records head John Burk (producer of Charles’ 2004 Grammy-winning Genius Loves Company) found a reel of tape simply labeled “Ray/Basie.”  “I was immediately excited as there were no prior recordings of Ray Charles with the Basie band,” says Burk. “...and I practically ran to put the tapes on the machine.”

What John heard, though, wasn’t Basie and Ray playing together, but rather separate sets during concerts performed in Germany and England.

Still, an unknown live recording of Charles from the seventies was cause for excitement.  But the recording of Ray’s band was obscured by a bad mix, leaving only Charles’ exceptional vocal performance audible.  At first, it was thought that this potentially momentous discovery would be unusable.  Until Burk had the brilliant idea to bring the contemporary Count Basie Orchestra into the studio to lay newly recorded instrumental tracks behind Charles’ incredible vocal performances.

Ray Charles loved Count Basie, and in fact used Basie’s arrangements as a blueprint for his own arrangements.  According to Sid Feller, who probably wrote more Ray Charles big band orchestrations than anyone, Charles would “often point to Basie charts as templates. He wanted that thick harmony in the reeds. He wanted those clean horn punches. He wanted it simple like Basie, and he wanted it strong. Mostly, though, he wanted that Basie swing.”

Charles was in top form on this mix of remakes of his early ABC-Paramount-era hits and then-recent material. The consecutive reworkings of "Busted," "Cryin' Time," and "I Can't Stop Loving You," three of his defining Top Ten hits of the early '60s, are given brassy, bluesy treatments here, and standards ranging from Oscar Hammerstein II’s "Oh, What a Beautiful Morning" to The Beatles’ "The Long and Winding Road" are transformed in Charles’ hands. The set-closing "Georgia on My Mind," as close to a signature song as Charles had, is given a tender, minimalist reading, but the track preceding it, "Look What They've Done to My Song, Ma," picked up from the folk-pop singer Melanie, is quite possibly the album's highlight.

Burk and his co-producers decided on a single goal: to make the date sound like a genuine heart-to-heart collaboration.  To create the impression that it was actually performed together, the editing process took four months.  The end result is a compelling and real collaboration, even if it didn’t happen in real time.  

Ray Sings, Basie Swings, two great artists together on one of the finest albums in Ray’s illustrious career.

Tracklist:

1. Oh, What A Beautiful Morning
2. Let The Good Times
3. How Long Has This Been Going On?
4. Everly Saturday Night
5. Busted
6. Crying Time
7. I Can't Stop Loving You
8. Come Live With Me
9. Feel So Bad
10. The Long and Winding Road
11. Look What They're Done To My Song
12. Georgia On My Mind

Mon, 07/25/2022 - 8:03 am

Zero has announced their new album Naught Again will have its High Fidelity Double-Vinyl LP release on September 2, 2022 via Omnivore Recordings. Released on CD and digital earlier this year, the record consists of performances newly mixed by Emmy-nominated producer/engineer Brian Risner from the original multi-track tapes recorded by Dan Healy (Grateful Dead) in 1992 at The Great American Music Hall in San Francisco. One album from that 3 night long concert event was released as Chance In A Million in 1994 and now a second appears as Naught Again in 2022.

Naught Again has been praised by Goldmine Magazine, The Aquarian, Glide Magazine, JamBase, Rock And Roll Globe, and many more, including noted producer/writer Bill Bentley in his June 2022 album review in ‘Bentley’s Bandstand’ on Americana Highways who exclaimed:

"This is the certified real deal........That it has appeared now since its origination 30 years ago is near miraculous and is a jubilation–inducing celebration on its own.  Zero, on their second release from these nights onstage, have taken us to the promised land of improvisational rock & roll, thrown open the door to the next dimension and set their followers free. Chips cashed in."

Zero was formed in the early 1980s by guitarist/composer Steve Kimock and drummer/composer Greg Anton after playing in Grateful Dead members Keith & Donna Godchaux’s new Heart Of Gold Band.  Many heavyweight San Francisco Bay and international artists perform with Zero on this album, including Nicky Hopkins on piano (The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who) Pete Sears on organ, piano, vocals (Jefferson Starship), John Kahn on bass (Jerry Garcia Band), Vince Welnick on piano, vocals (Grateful Dead) and others. John Cipollina of Quicksilver Messenger Service, though not playing on this album, was also once a band member.  

Considering the Zero family tree, it seemed inevitable that Rock and Roll Hall Of Famer and Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter would add his lyrics. It was a magic ingredient and Zero took off. After nine albums and over 1,300 shows, Zero was more than a conglomerate of talented musicians, they became a San Francisco institution.

Zero has also shared a very special single from the release, ‘Baba O'Riley/Gregg’s Egg’s,’ (writers Pete Townshend/Greg Anton) featuring the Dead’s Vince Welnick on lead vocals, piano and Robert Hunter performing a mesmerizing poetic-rap intro.

Naught Again is a music treasure trove, featuring original Robert Hunter/Zero songs, Kimock & Anton instrumental compositions, as well as covers from The Who, Jimi Hendrix, and so much more.

"Zero can put the whammy on the crowd,” as Robert Hunter states. “I've seen a lot of crowds in my life, but they can do something that I've never seen before.”

An evening from the past ushers in a new era for Zero who have a number of tour dates scheduled for the rest of 2022. They include the band’s 30th Anniversary and Vinyl Release show at The Fillmore in San Francisco on October 15. See full list of dates below. For more info, visit Zero’s website: http://www.thebandzero.com/

Watch the trailer here: https://youtu.be/7vY3sMlPLio

Pre-Order the vinyl LP version, and purchase the record on CD and digital here: http://www.omnivorerecordings.com/shop/naught-again

Tour Dates:
July 27 - Jacksonville, OR @ The Stone Cold Hemp Barn
July 28 - Seattle, WA @ Neptune Theatre
July 29- Portland, OR @ Aladdin Theater
July 30 - Eugene, OR @ WOW Hall
October 15 - San Francisco, CA @ The Fillmore
October 27 - Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Bowl
October 28 - Ardmore, PA @ Ardmore Music Hall
October 29 - Stroudsburg, PA @ Sherman Theater
October 30 - Baltimore, MD @ Baltimore Soundstage
November 2 - Woodstock, NY @ Bearsville Theater
November 3 - Hartford, CT @ Infinity Hall Hartford
November 4 - Beverly, MA @ The Cabot
November 5 - Plymouth, NH @ The Flying Monkey
November 6 - Essex Junction, VT @ T Rex Theater
December 2 - Fayetteville, AR @ George’s Majestic
December 3 - Fayetteville, AR @ George’s Majestic
December 4 - Fayetteville, AR @ George’s Majestic

Track List:
Side 1
1. Prologue by Robert Hunter
2. Cole’s Law
3. Interlude
4. Tangled Hangers

Side 2
1. End Of The World Blues
2. Golden Road

Side 3
1. Gregg’s Egg’s
2. Baba O’Riley
3. Little Wing

Side 4
1. Epilogue by Robert Hunter
2. Tear Tags Off Mattresses
3. Roll Me Over
4. Roll Me After

Wed, 08/03/2022 - 10:40 am

The Boulder, CO-based bluegrass trio Ragged Union announced their first new album Round Feet, Chrome Smile will be released on September 30, 2022. Today, they released the official video for the album’s first single “Somebody Call the Doctor.” Glide Magazine praised the band’s “damn fine harmonies” and “top notch bluegrass picking,” and proclaimed, “Ragged Union definitely delivers the kind of bluegrass goods that fit right in on a sunny summer day with a beer in hand.”

Watch the official video for “Somebody Call the Doctor” via YouTube.

“‘'Somebody Call the Doctor' is about realizing the world you grew up in is messed up, phony and repressed, and you’re ready to seek out a new place, ‘where the minds are open wide,” explains singer and guitarist Geoff Union.

Round Feet, Chrome Smile is the group’s third album and first in more than 5 years. Ragged Union has evolved musically from their origins focusing on fast-picking bluegrass and big harmony vocals to a more progressive style of string band music. The trio consists of singer/songwriter and flatpicker Geoff Union, mandolin/vocalist Elio Schiavo, and fiddle player/vocalist Rebekah Durham, a Juilliard-trained violinist who has toured internationally with the indie rock band San Fermin.

“Round Feet, Chrome Smile is a collection of original songs (and one obscure John Hartford cover that sums it all up), that continue in the same boundary-less lyrical direction that Ragged Union has always followed, while adding a musical evolution away from the stricter bluegrass sound of the previous albums,” explains Union. “I wrote or co-wrote all of the original songs, Elio and Rebekah composed the instrumentals, and we recorded it all live in a huge room in Boulder. Together we came up with some really cool and unexpected arrangements and rhythms, and it felt like a true collaboration. Elio took the vision to a whole other level in the mix. The result is an album that’s rich in tone, deep and wide in content, made with love, and totally unafraid.”

Mon, 08/08/2022 - 9:00 am

Today, legendary psychedelic country rock band New Riders of the Purple Sage, whose original lineup included several members of the Grateful Dead, announced their new live album Lyceum ‘72 will be released on September 23, 2022 via Omnivore Recordings.

“The last night of the Grateful Dead’s 1972 European tour was memorable for a host of reasons, and prime amongst them, was the fun fact that the whole extended musical ‘family’ of the Grateful Dead was reunited at the London gig in the Lyceum Ballroom just off the Strand....”

So begins Grateful Dead Tour Manager Sam Cutler’s liner notes to this piece of exceptional music history. New Riders of the Purple Sage emerged as a band showcasing the songwriting of John Dawson and the pedal steel guitar musings of Jerry Garcia, with their original line-up also including the Dead’s Mickey Hart on drums.

While the Dead’s material from that tour has been issued on their recent Europe ’72 and Lyceum ’72 releases, the New Riders of the Purple Sage’s Lyceum ’72 documents the last night of their appearances with the Dead on those classic dates.

Recorded on a 16-track machine by noted Dead engineers Betty Cantor, Janet Furman, Bob Matthews, Rosie (McGee), and Wizard (the team which also recorded the Dead’s classic Europe ’72 performances), these tapes were mixed by current Grateful Dead engineer Jeffrey Norman and mastered by Grammy®-winner David Glasser to present the ultimate document of this iconic date.

Produced for release by Rob Bleetstein (NRPS archivist and Sirius/XM producer and host on their Grateful Dead Channel), Lyceum ’72 is available on CD and Digital with packaging containing photos and a thoughtful reminiscence from Sam Cutler, tour manager for The Rolling Stones, the Grateful Dead, and – of course, New Riders of the Purple Sage.

Take a trip back five decades to the end of a tour that lives on, all these years later.

Pre-order: www.omnivorerecordings.com/shop/lyceum72

Sun, 08/14/2022 - 12:23 pm

Today, Jake La Botz shares “Let It Fall,” final single off his upcoming album Hair On Fire, out on September 9, 2022. As the album opener, the driving “Let It Fall” sets the stage, with La Botz questioning what would happen if the whole world were able to let go of the disguises we wear on a daily basis and instead face each other with total honesty and vulnerability. “Will you let it fall?” he asks over a muted guitar and chiming piano. “Will you let it all wash away?”

La Botz has also announced his exciting Tattoo Across America Tour, where he’ll be playing in mostly local tattoo shops across the country, with a few traditional venues and some other unusual places along the way, including a homeless shelter in Boise, a “Blues, Tattoos & Recovery” seminar in Indianapolis, and the Outsiders House Museum in Tulsa, which the executive director for, and rapper, Danny Boy O'Connor (House of Pain/La Coka Nostra) personally booked La Botz for. See full list of tour dates below.

Stream/purchase “Let It Fall” HERE

“I don’t know if this relates to being a performer,” La Botz tells DittyTV about the track, “but there seems to me to be something ‘performative’ in the way people (all of us) present ourselves – our opinions, how we want to be seen in the world. All kinds of masks that we wear whether or not we are professional performers. My question here is what’s under there, and what happens if we let the covers fall away? Or are we forced to give them up in the midst of a world that is coming apart at the seams?”

“Let It Fall” follows previous singles “Hope The Sunshine” and title track, “Hair On Fire,” which Holler said, “Imagine the gospel fervour of Pastor T.L. Barrett and the Youth For Christ Choir mixed up with the energetic neo-folk of Arcade Fire and the contemporary rootsiness of The Lumineers and you might be getting somewhere close to the sound that La Botz has pulled together on ‘Hair On Fire’... It’s both heavily indebted and oddly anachronistic. A loose fusion of floor thumping country, hand-clapping gospel folk and low down and dirty delta blues, as unexpected as it is familiar, that lifts up and shakes out your soul."

“There’s a saying in Buddhism,” La Botz, who is also a meditation teacher, explains of the title track, “that one should practice as if their hair is on fire, which means there should be an urgency towards using the tools of meditation to open up and see what is. The message is: life is short and, if you want to wake up and discover what it’s about, now is the time."

Like other spiritually motivated songwriters before him, Johnny Cash, Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, and George Harrison to name a few, the two streams of songwriting and spirituality have very much come together for La Botz. Prior to Covid, he taught meditation in prisons, Buddhist centers, living rooms, and elsewhere, ever looking to meet people where they’re at and to share what meditation has to offer. For La Botz both meditation and music are very important points of connection with others, and sometimes his music fans even end up practicing meditation with him. During the pandemic he has continued to focus on his two primary loves the best way he can - teaching meditation over Zoom for people around the world, and writing and recording songs to share with others.

Over the years, Jake’s work has been praised by Rolling Stone, World Cafe, No Depression, Folk Alley, Atwood Magazine, American Songwriter, PopMatters, Glide, Bluegrass Situation, and many more.

La Botz recently signed with Mongrel Music for North American booking, and announced a handful of tour dates for this Summer/Fall, including his Tattoo Across America Tour. See full list of dates below, and ticket info HERE.

Hair On Fire tracklist:
1. Let It Fall
2. Killing for a Living
3. Hair on Fire
4. Hope the Sunshine
5. It Looked Just Like a Gun
6. Broken Birds
7. I Don’t Want It
8. Who Will You Love
9. First McDonnell’s on the Moon
10. Getting Ready to Roll
11. Mirror in Me
12. Last Mission on Earth

Tour Dates:
08/29: Saint Paul, MN @ Minnesota State Fair
08/30: Saint Paul, MN @ Minnesota State Fair

Tattoo Across America Tour Dates:
09/07: Kansas City, MO @  Electric Influence Tattoo
09/09: Springville, UT @ Buffalo Nickel Tattoo
09/10: Salt Lake City, UT @ Piper Down Pub (sponsored by Utah Rockabilly)
09/11: Boise, ID @ Interfaith Sanctuary Emergency Shelter (private show sponsored by Betsy's Cookie Co.)
09/14: Portland, OR @ Freaks and Geeks Tattoo
09/15: Kirkland, WA @ Under the Needle Tattoo
09/16: Friday Harbor, WA @ Under the Needle Tattoo
09/17: Salem, OR @ All American Tattoo
09/21: Los Angeles, CA @ Redwood Bar
09/22: Fallbrook, CA @ Little C’s Tattoo Parlor
09/23: San Diego, CA @ Absolute Tattoo
09/24: Phoenix, AZ @ Old West Tattoo
09/27: Tulsa, OK @ The Outsiders House Museum (sponsored by Danny Boy O'Connor)
09/28: Dallas, TX @ Elm St Tattoo
09/29: Austin, TX @ The Austin Tattoo Co.
09/30: Port Neches, TX @ The Avenue Coffee & Cafe
10/06: South Shore, KY @ Snake Oil Tattoo
10/07: Cincinnati, OH @ One Shot Tattoo
10/08: Indianapolis, IN @ Yellow Rose Inn (Blues, Tattoos, and Recovery sponsored by Mental Health America of Indiana)
10/09: Milwaukee, WI @ “The Loft” (public house party)
10/13: Anoka, MN @ Wingnut Tattoo

Sun, 09/11/2022 - 2:52 pm

Blue Note Re:imagined returns on September 30 with a brand new collection featuring fresh takes on music from the Blue Note Records vaults recorded by an exciting line-up of the UK jazz, soul, and R&B scene’s rising stars. Following the widespread international success of the first volume in 2020, Blue Note Re:imagined II once again infuses the spirit of the new UK jazz generation into the legendary label’s iconic catalog, balancing the genre’s tradition with its future and reflecting the melting pot of talent and diversity within the current scene.

The latest single from the album finds singer and guitarist Maya Delilah offering up a sublime cover of “Harvest Moon,” a Neil Young song that was recorded by Cassandra Wilson on her acclaimed 1995 Blue Note album New Moon Daughter. Delilah, a London-based graduate of the prestigious BRIT School, joins a diverse cast of artists on Blue Note Re:imagined II that also includes Yazz Ahmed, Conor Albert, Parthenope, Swindle, Nubiyan Twist, Ego Ella May, Oscar Jerome & Oscar #Worldpeace, Daniel Casimir, Theon Cross, Kay Young, Venna & Marco, Reuben James, Binker Golding, Cherise, and Franc Moody.

The album presents new interpretations of classic Blue Note tracks by Donald Byrd, Chick Corea, Grant Green, Chico Hamilton, Bobbi Humphrey, Norah Jones, Joe Lovano, Thelonious Monk, Marlena Shaw, and Wayne Shorter. Stream the Blue Note Re:imagined playlist featuring the originals and the re:imaginations.

“For more than eight decades the artists of Blue Note Records have continually pushed the envelope of contemporary music,” said Blue Note President Don Was. “Blue Note Re:imagined II once again honors that legacy by letting the UK’s most creative young artists reinvent the treasures of the Blue Note catalog through their own lens.”

Blue Note Re:imagined II – Tracklisting

1. Yazz Ahmed “It” – from Chick Corea Is (1969)
2. Conor Albert “You Make Me Feel So Good” – from Bobbi Humphrey Fancy Dancer (1975)
3. Parthenope “Don’t Know Why” – from Norah Jones Come Away With Me (2002)
4. Swindle “Miss Kane” – from Donald Byrd Street Lady (1973)
5. Nubiyan Twist “Through The Noise (Chant No.2)” – from Donald Byrd A New Perspective (1963)
6. Ego Ella May “The Morning Side Of Love” – from Chico Hamilton Pereginations (1975)
7. Oscar Jerome & Oscar #Worldpeace “(Why You So) Green With Envy” – from Grant Green Green Street (1961)
8. Daniel Casimir ft. Ria Moran “Lost” – from Wayne Shorter The Soothsayer (1965)
9. Theon Cross “Epistrophy” – from Thelonious Monk Genius Of Modern Music, Vol. 1 (1948)
10. Maya Delilah “Harvest Moon” – from Cassandra Wilson New Moon Daughter (1995)
11. Kay Young “Feel Like Making Love” – from Marlena Shaw Who Is This Bitch, Anyway? (1974)
12. Venna & Marco Bernardis “Where Are We Going” – from Donald Byrd Black Byrd (1972)
13. Reuben James “Infant Eyes” – from Wayne Shorter Speak No Evil (1964)
14. Binker Golding “Fort Worth” – from Joe Lovano From The Soul (1991)
15. Cherise “Sunrise” – from Norah Jones Feels Like Home (2004)
16. Franc Moody “Cristo Redentor” – from Donald Byrd A New Perspective (1963)

Tue, 09/13/2022 - 3:11 pm

Today, Rhett Miller released “Heart Attack Days,” the new single from This Misfit, his first solo album in four years out this Friday via ATO Records. Miller also announced a string of solo tour dates in celebration of the new album that will make stops in Texas and the Northeast. The 11-song collection was co-written and produced by Miller’s Hudson Valley, NY neighbor Sam Cohen (Kevin Morby, Sharon Van Etten, Danger Mouse) and continues their musical partnership that began on 2018’s The Messenger. The Misfit is now available for pre-order.

Stream/embed “Heart Attack Days” via YouTube.

“I wrote the verse lyrics that kick-started ‘Heart Attack Days’ in an apartment in Dallas’ Lower Greenville neighborhood,” Miller explains. “I hadn’t been back in a while and was stunned by how much the place had changed. The few remaining examples of the kind of funky rent-houses where my friends and I had lived in the ‘90s were either abandoned or in the process of being torn down. I watched the sun set over a half-demolished duplex, and couldn’t help but make a song out of the feeling it inspired, a bittersweet longing for a bygone time.”

“Heart Attack Days” follows the release of “Go Through You” and  “Follow You Home” that features vocals from Cassandra Jenkins and Annie Nero. “Follow You Home” was praised by American Songwriter, BrooklynVegan and Rolling Stone, who said, “With shades of Fleetwood Mac and dream-pop, the buoyant “Follow You Home” is anchored by its upbeat rhythm and sunny splashes of electric guitar.”

In their review of the The Misfit, Goldmine proclaimed, “the leading man for alt.-country kingpins the Old 97s grows more and more sophisticated with his songwriting, arrangements, and storytelling with age,” while Texas Music Magazine called it “...an album that builds upon his reputation and goes well beyond expectations.” This Friday, September 16, Miller will appear on NPR’s World Cafe for an interview and performance of new songs from The Misfit.
 
Upcoming Rhett Miller Tour Dates:
10/20 - Austin, TX - Stateside at the Paramount
10/21 - Spring, TX - Dosey Doe The Big Barn
10/22 - Denton, TX - Dan’s SilverLeaf
10/27 - Dallas TX - Community Beer Co - Breathe Easy Concert (a benefit for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation)
10/28 - Fort Worth, TX - The Post at River East
11/4 - New Haven, CT - Cafe Nine
11/6 - Hopewell, NJ - Hopewell Theater
11/5 - Beacon, NY - Towne Crier
11/12 - Albany, NY - The Swyer Theatre at The Egg
 
Upcoming Old 97’s Tour Dates:
9/13 - Montgomery, NY - City Winery Hudson Valley
9/14 - Syracuse, NY - The Lost Horizon
9/15 - Buffalo, NY  - Rec Room
9/16 - Ardmore, PA - Ardmore Music Hall
9/17 - Hummelstown, PA - The Englewood Barn
9/18 - Baltimore, MD - Baltimore Soundstage
9/20 - Newport, KY - The Southgate House
9/21 - Columbus, OH - The Bluestone
9/22 - Cleveland, OH - House of Blues
9/23 - Detroit, MI - St. Andrew’s Hall
9/24 - Grand Rapids, MI - Elevation at The Intersection
9/25 - Milwaukee, WI - The Rave II
9/27 - Madison, WI - Majestic Theatre
9/28 - LaCrosse, WI - Cavalier Theater
9/29 - Des Moines, IA - Wooly's
9/30 - La Cygne, KS - Firewater Music Festival
10/1 - Indianapolis, IN - The Hi-Fi Annex
10/2 - Chicago, IL - Thalia Hall

Tue, 09/13/2022 - 6:02 pm

Australia’s beloved psychedelic surf rock outfit Ocean Alley have announced their upcoming fourth album Low Altitude Living, to be released independently on October 14. The band is also about to embark on their West Coast U.S. tour — earlier this year, Ocean Alley sold out nearly every venue along their eight-show tour of the Midwest and East Coast, including Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn, Chicago’s Lincoln Hall, Terminal West in Atlanta, and The Sinclair in Boston. The album announcement comes paired with their latest single “Home”, a profession of love for both people and place.

Stream “Home” HERE and watch music video HERE
Pre-order Low Altitude Living HERE

Opening the record with a feeling of warmth and familiarity, “Home” is soaked with bright tones and subtly adorned with twinkling keys. The song is a product of the band’s opportunity to slow down in 2020, with space to reconnect with themselves and the environment around them. Guitarist Mitch Galbraith explains, “We’ve felt more connected than ever to the people and places that are around us at home. Normally, we’d be spending most of our year away on tour, but we felt very lucky to spend the last two years with the people we love.”

While the six-piece could have rinsed & repeated the styles and sounds of their previous full-lengths – the ARIA Award-nominated Lonely Diamond (2020), their ARIA Gold-certified breakthrough Chiaroscuro (2018) and self-assured debut Lost Tropics (2016) – Low Altitude Living, produced by longtime collaborator Callum Howell, sees the band construct their broadest ranging sonic framework yet. As suggested by the diverse feels of previous singles “Touch Back Down” and “Deepest Darkness”, Ocean Alley cohesively honors the traditional features of their distinct sound while equally giving it a refreshing and exciting new edge. Mitch shares, “It’s no secret that we don’t want to repeat ourselves…there’s a constant sense of betterment, growth and exploration.”

Where in the past, Ocean Alley have cited the influence of ‘70s stalwarts such as Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin, this new album sees the band explore their musicality through pure instinct. They experiment with sludgey ‘90s alt-rock on the reverb-laden “Changes”, they bring a side of bluesy slide guitar akin to the Commodores on cruisey ballad “Snake Eyes”, while the haunted and sensual “Parking Fines” would slot right into an Interpol record. Lach Galbraith (keys/vocals) shares, “Pushing each other to try new things, inside and outside of music, is really important for us to keep things fresh. Musically our songwriting has become more intricate as we explore new styles and techniques in recording.”

2022 has seen Ocean Alley perform 62 shows around the world with a run of international headline dates and a U.S. fall tour to come. Earlier in the year, their Australian tour sold more than 37,000 tickets, followed up with extensive stints across the UK, New Zealand, Europe and North America where they have sold a cumulative 40,000 tickets.

Despite major festival billing across the likes of Reading & Leeds (UK), Splendour In The Grass (AUS) and Sziget (HU), ARIA Double Platinum certification on their smash single “Confidence”, – which also topped triple j’s Hottest 100 of 2018 – ARIA Gold certification on five singles and two ARIA Awards nominations, it feels like Ocean Alley are just getting started. With 550 million catalog streams under their belt and stateside praise from Billboard and American Songwriter, they know who they are, and remain true to what serves them.

As frontman Baden Donegal explains, “Low altitude, being by the beach is where we all have the most peace. So naming the album Low Altitude Living made a lot of sense. The title of the album doesn’t necessarily represent any one song in particular, or tie them all together. But it does tie our band to the music. I feel like it’s more of a title that describes why we sound like Ocean Alley.”

Low Altitude Living Tracklist:
1. Home
2. Double Vision
3. Touch Back Down
4. Perfume
5. Drinks And Cigars
6. Simple Pleasures
7. Parking Fines
8. Changes
9. Deepest Darkness
10. West Coast
11. Snake Eyes
12. Lapwing

Upcoming Tour Dates

10/1: Seattle, WA - Tractor Tavern
10/2: Portland, OR - Doug Fir Lounge
10/3: Arcata, CA - Arcata Theatre Lounge
10/6: Berkeley, CA - Cornerstone
10/7: Ventura, CA - Ventura Music Hall
10/9: San Luis Obispo, CA - SLO Brew Rock
10/10: San Diego, CA - Music Box
10/11: Anaheim, CA - The Parish at House of Blues Anaheim
10/13: Los Angeles, CA - The Regent Theatre
10/14: Santa Cruz, CA - The Catalyst Atrium
10/15: San Francisco, CA - The Independent
10/17: Salt Lake City, UT - Soundwell
10/18: Englewood, CO - Gothic Theatre
10/20: Dallas, TX - Cambridge Room at House of Blues Dallas
10/21: Houston, TX - Bronze Peacock at House of Blues Houston
10/22: San Antonio, TX - Paper Tiger (Small Room)
10/23: Austin, TX - Parish

Wed, 09/21/2022 - 1:05 am

Today, Grammy-winning songwriter and producer Paula Cole has released For The Birds, a new set of songs recorded with fellow luminaries and Grammy award winners Jason Isbell and John Paul White. Lead single “Mother, Son and Holy Ghost” is a collaboration of three iconic singers and lyricists, and the song sees the three harmonizing on lyrics that paint an introspective portrait of loss and longing. Also released today is “Ricochet,” an uptempo ballad that Cole recorded with John Paul White. For The Birds is available for download now and will be released on vinyl this fall, pre-order here.

Listen: “Mother, Son and Holy Ghost”

Listen: “Ricochet”

“‘Mother, Son and Holy Ghost’ is about a man who has lost his wife and child,” writes Cole. ”The song describes his lonely landscape, his attempts to fill the void. Of course, a tight grip is futile. He must come to terms with loss in order to be fully alive.”

“I was beyond thrilled to get the note from Paula to collaborate,” writes John Paul White. “She’s an enigmatic performer, a brilliant wordsmith, a riveting singer - and an even better human being. So happy to be a small part of her fantastic career, and to be her friend.”

“I think our collaboration is beautiful,” Cole elaborates. “John Paul plays a gorgeous acoustic guitar part, Jason plays iconic slide guitar. They are both tremendous musicians. I play piano. We all sing. It felt like a band, I loved this experience.”

Cole describes how the collaboration came about writing, “I wrote a song for Jason, John Paul and myself. I sent them a demo. Thankfully, they liked it well enough, and I booked us some time at Oceanway Studio in Nashville. I mused upon the lyrical idea of the holy trinity for us as a trio, except I feminized God. Our meeting felt like a reunion, so natural. I had never met Jason or John Paul before, and yet, we felt kindred.”

Cole’s personal connection to nature and a lifelong appreciation for wildlife conservation efforts informed her decision to donate profits from the release of the tracks to the National Audubon Society. “I grew up with a biology and ecology professor father,” she writes. “Jim Cole loved birds and bird-watching, and we used to hike on Audubon sanctuary. Giving back to Audubon feels meaningful, for giving to the birds means giving to habitat preservation, which will help so many species, including the human species. On the North American continent alone, we have lost 3 billion birds in my lifetime.  That’s one third of the continent’s bird population gone.  We must preserve old growth, green space, wildlife corridors, trees. We must bear the responsibility of tending the garden - for ourselves, for generations behind us.”

Thu, 10/06/2022 - 9:52 am

Last month, Light in the Attic Records, in cooperation with Laurie Anderson, digitally released the inaugural title in their Lou Reed Archive Series: Words & Music, May 1965, “an intimate document of [Reed and John Cale] discovering a sound that would shape countless musicians and styles in their wake” (Washington Post). Showcasing never-before-heard material, including the earliest-known recordings of “Pale Blue Eyes” and “Heroin”—the latter described by Rolling Stone as “chilling and astonishing.” In discussing the Words & Music’s lead single, “I’m Waiting for the Man (May 1965 Demo),” The New York Times writes: “For all the differences in the arrangement, though, what’s remarkable is how complete Reed’s vision of the song already is here, and how few changes he’d have to make to turn this unassuming blueprint into a countercultural classic.”

As a companion to Words & Music, Light in the Attic, in partnership with Little Everywhere and Ruinous Media, today releases a special podcast, hosted by TV on the Radio's Tunde Adebimpe, offering listeners the chance to intimately experience the album through exclusive audio, archival materials, and interviews with many of the album's participants. Adebimpe sits down with Matt Sullivan (co-owner and founder of Light in the Attic Records) and Lou Reed archivists Jason Stern and Don Fleming to get their insights into how the tape was discovered and the songs were recorded by John Cale and Reed in the spring of 1965. Listen along as Sullivan, Fleming, and Stern share their appreciation and knowledge of these extraordinary recordings.

Listen To Light in the Attic’s Liner Notes Podcast: Lou Reed, Words & Music, May 1965

Additionally, to celebrate the upcoming physical release of Words & Music, May 1965 on October 21st, Light in the Attic is thrilled to announce a series of worldwide listening parties taking place at over 40 record stores around the globe. All events will be free, and a full list of participating stores is below.

Words & Music, May 1965 Listening Parties:

– Thursday, Oct. 20 –

Sweat Records (Miami, FL)

Resident Music (Brighton, UK)

Jumbo Records (Leeds, UK)

Stranger Than Paradise (London, UK)

Rough Trade East (London, UK)

Drift (Totnes, UK)

– Friday, Oct. 21 –

Seasick Records (Birmingham, AL)

Heroes & Villains (Tucson, AZ)

Balades Sonores Bruxelles (Bruxelles, BE)

Deadly Wax (Newhall, CA)

Arroyo Records (Pasadena, CA)

Amoeba, SF (San Francisco, CA)

Moldy Toes Records (San Clemente, CA)

Boo Boo Records (San Luis Obispo, CA)

Metavinyl (Santa Cruz, CA)

Streetlight Records (Santa Cruz, CA)

Odyssey (Ontario, CAN)

Neurotica  (Toronto, CAN)

Twist & Shout (Denver, CO)

WaxTrax (Denver, CO)

Balades Sonores Paris (Paris, FR)

Long Ear (Coeur d'Alene, ID)

Reckless (Chicago, IL)

Vintage Vinyl (Evanston, IL)

HMV record shop Kichijoji (Tokyo, JP)

 HMV record shop Shibuya (Tokyo, JP)

HMV record shop Shinjuku ALTA (Tokyo, JP)

Vinyl Destination (N. Chelmsford, MA)

Barely Brothers Records (St. Paul, MN)

Vinyl Index (Somerville, MA)

End Of All Music (Jackson, MS)

End Of All Music (Oxford, MS)

Salvaje (CDMX, MX)

Harvest (Asheville, NC)

The Fuzzy Needle (Wilmington, NC)

Grapefruit Records (Omaha, NE)

Psychic Records (Brooklyn, NY)

Generation Records (New York, NY)

Revolver (Williamsville, NY)

Omega Music (Dayton, OH)

PreAtomic Records (Corvallis, OR)

The Government Center (Pittsburgh, PA)

Winylowa (Warsaw, PL)

Pet Sounds (Stockholm, SE)

Grimeys (Nashville, TN)

Vinyl Tap (Nashville, TN)

Hybrid (Corpus Christi, TX)

End of an Ear (Austin, TX)

Crazy Rhythms (San Antonio, TX)

Tiny Record Room (Norfolk, VA)

Autumn Records (Winooski, VT)

Sonic Boom (Seattle, WA)

Clone Shop (Des Moines, WA)

Madcity Music (Madison, WI)

– Saturday, Oct. 22 –

In Sheep's Clothing (Los Angeles, CA)

Black Dots (Buffalo, NY)

Mosta Recordings (Singapore, SN)

October 21st will also see a free, live listening party and panel discussion hosted by The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts with Laurie Anderson, Lou Reed archivists Don Fleming and Jason Stern, audio engineers John Baldwin and Steve Rosenthal, and Light in the Attic’s Matt Sullivan, moderated by famed music writer David Fricke. Prior to the panel discussion, Words & Music, May 1965 will play from 2:00 - 3:45pm in the Bruno Walter Auditorium.

RSVP to Lou Reed: Words & Music, May 1965 Listening Party Q&A

Released in tandem with the late artist’s 80th birthday celebrations, Words & Music, May 1965 offers an extraordinary, unvarnished, and plainly poignant insight into one of America’s true poet-songwriters. Capturing Reed in his formative years, this previously unreleased collection of songs—penned by a young Lou Reed, recorded to tape with the help of future bandmate John Cale, and mailed to himself as a “poor man’s copyright”—remained sealed in its original envelope and unopened for over 50 years. Its contents embody some of the most vital, groundbreaking contributions to American popular music committed to tape in the 20th century.

The centerpiece of the inaugural Lou Reed Archive Series release is the Deluxe 45-RPM Double LP Edition of Words & Music, May 1965. Limited to 7,500 copies worldwide, this collection was designed by multi-GRAMMY®-winning artist Masaki Koike and features a stylized, die-cut gatefold jacket manufactured by Stoughton Printing Co. Housed inside are two 45-RPM 12-inch LPs, pressed on HQ-audiophile-quality 180-gram vinyl at Record Technology Inc. (RTI) featuring the only vinyl release of “I’m Waiting for the Man - May 1965 Alternate Version.” A bonus 7-inch, housed in its own unique die-cut picture sleeve and manufactured at Third Man Record Pressing includes the only vinyl release of six previously-unreleased bonus tracks providing a never-before-seen glimpse into Reed’s formative years, including early demos, a cover of Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right,” and a doo-wop serenade recorded in 1958 when the legendary singer-songwriter was just sixteen years old. An accompanying saddle-stitched, die-cut 28-page book features lyrics, archival photos, and liner notes. Also included is an archival reproduction of a rarely-seen letter, written by Reed to his college professor and poet, Delmore Schwartz, circa 1964. The set includes a CD containing the complete audio from the package, housed in a die-cut jacket.  A six-song digital EP, Gee Whiz, 1958-1964, also drops on October 21st, offering the above-mentioned bonus content.

Words & Music, May 1965
(2xLP + 7-inch + CD Deluxe Edition) Tracklist:

- 2xLP -

1. I’m Waiting for the Man (May 1965 Demo)

2. Men of Good Fortune (May 1965 Demo) *

3. Heroin (May 1965 Demo)

4. Too Late (May 1965 Demo) *

5. Buttercup Song (May 1965 Demo)       

6. Walk Alone (May 1965 Demo)

7. Buzz Buzz Buzz (May 1965 Demo)

8. Pale Blue Eyes (May 1965 Demo)

9. Stockpile (May 1965 Demo) *

10. Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams (May 1965 Demo)

11. I’m Waiting for the Man (May 1965 Alternate Version)

- 7-inch -

1.  Gee Whiz - (1958 Rehearsal) *

2.  Baby, Let Me Follow You Down (1963/64 Home Recording)

3.  Michael, Row The Boat Ashore (1963/64 Home Recording)

4.  Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right (Partial) (1963/64 Home Recording)

5.  W & X, Y, Z Blues (1963/64 Home Recording) *

6.  Lou’s 12-Bar Instrumental (1963/64 Home Recording) *

Words & Music, May 1965
(CD & Cassette Standard Edition) Tracklist:

1. I’m Waiting for the Man (May 1965 Demo)

2. Men of Good Fortune (May 1965 Demo) *

3. Heroin (May 1965 Demo)

4. Too Late (May 1965 Demo)*

5. Buttercup Song (May 1965 Demo)       

6. Walk Alone (May 1965 Demo)

7. Buzz Buzz Buzz (May 1965 Demo)

8. Pale Blue Eyes (May 1965 Demo)

9. Stockpile (May 1965 Demo) *

10. Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams (May 1965 Demo)

11. I’m Waiting for the Man (May 1965 Alternate Version)

12.  Gee Whiz - (1958 Rehearsal) *

13.  Baby, Let Me Follow You Down (1963/64 Home Recording)

14.  Michael, Row The Boat Ashore (1963/64 Home Recording)

15.  Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right (Partial) (1963/64 Home Recording)

16.  W & X, Y, Z Blues (1963/64 Home Recording) *

17.  Lou’s 12-Bar Instrumental (1963/64 Home Recording) *

Words & Music, May 1965
(1xLP & 8-Track Standard Edition) Tracklist:

1. I’m Waiting for the Man (May 1965 Demo)

2. Men of Good Fortune (May 1965 Demo) *

3. Heroin (May 1965 Demo)

4. Too Late (May 1965 Demo)*

5. Buttercup Song (May 1965 Demo)       

6. Walk Alone (May 1965 Demo)

7. Buzz Buzz Buzz (May 1965 Demo)

8. Pale Blue Eyes (May 1965 Demo)

9. Stockpile (May 1965 Demo) *

10. Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams (May 1965 Demo)

Gee Whiz, 1958-1964
(Digital) Tracklist

1.  Gee Whiz - (1958 Rehearsal) *

2.  Baby, Let Me Follow You Down (1963/64 Home Recording)

3.  Michael, Row The Boat Ashore (1963/64 Home Recording)

4.  Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right (Partial) (1963/64 Home Recording)

5.  W & X, Y, Z Blues (1963/64 Home Recording) *

6.  Lou’s 12-Bar Instrumental (1963/64 Home Recording) *

* Previously unheard composition

For those seeking an even deeper dive into Reed’s legacy, ​​The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts (which houses Reed’s recently-unearthed recordings) is hosting a special exhibit, curated by Don Fleming and Jason Stern. Lou Reed: Caught Between the Twisted Stars chronicles the life’s work of the songwriter, musician, performer, photographer, poet, and accomplished tai chi practitioner—as through the voices, images, and music of Reed and his collaborators. For more information, visit nypl.org.

Throughout 2022 and beyond, Light in the Attic will continue to honor the music and influence of Reed through the Lou Reed Archive Series. Visit www.LightInTheAttic.net or www.LouReedArchive.com to learn more, and stay tuned for forthcoming releases.

Mon, 10/24/2022 - 8:49 am

Today Petaluma Records released Dr. John and Davell Crawford’s “Jock-A-Mo” video, one of Dr. John’s last studio sessions. The clip is taken from Take Me To The River: New Orleans, a new album and feature documentary film feature new recordings from The Neville Brothers, PJ Morton, Big Freedia, G-Eazy, Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah, Snoop Dogg, Dirty Dozen Brass Band, William Bell, Ani DiFranco, Donald Harrison, Galactic, Irma Thoma, Ledisi, and many more. Take Me To The River Live! is also set to embark on tour this November — the band features select musicians featured in the project including Dumpstaphunk, Georgie Porter Jr., and Jon Cleary. Tour dates include Fort Wayne IN on 11/17, Carmel IN on 11/18, and Evanston IL on 11/19 (more info below).

Watch Dr. John and Davell Crawford’s “Jock-A-Mo” Video

The second film in the award-winning Take Me To The River franchise, Take Me to the River: New Orleans celebrates the rich musical history, the heritage, legacy, and influence of New Orleans and Louisiana. A true collaboration and melting pot of influences from around the world, that came together and formed one of the world's most unique cultural jewels. Our adventure shows the resiliency of surviving disaster to a formidable rebirth while pairing legacy musicians with stars of today, and how this unique cultural jewel came to exist. Watch a trailer for the film HERE.

The deluxe soundtrack release is a true collaboration that celebrates the melting pot that is the musical DNA of NOLA. From traditional jazz to Second line, From Rhythm and Blues to Hip Hop and Rap, from Funk/Soul to Rock and Roll, the producers of this wholly unique and unprecedented project have paired legendary legacy musicians with the rising stars of the 21st Century to create a historic musical collaboration unlike any that has come before. The album features brand new recordings of the final performances from the Neville Brothers and one of the last studio sessions with Dr. John as well as all new collaborative performances from a range of great New Orleans artists. The music of New Orleans is a wholly unique worldwide collaboration, and Take Me To The River: New Orleans gives the viewer an insightful historical perspective of how global influences shaped, and continue to shape, a musical quilt that formed the music of this extraordinary city.

The Take Me To The River: New Orleans film will be available on streaming platforms on January 20th, 2023.

Take Me To The River Live! Tour:

November 17th: Fort Wayne, IN – The Clyde Theatre
(Dumpstaphunk, George Porter Jr., and Jon Cleary)
November 18th: Carmel, IN – The Palladium at the Center for the Performing Arts
(Dumpstaphunk, George Porter Jr., and Jon Cleary)
November 19th: Evanston, IL – Evanston SPACE (Take Me To The River)
(Dumpstaphunk, George Porter Jr., and Jon Cleary)
February 25th: Edmonds, WA – Edmonds Center For the Arts
(Dumpstaphunk and Jon Cleary)
February 28th: Bend, OR – Tower Theatre
(Dumpstaphunk and Jon Cleary)
March 2nd: Chico, CA – Laxson Auditorium @ California State University
(Dumpstaphunk, George Porter Jr., and Jon Cleary)
Additional 2023 Dates to be Announced!

Album Tracklisting:

CD ONE:  
1. Cyril Neville with Voices of the Wetlands - “In Love with My NOLA”
2. Dee-1, Mannie Fresh, Big Freedia, Galactic - “Act Like You Know”   
3. The Neville Brothers with Ivan Neville, Ian Neville, and George Porter Jr. - “(Hey Mama) Wild Tchoupitoulas”
4. Irma Thomas with Ledisi, featuring George Porter Jr., Eric Krasno, Ian Neville, and Ivan Neville - “I Wish Someone Would Care”
5. Dr. John and Davell Crawford - “Jock-A-Mo”
6. Soul Rebels featuring 5th Ward Weebie - “504 Enjoy Yourself”
7. Cyril Neville with Dumpstaphunk - “Street Parade”
8. PJ Morton featuring Cheeky Blakk and Rebirth Brass Band - “New Orleans Girl”
9. Aaron Neville with the Dirty Dozen Brass Band - “Stompin' Ground”
10. Walter Wolfman Washington - “Funk is in the House”  
11. Snoop Dogg, G-Eazy, William Bell - “Yes We Can Can”  
12. Davell Crawford - “We Shall Gather at the River”   
13. 79rs - “Wrong Part of Town”  
14. New Orleans Drummers - “Lil Liza Jane” *

 
CD TWO:
1. Anders Osborne - “Improvise”  *
2. Voices of the Wetlands with Cyril Neville - "Late in the Evening” *
3. Ledisi with George Porter Jr, Ian Neville, and Ivan Neville - "Knockin” *
4. Davell Crawford - "One More Time”  *
5. Ani DiFranco with Lost Bayou Ramblers and Roots of Music - "Little Plastic Castles”  *
6. Donald Harrison with the Tipitina's Interns - "Donald's Tune” *
7. Dr. John - "Someone to Love”  *
8. Big Chief Monk Boudreaux with Voices of the Wetlands - "Firewater”  
9. Donald Harrison and Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah - "Sand Castle Headhunters”
10. Lost Bayou Ramblers with Ani DiFranco, Walter "Wolfman" Washington, and the Roots of Music - "Blue Moon Special”  
11. Donald Harrison and Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah with the Tipitina's Interns - "When the Saints Go Marching In”  
12. Irma Thomas with Cyril Neville, George Porter Jr., Ian Neville and Ivan Neville - "Carnival Time”

(* Tracks not on LP version, but available via included download card)

Wed, 12/07/2022 - 5:20 pm

Today, Memphis rock/alt-country band Lucero releases their new single “Raining for Weeks” from the upcoming album Should’ve Learned by Now, out February 24 via Liberty & Lament/Thirty Tigers. With a soulful piano and a plucky acoustic guitar, the song offers a meditative rumination on mistakes made and love lost. It is accompanied by a music video featured this morning at Garden & Gun, who said the “ballad-like melancholy falls into equilibrium over jaunty piano, Nichols’s tenacious vocals, and old-school guitar drones.”

Stream “Raining for Weeks”

View the “Raining for Weeks” video

Pre-save Should've Learned by Now

“This was a new guitar part that I wrote while playing guitar and chasing my daughter around the basement,” explains bandleader Ben Nichols. “It reminded me of something I might hear in a Wes Anderson film. Maybe one was on TV while we were playing. For such a simple little song, it has some of my favorite lyrics on the album, suggesting the narrator has been completely unaware of the consequences of his actions.”

Should’ve Learned by Now is a reflection of a band that knows itself. Since forming in Memphis in the late 90’s, Lucero has evolved and embraced everything from southern rock to Stax-inspired Memphis soul, while maintaining their distinctive sonic foundations. After exploring darker, more atmospheric landscapes on their two previous releases, the band’s 12th studio album finds them returning to their punchy driving rhythms and punk-rooted guitar licks. The record is already garnering early acclaim with Lucero’s two previous singles – “One Last F.U.,” which Rolling Stone declared “has the defiant, sneering energy of Lucero’s loudest recordings,” and “Buy a Little Time,” which BrooklynVegan said “finds them embracing fuzzed-out, anthemic heartland rock, sounding like Tom Petty jamming with Crazy Horse but in the way that only Lucero can.”

Led by the gravelly voice of singer/songwriter Ben Nichols, Lucero also features original members Brian Venable on guitar, Roy Berry on drums, John C. Stubblefield on bass and Rick Steff on keys. The group of Memphis road-dogs has maintained a large and dedicated fanbase for over 20 years, delivering a rowdy and communal live experience that is equally as exhilarating in a dive bar as it is in amphitheaters. NPR Music has called them “the rare kind of band with enough spirit to fill an arena, but with its heart planted firmly in the garage.”

Should’ve Learned by Now was produced by Grammy Award-winning engineer/mixer, Matt Ross-Spang (John Prine, Jason Isbell).

The band is also gearing up for a winter tour across the Midwest and the Southeast. Find a full list of tour dates below and at this link: luceromusic.com/tour/

Lucero 2023 Tour Dates
December 8 – Memphis, TN @ Railgarten (Ben Solo)
January 4 - Nashville, TN @ Ryman Auditorium (Celebrating the life of Justin Townes Earle) (Ben Solo)
January 14 - Garwood, NJ @ Crossroads (Ben Solo)
January 26 – Knoxville, TN @ The Mill & Mine
January 27 – Lexington, KY @ The Burl
January 28 – Louisville, KY @ Headliners Music Hall
January 29 – Indianapolis, IN @ Hi-Fi
January 31 – Rocky Mount, VA @ Harvester Performance Center
February 1 – Virginia Beach, VA @ Bunker Brewpub
February 2 – Raleigh, NC @ Lincoln Theatre (Roadtrip to Raleigh, supporting American Aquarium)
February 3 – Charlotte, NC @ Neighborhood Theatre
February 4 – Jacksonville, FL @ Intuition Ale Works
February 5 – Orlando, FL @ The Social
February 7 – St. Petersburg, FL @ Floridian Social Club
February 8 – Gainesville, FL @ High Dive
February 9 – Pensacola, FL @ Vinyl Music Hall
February 10 – New Orleans, LA @ Tipitina’s
February 11 – Jackson, TN @ Hub City Brewing

Should’ve Learned by Now Tracklist
1. One Last F.U.
2. Macon If We Make It
3. She Leads Me
4. At the Show
5. Nothing’s Alright
6. Raining for Weeks
7. Buy a Little Time
8. Should’ve Learned by Now
9. Drunken Moon
10. Time to Go Home

Wed, 12/14/2022 - 10:58 am

Producer Ben Hosley has announced the upcoming release of Slow Xmas 2, a compilation of alternative Christmas music released by Bone Sound Records. He has also shared a new track from the album, “Lulajże Jezuniu,” from the California-based trio Heavy Gus. Hosley notes, “This time it’s even slooooower.” Slow Xmas 2 will be released on December 19th.

Listen: Heavy Gus: “Lulajże Jezuniu”

Heavy Gus is led by songwriting couple Dorota Szuta and multi-instrumentalist Stelth Ulvang (The Lumineers) along with percussionist Ryan Dobrowski (Blind Pilot). They released their debut album Notions through BMG in August 2022. Szuta writes, “‘Lulajże Jezuniu' is a traditional Polish kolęda (Christmas song) that I grew up listening to and singing every year. It's a rather sad lullaby sung by Mary to her crying baby."

Like its 2021 predecessor, the 2nd official Slow Xmas album showcases a variety of musicians all interpreting and creating based on one simple prompt: gotta be slow. In addition to Heavy Gus, this years’ release is a veritable stocking stuffer of jams from artists including Heavy Gus, Nicky Francis, Roman Mars and more.

The creative force behind the newly-founded Slow Xmas tradition is NYC based audio producer Ben Hosley. What began in 2020 as a bonus content offering for Blank Check - the acclaimed film / comedy podcast where Ben serves as the longtime producer - has continued to evolve from its chopped and screwed, vaporwave-adjacent origins. In 2021, the first official volume was released featuring performances from Sad13, the solo project of Sadie Dupuis from Speedy Ortiz, recording with members of Cloud Nothings.

Hosley has spent seven years as Executive Producer and on-mic personality for Blank Check. He previously worked at Spotify’s in-house content studio and founded the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater’s bicoastal podcast network. He is an alumnus of The Annoyance Theater in Brooklyn and UCB. His work has appeared on IFC, Vulture, The A/V Club. He has also been “getting into fashion,” and launched his own clothing and lifestyle brand called Congratulations that includes pairs of buried jeans (literally, jeans that were naturally aged through the process of temporary burial beneath the fashionable topsoil of New Jersey). His sleep podcast Sound for Sleeping Sleepy Sleep Sleep, is launching in 2023.

About Blank Check
Blank Check is a long-running movie and culture podcast. It’s hosted by film critic for The Atlantic, David Sims, and by actor Griffin Newman; whose recent credits include Netflix’s Masters of the Universe: Revelation and Disney’s Disenchanted.

Thu, 01/12/2023 - 2:10 pm

Today DADDY LONG LEGS, New York City's most diabolical Rhythm & Blues street gang, have announced their eagerly anticipated new album Street Sermons, to be released on March 17th via Yep Roc Records. The group has also shared the title track “Street Sermon,” which sees the group beseeching their troubled congregation to “Work with one another/Not against each other” as the Brooklyn band evolve into a chain gang that sounds like they’re emanating through the cracks of a hot and sticky subway station. Street Sermons is currently available for pre-order here. Street Sermons is currently available for pre-order here.

Listen: DADDY LONG LEGS - “Street Sermon”

Watch the album trailer for Street Sermons

Vocalist / harmonicist Brian Hurd writes about the track, “We were upset about a lot of things when we wrote this song and one thing that struck me was that there was a real lack of meaningful protest songs being written at the time so we decided to take matters into our own hands.”

The band's fourth studio album represents a wellspring of bottled-up feelings and emotions that need to be taken to the streets. Produced by Oakley Munson of the Black Lips at Old Soul Studios in Catskill, NY the band expands upon a sound that’s all their own and features guest appearances from Punk Rock legend Wreckless Eric providing backing vocals on "Nightmare" and "Silver Satin" and The Lovin' Spoonful's John Sebastian on "Ding-Ding Man," In dark times DADDY LONG LEGS continue to shine their light everywhere they go, leaving a piece of themselves on stage every night because it’s in them and it’s got to come out.

DADDY LONG LEGS’ previous album, Lowdown Ways (Yep Roc, 2019), reached #4 on the Billboard Blues Chart. The band has received high praise from Rolling Stone and No Depression who declared that “from the first note, this is clearly a record made by people who live and die for rock and roll.”

Over the last decade these gentlemen have burned down houses the world over with their explosive fire ceremony and have amassed a cult-like following all their own with a tough to beat reputation for being one of the finest live acts on the road today. Written and recorded against a backdrop of political tension, riots in the streets and a deeply uncertain future, Street Sermons is a testament to triumph over adversity.

Thu, 01/12/2023 - 3:10 pm

Today, the Seattle-based soul-jazz groove-machine Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio introduces their new guitarist Miles “Smiles” Harris. Harris is being passed the torch from longtime DLO3 guitarist Jimmy James, who steps away from the trio to branch out as an independent artist. Miles will join Delvon and touring drummer Ehssan Karimi on the band’s 2023 tour, which kicks off later this week at Holland Music Club in Omaha, NE. Other shows this year include Jam Cruise 19, along with dates in Portland, OR, Los Angeles, CA, Evanston, IL, Seattle, WA, and more (full list of tour dates here).

“Miles is one of my favorite musicians I've ever had the honor of playing music with,” says Lamarr, who was recently voted #1 Rising Star Organist in Downbeat’s 70th Annual Critics Poll. “He's self-taught just like me, and he knows how to play all the right notes to make you feel the music and not just hear it. He'll make an excellent addition to DLO3's feel-good music. His style and his feel are definitely something special and (not to mention) that smile and laugh of his is hilarious. I'm super excited to hang and play music with this cat.”

Deeply rooted in blues, funk, jazz, soul, and much more, Miles “Smiles” Harris recently shared the stage with the Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio at the band’s ​Brighton Music Hall show in Boston, MA. You can watch clips from that performance HERE and HERE.

“The music of DlO3 means so much to me and Del is such a sublime talent,” says Miles. “To get to join a band that has been pivotal in my own musical journey is a dream come true. To play such universally relatable music is so invigorating. Can’t wait to spread the love!”

2023 US Tour Dates:
Fri, Jan 13: Omaha, NE - Holland Music Club
Fri, Jan 20: Eugene, OR - Hult Theater
Sat, Jan 21: Portland, OR - The Get Down
Sun, Jan 22: Seattle, WA - Royal Esquire Club
Sat, Feb 4: Jacksonville, FL - Ritz Theatre and Museum
Feb. 6 - 12: Miami, FL - Jam Cruise 19 2023
Wed, Feb 22: Los Angeles, CA - Lodge Room
Fri, Feb 24: Arcata, CA - Humboldt State University Center Arts
Mar. 3-4: Coral Gables, FL - Carnaval On The Mile
Mar. 9 - 12: Seattle, WA - Jazz Alley
Thu, Mar 16: Milwaukee, WI - Shank Hall
Fri, Mar 17: Minneapolis, MN - Dakota
Sat, Mar 18: Appleton, WI - Poplar Hall
Sun, Mar 19: Evanston, IL - Space
Wed, Jun 7: San Francisco, CA - SFJAZZ Center Miner Auditorium
Fri, Jul 21: Nashville, TN - Cheekwood Estate and Gardens
Sat, Aug 26: Montgomery, AL - Union Station Train Shed
Sat, Sep 9: Muncie, IN - Muncie Three Trails Music Series @ Canan Commons
Sat, Sep 23: Monterey, CA - Monterey Jazz Fest
Sat, Nov 4: Memphis, TN - Church Health Center Plaza

Sun, 01/15/2023 - 11:40 am

Today, multi-GRAMMY award-winning vocalist Kurt Elling announced a February 17th release date for Guilty Pleasures, a 6-track EP featuring guitarist Charlie Hunter and special guest drummer Nate Smith. Bursting with Elling’s trademark charisma, energy and showmanship, Guilty Pleasures features six high-octane covers, including Kurt’s new rendition of “Wrap It Up,” originally recorded by R&B duo Sam & Dave. “I’ve been a huge Sam & Dave fan from my $1 cassette years in the used bin,” says Elling. “I wore that thing OUT. Now I just hope we’ve done the song the funky justice it deserves.”

Listen to Kurt Elling “Wrap It Up”

Guilty Pleasures is a continuation of Elling’s SuperBlue collaboration with Charlie Hunter. A torrent of boisterous funk, indelible beats and all-too-current lyrics, 2021’s debut SuperBlue album was nominated for Best Jazz Vocal Album at the 2022 GRAMMY Awards, and was met with acclaim from Chicago Tribune, Downbeat, WBGO, Jazziz, and more. The second SuperBlue album will be released in fall of 2023.

Guilty Pleasures offers listeners a guiltless treat — along with Sam & Dave’s “Wrap It Up,” covers on the EP  include Eddie Money’s “Baby Hold On,” Al Jarreau’s “Boogie Down,” PJ Morton’s “Sticking to My Guns,” AC/DC’s “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap,” and a new rendition of Nate Smith’s “Bounce.”

“Charlie and I are over the moon to be able to put out some tracks with our friend Nate Smith,” says Elling. “We had one afternoon and some random song ideas going into the studio … Man! I hope we can do it again some time!”

Elling first met Hunter when both were signed to Blue Note Records in the late 1990s. They struck up an immediate rapport, leading to Elling’s guest appearance on Hunter’s album Songs From the Analog Playground. With his unassailable cred in both worlds, Hunter bridges the gap between the jazz and groove camps. “Between the records he’s made with cats like D’Angelo and John Mayer and A Tribe Called Quest, Charlie is a made guy in that world, just as he has the respect of jazz people,'' says Elling.

The universal accolades for Elling don’t always mention his relentless, career-long, search for new vistas. He’s recorded an album of global love songs (Passion World) and transformed the Christmas tradition (The Beautiful Day); he’s written lyrics to jazz classics, staked out 1960s-70s rock-n-roll (on 1619 Broadway), and entered into a galvanic partnership, on disc and on tour, with Branford Marsalis’s quartet. He earned his first GRAMMY for updating the historic collaboration between John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman (Dedicated to You), and his most recent statuette for Secrets Are The Best Stories, his Latin-inspired project with modern piano giant Danilo Perez.

Guilty Pleasures will be released February 17th via Edition Records.

Tracklisting:
1. Baby Hold On (Eddie Money Cover)
2. Wrap It Up (Sam & Dave Cover)
3. Boogie Down (Al Jarreau Cover)
4. Bounce (Nate Smith Cover)
5. Sticking to My Guns (PJ Morton Cover)
6. Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap (AC/DC Cover)

Wed, 01/18/2023 - 9:52 am

Today, Memphis rock/alt-country band Lucero releases “Macon If We Make It” from the forthcoming album Should’ve Learned by Now, out February 24 via Liberty & Lament/Thirty Tigers. Inspired by an impending hurricane, the song draws parallels between a literal storm and a troubled relationship back home, before the listener is carried out like a raft on guitarist Brian Venable’s ripping guitar solo. The band has also announced two album release shows on February 24 in Memphis at Hernando’s Hide-A-Way and on February 25 at The End in Nashville.

Stream “Macon If We Make It”

View the “Macon If We Make It” video

Pre-save Should've Learned by Now

“We were on tour in Georgia and a hurricane was coming through. Someone asked where our next show was and we said ‘Macon, if we make it,’” explains bandleader Ben Nichols. “I was aiming for a song kind of like Husker Du’s ‘Dead Set on Destruction.’ I don’t think I hit that mark but the song is fun to play and sing. It also has a kind of Violent Femmes vibe that I like. Their stuff was some of the first songs I learned to play on bass when I was 12 or 13 years old.”

Since forming in Memphis in the late 90’s, Lucero has evolved and embraced everything from southern rock to Stax-inspired Memphis soul, while maintaining their distinctive sonic foundations. A reflection of a band that knows itself, Should’ve Learned by Now sees the band returning to punchy driving rhythms and punk-rooted guitar licks after exploring darker, more atmospheric landscapes on their two previous releases. The group has shared three other singles from the album, with Rolling Stone declaring “One Last F.U. has the defiant, sneering energy of Lucero’s loudest recordings,” and BrooklynVegan saying “Buy a Little Time” finds them “sounding like Tom Petty jamming with Crazy Horse but in the way that only Lucero can.” Offering a glimpse at their quieter side, “Raining for Weeks” was hailed by Garden & Gun, who said the “ballad-like melancholy falls into equilibrium over jaunty piano, Nichols’s tenacious vocals, and old-school guitar drones.”

Led by the gravelly voice of singer/songwriter Ben Nichols, Lucero also features original members Brian Venable on guitar, Roy Berry on drums, John C. Stubblefield on bass and Rick Steff on keys. The group of Memphis road-dogs has maintained a large and dedicated fanbase for over 20 years, delivering a rowdy and communal live experience that is equally as exhilarating in a dive bar as it is in amphitheaters. NPR Music has called them “the rare kind of band with enough spirit to fill an arena, but with its heart planted firmly in the garage.”

Should’ve Learned by Now was produced by Grammy Award-winning engineer/mixer, Matt Ross-Spang (John Prine, Jason Isbell).

Lucero will hit the road this month in support of the new album. Find a full list of tour dates below and at this link: luceromusic.com/tour/

Lucero 2023 Tour Dates
January 21 – Estes Park, CO @ The Stanley Hotel (Westerns & Whiskey Weekend)
January 26 – Knoxville, TN @ The Mill & Mine
January 27 – Lexington, KY @ The Burl
January 28 – Louisville, KY @ Headliners Music Hall
January 29 – Indianapolis, IN @ Hi-Fi
January 31 – Rocky Mount, VA @ Harvester Performance Center
February 1 – Virginia Beach, VA @ Bunker Brewpub
February 2 – Raleigh, NC @ Lincoln Theatre (Roadtrip to Raleigh, supporting American Aquarium)
February 3 – Charlotte, NC @ Neighborhood Theatre
February 4 – Jacksonville, FL @ Intuition Ale Works
February 5 – Orlando, FL @ The Social
February 7 – St. Petersburg, FL @ Floridian Social Club
February 8 – Gainesville, FL @ High Dive
February 9 – Pensacola, FL @ Vinyl Music Hall
February 10 – New Orleans, LA @ Tipitina’s
February 11 – Jackson, TN @ Hub City Brewing
February 24 – Memphis, TN @ Hernando’s Hide-A-Way
February 25 – Nashville, TN @ The End
March 26 – Racho Cordova, CA @ Kith & Kin Music Festival (Ben Solo)
May 19 – Pelham, TN @ Ride the Tide Music Festival

Should’ve Learned by Now Tracklist
1. One Last F.U.
2. Macon If We Make It
3. She Leads Me
4. At the Show
5. Nothing’s Alright
6. Raining for Weeks
7. Buy a Little Time
8. Should’ve Learned by Now
9. Drunken Moon
10. Time to Go Home

Sun, 01/22/2023 - 2:44 pm

Drummer and composer Kendrick Scott returns with the March 3 release of Corridors, his third album for Blue Note Records, and first compositional treatment of trio context: saxophone, bass, and drums. The follow-up to A Wall Becomes A Bridge, Scott’s much-lauded 2019 release with his band Oracle, Corridors unveils an exposed rumination from the Houston-born artist and his acclaimed collaborators: saxophonist Walter Smith III and bassist Reuben Rogers. The lead single “What Day Is It?” is out now and the album is available for pre-order on vinyl, CD, and digital.

Originally commissioned by Rio Sakairi for The Jazz Gallery’s 2020 Artist Fellowship Series, Corridors features eight original compositions and one new arrangement of a beloved tune from the Bobby Hutcherson canon (“Isn’t This My Sound Around Me?”). Born during the pandemic lockdown, the record focuses on posing outward questions instead of inward contemplation. “I often write about something that I’m going through,” says Scott, “but for this record I wanted to zoom out from my perspective and instead, try to deal with everyone’s. The pandemic forced everyone to deal with the shadows they had been running from.”

Corridors reflects a shared intimacy and spotlights a different aspect of Scott’s expression in the pared down trio setting. A conceptual question emerged around loss: “What was taken away from everybody? What did you lose?” For Scott, who serves as album producer, this question became the impetus for assembling the album’s instrumentation. To create a truly empathetic musical gesture, he chose to abandon what he loves most: “In my band Oracle, it’s pretty much built around the guitar and the piano. I thought what I could do in aural form is take away those two instruments.”

From that intrinsically transitory point of origin — and the discomfort of loss — Scott allowed the music to develop, on the page and inside the studio. Over the course of the album, he and his fellow artists transform tension building into a nuanced art form. Summoning waves of harmonic dimension from the drum kit, he shifts between creating atmospheric spaces for Smith and Rogers to explore and plunging into those spaces himself.

“One of my strengths is creating a harmonic space for groups,” says Scott, “And the trio afforded me even more space so I too could be freer to interpret all the layers. Reuben navigates the world in such a genuine and loving way and his playing is a reflection of that. He’s the glue element — grounding and uplifting. And Walter has this sound that’s always been so beautiful and inspiring to me. Of my peers, Walter’s always been a guiding light.”

Fri, 02/03/2023 - 8:46 am

Today, Pete Francis announces new album PTRN SKY!, out May 12 via Noble Steed Music. The record is Francis’ first full-length solo release since 2010 and his 2019 departure from Dispatch, the alternative roots powerhouse he helped form in 1995. Along with the announcement, Francis shares the airy first single “Scared Without Your Love.” Built upon a cascading guitar riff and a bouncy drum loop, the track touches upon the universal fear of going through this life alone.

Stream “Scared Without Your Love”

Pre-save PTRN SKY!

“‘Scared Without Your Love’ is about trying to find my true voice and breaking old, codependent habits,” Francis shares. “Sometimes in toxic relationships we get too comfortable to realize how bad things have gotten – for me, part of the healing process was about recognizing negativity and realizing the need to grow into a stronger version of myself.”

Recorded at home in Connecticut and produced by Scott Jacoby (Coldplay, Vampire Weekend), PTRN SKY! finds the acclaimed songwriter and multi-instrumentalist reckoning with the depression and anxiety that have dogged him for most of his adult life, functioning both as an account of how Francis healed and as an agent of healing itself. In addition to therapy and medication, Francis used songwriting as a means of self-care, inhabiting a stream of consciousness style unlike anything he had previously done. Rather than penning the lyrics first, Francis channeled the emotions evoked in the music, inviting the synthesizer and drum loop-heavy sonic landscapes to guide the words that eventually came out.

Francis first rose to fame in the late ‘90s as one of the founding members of Dispatch. The trio recorded and toured extensively, experiencing an expeditious rise that helped rewrite the rulebooks for modern indie bands after becoming the first of which to sell out Madison Square Garden. In the years following, Francis’ battle with depression and anxiety became increasingly difficult, and at 31, he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. In 2019, Francis made the decision to permanently step away from the band to focus on his health and wellbeing. During his time with Dispatch, he released a series of widely lauded solo albums, but PTRN SKY! feels different. It’s here where he’s finally able to step through the darkness and into the light.

This month, Pete Francis will play a select number of shows throughout the Northeast. Find a full list of tour dates below and at this link: https://www.petefrancis.com/shows-2

Pete Francis 2023 Tour Dates
February 8 – New York, NY @ City Winery
February 9 – Philadelphia, PA @ City Winery
February 16 – Boston, MA @ City Winery
February 24 – Mashpee, MA @ Naukabout Brewery and Taproom
February 25 – Mashpee, MA @ Naukabout Brewery and Taproom
May 7 – Portsmouth, NH @ The Music Hall Lounge

PTRN SKY! Tracklist
1. Can’t Get On With It
2. Scared Without Your Love
3. Brighter Days
4. PTRN SKY!
5. All Your Tears
6. Eyes Of The Jungle
7. Fall Into Your Heart
8. Bring Me Some Water
9. Mind Over Mind
10. Wild Heart

Sat, 02/11/2023 - 2:06 pm

North Carolina-based singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Chessa Rich releases “Julia” from the forthcoming album Deeper Sleeper, out April 7 via Sleepy Cat Records. Featuring Alex Bingham of Hiss Golden Messenger on bass and synths and Joseph Terrell of Mipso on background vocals, “Julia” is a treatise on the creative process, paying homage to the titular Julia Cameron and her 1992 book The Artist’s Way. The song was featured this morning at INDY Week who called it “a gentle journey through morning pages, self-discovery, and what it means to embody a creative practice…hooky and inflected with entrancing synthetic propulsion.” Rich has also announced an album release show on April 29 at the Cat’s Cradle Back Room in Carrboro, NC.

Stream “Julia”

Watch the “Julia” lyric video

Pre-save Deeper Sleeper

“So much of my relationship with my ‘artist self’ is informed by Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, so she plays a big role in this song,” Rich shares. “I ended up writing a sort of lullaby to myself, allowing myself to give up a little, to not try so hard for a while. It was shocking and deeply cathartic to realize that I really needed to just let everything go. A lot of the song hinges on the idea that ‘the painter’s the creation, not the painting;’ that all the output I focus on is, at best, just a by-product of me being present to my life and the world.”

Featuring soft, jazzy drums, moody bass and a psychedelic synth build, “Julia” traces its influence all the way back to Chessa’s first exposure to her parents’ community jazz band as a child. The new track follows first single “Sleeping is Easier,” which was hailed as “...a breezy, driving dose of Indie rock-infused Americana” by BrooklynVegan and was championed by Glide Magazine who said, it “buzzes with the edgy folk narrative of Sharon Van Etten atop Jenny Lewis’ engaging retro charm.”

Deeper Sleeper is an autobiographical account of Chessa’s experience living with an undiagnosed sleep disorder, with each track reflecting a different aspect of her relationship with sleeping and dreaming. Across the LP’s textured sonic landscapes, Rich finds herself in various states of consciousness. Sleeping but unable to wake up, awake but wanting to be asleep, dreaming but not aware of the pieces that form the whole. Through writing and creating this record, she was able to step outside and reconnect with herself and those closest to her. Deeper Sleeper is that narrative of finally waking up.

Following a 2018 EP produced by Nick Sanborn of Sylvan Esso, Rich recorded Deeper Sleeper at New York’s Milan Hill Studios with Bingham, Terrell, Saman Khoujinian, Jay Hammond and Shane Leonard, who also produced and mixed. Paying homage to its vast array of influences from Fiona Apple and Big Thief to Air and Pavement, Deeper Sleeper refuses to be restrained by the confines of a particular genre. What loops the songs together is Rich’s informed rule-breaking songwriting steeped in a past not only of musical collaboration and performance but of a gentle persistence to discover oneself amidst a vast landscape of others.

Deeper Sleeper Tracklist

1. Paper Heart

2. Julia

3. Wanderer

4. Sleeping is Easier

5. River

6. Dirty Wine Glass

7. Red Sky

8. Vacation (Lonely)

9. Mary

Sat, 02/18/2023 - 10:19 am

Matt Corby released his hallucinatory new single “Big Smoke,” the newest single from his upcoming album Everything’s Fine (out March 24th via Communion). Next month Corby will kick off a limited run of intimate shows across the US with sold-out shows in New York, Los Angeles, Austin, and Toronto (full list of tour dates below).

Listen to “Big Smoke”

His first album in five years, Everything’s Fine vividly captures the personal and creative growth of Matt Corby who, like many, was tipped belly side up recently. Beyond the global touring pause, on the day he was meant to start recording his new album, Corby and his family were instead rescued by a neighbor. Their home had been engulfed by the flood waters that raged through Queensland and New South Wales, Australia, in early 2022. After nervously watching his heavily pregnant partner and young son be whisked away in a small inflatable dinghy, he got to work ferrying provisions to stranded locals and digging rotting mud out from beneath his home. With their home inundated by floodwaters, the whole family moved into Corby’s Rainbow Valley Studios during the album’s recording process. Juggling familial responsibilities with his creative pursuits was a one-of-a-kind pressure cooker circumstance that galvanized his artistic evolution.

“I'm currently rebuilding a lot of my foundational stuff,” Matt shares. “Covid changed me a lot, slowed me down. I feel like I've become aware of a lot of the stuff I need to work on, and I'm happy to start – and I have been. All of that chaos helped me not be neurotic with this album process and get to the point where I accepted things. Like, I couldn’t sit and stew over how something sounded and potentially make it worse if I was needed elsewhere."

Ruminating on love, domestic life, natural disaster and more, Matt Corby reconfigured his creative instincts and returned to his longstanding creative collaborations in Alex Hendrickson, Chris Collins (Gang of Youths, Middle Kids, Skegss), and pop-writing savante Nat Dunn (Rita Ora, Charli XCX, Tkay Maidza). The result is Matt’s most innovative, sonically adventurous and resonant album yet. Feeding into his long standing R&B influences, Everything’s Fine is a rousing story told through a polychromatic embrace of the vintage funk, hip hop and playful soft rock we each grew up with, spooled into a new innovative, offbeat lens of Matt’s making.

The halfway point of Everything’s Fine, “Big Smoke” moves as a deluge. Suffused by carefully struck synths and toms, breathless vocals melt away to gliding strings, gentle keys and overdrive pedal-led guitars. Channeling a similar lonerist, in-your-head impulse as Currents or Plastic Beach, where “Problems” and “Reelin”’ focused on the moments or relationships that attempt to define our lives, “Big Smoke” processes the self-sabotaging nature of the crutches leant on for support in the face of trying times.

An urge to consider ejecting that which holds us back from letting go, “Big Smoke” is one of the most insular tracks in Matt Corby’s most overt, direct and intimate albums yet. In his own words, he explains, “‘Big Smoke’ is a song that touches on the duality of living with your vices but being conscious of the fact they are probably not good for you.” The paisley patterned jam is a carefully produced touchstone of Everything’s Fine, indicative of Matt’s determination to focus on just five key elements throughout its making. His careful consideration of space here, compared to the layered flourishes of his J-Award winning album Rainbow Valley, is what allowed those deceivingly simplistic five elements emerge in a fastidiously curated 11-track album.

Praise for the previous single Reelin’:

"A meditation on healthy love" - Wonderland Magazine

"A soulful, spellbinding serenade... Moody and brooding in the best of ways, it’s an invitation to take a step back and pause; to close your eyes and let your mind wander" - Atwood Magazine

"A soulful, unhurried jam that goes down smoothly thanks to Corby's buttery vocals and some deft brass" - triple j

"An honest consideration of the fraught dynamics of long-term romantic relationships.Propelled by hopeful horns and tender percussion, Corby’s distinctive vocals soar as he discusses the importance of communication and compromise when dealing with a loved one" - Rolling Stone Australia

“The start of a new era, the crisp vocal seems to invite you to find the solution inside your own problems – he looks at how people tend to place obstacles in their way, and how this can be overcome” - Clash Music

Everything’s Fine Track Listing:
1. Problems
2. For Real
3. Carry On
4. Reelin'
5. Big Smoke
6. Lover
7. Reruns
8. Words I Say
9. Mainies
10. Better Than That
11. Everything's Fine

Tour Dates:
March 27 - Seattle, WA @ The Neptune Theatre
March 29 + 30 - Los Angeles, CA @ The Masonic Lodge at Hollywood Forever **SOLD OUT**
April 1 - Austin, TX @ Stateside at The Paramount Theatre **SOLD OUT**
April 3 - Toronto, ON @ Venue TBA **SOLD OUT**
April 5 + 6 - New York, NY @ The Bowery Ballroom **SOLD OUT**
April 9 - Nashville, TN @ 3rd & Lindsley

Sat, 02/18/2023 - 10:28 am

DADDY LONG LEGS, New York City's most diabolical Rhythm & Blues street gang, have shared their new track “Silver Satin” from their upcoming and eagerly anticipated new album Street Sermons, to be released on March 17th via Yep Roc Records. The group describes the track as an experience where “we take the listener on a trip through New York City’s underground rail system with a bottle in hand concealed by a brown paper bag. Lose yourself in a song dripping with tremolo and electric piano, but whatever you do, don’t fall asleep on the subway.” Street Sermons is currently available for pre-order here.

Listen: DADDY LONG LEGS - “Silver Satin”

Watch the album trailer for Street Sermons

The group previously released the track “Street Sermon” which sees the group beseeching their troubled congregation to “Work with one another/Not against each other” as the Brooklyn band evolve into a chain gang that sounds like they’re emanating through the cracks of a hot and sticky subway station.

The band's fourth studio album represents a wellspring of bottled-up feelings and emotions that need to be taken to the streets. Produced by Oakley Munson of the Black Lips at Old Soul Studios in Catskill, NY the band expands upon a sound that’s all their own and features guest appearances from Punk Rock legend Wreckless Eric providing backing vocals on "Nightmare" and "Silver Satin" and The Lovin' Spoonful's John Sebastian on "Ding-Ding Man," In dark times DADDY LONG LEGS continue to shine their light everywhere they go, leaving a piece of themselves on stage every night because it’s in them and it’s got to come out.

DADDY LONG LEGS’ previous album, Lowdown Ways (Yep Roc, 2019), reached #4 on the Billboard Blues Chart. The band has received high praise from Rolling Stone Senior editor David Fricke, who calls DADDY LONG LEGS’ sound “Chicago blues fired at the moon played by the demented children of the Pretty Things” and No Depression who declared that “from the first note, this is clearly a record made by people who live and die for rock and roll.”

Over the last decade these gentlemen have burned down houses the world over with their explosive fire ceremony and have amassed a cult-like following all their own with a tough to beat reputation for being one of the finest live acts on the road today. Written and recorded against a backdrop of political tension, riots in the streets and a deeply uncertain future, Street Sermons is a testament to triumph over adversity.

Street Sermons tracklist:

01) Street Sermon
02) Nightmare
03) Rockin’ My Boogie
04) Harmonica Razor
05) Been a Fool Once
06) Star
07) You’ll Die Too
08) Silver Satin
09) Two Dollar Holler
10) Ding-Ding Man
11) Stop What You’re Doin’
12) Electro-motive Blues

DADDY LONG LEGS US Tour Dates:
March 10 - The Sultan Room - Brooklyn, NY

Sat, 02/18/2023 - 3:22 pm

Today, Milwaukee-based singer-songwriter Trapper Schoepp has shared his gritty, swamp rock-inspired single “Devil’s Kettle,” the next offering from his upcoming studio album Siren Songs, out April 21 via Grand Phony (US) / Rootsy (EU). Inspired by a mysterious Minnesota waterfall, “Devil’s Kettle” was featured over at Glide Magazine who praised Schoepp’s “gritty vocals and guitar work” while adding that his name bears “a road-worn tag that rings of swampy reverence.” Siren Songs is available for pre-order.

Watch the Lyric Video for “Devil's Kettle” via YouTube

Stream “Devil's Kettle”

Pre-order Siren Songs

"This song is inspired by the Devil’s Kettle, a mysterious rock formation and waterfall I encountered along Highway 61,” shares Schoepp. “A river splits below these waterfalls, with one tributary to Lake Superior and the other flowing underground to an unknown location. It is said gangsters like Al Capone would dispose of bodies in this natural phenomenon. I had the honor of recording this track with Johnny Cash’s 1930s Martin Guitar. It was called the ‘shitkicker’ guitar because it long sat on Johnny’s couch where it was often played by his friends and guests.”

Johnny Cash’s Martin Guitar was one of the many instruments Schoepp and his collaborators were blessed to use during the making of Siren Songs. Produced by John Jackson (The Jayhawks, Ray Davies) and Patrick Sansone (Wilco), these recording sessions took place at Cash's historic Cash Cabin in Hendersonville, TN where they recorded with instruments found on the storied grounds – ranging from June Carter Cash’s Steinway piano to an old railroad spike. The end result features 12 songs filled with timeless folklore and nautical imagery.

“Devil’s Kettle” follows Schoepp’s anti-war anthem “Cliffs of Dover,” which arrived with a music video directed by Joseph Cash. “Cliffs of Dover” has garnered support from press including The Boot, Americana UK, The Indy Review and the Americana Music Association, along with radio airplay from Twin Cities’ The Current, New York’s WFUV and 88Nine Radio Milwaukee. Hailed as “a master storyteller" by HuffPost and beloved for his “rootsy, cinematic rock that charms as it soars” (NPR Music), Schoepp's forthcoming album Siren Songs is his strongest collection of songs to date, steeped in a sonic palette of traditional American and Irish folk music while giving it new life.

Folks may recognize Schoepp when he became the youngest musician to share a co-writing credit with Bob Dylan on a long-lost song called "On, Wisconsin" in 2019. After coming across a previously unseen lyric sheet from Dylan's early recording sessions, Schoepp seized the opportunity to put music to these words about his home state. Fortunately, Dylan approved to jointly publish the song, garnering acclaim from Billboard, Rolling Stone and more. Now, in a full-circle moment, Schoepp is featured on the Siren Songs album cover posing in front of the same pond where Cash would read and dispose of letters sent to him by Dylan, honoring a sacred kinship that started in the ‘60s.

U.S. Tour Dates:

3/23 - Lake Orion, MI - 20 Front Street

3/24 - Akron, OH - Barno's House

3/25 - Ligonier, PA - Sweet Rust

3/26 - Washington, D.C. - Pie Shop DC

3/28 - Boston, MA - City Winery Boston

3/29 - Cambridge, NY - Argyle Brewing Company

3/30 - Syracuse, NY - The 443 Social Club & Lounge

3/31 - Freehold, NJ - Concerts in the Studio (SOLD OUT)

4/1 - Pittsburgh, PA - Club Cafe

4/2 - New York, NY - Mercury Lounge

4/14 - Minneapolis, MN - 7th St Entry

4/15 - Madison, WI - Kiki's House of Righteous Music

4/21 - Milwaukee, WI - Colectivo **

4/22 - Berwyn, IL - FitzGerald’s **

4/23 - Nashville, TN - Eastside Bowl **

5/7 - Milwaukee, WI - Shank Hall #

5/9 - Davenport, IA - Raccoon Motel #

5/10 - Berwyn, IL - FitzGerald’s #

5/11 - Des Moines, IA - xBk Live #

5/12 - Omaha, NE - Reverb Lounge #

** With Mike Viola

# Supporting Daniel Rodriguez

U.K. and European Tour Dates Supporting Jesse Malin:

2/16 - Manchester, UK - Pink Room

2/17 - London, UK - The Garage

2/18 - Paris, France - La Boule Noire

2/19 - Utrecht, Netherlands - dB's

2/23 - Bergamo, Italy - Druso

2/24 - Ravenna, Italy - Bronson

2/25 - Mareno di Piave, Italy - Corner Live

2/27 - Hamburg, Germany - Nochtspeicher

2/28 - Copenhagen, Denmark - Hotel Saint Cecilia

3/1 - Lund, Sweden - Mejeriet

3/2 - Stockholm, Sweden - Bar Brooklyn

3/3 - Oslo, Norway - John Dee

Siren Songs Tracklist:

1. Cliffs of Dover

2. Secrets of the Breeze

3. Good Graces

4. The Fool

5. Eliza

6. Devil’s Kettle

7. 7 Mile Fair

8. Diocese

9. Anna Lee

10. Silk and Satin

11. Queen of the Mist

12. In Returning

Fri, 03/10/2023 - 1:44 pm

Today, Pete Francis releases his new single “Can’t Get On With It,” a psychedelia-tinged meditation on the mental health struggles that dogged him throughout much of his adult life, from forthcoming album PTRN SKY!, out May 12 via Noble Steed Music. The record is Francis’ first full-length solo release since his 2019 departure from Dispatch, the alternative roots powerhouse he helped form in 1995.

Stream “Can’t Get On With It”

Pre-save PTRN SKY!

“‘Can’t Get On With It’ is about feeling stuck in obsessive thoughts, and replaying painful conversations over and over again,” shares Francis. “I’m working to free myself, and this song expresses my desire to change and find agency.”

PTRN SKY!’s album opener, “Can’t Get On With It” finds Francis singing about being stuck, unable to move past the paralyzing weight of depression and anxiety. But over the LP’s next nine tracks, Francis is finally able to move forward, realizing that in order to step into the light, you have to go through the darkness first. Airy first single “Scared Without Your Love” is one of those tracks, and it’s a rumination on the universal fear of going through life alone that received praise from Jambase and Ghettoblaster.

Produced by Scott Jacoby (Coldplay, Vampire Weekend), PTRN SKY! functions both as an account of how Francis healed and as an agent of healing itself. In addition to therapy and medication, Francis used songwriting as a means of self-care, inhabiting a stream of consciousness style unlike anything he had previously done. Rather than penning the lyrics first, Francis channeled the emotions evoked in the music, inviting the synthesizer and drum loop-heavy sonic landscapes to guide the words that eventually came out.

Francis first rose to fame in the late ‘90s as one of the founding members of Dispatch. The trio recorded and toured extensively, experiencing an expeditious rise that helped rewrite the rulebooks for modern indie bands after becoming the first of which to sell out Madison Square Garden. In the years following, Francis’ battle with depression and anxiety became increasingly difficult, and at 31, he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. In 2019, Francis made the decision to permanently step away from the band to focus on his health and wellbeing.

Now, Francis is gearing up for the release of his first full-length solo record since 2010 and a select number of dates across the Northeast. See a full list of dates below and at https://www.petefrancis.com/shows-2.

Pete Francis 2023 Tour Dates
April 15 – Westerly, RI @ The Knickerbocker Music Center
May 7 – Portsmouth, NH @ The Music Hall Lounge

PTRN SKY! Tracklist
1. Can’t Get On With It
2. Scared Without Your Love
3. Brighter Days
4. PTRN SKY!
5. All Your Tears
6. Eyes Of The Jungle
7. Fall Into Your Heart
8. Bring Me Some Water
9. Mind Over Mind
10. Wild Heart

Mon, 03/13/2023 - 1:39 pm

The South Carolina Waterfowl Association’s Wildlife Education Center is the new home of BirdFest, a beloved bluegrass music festival, held on May 5-6, 2023 in Pinewood, South Carolina. This year’s BirdFest is headlined by the well-known bluegrass ensemble Steep Canyon Rangers on Friday and Saturday nights. Other acts include Town Mountain, Rob Ickes and Trey Hensley, Amanda Anne Platt & the Honeycutters, Seth Walker, and Henhouse Prowlers. Purchase tickets and learn more at BirdfestMusic.com.

BirdFest has brought music lovers and folks together for many years to enjoy an unforgettable weekend of good times and great music. Attendees can come to BirdFest knowing that the festival directly improves the quality of life for our community by supporting the youth conservation education programs of the South Carolina Waterfowl Association. The last time family and friends gathered for BirdFest was in 2019. In 2023, BirdFest will continue featuring a family atmosphere accompanied by live music, outdoor activities for both adults and youth, and a new venue, the SCWA Wildlife Education Center.

“BirdFest is where wonderful people gather to hear great bluegrass music in the beauty of nature, while also supporting the development of the next generation of natural resource conservationists,” shared David Wielicki, SCWA CEO.

Barrett Smith, the original BirdFest director and organizer since the festival began in 2016, shared, “We couldn’t be more excited about bringing BirdFest back in May of 2023. We’re expecting a weekend that has all of the same magic of our old festival, plus some new features that should make it bigger and better than ever. Our new venue, The South Carolina Waterfowl Association’s Wildlife Education Center, is a beautiful setting full of new family-friendly activities. We’re thrilled to welcome Steep Canyon Rangers as our host band on both Friday and Saturday nights.”

Tickets are available for Friday, Saturday, weekend pass, plus speciality options of VIP passes and “Friends of BirdFest.” All options, including how to reserve overnight RV and tent camping, are found at BirdFestMusic.com.

“The South Carolina Waterfowl Association is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that exists to enhance and perpetuate South Carolina’s wildlife heritage through education and habitat conservation.”

Sat, 03/25/2023 - 2:09 pm

Today Akron, Ohio-based guitarist Dan Wilson shares the first single, “Sticology,” from his forthcoming album. Things Eternal is Wilson’s second album with Brother Mister Productions, his mentor Christian McBride’s imprint under the Mack Avenue Music Group umbrella, following 2021’s Vessels of Wood and Earth. McBride also served as co-producer on the project. Immediately following the release of “Sticology” and continuing through to the Fall, Wilson and his trio embark on an extensive run of North American dates performing in venues and at jazz festivals across the country. Things Eternal will be available everywhere on May 19th.

Things Eternal full length pre-add link - HERE

Stream “Sticology” - HERE

The album kicks off with a vibrant cover of “Sticology.” Wilson chose this song for the project specifically as he feels it is a regional treasure. “It contains everything that I like about music: a driving bass line, a singable melody and well structured harmony. We had a chance to develop this arrangement over multiple performances last summer, and this recording represents the culmination of that time spent on the road. I have great respect and admiration for Phillip Jones, the composer who wrote the song when he was just 17 years old. The song is considered a classic in my hometown in Northeast Ohio, and I want to share it with whoever will listen.”

The track begins with a gently teasing voice message from legendary organist Joey DeFrancesco, whose sudden death in 2022 was mourned throughout the jazz community.  Wilson’s grandmother also makes a voicemail appearance later on the album. The guitarist’s habit of saving messages means that these beloved figures continue to speak to him. This collage of sounds is only one of the techniques that Wilson uses to create some of the most exciting music in jazz today.

While the overarching theme of this album is loss, the vibe of the project is decidedly optimistic, reflecting on family – both chosen and blood – spirituality and history. “This album is centered around the shock of losing a lot of people that were central to my upbringing,” Wilson says. “I’ve been seeing a grief counselor who draws on African religion and spirituality, and he suggested creating a shrine to memorialize some of the people that I've lost. In a way, that's what this album is, and it’s been therapeutic.”

Like many jazz musicians before him, Wilson honed his skills in the church. “This wasn't your average gospel church where cats are just chicken-picking,” he explains. “The music in the church that I grew up in is entirely driven by guitar.”

The matchup of McBride and Wilson aligns well, as both are omnivorous musicians whose tastes ranged not only the full spectrum of jazz but influences from soul, pop, funk, R&B, rock and beyond. DeFrancesco and McBride undoubtedly recognized a similar spirit in Wilson. His wide-ranging tastes are reflected on the artfully curated repertoire for Things Eternal, which includes songs by The Beatles, Stevie Wonder and Sting alongside jazz classics by the likes of McCoy Tyner, Freddie Hubbard, Michael Brecker and Herbie Hancock, as well as hometown favorite Jones.

Tracklist

1) Sticology

2) Since A Hatchet Was A Hammer

3) Eleanor Rigby

4) For Tomorrow Bass Intro

5) For Tomorrow

6) Things Eternal

7) Bird Like

8) Smile Please

9) Tell Me A Bedtime Story

10) Pilgrimage Intro

11) Pilgrimage

12) Let Your Soul Be Your Pilot

Tour Dates

03/21/23 - Columbus, OH - Ginger Rabbit

03/25/23 - Phoenix, AZ - Arizona Jazz Fest on High Street

03/28/23 - Columbus, OH - Refectory

04/01/23 - Chandler, AZ - Chandler Jazz Festival with Lewis Nash and Pat Bianchi

04/06/23 - Santa Cruz, CA - Kuumbwa Jazz Center w/ Brian Ho and Sylvia Cuenca

04/30/23-  Akron, OH  - Blu Jazz / music of Herbie Hancock

05/17/23-  Pittsburgh, PA - Stevie Wonder at Pittsburgh Cultural Trust

05/25-27- Charleston, SC - Spoleto Jazz Festival

06/24/23 - Cleveland, OH - Stevie Wonder at Tri-C Jazz Festival w/Jennifer Hartwick

07/09-07/15 New York City - Carnegie Hall NYO Jazz

07/30-08/04 Stanford, CA - Stanford Jazz Festival

08/31-09/04 - Vail, CO - Vail Jazz Party

09/08/23 - Akron, OH - Rubber City Jazz Festival

10/08/23 - San Francisco, CA - SF Jazz

Wed, 04/05/2023 - 9:05 am

Saxophonist Dave McMurray returns with Grateful Deadication 2, the follow-up to his acclaimed 2021 tribute album which once again finds the saxophonist reimagining the songs of the Grateful Dead with his gritty and soulful Detroit sound joined by special guests including Oteil Burbridge, Bob James, Jamey Johnson, Greg Leisz, and Don Was. Watch the official video for the lead single “Scarlet Begonias” featuring vocals by Burbridge.

Grateful Deadication 2 is a 9-song set that offers up Dead favorites and deep cuts including “Truckin’,” “China Cat Sunflower,” and “To Lay Me Down.” Returning to the fold are McMurray’s Detroit associates guitarist Wayne Gerard, keyboardist Maurice O’Neal, pianist Luis Resto, bassist Ibrahim Jones drummer Jeff Canady, and percussionist Larry Fratangelo.

“My most recent journey into Grateful Dead world began when my Detroit band and I traveled to Clubhouse Studios in Upstate New York,” says McMurray. “It’s a beautiful place, surrounded by lots of open land, and filled with vintage equipment. With master engineer Elliot Scheiner in tow, and four days and nights with only creating music on the brain, the vibe was just right. The result is a dark, sparse, emotional ride into the minds of Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, and the Grateful Dead... Detroit style."

Released in 2021, Grateful Deadication was an album as vibrant as it was unexpected. Highlights of the set included the appearance of Grateful Dead co-founder Bob Weir with vocalist Bettye LaVette on a powerful remake of “Loser,” and an expansive version of “Dark Star” which The New York Times wrote “channels the epically trippy M.O. of a Dead performance… a coolly grooving section opens up, and the saxophonist dishes out a solo that’s laced with greasy Motor City attitude but still takes its time, as if to bask in the California sun.”

Reflecting upon when he first heard the Grateful Dead, McMurray says “The long-form, odd measures and complex chords of the music hooked me immediately. I noticed the songs had great melodies yet held the openness of Miles Davis’ Electric Period. The music was catchy, psychedelic, raw, with the idea that nobody solos/everybody solos—akin to Weather Report. The more I listened, the more I knew these songs would eventually become a vehicle for my jazz expression.”

During the heyday of the Dead’s tireless touring, McMurray was on the road himself, joining now-Blue Note president Don Was in the uncategorizable Was (Not Was) beginning in 1981. McMurray has performed with a stunning roster of legendary musicians, including B.B. King, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Iggy Pop, Patti Smith, Bonnie Raitt, Johnny Hallyday, Gladys Knight, Albert King, Nancy Wilson, KEM, Bootsy Collins, Herbie Hancock, Geri Allen and Bob James.

In 2018 McMurray joined Don Was for an all-star set at San Francisco’s Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival. The performance featured a surprise appearance by Weir, who had recently enlisted Was and drummer Jay Lane for his new band Wolf Bros, including a rendition of Dead classic “Days Between.”

Grateful Deadication 2 is not only another heartfelt celebration of the Grateful Dead’s brilliant songcraft, but the imagination and soul evident throughout the album exemplify the wide range of McMurray’s influences - from jazz, pop, rock, soul, reggae, R&B, gospel and beyond.

The track listing for Grateful Deadication 2 is as follows:
 
1. Playing in the Band
2. China Cat Sunflower
3. Bird Song
4. To Lay Me Down feat. Jamey Johnson
5. Truckin’
6. The Other One feat. Bob James
7. If I Had the World to Give feat. Bob James
8. Scarlet Begonias feat. Oteil Burbridge
9. Crazy Fingers

Sat, 04/08/2023 - 2:45 pm

Today, GRAMMY-winning bandleader, composer, arranger, and pianist Steven Feifke released his new single “Ali Dell'Angelo,” a bold new composition with a soaring trio of standout solos from saxophonist Alexa Tarantino, Feifke himself, and drummer Bryan Carter. “Ali Dell’Angelo” comes on the heels of Feifke’s victory at the 2023 GRAMMY Awards; it is a historic first-time win for Feifke, who became the youngest ever winner for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album in the category’s six decade existence. The GRAMMY comes during an incredibly prolific period for Feifke – the upcoming release of Catalyst (out June 16th via La Reserve / Bandstand Presents) will be his sixth album in two years.

Listen to “Ali Dell'Angelo”

Catalyst debuts nearly a half-dozen new compositions, and several “Feifke-tized” takes on classic repertoire. “I recognize more of myself in the music I’ve written for Catalyst,” says Feifke. “It’s all closer to my heart. It’s very personal music about things that I care about.” La Reserve Records co-founder Matt Block agrees, saying “This is a level of vulnerability that we haven’t heard from Steven yet. Each of his releases just keeps getting better and better.”

“‘Ali Dell'Angelo’ is Italian for ‘wings of the angel,’” Feifke explains of the new single. “Angel wings signify a desire for freedom, dreams of flight, and in some cases even a more spiritual side of humanity. This piece has three distinct sections that work in tandem to lift the harmony higher and higher with each subsequent modal center, collectively suggesting a feeling of flight.”

And Feifke’s career is truly soaring. His compositions and orchestrations have been prominently featured on hit TV shows such as The Masked Singer, Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, Impractical Jokers, Animaniacs, and many world class big bands and orchestras around the globe. A respected educator, Feifke currently sits on faculty at Berklee College of Music and The New School of Jazz and Contemporary Music. DownBeat calls his music “an air of infectious joy” and Jazziz praises him as a “masterful pianist.”

Tracklisting:
1. The Promised Land
2. It Could Happen To You
3. Stablemates
4. Ali Dell'Angelo
5. Catalyst
6. I Cover The Waterfront
7. My Foolish Heart
8. Tricotism
9. Patience's Promise
10. Kingpin

Tour Dates:
May 3-14: Italy Residency
May 3: Masquerade Opera Foundation at Palazzo Corsini, Florence Italy
May 8: Palazzo Pisani Moretta, Venezia VE
May 13 & 14: Castello di Reschio, Niccone PG
May 17-21: Mexico Tour With Alexa Tarantino Quartet
May 18: Conjunto de Artes Escenicas, Guadalajara
May 19: Teatro Xicotencatl, Tlaxcala
May 20: Centro Cultural Roberto Cantoral, Mexico City
June 8: Dizzy's Club at Jazz At Lincoln Center, New York, NY
June 10: Scullers Jazz Club, Boston, MA
June 20-25: Ecuador Tour

Sun, 04/16/2023 - 3:26 pm

Nashville genre-bending trio The Arcadian Wild have announced their new album Welcome, to be released on July 21 via Vere Music. Along with the announcement they’ve shared the first single “Dopamine,” a punchy track that confronts the insidious ways that smartphones and social media have hijacked our brains.

Stream “Dopamine” HERE

“‘Dopamine’ is about an endless cycle in which I am admittedly caught up,” says mandolinist Lincoln Mick. “One of the voices of the song belongs to the proverbial ‘man behind the curtain’ of the technologies, tools, and platforms of this age - someone whose primary objective is to harness and commodify our two most valuable assets: our TIME and our ATTENTION. The other voices represent our collective voice, as we work to sift for the truth amidst all the alternative stories being broadcast to us at every moment of every day. I thought it would be fun to create a progressive, cacophonous verse that felt reflective of the overstimulation so many of us experience. Isaac and Bailey and I sing entirely separate lyrics and melodies over top of one another in certain moments to embody that story-counter-story premise.”

Written and recorded in The Arcadian Wild’s hometown of Nashville, TN, Welcome marks the start of a captivating new chapter for the trio consisting of guitarist Isaac Horn, mandolinist Lincoln Mick, and fiddler Bailey Warren, who returned to the studio with renewed purpose and insight after devoting the last few years to a series of critically acclaimed singles and EPs. Like much of the band’s catalog, the album blurs the lines between chamber folk and progressive bluegrass, drawing on everything from country and classical to pop and choral music with lush harmonies and dazzling fretwork, but this time around there’s a rawness to the writing, an embrace of candor and simplicity that cuts straight to the heart like never before. The result is perhaps the most arresting collection yet from a band known for its ability to stop listeners dead in their tracks, an exquisitely beautiful celebration of community, connection, and the power of belonging that feels tailor-made for these challenging times.

Working with engineer Logan Matheny (Colony House, Hiss Golden Messenger) and mixer Shani Gandhi (Sarah Jarosz, Sierra Hull), the band approached the recording sessions for Welcome as live as possible, embracing the organic feel of their concerts with the help of double bassist Erik Coveney (Sierra Hull, Dave Barnes), who joined them on the studio floor. The band doesn't record or perform with drums or percussion, but instead relies on their vocals and instrumentations to provide the backbeat. “When we’re working on arrangements, we try to treat our band like a drum set: who is the kick, who is the snare, who is the crash, hi hat, etc. This approach helps each of us find our specific role in any given moment or section of the song, which again leads to a much more intentional and conversational arrangement.”

The Arcadian Wild cut their teeth playing house shows, where they learned to treat their audience like family, and released their self-titled debut to widespread praise in 2015, racking up nearly 50 million streams on Spotify alone. Heavy touring followed and the group returned in 2019 with a second full-length LP, Finch In The Pantry, which debuted in the Top 10 on the Billboard Bluegrass Chart. When the pandemic forced the trio off the road in 2020, they shifted their focus to composing and recording a multi-movement song cycle that resulted in the 2021 EP Principum, which reached #3 on the Billboard Bluegrass Chart and helped earn the band performances everywhere from the Woody Guthrie Center to the Ryman Auditorium.

Welcome Tracklist:
1. Lara
2. Dopamine
3. Big Sky, MT
4. Shoulders
5. Little Bird
6. Sparrow
7. Corner
8. Gàrradh Seileach
9. Lift My Head
10. Two Kinds
11. Fable Of The Times
12. The End

Tour Dates:
April 14 - Three Oaks, MI @ Acorn Theater
April 15 - Aurora, IL @ The Venue Aurora
April 19 - Chattanooga, TN @ Barrelhouse Ballroom
April 29 - Nashville, TN @ Bright Shade Music Festival
May 11 - Greer, SC @ Albino Skunk Music Festival
May 30 - Knoxville, TN @ Open Chord
May 31 - Johnson City, TN @ The Down Home
June 1 - Charlottesville, VA @ The Southern Cafe and Music Hall
June 2 - Washington, DC @ The Hamilton
June 3 - Annapolis, MD @ Rams Head On Stage
June 4 - Philadelphia, PA @ City Winery Philadelphia
June 5 - New York, NY @ The Mercury Lounge
June 7 - Boston, MA @ City Winery Boston
June 8 - Syracuse, NY @ Funk n Waffles
June 9 - Buffalo, NY @ Sportsmens Tavern
June 10 - Millvale, PA @ The Funhouse at Mr. Smalls
June 11 - Columbus, OH @ Rumba Cafe
June 23 - Lexington, KY @ The Burl
June 24 - Asheville, NC @ The Grey Eagle
June 25 - Mount Solon, VA @ Red Wing Roots Music Festival
June 30 - Crested Butte, CO @ Public House
July 1 - Manitou Springs, CO @ Lulu's Downstairs
July 2 - Denver, CO @ Soiled Dove Underground
July 23 - Bardstown, KY @ Spalding Hall
July 26 - St. Paul, MN @ Turf Club
July 27 - Sioux Falls, SD @ Levitt at Sioux Falls
July 29 - Evanston, IL @ SPACE
July 30 - Indianapolis, IN @ Hi-Fi
August 3 - Huntsville, AL @ The Common House
September 5 - Seattle, WA @ Tractor Tavern
September 10 - Mill Valley, CA @ Sweetwater Music Hall
September 17 - Louisville, KY @ Bourbon & Beyond Festival

Thu, 04/27/2023 - 10:40 am

Today, multi-GRAMMY award-winning vocalist Kurt Elling and guitarist/producer Charlie Hunter announced SuperBlue: The Iridescent Spree, a new full-length album featuring drummer Corey Fonville and bassist-keyboardist DJ Harrison. Releasing September 15th via Edition Records, the album is a continuation of Elling’s SuperBlue collaboration with Charlie Hunter, which includes their 2021 GRAMMY-nominated debut full-length and their 2023 covers EP GuiltyPleasures. The album announcement comes with the first single “Not Here / Not Now,” a simmering, brass-blasted original composition by Elling, Hunter, Fonville, and Harrison and additional lyricist Phil Galdston.

Listen to “Not Here / Not Now

Kurt Elling is renowned worldwide for his unparalleled virtuosity and flair for trailblazing artistic exploration. From his stunning reinvention of timeless standards to his own captivating original songcraft, the Chicago-based musician has fused his dazzling talents across a panoply of musical approaches, emblazoning each with signature imagination, insight, and emotional intelligence. Where many male jazz vocalists at this stage in a much vaunted career have tended to stick to the tried and true, Elling seems to be growing more ambitious and experimental with the passing of time, a tendency evidenced by the stunning new LP.

SuperBlue: The Iridescent Spree sees Elling and Hunter reunited with drummer Corey Fonville and multi-instrumentalist DJ Harrison (both of jazz-funk fusion quintet Butcher Brown) for a kaleidoscopic collection of new songs, dynamic reinventions, and surprising covers (Joni Mitchell’s “Black Crow,” Bob Dorough’s Schoolhouse Rock standard “Naughty Number Nine,” Ron Sexsmith’s “Right About Now”). Additional colors on the album are provided by flutist Elena Pinderhughes (Carlos Santana, Taylor McFerrin, Josh Groban) and Brooklyn’s Huntertones Horns (Jon Lampley: Trumpet; Dan White: Saxophone & Horn Arrangements​; Chris Ott: Trombone).

Elling’s work with Charlie Hunter – a prodigious musician and producer whose own genre-agnostic oeuvre has long seen him crisscrossing the bridge between jazz and hip-hop – began after their first meeting in 1995, an on-and-off collaboration that ultimately brought them to a completely unexpected destination with 2021’s SuperBlue. Weaving vivacious funk with Elling’s one-of-a-kind brand of contemporary beat lyricism and vocalese brilliance, the album proved a milestone in both artists’ wide-ranging bodies of work, earning international applause along with a 2022 GRAMMY® Award nomination for Best Jazz Vocal Album.

Knitting a cultivated traditionalism with modernist audacity, SuperBlue: The Iridescent Spree both expands and explains its creators’ beloved jazz to an audience potentially unfamiliar with its nuances and its past. “We’re trying to take that history and transform it into something that speaks to a present generation without leaving that history behind,” says Elling. Though it was born as an experimental project during the pandemic, SuperBlue has now bloomed into a tightly meshed unit built for forward motion, the ideal vehicle for Kurt Elling and Charlie Hunter, two utterly idiosyncratic artists relentless in their quest for fresh challenges and new ideas, to celebrate their boundless, all-embracing approach to music, art, and indeed, life itself.

“It’s going to go where it’s going to go,” Charlie Hunter says. “Presumably, it’ll change and grow again.” “I feel like there’s still room to grow with this project,” Kurt Elling agrees. “That’s always the prime motivator. That there’s more for me to discover as a writer and as a singer and as a bandleader or co-band leader. We’re going down a road, let’s see how far the road goes.”

Tracklisting:
1. Black Crow
2. Freeman Square
3. Naughty Number Nine
4. Little Fairy Carpenter
5. Bounce It
6. Only The Lonely Woman
7. Right About Now
8. Not Here / Not Now
9. The Afterlife
10. Goin' Back to Chicago (Digital Only Bonus Track)

Kurt Elling & Charlie Hunter Tour Dates:
May 23: City Winery STL - St. Louis, MO
May 24: City Winery STL - St. Louis, MO
May 25: 3rd & Lindsley - Nashville, TN
May 26: City Winery Atlanta - Atlanta, GA
May 27: The District - Savannah, GA
Aug 5: Newport Jazz Festival - Newport, RI
Sep 21: City Winery - Boston , MA
Sep 23: World Cafe Live - Philadelphia, PA
Sep 24: The Hamilton - Washington, D.C.
Sep 27: Cleveland Museum of Art - Cleveland, OH
Sep 28: The Cabaret - Indianapolis, IN
Sep 29: The Acorn - Three Oaks, MI
Sep 30: Englert Theatre - Iowa City, IA
Oct 1: Parkway Theater - Minneapolis, MN
Oct 3: Jazz Alley - Seattle, WA
Oct 4: Jazz Alley - Seattle, WA
Oct 5: Mississippi Studios - Portland, OR
Oct 6: Yoshis - Oakland, CA
Oct 7: Teragram Ballroom - Los Angeles, CA
Oct 8: Boulder Theater - Boulder, CO
Dec 2: SPACE - Evanston, IL

Fri, 05/05/2023 - 12:39 pm

Today, Nashville-based band Boy Named Banjo has released their uplifting new single “What Keeps Me Going” via Mercury Records Nashville. Over tender, harmony-laced production, the quintet shares a positive anthem of gratitude that was written following what our world has experienced over the last several years.

Stream “What Keeps Me Going”

“‘What Keeps Me Going’ is essentially our answer to the question, ‘What is important to us?’” shares banjo player Barton Davies, who penned the song with guitarist and harmonica player William Reames and Pat McLaughlin (John Prine, Loretta Lynn). “We wrote this song as we were coming out of the pandemic and reflecting on how that whole experience had shifted our focus. Like many others during that time, we found the most meaning from the simplest things - being outside, watching the sun go down, going fishing, and spending quality time with our loved ones. That’s what kept us going then and what keeps us going today.”

Reames adds, “The song highlights why we do difficult things – whether that is going to a 9-to-5 every day or covering miles in a tour van, the goal is the same: To enjoy life. We work hard to enjoy life.”

Davies continues, “The song sounds like it could’ve been written about 50 years ago, and I love that about it. It’s definitely got a bit of that Laurel Canyon folk-rock feeling to it, but with our contemporary BNB approach. I love the message of the song too. It just seems kinda timeless in the sense that I could look back on this song when I’m older and say, ‘Yep, I still feel that way.’”

“What Keeps Me Going” arrives on the heels of Boy Named Banjo’s Grand Ole Opry debut in March, a momentous milestone for the band that was documented over at People.com.

In a time when the popular choice is to chase the double yellow line down the road to country radio, Boy Named Banjo thrives on its fringes. The Nashville-raised five-piece is a fusion of contemporary country, Americana and folk-rock stacked on a foundation of bluegrass. The band, which has been together in some iteration since its members were in their teens includes Barton Davies (banjo), Ford Garrard (bass/standing bass), Sam McCullough (drums) Willard Logan (mandolin, acoustic/electric guitar) and William Reames (acoustic guitar/harmonica). Reames and Logan played in a middle school garage rock band together, but it wasn't until Reames met Davies in high school that Boy Named Banjo started taking shape. Garrard and McCullough joined later and together the five guys comprise the band Boy Named Banjo that we know today.

At sold-out shows marked by audiences singing along with every word, Boy Named Banjo tells their stories with an incisive, emotional and roots-driven perspective. In 2020, Boy Named Banjo signed to Mercury Records Nashville and released their debut EP, Circles, the following year. The band spent 2022 on the road playing some of country music’s largest festivals including Dierks Bentley’s Seven Peaks and Country Jam and Kip Moore’s Fire on Wheels Tour, and made their CMA Fest debut playing at the Ascend Amphitheatre Nighttime Concert as well as a sold-out hometown show at Nashville’s Brooklyn Bowl. The group most recently released the tracks “Whiskey Dreams,” “Heart In Motion” and “Heart Attack,” which earned support from Billboard, CMT, MusicRow and more. Boy Named Banjo is currently prepping their next project to be released later this year.

Boy Named Banjo 2023 Tour Dates:

May 25 - Newport, KY - Megacorp Pavilion *

May 26 - Columbus, OH - Newport Music Hall *

May 27 - Wilkes-Barre, PA - F. M. Kirby Center *

July 7 - Ridgefield, WA - RV Inn Style Resorts Amphitheater %

July 8 - Auburn, WA - White River Amphitheatre %

September 15 - Louisville, KY - Bourbon and Beyond

September 23 - Franklin, TN - The Pilgrimage Music & Cultural Festival

October 6 - Monterey, CA - Rebels & Renegades Music Festival

* Supporting Larry Fleet

% Supporting Hank Williams Jr. and Old Crow Medicine Show

For tickets, please visit boynamedbanjo.com/tour.

Sat, 05/06/2023 - 10:05 am

Today, the internationally acclaimed, Raleigh-based alt band The Connells released their live album Set The Stage. This is the first official live record in the group’s 37 year history. The album is currently available for download / purchase here.

Guitarist / songwriter Mike Connell writes, "Over the years fans have asked why we haven't released a live record. The best explanation I can give is that when we walked off the stage on any given night, I was ready to move on from what we had just done. Maybe more to the point, I was scared of listening to what we had just done. I tend to fixate on the mistakes – the flat notes and the clams.  Recently though, I was encouraged to finally listen to some performances we had in the vault and I liked a lot of what I heard. With Set The Stage I think we finally captured "the loose precision" that is a Connells show and I am grateful that some steadfast friends of the band want to hear it."

Listen - The Connells: “Hat’s Off” (Live)

Connell writes that, “‘Hats Off’ was one of the first songs we ever released.  This was back in 1985, and it became a staple of our live shows in the early days of the band… The version on Set the Stage is from a show we played in Columbia, South Carolina… it was one of the highlights from that show and I think Doug (vocals) should be given his props for leaning into it that night.”

Set The Stage is The Connells’ tenth album, following 2021’s acclaimed release Steadman’s Wake. Their first record in two decades, Steadman’s Wake was acclaimed by Stereogum, Paste Magazine, American Songwriter, Brooklyn Vegan, Under The Radar and many more. The group subsequently embarked on a successful national tour, full of exuberant and high-energy performances like the ones documented on Set The Stage.

The Connells first formed in Chapel Hill at the University of North Carolina in 1984, debuting a year later with the song “Darker Days” on the Dolphin Records More Mondo Compilation, followed by their debut album Darker Days in 1986. Their 1987 Mitch Easter-produced album Boylan Heights established them as college-radio favorites, and they went on to work with producers including Gary Smith (Pixies, Billy Bragg), Hugh Jones (Echo & the Bunnymen, Modern English) and Lou Giordano (Goo Goo Dolls, Bob Mould) on subsequent albums. Three albums by The Connells have made the Billboard 200 charts in the United States, but their biggest commercial success came overseas in 1993 with “’74- ’75,” a pensive and moody ballad from their Ring LP which reached the top-10 in 11 European countries in 1995 (including No. 1 in Sweden, Norway and Germany).

Connells Tour Dates:

06/09/23 - Birmingham, AL - Saturn
06/10/23 - Atlanta, GA - Variety Playhouse
06/16/23 - Rocky Mountain, VA - Harvester Performance Center
06/17/23 - Charleston, SC - Riviera Theater
07/14/23 - Norfolk, VA - The NorVa
07/15/23 - Richmond, VA - The National

Set The Stage Tracklist:
01) OT²
02) Slackjawed
03) Hats Off
04) Set The Stage
05) Too Gone
06) Fun and Games
07 Running Mary
08) Carry My Picture
09) Steadman’s Wake
10) Hey Wow
11) ‘75-’75
12) Really Great

Sun, 05/07/2023 - 3:15 pm

Today, supergroup The Baseball Project has announced their fourth studio album Grand Salami Time!, due out June 30 via Omnivore Recordings. Made up of Steve Wynn (The Dream Syndicate), former R.E.M. members Peter Buck and Mike Mills, along with Scott McCaughey (The Minus 5/Young Fresh Fellows) and Linda Pitmon (Filthy Friends, Alejandro Escovedo), the band has also shared their jangly new single “Journeyman.”

Listen to “Journeyman” via YouTube

Stream “Journeyman”

“I was in a hotel room just outside of Buffalo when I got an email from Peter with an instrumental version of this song,” shares Wynn, who penned the song with Buck. “The words came immediately, not surprising since a veteran musician stringing together a series of one-night stands has more than a little in common with a left-handed relief specialist who plays for a dozen teams in a workmanlike career. Extra points for anyone who picked up on the Walter White quote.”

Produced by formative R.E.M. producer Mitch Easter (Let's Active, The dB's) on what will be his final album, Grand Salami Time! brought together former R.E.M. members in the studio again for the first time in over three decades, and it’s The Baseball Project’s first release in nine years. The new album was recorded at Easter’s fabled Fidelitorium Studios in Kernersville, North Carolina, with the entire band performing live together in the same room, a joyous experience that seemed impossible to imagine only one year before. Grand Salami Time! also features guitar work by Easter as well as appearances by Stephen McCarthy (The Long Ryders) and Steve Berlin (Los Lobos).

True to their name, The Baseball Project has been fortunate enough to perform full sets along with the National Anthem and “Take Me Out To The Ball Game” at major league parks in cities like Boston, Chicago and Philadelphia. They’ve also had the pleasure of throwing out some exceptional first pitches at these games. It's all part of an unusual arc and fun story of a band whose first gig was an appearance on Late Night With David Letterman followed by a festival in a medieval Spanish city.

Grand Salami Time! is the follow-up to the band’s third album, 2014’s 3rd, which was critically acclaimed by The Hollywood Reporter, Billboard, USA Today, Stereogum and many more including the MLB.

Watch the trailer: https://youtu.be/ivu9QpfbNj0

Pre-order Grand Salami Time!: omnivorerecordings.com/shop/grand-salami-time

The Baseball Project – 2023 Tour Dates
August 8 - Birmingham, AL - Saturn
August 9 - Atlanta, GA - Terminal West
August 10 - Athens, GA - 40 Watt
August 11 - Charleston, SC - Music Farm
August 12 - St. Augustine, FL - St. Augustine Amphitheater *
August 13 - Myrtle Beach, SC - House of Blues *
August 15 - Carrboro, NC - Cat’s Cradle
August 16 - Richmond, VA - Richmond Music Hall
August 17 - Washington, D.C. - The Hamilton
August 18 - Brooklyn, NY - Brooklyn Made
August 19 - Cambridge, MA - The Sinclair
August 20 - Ridgefield, CT - The Ridgefield Playhouse
August 22 - Philadelphia, PA - World Cafe Live
August 23 - Pittsburgh, PA - Thunderbird Music Hall
August 24 - Cleveland, OH - Beachland Ballroom
August 25 - Kalamazoo, MI - Bell’s Beer Garden
August 26 - Indianapolis, IN - Deluxe @ Old National Centre
August 27 - Evanston, IL - Space
August 28 - Milwaukee, WI - Turner Hall
August 31 - Evanston, IL - Space
September 1 - Louisville, KY - The Whirling Tiger
September 2 - Memphis, TN - Overton Park Shell
 
* with Jason Isbell
 
Grand Salami Time! Tracklist:
1. Grand Salami Time
2. The Yips
3. Screwball
4. Uncle Charlie
5. Journeyman
6. Erasable Man
7. New Oh In Town
8. Disco Demolition
9. Stuff
10. The All or Nothings
11. That’s Living
12. 64 and 64
13. Having Fun
14. Fantasy Baseball Widow
15. The Voice of Baseball

Wed, 05/10/2023 - 1:22 pm

Today, Nashville’s The Arcadian Wild shared the new single “Corner” off their recently announced album Welcome, which will be released on July 21 via Vere Music. They’ve also shared a video for the delicate track, which celebrates the unconditional love from family figures, biological or chosen, who always have your back.

Watch the “Corner” music video HERE

Stream “Corner” HERE

“It’s always been important to us as a band to point to the people and places that played a role in getting us to where we are today,” says guitarist Isaac Horn. “‘Corner’ is just that. A song that points to the people and places that pushed me to where I am today. It’s the story of my mother, who has never wavered in her aim to love me into the man I am today. It’s a superpower, a force of such magnitude it could level a building, move a mountain, shape a person. It can be quiet and gentle, and in a second, loud and passionate. Likewise, ‘Corner’ begins soft and small, the opening lines almost whispered. It’s a simple and intimate beginning that grows and matures along with the characters, building slowly and steadily to a sonorous and vehement final chorus declaring one simple fact: if you love someone unconditionally, you will always be in their corner, and you will be immovable.”

On the making of the video, which was shot at the Historic Rock Castle in Hendersonville, TN, Horn said, “Of all the videos we shot for our upcoming album, this one took the most brain power. Since it was a one take shot, everything had to line up perfectly. There were plenty of flubs (mostly on our end of course), but it made for a very entertaining shoot. I love this particular room. There’s a subdued, humble quality to the space that reflects the music and lyrics of ‘Corner’ perfectly.”

Written and recorded in The Arcadian Wild’s hometown of Nashville, TN, Welcome marks the start of a captivating new chapter for the genre-bending trio consisting of guitarist Isaac Horn, mandolinist Lincoln Mick, and fiddler Bailey Warren, who returned to the studio with renewed purpose and insight after devoting the last few years to a series of critically acclaimed singles and EPs. Like much of the band’s catalog, the album blurs the lines between chamber folk and progressive bluegrass, drawing on everything from country and classical to pop and choral music with lush harmonies and dazzling fretwork, but this time around there’s a rawness to the writing, an embrace of candor and simplicity that cuts straight to the heart like never before. The result is perhaps the most arresting collection yet from a band known for its ability to stop listeners dead in their tracks, an exquisitely beautiful celebration of community, connection, and the power of belonging that feels tailor-made for these challenging times.

Working with engineer Logan Matheny (Colony House, Hiss Golden Messenger) and mixer Shani Gandhi (Sarah Jarosz, Sierra Hull), the band approached the recording sessions for Welcome as live as possible, embracing the organic feel of their concerts with the help of double bassist Erik Coveney (Sierra Hull, Dave Barnes), who joined them on the studio floor. The band doesn't record or perform with drums or percussion, but instead relies on their vocals and instrumentations to provide the backbeat. “When we’re working on arrangements, we try to treat our band like a drum set: who is the kick, who is the snare, who is the crash, hi hat, etc. This approach helps each of us find our specific role in any given moment or section of the song, which again leads to a much more intentional and conversational arrangement.”

The Arcadian Wild cut their teeth playing house shows, where they learned to treat their audience like family, and released their self-titled debut to widespread praise in 2015, racking up nearly 50 million streams on Spotify alone. Heavy touring followed and the group returned in 2019 with a second full-length LP, Finch In The Pantry, which debuted in the Top 10 on the Billboard Bluegrass Chart. When the pandemic forced the trio off the road in 2020, they shifted their focus to composing and recording a multi-movement song cycle that resulted in the 2021 EP Principum, which reached #3 on the Billboard Bluegrass Chart and helped earn the band performances everywhere from the Woody Guthrie Center to the Ryman Auditorium.

Welcome Tracklist:
1. Lara
2. Dopamine
3. Big Sky, MT
4. Shoulders
5. Little Bird
6. Sparrow
7. Corner
8. Gàrradh Seileach
9. Lift My Head
10. Two Kinds
11. Fable Of The Times
12. The End

Tour Dates:
May 11 - Greer, SC @ Albino Skunk Music Festival
May 30 - Knoxville, TN @ Open Chord
May 31 - Johnson City, TN @ The Down Home
June 1 - Charlottesville, VA @ The Southern Cafe and Music Hall
June 2 - Washington, DC @ The Hamilton
June 3 - Annapolis, MD @ Rams Head On Stage
June 4 - Philadelphia, PA @ City Winery Philadelphia
June 5 - New York, NY @ The Mercury Lounge
June 7 - Boston, MA @ City Winery Boston
June 8 - Syracuse, NY @ Funk n Waffles
June 9 - Buffalo, NY @ Sportsmens Tavern
June 11 - Columbus, OH @ Rumba Cafe
June 23 - Lexington, KY @ The Burl
June 24 - Asheville, NC @ The Grey Eagle
June 25 - Mount Solon, VA @ Red Wing Roots Music Festival
June 30 - Crested Butte, CO @ Public House
July 1 - Manitou Springs, CO @ Lulu's Downstairs
July 2 - Denver, CO @ Soiled Dove Underground
July 11 - Charlotte, NC @ Neighborhood Theater
July 12 - Raleigh, NC @ The Pour House Music Hall
July 13 - Greer, NC @ The Spinning Jenny
July 14 - Dalton, GA @ OFf The Rails Summer Music Series
July 15 - Murfreesboro, TN @ Hop Springs
July 23 - Bardstown, KY @ Spalding Hall
July 25 - Lawrence, KS @ Venue 1235
July 26 - St. Paul, MN @ Turf Club
July 27 - Sioux Falls, SD @ Levitt at Sioux Falls
July 28 - Iowa City, IA @ Wildwood
July 29 - Evanston, IL @ SPACE
July 30 - Indianapolis, IN @ Hi-Fi
August 3 - Huntsville, AL @ The Common House
September 5 - Seattle, WA @ Tractor Tavern
September 10 - Mill Valley, CA @ Sweetwater Music Hall
September 17 - Louisville, KY @ Bourbon & Beyond Festival
September 30 - Atlanta, GA @ Buckhead Theatre

Fri, 05/19/2023 - 1:13 pm

GRAMMY-winning bandleader, composer, arranger, and pianist Steven Feifke released his new rendition of “My Foolish Heart” with an accompanying live video. The song features a duet between vocalists Martina DaSilva and Bryan Carter — earlier this month, Carter was nominated for a Tony Award for his orchestrations in Some Like It Hot. Glide Magazine praised the recording as “a work of impressive jazz vocals and musicianship that feels organic and vibrant.” “My Foolish Heart” will appear on Feifke’s upcoming full-length album Catalyst, which will be released June 16th via La Reserve / Bandstand Presents.

Watch the Video For “My Foolish Heart”

“I have always loved the lyrics of ‘My Foolish Heart,’” says Feifke. “To me, it is the epitome of the romanticism at the heart of the American songbook tradition. We showcased these lyrics — and the conversational aspect of them — through a beautiful duetted delivery by Martina DaSilva and Bryan Carter, accentuated with a unique bossa rhythm that is not often heard with this song. We also hear a flute choir and a wonderful saxophone solo by Alexa Tarantino.”

Catalyst will be released on the heels of Feifke’s recent victory at the 2023 GRAMMY Awards; it was a historic first-time win for Feifke, who became the youngest ever winner for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album in the category’s six decade existence. The GRAMMY comes during an incredibly prolific period for Feifke – Catalyst will be his sixth album released in two years.

Catalyst debuts nearly a half-dozen new compositions, and several “Feifke-tized” takes on classic repertoire. “I recognize more of myself in the music I’ve written for Catalyst,” says Feifke. “It’s all closer to my heart. It’s very personal music about things that I care about.” La Reserve Records co-founder Matt Block agrees, saying “This is a level of vulnerability that we haven’t heard from Steven yet. Each of his releases just keeps getting better and better.”

Feifke’s compositions and orchestrations have been prominently featured on hit TV shows such as The Masked Singer, Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, Impractical Jokers, Animaniacs, and many world class big bands and orchestras around the globe. A respected educator, Feifke currently sits on faculty at Berklee College of Music and The New School of Jazz and Contemporary Music. DownBeat calls his music “an air of infectious joy” and Jazziz praises him as a “masterful pianist.”

Tracklisting:
1. The Promised Land
2. It Could Happen To You
3. Stablemates
4. Ali Dell'Angelo
5. Catalyst
6. I Cover The Waterfront
7. My Foolish Heart
8. Tricotism
9. Patience's Promise
10. Kingpin

Tour Dates:
June 8: Dizzy's Club at Jazz At Lincoln Center, New York, NY
June 10: Scullers Jazz Club, Boston, MA
June 20-25: Ecuador Tour

Fri, 06/02/2023 - 2:36 am

Today, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter/guitarist Cole Gallagher announces his debut EP The Confluence, out August 4. Along with the announcement, the 21-year-old Gallagher shares the gritty first single “Lines In The Sky” featuring members of the 400 Unit and produced by Vance Powell (Chris Stapleton, Phish, Jack White). The song arrives with an accompanying music video that’s a modern-day take on the Bonnie & Clyde story, set against a seedy LA backdrop. Yesterday, “Lines In The Sky” was featured at Americana Highways who lauded the song as “wide and expansive” and said that the clip’s “illicit rags to riches story parallels the ebbs and flows of any relationship and dramatic misunderstandings.”

Stream “Lines In The Sky”

Watch the official “Lines In The Sky” video via YouTube

Pre-save The Confluence

Of the tracks on the EP, Gallagher shares: “They say that the only way to understand the world around you is by looking within. Every time I finish a song, I wonder if I could have said something differently. I think that makes it hard to understand the art I create, but it keeps me entertained. To me, making music is the purest form of therapy.”

Produced, engineered and mixed by seven-time GRAMMY winner Powell, The Confluence is a bracing six-song set that melds Southern rock, Americana and blues/roots with its lovingly detailed arrangements and Gallagher’s growling voice. One of the EP’s tracks, “Chatting Through Steel,” is the Tex-Mex duet with Los Lobos singer David Hidalgo that has already racked up over 200k views on YouTube.

The EP finds Gallagher joined by an impressive lineup featuring Jon Eldridge on keys and Jimbo Hart, Sadler Vaden and Chad Gamble (the 400 Unit) on bass, guitar and drums respectively. Other players include guitarist Barry Billings and drummer Tucker Flemings with a horn section consisting of Leif Shires, Josh Scalf, Tyler Summers and Simon Yeh. Tera Lynn Fister and Kierra Bronson provide background vocals.

Raised in Los Angeles County, Gallagher luxuriated in his father’s extensive CD collection chock full of classic rock from an early age, specifically crediting Bob Dylan, John Fogerty and Warren Zevon as inspirations. As a teenager, he took classes at the South Pasadena Music Center & Conservatory where he began to write his own songs and perform with a band for the first time. After a few years of regularly playing at local venue The Mixx, he headed for Nashville, performing original music at a slew of bars on Lower Broadway, a National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) after-jam and more. It was in Nashville where he met Eldridge, Hart and Vaden, thus paving the way for the origins of The Confluence.

The Confluence Tracklist
1. Lines In The Sky
2. Stumbling In The Dark
3. Delilah
4. Chatting Through Steel (feat. David Hidalgo)
5. Sugarland
6. The Ocarins of Tennessee

Thu, 06/08/2023 - 11:59 am

The Nashville / London duo Ida Mae released the official video for their new single “My Whispers Are Wildfire.” Buzzing with libertine energy and the frenetic groove of a streetcorner percussion ensemble, the track paves the way for Ida Mae’s most maverick record to date, Thunder Above You, to be released on August 25 and currently available for pre-order here.

This is the first single from Ida Mae since March when they released “When Eden Was My Girl,” featuring the indelible lead guitar work of Marcus King who trades solo runs with Ida Mae guitarist / singer Chris Turpin alongside singer / keyboardist Stephanie Jean.

Watch: Ida Mae “My Whispers Are Wildfire”

“‘My Whispers are Wildfire’ is written from the perspective of an avaricious lover, in a haze of derealisation. It’s a response to the modern cacophony of fake news, click bait and the circus confusion of social media and material gain,” writes Turpin. “We felt we were living in the shadow of the American Dream, traveling 46 states, hotel to motel, meeting a wild array of characters; from boat captains, marines to gamblers. We've found ourselves sharing coffee with prom queens living on the fringes, divorcees in San Francisco cellar bars and sharing stories about dead Kings with bartenders… I wanted to capture moments of these conversations, slam the flirtatious absurdity of the way we live into a musical cocktail somewhere between Ry Cooder and The Kills.”

Recorded in just seven days, Thunder Above You marks the most significant creative period in Ida Mae’s astounding career to date. It followed months of touring the states with legendary artists including Willie Nelson, Alison Krauss, Marcus King and Greta Van Fleet, driving from clubs to arena shows and, all the while, being inspired by the dramatic landscapes that surrounded them.

“We cut the record in under a week, pretty much all live including the vocals,” he remembers. “We wanted it to be an immersive experience – for listeners to feel like they were joining us at this house, recording in the glow of lamps at night. And there was no pre-production, there were no rehearsals. What you hear on the record is what went down in the room.” He and Ward were delighted, too, by the opportunity to get back to playing with their longtime collaborators Ethan Johns, who contributed drums on the album, and bassist Nick Pini (Laura Marling, Nick Mulvey). “There are so many artists now who’ll work from home to a click track, samples, beats, autotune…” Turpin says, “which is an incredible thing in that it democratizes recording. But you also lose the communication of musicians working together in a space, who are really competent enough to play to one another.”

Ida Mae’s 2021 album Click Click Domino earned wide acclaim from outlets including Under the Radar, American Songwriter, Wonderland, Clash Magazine, Live for Live Music as well as Rolling Stone who writes of the title track, “With guitar assistance from shred wizard Marcus King, the tune is a heaving mass of scuzzy blues-rock riffs and thunderous drums that indicts social media for its isolating, alienating effects… Somewhere, Jack White is busy looking for new amp settings.”

Thunder Above You Tracklist:
01 My Whispers Are Wildfire
02 Into Your River
03 American Cars
04 Doing It for Badness
05 Lost on Your Time
06 To Your Love
07 Wild Flying Dove
08 Feel the World Turning
09 Landslide
10 Thunder Above You
11 Hold You Like Fading Light

Ida Mae Tour Dates:
06/10/23 - Saratoga, CA - The Mountain Winery (with Government Mule)
06/22/23 - Washington, CT - SHAG 2023
07/22/23 - Boulder, CO - Chautauqua Auditorium (with The Wood Brothers)
07/23/23 - Breckenridge, CO - Riverwalk Center (with The Wood Brothers)
07/24/23 - Fort Collins, CO - New Belgium Brewing Company (with The Wood Brothers)
07/26/23 - Grand Junction, CO - The Avalon Theatre (with The Wood Brothers)
08/24/23 - 08/27/23 - Kettering, UK - Greenbelt Festival

Wed, 06/14/2023 - 9:39 am

Today, multi-GRAMMY award-winning vocalist Kurt Elling and guitarist/producer Charlie Hunter released their new single “Freeman Square.” The song is off their upcoming album SuperBlue: The Iridescent Spree, a new full-length featuring drummer Corey Fonville and bassist-keyboardist DJ Harrison. Releasing September 15th via Edition Records, the album is a continuation of Elling’s SuperBlue collaboration with Charlie Hunter, which includes their 2021 GRAMMY-nominated debut full-length and their 2023 covers EP Guilty Pleasures.

Listen to “Freeman Square”

Kurt Elling is renowned worldwide for his unparalleled virtuosity and flair for trailblazing artistic exploration. From his stunning reinvention of timeless standards to his own captivating original songcraft, the Chicago-based musician has fused his dazzling talents across a panoply of musical approaches, emblazoning each with signature imagination, insight, and emotional intelligence. Where many male jazz vocalists at this stage in a much vaunted career have tended to stick to the tried and true, Elling seems to be growing more ambitious and experimental with the passing of time, a tendency evidenced by the stunning new LP.

SuperBlue: The Iridescent Spree sees Elling and Hunter reunited with drummer Corey Fonville and multi-instrumentalist DJ Harrison (both of jazz-funk fusion quintet Butcher Brown) for a kaleidoscopic collection of new songs, dynamic reinventions, and surprising covers (Joni Mitchell’s “Black Crow,” Bob Dorough’s Schoolhouse Rock standard “Naughty Number Nine,” Ron Sexsmith’s “Right About Now”). Additional colors on the album are provided by flutist Elena Pinderhughes (Carlos Santana, Taylor McFerrin, Josh Groban) and Brooklyn’s Huntertones Horns (Jon Lampley: Trumpet; Dan White: Saxophone & Horn Arrangements​; Chris Ott: Trombone).

Elling’s work with Charlie Hunter – a prodigious musician and producer whose own genre-agnostic oeuvre has long seen him crisscrossing the bridge between jazz and hip-hop – began after their first meeting in 1995, an on-and-off collaboration that ultimately brought them to a completely unexpected destination with 2021’s SuperBlue. Weaving vivacious funk with Elling’s one-of-a-kind brand of contemporary beat lyricism and vocalese brilliance, the album proved a milestone in both artists’ wide-ranging bodies of work, earning international applause along with a 2022 GRAMMY® Award nomination for Best Jazz Vocal Album.

Knitting a cultivated traditionalism with modernist audacity, SuperBlue: The Iridescent Spree both expands and explains its creators’ beloved jazz to an audience potentially unfamiliar with its nuances and its past. “We’re trying to take that history and transform it into something that speaks to a present generation without leaving that history behind,” says Elling. Though it was born as an experimental project during the pandemic, SuperBlue has now bloomed into a tightly meshed unit built for forward motion, the ideal vehicle for Kurt Elling and Charlie Hunter, two utterly idiosyncratic artists relentless in their quest for fresh challenges and new ideas, to celebrate their boundless, all-embracing approach to music, art, and indeed, life itself.

“It’s going to go where it’s going to go,” Charlie Hunter says. “Presumably, it’ll change and grow again.” “I feel like there’s still room to grow with this project,” Kurt Elling agrees. “That’s always the prime motivator. That there’s more for me to discover as a writer and as a singer and as a bandleader or co-band leader. We’re going down a road, let’s see how far the road goes.”

Tracklisting:
1. Black Crow
2. Freeman Square
3. Naughty Number Nine
4. Little Fairy Carpenter
5. Bounce It
6. Only The Lonely Woman
7. Right About Now
8. Not Here / Not Now
9. The Afterlife
10. Goin' Back to Chicago (Digital Only Bonus Track)

Kurt Elling & Charlie Hunter Tour Dates:
Aug 5: Newport Jazz Festival - Newport, RI
Sep 21: City Winery - Boston , MA
Sep 22: LPR - New York, NY
Sep 23: World Cafe Live - Philadelphia, PA
Sep 24: The Hamilton - Washington, D.C.
Sep 27: Cleveland Museum of Art - Cleveland, OH
Sep 28: The Cabaret - Indianapolis, IN
Sep 29: The Acorn - Three Oaks, MI
Sep 30: Englert Theatre - Iowa City, IA
Oct 1: Parkway Theater - Minneapolis, MN
Oct 3: Jazz Alley - Seattle, WA
Oct 4: Jazz Alley - Seattle, WA
Oct 5: Mississippi Studios - Portland, OR
Oct 6: Yoshis - Oakland, CA
Oct 7: Teragram Ballroom - Los Angeles, CA
Oct 8: Boulder Theater - Boulder, CO
Dec 2: SPACE - Evanston, IL

Sat, 07/08/2023 - 1:22 pm

Today, the Nashville / London-based duo Ida Mae released their emotive new single “Lost on Your Time,” the second song to be released from their forthcoming album Thunder Above You out on August 25. Honing a beautifully warm and effervescent approach to the distinctive indie-rock sound they have become synonymous with in recent years, “Lost On Your Time” marks one of the more lovelorn offerings from their forthcoming full-length.

The 11 song collection was conceived following Chris Turpin and Stephanie Jeandiscovering she was pregnant while on tour with Willie Nelson and Lucinda Williams in San Francisco. They decamped to the English countryside of Norwich and teamed with longtime collaborators Ethan Johns, who contributed drums on the album, and bassist Nick Pini (Laura Marling, Nick Mulvey), to record the album live to tape in just 7 days.

Stream/embed “Lost on Your Time” via YouTube.

Pre-order Thunder Above You.

About the new single, Chris Turpin explains: “When I wrote ‘Lost on Your Time’ I’d been diving deeper into the folk roots of my childhood. I was rediscovering guitar tunings used by Nick Drake, Richard Thompson and Martin Simpson. I’d ordered a guitar from Roger Fylde; a parlor guitar made partly of a piece of Sinker Redwood - cut from a 200 year old tree pulled from a river bed in Northern California.

‘Lost on Your Time’ was the first song written on the guitar. The combination of the century old American wood and ancient British ballad melodies I was learning seemed to gently come together.

The symbolism and imagery of those old songs seeped into the lyric. The song echos the night drives we’d taken through the mountains in the USA, moving from show to show. Those still moments when it was just me, Stephanie and the road.
 
It was the first song we cut on the record. The whole band live in close proximity. I can hear the nervous tension and excitement between the players as a static energy on the recording.”
 
“Lost on Your Time” follows the release of the “My Whispers Are Wildfire” which Guitar World proclaimed, “There’s a little bit of Tom Waits’ guitarist Marc Ribot to be heard in Chris Turpin’s animalistic playing here… the British roots player seems to use his six-string to summon a sort of grunting, shuffling beast – the solo sounds less like something let off the leash and more like a sort of choked spirit howling and straining to escape.”
 
Thunder Above You was inspired by the dramatic landscapes the duo witnessed while traversing 46 states touring with artists like Willie Nelson, Alison Krauss, Marcus King and Greta Van Fleet. Around the time the band were beginning to think about recording their third album, Turpin had found himself drawn towards the English folk music of his childhood. “Much of my teenage years were spent obsessing over what bands like Free and Led Zeppelin were listening to, and as a teenager I’d go to my local arts centre and see people like Martin Simpson and Bert Jansch perform,” he recalls. “As I’ve got older I’ve begun to rediscover them, Nick Drake, and John Martyn. So I began to lean more into the British folk world, and that’s definitely expressed itself on the album.”
 
Ida Mae’s 2021 album Click Click Domino earned wide acclaim from outlets includingUnder the Radar, American Songwriter, Wonderland, Clash Magazine, as well as Rolling Stone who writes of the title track, “With guitar assistance from shred wizard Marcus King, the tune is a heaving mass of scuzzy blues-rock riffs and thunderous drums that indicts social media for its isolating, alienating effects… Somewhere, Jack White is busy looking for new amp settings.”

Thunder Above You Tracklist:

01 My Whispers Are Wildfire
02 Into Your River
03 American Cars
04 Doing It for Badness
05 Lost on Your Time
06 To Your Love
07 Wild Flying Dove
08 Feel the World Turning
09 Landslide
10 Thunder Above You
11 Hold You Like Fading Light

Ida Mae Tour Dates:

07/22/23 - Boulder, CO - Chautauqua Auditorium (with The Wood Brothers)
07/23/23 - Breckenridge, CO - Riverwalk Center (with The Wood Brothers)
07/24/23 - Fort Collins, CO - New Belgium Brewing Company (with The Wood Brothers)
07/26/23 - Grand Junction, CO - The Avalon Theatre (with The Wood Brothers)
08/24/23 - 08/27/23 - Kettering, UK - Greenbelt Festival

Sun, 07/16/2023 - 8:50 am

Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter/guitarist Cole Gallagher shares new single “Stumbling In The Dark” and its accompanying music video that features Gallagher caught in a complicated relationship with his vampire girlfriend. With somber and reflective verses that build up to an anthemic chorus spotlighting Gallagher’s falsetto, the track’s moody feel is matched by the black-and-white clip. The song comes from his debut EP The Confluence (out August 4), produced by seven-time GRAMMY winner Vance Powell (Chris Stapleton, Phish, Jack White) and featuring members of the 400 Unit on all tracks. Yesterday, “Stumbling In The Dark” was featured at Magnet who called the song “starkly emotional.”

Stream “Stumbling In The Dark”

Watch the official “Stumbling In The Dark” video via YouTube

Pre-save The Confluence

“‘Stumbling in the Dark’ is a song with a piece of the story missing,” shares Gallagher. “I intentionally left it out so whoever heard it could fill in the blank for themselves and reflect their own life experiences into it. This song really captured my state of mind and where I was at emotionally in my life when I wrote it. As for the music video, Nielson Hubbard and Joshua Britt did a truly amazing job of creating a story for this song.”

“Stumbling In The Dark” continues the theme of doomed romance started with the gritty first single “Lines In The Sky” and its modern-day Bonnie & Clyde music video that was called “a real piece of art” by Americana UK. The “wide and expansive” (Americana Highways) track was also named a Song You Need to Know by Rolling Stone and was featured by Holler in their Best New Country roundup.

The Confluence is a bracing six-song set that melds Southern rock, Americana and blues/roots with its lovingly detailed arrangements and Gallagher’s growling voice. Besides the two singles that are already out, the EP also features the already-released “Chatting Through Steel,” the duet with Los Lobos singer David Hidalgo that has racked up over 203k views on YouTube.

The EP finds Gallagher joined by an impressive lineup featuring Jon Eldridge on keys and Jimbo Hart, Sadler Vaden and Chad Gamble (the 400 Unit) on bass, guitar and drums respectively. Other players include guitarist Barry Billings, pedal steel player Fats Kaplan and drummer Tucker Flemings with a horn section consisting of Leif Shires, Josh Scalf, Tyler Summers and Simon Yeh. Tera Lynn Fister and Kierra Bronson provide background vocals.

The Confluence Tracklist
1. Lines In The Sky
2. Stumbling In The Dark
3. Delilah
4. Chatting Through Steel (feat. David Hidalgo)
5. Sugarland
6. The Ocarins of Tennessee

Sun, 07/16/2023 - 9:57 am

Leading international vocalist Veronica Swift announces her third release with Mack Avenue Music; her self-titled album will be available on Vinyl, CD and digitally everywhere on September 15th. Veronica Swift  contains multitudes paying homage to greats from Duke Ellington, Janis Joplin, Billie Holiday, and Ludwig van Beethoven to Queen and Nine Inch Nails. Released today, the album’s first single is a glorious rendition of Jerry Herman’s “I Am What I Am,” an LGBTQ+ anthem solidified by Gloria Gaynor’s 1983 rendition.

Stream “I Am What I Am” here
Pre-Order / Pre-Save Veronica Swift here
View & Share Teaser Clip here

“I Am What I Am” taken from the Broadway musical La Cage aux Folles ignites the project. The song tells the tale of a protagonist who is proud of who they are and doesn't care if others don't approve. They want to live in a world where they can be themselves and not have to hide or make excuses. Life is only worth living when one can confidently say, "I Am What I Am.”  Swift imbues the infectiously swinging tune with unfettered joy, especially when she launches into a sublime scat excursion that segues into a Johann Sebastian Bach-inspired fugue. For Swift, the song becomes a declaration of artistic freedom. With Veronica Swift the emancipation is on.

Swift was raised in Charlottesville, VA in a family of musicians -  her father is the late bebop pianist Hod O’Brien and her mother is jazz singer and educator Stephanie Nakasian. Swift recorded her first album “Veronica's House of Jazz” when she was 9 years old and began touring with her parents around that same time.  At age 11 she appeared in the Jazz at Lincoln Center series Women in Jazz and went on to continue her studies earning a bachelor’s degree in Jazz Voice at University of Miami’s Frost School of Music. After graduation she moved to New York City performing Saturday nights at the legendary club, Birdland. She has continued to record her own material, collaborate and tour with such artists as Chris Botti, Benny Green, Wynton Marsalis, and Michael Feinstein.

Swift describes her new recording as “transgenre.” “I grew up immersed in the culture of jazz music, blessed to have had some of the greats as mentors and I felt a deep familial duty to uphold that tradition,” she continues “​​But as rooted in jazz as I’ve been, there’s a uniquely visceral power in rock and soul music that’s always fueled my creative passion, and rather than mask or confine that part of my identity, the people I admire most show themselves unabashedly and that’s the kind of tradition I want to be a part of.”

For the album, Swift enlists Brian Viglione of the punk cabaret duo The Dresden Dolls as drummer as well as co-producer along with Swift and Mariano Aponte. Also on board is a motley crew of musicians that includes pianist, keyboardist and organist Adam Klipple, pianist and arranger Randy Waldman, guitarists Chris Whiteman and Samson Schmitt, percussionist Luisito Quintero, singer Austin Patterson, violinist and violist Antoine Silverman, violinist Pierre Blanchard, bassists Philip Norris, Alex Claffy, Antonio Licusati and Felix Maldonado, saxophonists Troy Roberts and David Leon, trumpeters Benny Benack III and James Sarno, trombonist Javier Nero,  accordionist Ludovic Bier, vocalist Carolynne Framil and woodwindist and orchestrator David Mann.

The project is a love letter to all the artists through time that have inspired Swift and reflects her growing ‘transgenre’ ethos.  Selections including the Duke Ellington and Bob Russell classic, “Do Nothing till You Hear From Me,”  which Swift recasts as a Mississippi Delta blues burner, Nine Inch Nails’ “Closer” where Swift channels her alt-rock sensibilities melding them with stabbing horns and pulverizing bass, before surprisingly blasting off into another sensational scat passage. The album eventually simmers down with Swift’s poignant extrapolation of Queen’s “The Show Must Go On,” which she underpins with infectious Afro-Cuban rhythms. The song also serves as another example of her ‘transgenre’ concept as she utilizes Nat King Cole’s arrangement of Ruggero Leoncavallo’s aria, "Vest la Giubba" from his opera, Pagliacci.   The project wraps deliberately with a wild free-for-all Ramones-esque version of “Don’t Rain On My Parade.” Swift comments on the ‘Funny Girl’ hit stating, “I bookend the album with another queer anthem, I’ll march my band out - I’ll beat my drum which mirrors the lyrics from the first song “I Am What I Am” -  I bang my own drum. To me the song has a super punk rock message in the lyrics, which really inspired my interpretation.”   

While her first two albums solidified her position in modern jazz, Veronica Swift shows that she’s more than a jazz singer. On this ‘transgenre’ excursion Swift explores French and Italian opera, European classical music, bossa nova, blues, industrial rock, funk, and vaudeville. She pulls the feat off without the results sounding callow or pastiche. Swift’s expansive artistic voice remains firmly intact regardless of genre.

Pre-Save Veronica Swift here.

Veronica Swift Tracklist:

1. I Am What I Am  
2. Closer
3. Do Nothing till You Hear from Me   
4. The Show Must Go On  
5. I’m Always Chasing Rainbows  
6. In the Moonlight  
7. Severed Heads
8. Je Veux Vivre  
9. Chega de Saudade
10. Keep Yourself Alive
Encore:
11. Don’t Rain On My Parade

Track listing note: Don’t Rain on My Parade does not appear on the Vinyl release, instead is offered as a digital download only.  It does appear on the digital and CD versions.

Veronica Swift on Tour

9/1/23 - Mackinac Island Jazz Festival - Mackinac, MI
9/3/23 - Detroit Jazz Festival - Detroit, MI
9/18/23 - The Cabaret - Indianapolis, IN
9/19/23 - The Cabaret - Indianapolis, IN
9/20/23 - Beachland Tavern - Cleveland, OH
9/21/23 - City Winery - Chicago, IL
9/22/23 - The Dakota - Minneapolis, MN
10/12/23 - SFJAZZ Center - San Francisco, CA
10/17/23 - Pepperdine University - Malibu, CA
10/19/23 - Auburn University - Auburn, AL
10/21/23 - Middle C Jazz Club - Charlotte, NC
10/28/23 - Musikhuset Aarhus - Aarhus, DK*
10/29/23 - DR Concert Hall - Copenhagen, DK*

*performing with the Danish Radio Big Band

Mon, 07/17/2023 - 3:54 pm

Today, Boy Named Banjo has announced their Dusk Til Dawn Tour, which will take the group coast to coast this fall. Kicking things off on September 14 in Atlanta, the band will make stops in major cities including Los Angeles, Houston, New York City and Washington, D.C. – a full list of dates can be found below. Tickets for the Dusk Til Dawn Tour go on sale this Friday, July 21 at 10am local time here, with a pre-sale tomorrow, July 18 at 10am CT.

Watch the Official Dusk Til Dawn Tour Announce Video via YouTube

Widely beloved by loyal fans nationwide for their high-octane live shows with incisive storytelling and a roots-driven perspective, Boy Named Banjo will treat audiences to songs from their catalog that spans over a decade. Most recently, the band released their uplifting anthem “What Keeps Me Going”, which earned praise from CMT, Holler, Taste of Country, Whiskey Riff and more. The single arrived on the heels of the band’s Grand Ole Opry debut, a momentous milestone that was documented at People.

“As a band, putting on the best show possible every night is something we take a lot of pride in,” says banjo player Barton Davies. “We’re so thrilled to have over 30 opportunities to do that on our Dusk Til Dawn tour this fall. We have some amazing artists joining us that our fans are going to love.”

In a time when the popular choice is to chase the double yellow line down the road to country radio, Boy Named Banjo thrives on its fringes. The Nashville-raised five-piece is a fusion of contemporary country, Americana and folk-rock stacked on a foundation of bluegrass. Their stripped-down, self-released 2012 debut, The Tanglewood Sessions, helped earn the band a spot at Bonnaroo, while their more fleshed-out 2014 follow-up, Long Story Short, led to festival slots everywhere from Hangout Fest to Dierks Bentley’s Seven Peaks. After signing with Mercury Records Nashville in 2020, the following year saw the release of their genre-defying EP Circles, which landed them a performance at the historic Ryman Auditorium alongside dates supporting the likes of Kip Moore, Hank Williams, Jr., Old Crow Medicine Show, and The Cadillac Three. In 2022, Boy Named Banjo made their CMA Fest debut playing at the Ascend Amphitheatre Nighttime Concert as well as a sold-out hometown show at Nashville’s Brooklyn Bowl.

Formed in their teens, Boy Named Banjo includes Barton Davies (banjo), Ford Garrard (bass/standing bass), Sam McCullough (drums) Willard Logan (mandolin, acoustic/electric guitar) and William Reames (acoustic guitar/harmonica).

Boy Named Banjo – Dusk Til Dawn 2023 Tour Dates:

September 14 - Atlanta, GA - Terminal West ^
September 15 - Louisville, KY - Bourbon and Beyond
September 16 - Columbia, MO - Rose Music Hall ^
September 22 - Athens, GA - 40 Watt ^
September 23 - Franklin, TN - Pilgrimage Music and Cultural Festival
October 6 - Monterey, CA - Rebels and Renegades Music Festival
October 7 - Los Angeles, CA - The Moroccan Lounge ^
October 8 - San Diego, CA - House of Blues (Voodoo Room) ^
October 12 - Austin, TX - Antone's Nightclub ^
October 13 - Houston, TX - Last Concert Cafe ^
October 14 - Dallas, TX - House of Blues Dallas (Cambridge Room) ^
October 19 - Charleston, SC - Music Farm ^
October 20 - Savannah, GA - Saddle Bags Savannah ^
October 21 - Winston-Salem, NC - The Ramkat ^
October 26 - Jackson, MS - Duling Hall ^
October 27 - Memphis, TN - Growlers ^
October 28 - Oxford, MS - Proud Larry’s ^
November 2 - Chattanooga, TN - Barrelhouse Ballroom %
November 3 - Birmingham, AL - Zydeco %
November 4 - Knoxville, TN - Barley’s Taproom & Pizzeria %
November 16 - Charlottesville, VA - The Jefferson Theater ^
November 17 - Brooklyn, NY - Brooklyn Bowl ^
November 18 - Harrisburg, PA - XL Live ^
November 19 - Washington, D.C. - The Atlantis ^
November 30 - Indianapolis, IN - Deluxe +
December 1 - Columbus, OH - Natalie’s Grandview +
December 2 - Wyandotte, MI - District 142 +

^ with support from Brother Elsey
% with support from Will Jones
+ with support from Cassandra Lewis

Thu, 07/20/2023 - 10:20 am

Today, the 14th annual Montclair Jazz Festival produced by the acclaimed Jazz House Kids, announced the lineup for their 2023 Downtown Jamboree on September 9th. This year, headliners include Regina Carter, Antibalas, Steve Turre, Melanie Charles, Person to Person with Eric Person and Houston Person, Edmar Castaneda, Vince Ector, Michael Mwenso and the Shakes, Jazz House Collective and Christian McBride, the festival’s music director and curator. Accompanying the announcement are videos of McBride, Danielle Ponder, and JAZZ HOUSE alumni Matthew Whitaker performing at the 2022 edition of the Festival.

Watch Christian McBride and friends perform at Montclair Jazz Festival 2022

Watch Danielle Ponder perform at Montclair Jazz Festival 2022

Watch Jazz House Alumni Matthew Whitaker perform at Montclair Jazz Festival 2022

Montclair Jazz Festival is the most popular jazz festival in the greater NYC area that’s free to the public, and one of the largest jazz festivals in the country. Music directed and curated by 8-time GRAMMY Award-winning bassist, Christian McBride, and comes on the heels of the famed Newport Jazz Festival where McBride is the artistic director.  This year’s festival returns to downtown Montclair, New Jersey this summer with two Soundcheck Series concerts + jam sessions, community events, and two marquee Saturdays brimming with live music on multiple stages – 50 acts, 250 artists, family jazz activities and 200 vendors with an expected 25,000 music fans and thousands more online. One of the hallmarks of the festival will be on the Jazz Cruise Alumni Stage @ Midtown, which features Jazz House alumni and their peers, some of the nation’s top talent who trained at the JAZZ HOUSE, the nation’s foremost jazz education and performance organization.

“What is so unique about the Montclair Jazz Fesival’s downtown takeover is that it represents the coming together of Jazz House Kids’ full mission to provide access, learning, career development and community building through the American artform of jazz,” said Melissa Walker, founder & president of Jazz House. “Its treasured practitioners provide inspired mentorship for our emerging talent throughout the year and will create a joyous afternoon with incredible performances for thousands of fans.”

“It’s going to be yet another fabulous year at the Montclair Jazz Festival with such great artists, both up and coming and legendary, joining us,” said Christian McBride. “Regina Carter, Antibalas, Steve Turre, Endea Owens, our Jazz House Collective and so many more, promise to make this year another hit.”

“As the presenting sponsors of the Montclair Jazz Festival, we are so excited about the all-star lineup for the Block Party and the Jamboree at Lackawanna Plaza and downtown Montclair” says David Placek, Managing Partner of BDP Holdings, LLC. “We can’t wait to see our neighbors and friends once again come together in a community celebration and are proud to help JAZZ HOUSE KiDS make it happen.”  

Ahead of the September 9th Downtown Jamboree, Montclair Jazz Festival officially kicks off on August 12th with ten hours of live music at the Lackawanna Plaza Block Party. Showcasing Jazz House Kids’ mission in action, the Block Party festivities begin with 150 Jazz House emerging musicians performing in seven big bands and a vocal choir. The students are followed by a set from jazz guitarist Charlie Sigler, and finally GRAMMY-winning Endea Owens & the Cookout. After a day of live jazz, fans get on their feet for a funk and soul Dance Party DJ’d by Brother Mister, aka Christian McBride.  

Sprinkled in between the two big dates are the Soundcheck Series on July 27th and August 24th. Held in the Jazz House Annex, the second floor of Jazz House Kids’ hub in downtown Montclair, the July date features a set from versatile saxophone stylist and Jazz House teaching artist, saxophonist Bruce Williams and his band, with a student ensemble opening act and two-hour jam session. August 24 welcomes dynamic drummer and tenor saxophonist Roxy Cross.

For more information on how to become a sponsor, supporter, volunteer or vendor for the 14th annual Montclair Jazz Festival, visit the website and download the Montclair Jazz Festival App  in the Google or Apple store.

Montclair Jazz Festival Dates:
July 27: Soundcheck Series - Jazz House Annex
August 12: Block Party - Lackawanna Plaza
August 24: Soundcheck Series - Jazz House Annex
September 9: Downtown Jamboree - Bloomfield Avenue (Between Fullerton Avenue and Lackawanna Plaza)

Sat, 08/12/2023 - 9:35 am

Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter Cole Gallagher releases his debut EP The Confluence. Produced by seven-time GRAMMY winner Vance Powell (Chris Stapleton, Jack White, Phish), The Confluence features members of the 400 Unit on all tracks, as well as a collaboration with David Hidalgo of Los Lobos and the first official cover of unreleased Bruce Springsteen rarity “Sugarland.”Already the EP has garnered acclaim from The Bluegrass Situation, Magnet Magazine, Americana Music Association, Americana Highways and more.  

Listen to The Confluence

Stream Gallagher’s cover of “Sugarland” via YouTube

“It’s unreal to listen back to this EP knowing that the incredible musicians on here have been so generous with their time for an unproven artist,” Gallagher shares. “These are people I’ve listened to over and and over again, and I’m blown away that they gave my music a chance. With their help, I’ve been able to bring these songs to life, and now, I’m excited to share this with the rest of the world.”  

Earlier this summer, Gallagher released the EP’s first single “Lines In The Sky”alongside its modern-day Bonnie & Clyde music video that was called “a real piece of art” by Americana UK. The track was also named a Song You Need to Know by Rolling Stone. He followed that with “Stumbling In The Dark,” which Guitar World lauded as "a soulful, melancholic number that goes big on the emotion and even bigger on the jangly chord arrangements.” Gallagher continued the theme of doomed romance with the black-and-white music video that chronicles another complicated relationship, this time with his vampire girlfriend.

The EP finds Gallagher joined by an impressive lineup featuring Jon Eldridge on keys and Jimbo Hart, Sadler Vaden and Chad Gamble (the 400 Unit) on bass, guitar and drums respectively. Other players include guitarist Barry Billings, pedal steel player Fats Kaplin and drummer Tucker Flemings with a horn section consisting of Leif Shires, Josh Scalf, Tyler Summers and Simon Yeh. Tera Lynn Fister and Kierra Bronson provide background vocals.

The Confluence Tracklist
1. Lines In The Sky
2. Stumbling In The Dark
3. Delilah
4. Chatting Through Steel (feat. David Hidalgo)
5. Sugarland
6. The Ocarins of the Tennessee

Thu, 08/17/2023 - 9:55 am

Today, the New York-based artist The Bones of J.R. Jones released “The Good Life” from Slow Lightning, his first studio album in more than 5 years that will be released on October 13 via Tone Tree Music. The new single arrives alongside a moving official video where actress Maggie McDowell does what we all dream of: ditch the chaos of your day job, light a cigarette and hit the open road in search of fireworks, open fields, amusement parks and just a moment of pure joy. Atwood Magazine proclaimed, “‘The Good Life’ radiates with smoldering folk rock passion and perseverance as The Bones of J.R. Jones echoes our endless individual pursuit in song."

Watch the official video for “The Good Life” via YouTube.

About the new song, Jonathon Linaberry (best known by his stage name The Bones of J.R. Jones) explains:,“'The Good Life' was definitely a product of me trying to break through and learn to enjoy the moment I am in. Even if that moment is hard. Even if it is frustrating. Even if it feels like treading water, which in my mind is a synonym for death. I suppose I wrote ‘The Good Life’ to help remind myself of that. That we can always find a way out.”
 
“I wanted this video to walk the line of joy and heaviness of life. I wanted it to feel real enough so that we could all relate to that moment where Maggie leaves it all behind (even though we all, always come back). I think that's one of the beautifully sad things about what we do to ourselves as humans. We are gluttons for punishment. We torture ourselves because we don't think there is any other way to move forward. The original concept had Maggie raising a little more hell. Fist fights. Stealing cigarettes. Breaking windows. But I think if we went down that path it would be tough to find the joy in what ultimately is a hopeful song,” he adds about the video.
 
“The Good Life” follows the release of “The Flood” and the album’s propulsive debut single “Heaven Help Me,” which was covered by Magnet Magazine and has already been streamed more than 100,000 times. The Bones of J.R. Jones will hit the road for a US and European tour, with an album release show in his home state of New York at Mercury Lounge on October 13. Find a full list of tour dates below or visit his website.
 
As the title suggests, the 12-track collection Slow Lightning is raw and visceral, pulsating with an understated electrical current that flows through his cinematic brand of roots noir. The songs grapple with doubt and desire in the face of nature and fate, and frequent collaborator Kiyoshi Matsuyama’s production is eerily hypnotic to match, with haunting synthesizers, vintage drum machines, and ghostly guitars.
 
“I felt very lost at the time I was writing these songs,” Linaberry confesses. “It was a moment of deep crisis and anxiety, but I knew the only way out was through, which meant I just had to bring myself to the table every day and put in the work.”
 
The Bones of J.R. Jones is a New York-based songwriter, storyteller, visual artist and “one man band who can hold an audience rapt, rendering the cacophony of a stage full of musicians utterly unnecessary” (Noisey). His 2021 EP, A Celebration, was praised by American Songwriter, Under The Radar and Atwood Magazine, who called it “an intimate, visceral outpouring of vulnerability, reflection, connection, and wonder.”

Slow Lightning tracklist:
1) Animals
2) Slow Lightning
3) The Good Life
4) Blue Skies
5) Preservation
6) The Flood
7) Heaven Help Me
8) I Ain’t Through With You
9) Love Is A Sickness
10) I’ll See You In Hell
11) Salt Sour Sweet
12) Baby Run

Tour Dates:
9/2 – Fairmont, WV – Palatine Park
9/7 – Buffalo, NY – Ninth Ward
9/8 – Pittsburgh, PA – Club Cafe
9/9 – Cleveland, OH – Grog Shop
9/10 – Ann Arbor, MI – The Ark
9/12 – Indianapolis, IN – Hi-Fi
9/13 – Chicago, IL – Schubas
9/14 – Columbus, OH – Basement
9/15 – Syracuse, NY – Funk N' Waffles
10/12 – Washington, DC – DC9
10/13 – New York, NY – Mercury Lounge
10/14 – Woodstock, NY – Levon Helm Studios
10/16 – Richmond, VA – Camel
10/17 – Charlottesville, VA – The Southern Cafe and Music Hall
10/18 – Raleigh, NC – The Pour House Music Hall & Record Shop
10/19 – Charlotte, NC – Evening Muse
10/20 – Decatur, GA – Eddie's Attic
10/21 – Nashville, TN – The Basement
11/8 – Amsterdam, NL – Paradiso
11/9 – Luxembourg, LUX – Gudde Wellen
11/10 – Paris, FR – No.Pi
11/11 – London, UK – Omeara
11/14 – Cologne, DE – Jaki
11/15 – Hamburg, DE – Uebel & Gefährlich
11/16 – Berlin, DE – Kantine Berghain
11/17 – Leipzig, DE – Naumanns
11/18 –Frankfurt, DE – Brotfabrik

Fri, 08/18/2023 - 3:01 pm

The Nashville / London-based duo Ida Mae released their swaggering new single “Wild Flying Dove,” the third song to be released from their forthcoming album Thunder Above You out on October 6th.

Honing another heady dose of those riveting indie-blues-rock aesthetics they are bringing back for their latest record, “Wild Flying Dove” stands as one of the more infectious and hip-shaking additions to their next full-length. With its fresh and swinging grooves that perfectly complement their vibrant dual vocal performance throughout, Ida Mae continues to cement themselves as one of the more exciting names on the rise right now.

The 11 song collection was conceived following Chris Turpin and Stephanie Jean discovering she was pregnant while on tour with Willie Nelson and Lucinda Williams in San Francisco. They decamped to the English countryside of Norwich and teamed with longtime collaborators Ethan Johns, who contributed drums on the album, and bassist Nick Pini (Laura Marling, Nick Mulvey), to record the album live to tape in just 7 days.

Stream/embed “Wild Flying Dove” via YouTube

Pre-order Thunder Above You.

Chris Turpin describes the inspiration behind the song writing, "Wild Flying Dove was a line I pulled from an old folk song found in a ballad book of the British Isles. It was a delicate and beautiful lyric that whispered of a yearning love. I wanted to re-voice the line into something tougher with a stronger female character punching through. A song more of love struck, Bonnie & Cylde-esque obsession.

The track follows the release of the ballad “Lost on Your Time” and the rhythm-laden “My Whispers Are Wildfire” which Guitar World proclaimed, “There’s a little bit of Tom Waits’ guitarist Marc Ribot to be heard in Chris Turpin’s animalistic playing here… the British roots player seems to use his six-string to summon a sort of grunting, shuffling beast – the solo sounds less like something let off the leash and more like a sort of choked spirit howling and straining to escape.”

Please also note: The release date of their forthcoming third album Thunder Above You has moved back to October 6th due to logistical challenges with physical product fulfillment.

Thunder Above You was inspired by the dramatic landscapes the duo witnessed while traversing 46 states touring with artists like Willie Nelson, Alison Krauss, Marcus King and Greta Van Fleet. Around the time the band were beginning to think about recording their third album, Turpin had found himself drawn towards the English folk music of his childhood. “Much of my teenage years were spent obsessing over what bands like Free and Led Zeppelin were listening to, and as a teenager I’d go to my local arts centre and see people like Martin Simpson and Bert Jansch perform,” he recalls. “As I’ve got older I’ve begun to rediscover them, Nick Drake, and John Martyn. So I began to lean more into the British folk world, and that’s definitely expressed itself on the album.”

Ida Mae’s 2021 album Click Click Domino earned wide acclaim from outlets including Under the Radar, American Songwriter, Wonderland, Clash Magazine, Live for Live Music as well as Rolling Stone who writes of the title track, “With guitar assistance from shred wizard Marcus King, the tune is a heaving mass of scuzzy blues-rock riffs and thunderous drums that indicts social media for its isolating, alienating effects… Somewhere, Jack White is busy looking for new amp settings.”

Thunder Above You Tracklist:
01 My Whispers Are Wildfire
02 Into Your River
03 American Cars
04 Doing It for Badness
05 Lost on Your Time
06 To Your Love
07 Wild Flying Dove
08 Feel the World Turning
09 Landslide
10 Thunder Above You
11 Hold You Like Fading Light

Ida Mae Tour Dates:
08/24/23 - 08/27/23 - Kettering, UK - Greenbelt Festival
11/02/23 - Zürich, Switzerland - Papiersaal
11/03/23 - La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland - Bikini Test
11/04/23 - Basel, Switzerland - Sommercasino
11/07/23 - Munich, Germany - Strom
11/09/23 - Berlin, Germany - Privatclub
11/13/23 - Cologne, Germany - LUXOR
11/21/23 - Manchester, UK - The Lodge (Deaf Institute)
11/22/23 - Glasgow, Scotland - Stereo
11/23/23 - Leeds, UK - Lending Room
11/28/23 - London, England - The Lower Third
11/29/23 - Brighton, England - The Hope & Ruin
12/02/23 - Norwich, England - Norwich Arts Centre
12/07/23 - Cardiff, Wales - Clwb Ifor Bach
12/08/23 - Bristol, England - The Louisiana

Sat, 08/19/2023 - 10:42 am

Today, GRAMMY-nominated trumpeter John Raymond and Bon Iver sideman S. Carey released their video for “Transient,” the newest single from Raymond and Carey’s upcoming collaborative album Shadowlands. So far the full-length has been praised by The New York Times, Brooklyn Vegan, Stereogum, Flood Magazine, and Under the Radar, who said “‘Transient’ is the most spacious and ambient of the three tracks shown thus far from the album… Together, the pair finds poignant beauty within the track’s negative space, steeping the track in an understated, unvoiced yearning.” The album was produced by Sun Chung, and will be released on the Libellule Editions imprint of Chung’s Red Hook Records.

Watch John Raymond & S. Carey’s “Transient (Official Video)”

“In the months leading up to the initial round of recording we did for the album, I started developing an idea for a melody and chord progression that had a really strong feeling to me but no clear direction,” Raymond explains of “Transient.” “No matter what I tried, I couldn’t find the song inside of it. Then, one morning during the sessions, I came to the studio a bit early by myself. I sat down at the piano, started playing the idea, and within thirty minutes the entire song unveiled itself. It was magical. As I played it for the first time, I remember feeling like each phrase had this fleeting, transient quality to it. The song feels like it’s here for a moment and then just vanishes. The more we played it, the more I felt like it was symbolic of the inspiration that all the songs on the record came from.” This video was recorded at the Masonic Temple in Eau Claire, WI and it includes Aaron Parks on piano, Jeremy Boettcher on bass, and Ben Lester on synth and pedal steel.

For S. Carey and John Raymond, the opportunity to collaborate has been a long time in the making. After meeting as music students at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire where they studied both classical and jazz music, Carey and Raymond’s careers went in very different directions. Carey would become the right-hand man for Justin Vernon (aka Bon Iver), collaborate with the likes of Sufjan Stevens and Bruce Hornsby among others, and release four albums to critical acclaim from Pitchfork, NPR, and more. Simultaneously, Raymond was carving out a career as an internationally-recognized jazz trumpeter, “steering jazz in the right direction” (Downbeat Magazine) by releasing eight albums of his own and collaborating on many more, including four nominated for a GRAMMY.

The two reunited in 2018 when Raymond sat in with Carey on tour, and they started to float the idea of working on a collaborative project. An initial round of sessions in 2019 yielded the opening two tracks of the album, but much of the other music was still in experimental form until Raymond shared it with Sun Chung, who was producing for ECM Records at the time. Chung took an interest immediately and came on board to further develop the project.

The result is Raymond and Carey’s upcoming co-release, Shadowlands, a stunning, gorgeous collection of songs uprooted from simple genre descriptors. Recorded in the woods of Eau Claire, Wisconsin where the two met almost twenty years ago, the music combines the warmth and beauty of Carey’s aesthetic with the improvisational, spontaneous nature of Raymond’s, blurring the lines between indie folk, forward-thinking jazz, lush pop, and atmospheric electronic music. Soaring and anthemic moments are balanced with the intimate and meditative, giving way to a wide range of expression. Surrounding Carey’s breathy vocals and Raymond’s lyrical horn is an earthy sonic landscape that blends acoustic and electronic textures effortlessly, and the subtle, electric moments of musical interplay throughout the album repeatedly invite you deeper into their new musical world.

Tracklisting:
1. Morning Prayer
2. Calling
3. Steadfast (ft. Gordi)
4. Transient
5. Chrysalis
6. Hollow
7. Blood Orange
8. Already/Not Yet
9. New Meaning (ft. Gordi)
10. Beholding

John Raymond & S. Carey Tour Dates:
9/29 - Minneapolis, MN: Cedar Cultural Center
9/30 - Iowa City, IA: The James
10/1 - Eau Claire, WI: Masonic Temple
10/3 - Milwaukee, WI: The Cooperage
10/4 - Evanston, IL: Space
10/5 - Ann Arbor, MI: The Ark
10/6 - Bloomington, IN: FAR Center for Contemporary Arts
10/26 - Newport News, VA: Ferguson Hall
10/29 - Brooklyn, NY: National Sawdust
10/30 - Philadelphia, PA: MilkBoy Philly
10/31 - Northampton, MA: Parlor Room
11/1 - Boston, MA: The Red Room
11/2 - Durham, NH: University of New Hampshire
11/3 - New Haven, CT: Firehouse 12

Sat, 08/19/2023 - 1:23 pm

Today, Boy Named Banjo has announced their major label debut album Dusk, due out September 29 via Mercury Records Nashville. On Dusk, the Nashville-native group explores the full emotional spectrum of the rich, eclectic sound they’ve honed over the last decade. Along with the announcement, the band also shares their wistful new single “Lonely In This Town,” which arrives with a music video that finds them on a reflective late-night car ride.

Stream “Lonely In This Town”

“I’ve always felt like ‘Lonely In This Town’ is best enjoyed driving with the windows down in your car,” shares banjo player Barton Davies. “The music feels uplifting and euphoric with the three-part harmonies and steady groove, but then the lyrics come in and give the complete opposite vibe. It’s almost like you’re lonely but you’re happy about it. I love that duality in the song.”

Produced by longtime collaborator Oscar Charles (Caroline Spence, Charlie Worsham), Dusk is an electrifying dose of lightning in a bottle over its nine tracks, running a gamut of late-night, fall-in-love party anthems and stripped-down meditations. Boy Named Banjo’s songwriting is as incisive as ever, artfully grappling with lust and longing, hope and heartbreak. Sonically, the band’s performances on the record are nothing short of exhilarating, blurring the lines between Music Row and Laurel Canyon with lush harmonies and bold cinematic arrangements. The end result is a masterfully crafted, larger-than-life major label debut from a group that continues to grow by leaps and bounds with every release.

Widely beloved by loyal fans nationwide for their high-octane live shows, Boy Named Banjo will kick off their coast-to-coast Dusk Til Dawn Tour next month on September 14 in Atlanta – tickets can be found here and a full list of dates can be found below. Audiences will be treated to performances from their extensive catalog and new music from Dusk, in addition to their recent uplifting anthem “What Keeps Me Going” which earned praise from CMT, Holler, Taste of Country, Whiskey Riff and more. 2023 has already shaped up to be another banner year for the band following their Grand Ole Opry debut, a momentous milestone that was documented at People.

Expertly melding an array of musical influences, the five-piece band is a fusion of contemporary country, Americana and folk-rock stacked on a foundation of bluegrass. Their self-released 2012 debut The Tanglewood Sessions helped earn the band a spot at Bonnaroo, while their 2014 follow-up, Long Story Short, led to festival slots everywhere from Hangout Fest to Dierks Bentley’s Seven Peaks. After signing with Mercury Records Nashville in 2020, the following year saw the release of their genre-defying EP Circles, which landed them a performance at the historic Ryman Auditorium alongside dates supporting the likes of Kip Moore, Hank Williams, Jr., Old Crow Medicine Show, and The Cadillac Three. In 2022, Boy Named Banjo made their CMA Fest debut playing at the Ascend Amphitheatre Nighttime Concert as well as a sold-out hometown show at Nashville’s Brooklyn Bowl.

Formed in their teens, Boy Named Banjo includes Barton Davies (banjo), Ford Garrard (bass/standing bass), Sam McCullough (drums) Willard Logan (mandolin, acoustic/electric guitar) and William Reames (acoustic guitar/harmonica).

Dusk Tracklist

1. “Something ‘Bout A Sunset”

2. “Heart Attack”

3. “Feel For You (Dusk)”

4. “Young Forever”

5. “Whiskey Dreams”

6. “Mama, I’m Misbehavin’”

7. “Goodbyes Are Sad”

8. “Lonely In This Town”

9. “Opposite Directions”

Boy Named Banjo – Dusk Til Dawn 2023 Tour Dates:

September 14 - Atlanta, GA - Terminal West ^

September 15 - Louisville, KY - Bourbon and Beyond

September 16 - Columbia, MO - Rose Music Hall ^

September 22 - Athens, GA - 40 Watt ^

September 23 - Franklin, TN - Pilgrimage Music and Cultural Festival

October 6 - Monterey, CA - Rebels and Renegades Music Festival

October 7 - Los Angeles, CA - The Moroccan Lounge ^

October 8 - San Diego, CA - House of Blues (Voodoo Room) ^

October 12 - Austin, TX - Antone's Nightclub ^

October 13 - Houston, TX - Last Concert Cafe ^

October 14 - Dallas, TX - House of Blues Dallas (Cambridge Room) ^

October 19 - Charleston, SC - Music Farm ^

October 20 - Savannah, GA - Saddle Bags Savannah ^

October 21 - Winston-Salem, NC - The Ramkat ^

October 26 - Jackson, MS - Duling Hall ^

October 27 - Memphis, TN - Growlers ^

October 28 - Oxford, MS - Proud Larry’s ^

November 2 - Chattanooga, TN - Barrelhouse Ballroom %

November 3 - Birmingham, AL - Zydeco %

November 4 - Knoxville, TN - Barley’s Taproom & Pizzeria %

November 16 - Charlottesville, VA - The Jefferson Theater ^

November 17 - Brooklyn, NY - Brooklyn Bowl ^

November 18 - Harrisburg, PA - XL Live ^

November 19 - Washington, D.C. - The Atlantis ^

November 30 - Indianapolis, IN - Deluxe +

December 1 - Columbus, OH - Natalie’s Grandview +

December 2 - Wyandotte, MI - District 142 +

^ with support from Brother Elsey

% with support from Will Jones

+ with support from Cassandra Lewis

Sat, 08/19/2023 - 3:19 pm

Today, the Southern Indiana-born, Nashville-based artist Stephen Wilson Jr. released new single “patches” from his upcoming debut double album søn of dad, out September 15 via Big Loud Records. With its deceptively breezy melody and easygoing chorus underscored by melancholic slide guitars, the song touches upon the importance of learning to live with the scars, scratches and holes in our lives. Today, Wilson also announced that he will join The Lone Bellow on tour for another string of dates this winter.

Stream “patches”

Watch the official visualizer for “patches” via YouTube

Pre-Order søn of dad

Of the song, Wilson shares: “My scars got scars. Graffiti on graffiti on graffiti. ‘patches’ is a playful song with a serious message. A life lived not avoided. øne packaged with consequences and fibrosis. A built-in collagen-based repair system showing the world the road map to where we’ve been. Wearing scars we’ve earned like we’ve earned ‘em.”

Informed by Wilson’s wildly diverse background as a boxer, a scientist (he has a degree in microbiology and chemistry from Middle Tennessee State University) and a songwriter, søn of dad is a 22-song tribute to his late father, to be released exactly five years to the day of his death. Album centerpiece “Father’s Son” and its stirring music video received praise from CMT, Whiskey Riff and Rolling Stone who named it one of the “Best Country Songs of 2023 So Far.”

“Writing and making this album has been very therapeutic for me to learn who I am and what my existence looks like after my father. Because life has to go on,” Wilson says. “I'm living my own life, but it's like his death bookended what life he should have had onto mine and I'm carrying it around like a train car.”

The new LP follows this year’s bon aqua EP, which earned acclaim from American Songwriter, Wide Open Country, Holler and more. Country Music Pride went so far as to call it, “…easily the best album of the last 5 years,” declaring Wilson “…one of the best living songwriters of our time.” Over the last six months, Wilson has also made his Grand Ole Opry, Stagecoach and CMA Fest debuts and has shared the stage with The Lone Bellow, Drake White, Charley Crockett, 49 Winchester and Larry Fleet. Still to come are dates with Joss Stone and Midland, including his Red Rocks debut supporting the latter on Oct. 14, and additional dates with The Lone Bellow this November and December. Find a full list of dates below or visit his website.

søn of dad Tracklist:
1) the devil
2) Cuckoo
3) billy
4) patches
5) American Gothic (feat. Hailey Whitters)
6) Werewolf
7) Mighty Beast
8) Year to Be Young 1994
9) twisted
10) Father’s Son
11) Grief Is Only Love
12) Hang in There
13) Calico Creek
14) Holler from the Holler
15) Hometown
16) Not Letting Go
17) For What It’s Worth
18) All the Wars from Now On
19) kid
20) Henry
21) You
22) The Beginning

Tour Dates:
8/19: Des Plaines, IL - Des Plaines Theatre ^
8/20: Grand Rapids, MI - Frederik Meijer Gardens Amphitheater ^
8/22: Cleveland Heights, OH - Cain Park Evans Amphitheater ^
8/23: Greensburg, PA - The Palace Theatre ^
8/25: Washington, DC - Warner Theatre ^
8/26: Niagara Falls, ON - OLG Stage at Fallsview Casino ^
8/28: Ridgefield, CT - The Ridgefield Playhouse ^
8/29: Boston, MA - House of Blues Boston ^
8/31: Hampton Beach, NH - Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom ^
9/1: Bethlehem, PA - Wind Creek Event Center ^
9/3: Marietta, GA - Georgia Country Music Fest
9/14: Louisville, KY - Bourbon & Beyond
10/13: Sandy, UT - Sandy Amphitheater @
10/14: Morrison, CO - Red Rocks Amphitheatre @
11/3: Scottsdale, AZ - Dreamy Draw Music Festival
11/26 & 11/27: Vienna, VA - The Barns at Wolf Trap #
11/29, 11/30 & 12/1: New York, NY - Rockwood Music Hall #
12/2 & 12/3: Cambridge, MA - The Sinclair #
12/5: Rochester, NY - The Theater at Innovation Square #
12/6: Fairfield, CT - The Warehouse #
12/8 & 12/9: Philadelphia, PA - Johnny Brenda’s #
12/10: Richmond, VA - The National #

^ - with Joss Stone
@ - with Midland
# - with The Lone Bellow

Thu, 09/07/2023 - 2:52 pm

After making a strong impact with a string of electrifying singles, the London/Nashville duo Ida Mae return today with the dreamy new track “Feel The World Turning,” the fourth installment from their upcoming studio album Thunder Above You which will be released on October 6.

Opting for a delicate and bittersweet approach, “Feel The World Turning” sits as one of the more emotive entries lifted from their forthcoming full-length. With its humbled tones and textures perfectly elevating their heartfelt vocals throughout, it stands as one of their most alluring tracks to date.

Stream/embed “Feel The World Turning” via YouTube
Pre-order Thunder Above You.

"‘Feel the World Turning’ was written as a kind of hymn,” the duo writes. “We wanted to share something of what we’d felt when traveling through quiet remote communities and stepping into other peoples worlds for a short moment. It’s deeply personal to our time spent together on the road. It would give us a great sense of peace and appreciation (as well as being a little nerve wracking) pulling into a motel or hotel on the edge of the highway and finding a bar or cafe of locals with incredible stories.”

The track follows the release of the ballad “Lost on Your Time” and the rhythm-laden “My Whispers Are Wildfire” which Guitar World proclaimed, “There’s a little bit of Tom Waits’ guitarist Marc Ribot to be heard in Chris Turpin’s animalistic playing here… the British roots player seems to use his six-string to summon a sort of grunting, shuffling beast – the solo sounds less like something let off the leash and more like a sort of choked spirit howling and straining to escape.”

Thunder Above You was inspired by the dramatic landscapes the duo witnessed while traversing 46 states touring with artists like Willie Nelson, Alison Krauss, Marcus King and Greta Van Fleet. Around the time the band were beginning to think about recording their third album, Turpin had found himself drawn towards the English folk music of his childhood. “Much of my teenage years were spent obsessing over what bands like Free and Led Zeppelin were listening to, and as a teenager I’d go to my local arts centre and see people like Martin Simpson and Bert Jansch perform,” he recalls. “As I’ve got older I’ve begun to rediscover them, Nick Drake, and John Martyn. So I began to lean more into the British folk world, and that’s definitely expressed itself on the album.”

Ida Mae’s 2021 album Click Click Domino earned wide acclaim from outlets including Under the Radar, American Songwriter, Wonderland, Clash Magazine, Live for Live Music as well as Rolling Stone who writes of the title track, “With guitar assistance from shred wizard Marcus King, the tune is a heaving mass of scuzzy blues-rock riffs and thunderous drums that indicts social media for its isolating, alienating effects… Somewhere, Jack White is busy looking for new amp settings.”

Thunder Above You Tracklist:
01 My Whispers Are Wildfire
02 Into Your River
03 American Cars
04 Doing It for Badness
05 Lost on Your Time
06 To Your Love
07 Wild Flying Dove
08 Feel the World Turning
09 Landslide
10 Thunder Above You
11 Hold You Like Fading Light

Ida Mae Tour Dates:
11/02/23 - Zürich, Switzerland - X-Tra Musikcafe
11/03/23 - La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland - Bikini Test
11/04/23 - Basel, Switzerland - Sommercasino
11/07/23 - Munich, Germany - Strom
11/09/23 - Berlin, Germany - Privatclub
11/13/23 - Cologne, Germany - LUXOR
11/21/23 - Manchester, UK - The Lodge (Deaf Institute)
11/22/23 - Glasgow, Scotland - Stereo
11/23/23 - Leeds, UK - Lending Room
11/28/23 - London, England - The Lower Third
11/29/23 - Brighton, England - The Hope & Ruin
12/02/23 - Norwich, England - Norwich Arts Centre
12/07/23 - Cardiff, Wales - Clwb Ifor Bach
12/08/23 - Bristol, England - The Louisiana

Fri, 09/15/2023 - 11:11 am

Today Candid records has released Sardinia, a previously unreleased live recording of Chick Corea performing with Orchestra da Camera della Sardegna in Sardinia, Italy. Recorded in 2018 under the direction of conductor Simone Pittau, the album features Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 24, and George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody In Blue.” Sardinia is currently available to order here.

The recording is a new addition to the immense legacy of the legendary composer and pianist. Corea’s unique vision of a classical performance and his distinctive approach adds a touch of playfulness to the proceedings, while still upholding the integrity and reverence for the music. With the Mozart piece, Corea takes liberties and inserts flourishes as one might imagine Mozart may have done in his time. “Rhapsody in Blue” was a highlight of the evening.  The performance captures what Corea discovered was George Gershwin's intended spirit of the composition, and he brings new life, freedom and improvisation to Gershwin's vision.

Conductor Simone Pittau had a deep connection with Corea. “I grew up listening to his music, fascinated by his projects and bewitched by the creativity of his bands,” he recalls. “A relationship of understanding was born with him as if I had known him forever. There was a constant exchange of musical information between us through the analysis of the scores. He performed Mozart with great taste and a refined touch, at the same level of the top classical soloist. And his version of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue is of rare beauty. It was and it will always remain in my heart an unforgettable professional and human experience.”

The CD and double LP Vinyl album feature meticulous liner notes from author and historian Robin D.G. Kelly.  The album was produced by Corea with long-time collaborator Bernie Kirsh.

Sat, 09/16/2023 - 11:03 am

Today, the Virginia-based Americana band The Steel Wheels announce that their new record Sideways will come out on February 9, 2024 via Big Ring Records. The group has also shared the first single from the LP “Easy On Your Way,” a hymn-like anthem to find solace in during life’s hard moments that defy explanation. Its bittersweet lyrics give way to a rollicking bluegrass-inflected instrumental, which purports that the song – like the album in its entirety – sends a message of hope and resiliency. The track arrived with a homey black-and-white in-studio clip that pulls back the curtain on the band’s creative process.

Listen to “Easy On Your Way”

Watch the “Easy On Your Way” music video via YouTube

Pre-order/pre-save Sideways

“This song is for when you don't have the words,” shares frontman Trent Wagler of the single. “It acknowledges the hardest of the hard stuff, because no one is served by ignoring the pain, but it also looks you dead in the eye and says, ‘We're all in this together’ in the least cliche way possible. Let's celebrate that life doesn't make sense and show up with the tools to rebuild the barn after the tree falls on the roof.”

The Steel Wheels are a band that has been redefining what it means to be Americana for nearly 20 years, and now with their 13th album Sideways, they’ve managed to create their most sonically adventurous full-length yet – a far cry from the band’s origins as an all-acoustic traditional string band. Produced by Sam Kassirer (Lake Street Dive, Langhorne Slim, Josh Ritter), Sideways takes influence from psychedelic rock, pop, jam and more to expand upon their distinctly Appalachian sound.

Never ones to shy away from heavy topics, the group – particularly Wagler, its lead songwriter – penned many of the songs in response to loss and the fearful uncertainty that comes with facing what we can’t control. In 2019, The Steel Wheels were blindsided by the death of fiddle player and vocalist Eric Brubaker’s young daughter to a rare disease. And during the pandemic, Wagler’s child faced a mental health crisis that left Wagler and his family feeling lost and frustrated inside our country’s mental health care system.

“This album is dedicated to people who understand that even when we're growing sideways, we're still growing,” explains Wagler. “If you had a five year plan a few years ago, I bet it didn't quite come to fruition. These are songs that celebrate the Both/And of life. We are grieving and we are laughing. We are suffering and we are growing. We are isolated and we are connected. May it be again and again, cue music.”

When the band began developing the album, they knew it demanded a manner and a space that honors the subject matter. So, the band holed up together at the Great North Sound Society in Parsonsfield, ME, moving into the studio for a week, cooking their meals together around a woodstove in a farmhouse, and, most importantly, playing all together again for the first time in over two years. The result is at-once a powerful, at-times joyous and contemplative reflection on our shared human experience – both tapping into the personal and reaching for something universal.

Since 2005, The Steel Wheels have been melding the traditional with the contemporary, while always remaining firmly rooted in the sounds of the Virginia mountains where the band was formed. In 2017, the band first collaborated with Kassirer on the critically-acclaimed Wild As We Came Here, which features the now ubiquitous alt-folk battlecry “Scrape Me Off the Ceiling.” Through it all, The Steel Wheels have been about creating a community and sharing the experience of humanity with one another. Nowhere is this more evident than at the Red Wing Roots Music Festival, founded by the band in 2013. Taking place in the Shenandoah Valley, the festival has featured performances by Lucinda Williams, Billy Strings, Steve Earle & The Dukes, The Mavericks, Old Crow Medicine Show, Robert Earl Keen, Dawes, Trampled By Turtles and more. Outside of their own festival, the band is known for its road-dog mentality, spending many nights of the year on the road. The guys are currently on tour, and for a full list of dates, please see below or visit thesteelwheels.com/tour.

The Steel Wheels is Trent Wagler (vocals/guitar/banjo), Jay Lapp (guitar/mandolin/ vocals), Eric Brubaker (fiddle/vocals), Kevin Garcia (drums/percussion/mallet keyboards), Jeremy Darrow (bass).

The Steel Wheels 2023 Tour Dates
September 13 – Fayetteville, AR @ George’s Majestic
September 14 – Winfield, KS @ Walnut Valley Festival
September 17 – Indianapolis, IN @ Hi-Fi
September 29 – Cornelius, NC @ Cain Center for the Arts
September 30 – Yadkinville, NC @ Willingham Theater
October 10 – Nashville, TN @ Analog
October 11 – Kansas City, MO @ Knuckleheads
October 12 – Hastings, NE @ The Lark
October 13 – Omaha, NE @ Holland Performing Arts Center
October 14 – Denver, CO @ Ophelia’s Electric Soapbox
October 15 – Wray, CO @ 4th and Main
October 18 – Salt Lake City, UT @ The State Room
October 19 – Boise, ID @ The Olympic
October 20 – Bend, OR @ Volcanic Theatre Pub
October 21 – Spokane, WA @ The District Bar at Knitting Factory
October 22 – Seattle, WA @ Ballard Homestead
November 8 – Portland, OR @ Alberta Rose Theatre
November 14 – Tucson, AZ @ Hotel Congress

Sideways Tracklist
1. Wait On You
2. Baby Gone
3. Sideways
4. Hero
5. Enemy
6. Dissidents
7. Good Thing Now
8. Morning Before Long
9. Yes I Know
10. Past The Breaks
11. Easy On Your Way
12. Just Like The Wind

Wed, 10/04/2023 - 1:03 pm

Fifty years after Gram Parsons’ passing, Amoeba Music and Polly Parsons have announced the release of a special two-LP live recording from Gram Parsons and the Fallen Angels titled The Last Roundup: Live from the Bijou Cafe in Philadelphia March 16th, 1973, the first available live performance of Parsons and the Fallen Angels and his first new solo material to be released in four decades. Recently unearthed from Amoeba Music’s vault and featuring Emmylou Harris on vocals, The Last Roundup: Live from the Bijou Cafe in Philadelphia March 16th, 1973 will be released on November 24 as part of RSD Black Friday. A list of participating local record stores can be found here. Along with the announcement, Amoeba Music and Polly Parsons have shared LP highlight “Love Hurts,” the first offering from this upcoming rare vinyl set.

Listen to “Love Hurts” (Live From the Bijou Cafe) via YouTube

“This has been such an incredible labor of love by all involved,” says Polly Parsons, daughter of the late icon. “Everyone coming together and moving Gram’s music forward in such a meaningful way. It’s time to celebrate the music and joy he brings the world for sure. And what a wonderful treasure this project has been to do just that. I truly hope you enjoy it.”

“‘The Last Roundup’ features Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris at their absolute finest,” says Amoeba Music Co-Founder Dave Prinz. “The only live club show of Gram ever released, and unheard for over 50 years, this performance sparkles with incredible beauty and energy. For all of those who never got to experience Gram live, this is the closest we’ll ever get to being there.”

The origin story of The Last Roundup: Live from the Bijou Cafe in Philadelphia March 16th, 1973 dates back to earlier that year when Gram Parsons embarked on a tour to promote his recently released first solo album, GP. Parsons had put together his beloved band known as the Fallen Angels, which included a then-undiscovered Emmylou Harris as his singing partner. Halfway through the tour in 1973, the band truly found its groove on the third night at the Bijou Cafe in Philadelphia. Pedal steel player Neil Flanz felt that this was the best show of the tour and requested a copy of the soundboard recording. Flanz saved the cassette for almost 40 years, and then it was acquired by Amoeba Music for a future Parsons release. The rare recording then stayed hidden in the Amoeba vault for another decade before it was rediscovered when Amoeba moved to a new location in LA.
 
One of the last club dates ever for Gram Parsons and the Fallen Angels, the 50-year-old recording showcases the incredible synergy of Parsons, Harris and the band like never before, allowing listeners the chance to hear this pristinely preserved moment in music history. The Last Roundup: Live from the Bijou Cafe in Philadelphia March 16th, 1973 features Gram Parsons (vocals/guitar), Emmylou Harris (vocals), Neil Flanz (pedal steel guitar), Kyle Tullis (bass), Jock Barkley (lead guitar), and ND Smart II (drums).

The Last Roundup: Live from the Bijou Cafe in Philadelphia March 16th, 1973 Tracklist
1. Introduction / Flint Hill Special
2. We'll Sweep Out The Ashes
3. My Uncle
4. Drug Store Truck Drivin’ Man
5. Streets Of Baltimore
6. Country Baptizing
7. California Cotton Fields
8. Love Hurts
9. Cry One More Time
10. Sin City
11. Big Mouth Blues
12. Jambalaya
13. Six Days On The Road
14. Introductions
15. The New Soft Shoe
16. Rock & Roll Medley

Sat, 10/07/2023 - 9:44 am

After exploding back on the scene with their stunning singles “Lost On Your Time”, “My Whispers Are Wildfire”, “Thunder Above You” and “Wild Flying Dove” in recent months, British duo Ida Mae now release their long-awaited new studio album Thunder Above You, alongside its swaggering, riff-laden focus track “American Cars”. The album is currently available to order / stream here.

Chris Turpin and Stephanie Jean of Ida Mae reflect on the collaborative process behind the album’s creation: "We convinced our closest musical collaborators (Ethan Johns; Drums, Nick Pini; Bass) to join us in Norfolk, explaining that we wanted to build a makeshift studio in the entrance hall of an Arts & Crafts era Mansion House and self-produce our new record in 7 days. Thankfully they agreed to sail with us into these uncharted waters...no one knowing what would happen.

“Thunder Above You” is the collection of songs we wrote before we became parents. These songs are vignettes, some of the last burning images we have of our lives on the road, driving through deserts and mountains ranges, following in the footsteps of the musical dream we'd had when we were 15 years old.

"They are songs from the perspective of an avaricious lover, from the haze of derealisation and fake news, hymnals, algorithms, trash, they are lost space between cities, spirituals, they are clippings of British folk songs, arguments in prohibition bars, forgotten moments of border ballads, 4am mania, crippling doubt, crying in hotel elevators, what you want to leave behind, they're standing outside 4339 South Lake Park Avenue in the rain, they're messy, improvised echoes in the alleyway, left exactly as they were cut live.”

Guitar World proclaimed of the opening track “My Whispers Are Wildfire”, “There’s a little bit of Tom Waits’ guitarist Marc Ribot to be heard in Chris Turpin’s animalistic playing here… the British roots player seems to use his six-string to summon a sort of grunting, shuffling beast – the solo sounds less like something let off the leash and more like a sort of choked spirit howling and straining to escape.”

Thunder Above You was inspired by the dramatic landscapes the duo witnessed while traversing 46 states touring with artists like Willie Nelson, Alison Krauss, Marcus King and Greta Van Fleet. Around the time the band were beginning to think about recording their third album, Turpin had found himself drawn towards the English folk music of his childhood. “Much of my teenage years were spent obsessing over what bands like Free and Led Zeppelin were listening to, and as a teenager I’d go to my local arts centre and see people like Martin Simpson and Bert Jansch perform,” he recalls. “As I’ve got older I’ve begun to rediscover them, Nick Drake, and John Martyn. So I began to lean more into the British folk world, and that’s definitely expressed itself on the album.”

Ida Mae’s 2021 album Click Click Domino earned wide acclaim from outlets including Under the Radar, American Songwriter, Wonderland, Clash Magazine, Live for Live Music as well as Rolling Stone who writes of the title track, “With guitar assistance from shred wizard Marcus King, the tune is a heaving mass of scuzzy blues-rock riffs and thunderous drums that indicts social media for its isolating, alienating effects… Somewhere, Jack White is busy looking for new amp settings.”

Thunder Above You Tracklist:
01 My Whispers Are Wildfire
02 Into Your River
03 American Cars
04 Doing It for Badness
05 Lost on Your Time
06 To Your Love
07 Wild Flying Dove
08 Feel the World Turning
09 Landslide
10 Thunder Above You
11 Hold You Like Fading Light

Ida Mae Tour Dates:
11/02/23 - Zürich, Switzerland - X-Tra Musikcafe
11/03/23 - La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland - Bikini Test
11/04/23 - Basel, Switzerland - Bikini Test
11/07/23 - Munich, Germany - Strom
11/09/23 - Berlin, Germany - Badehaus
11/13/23 - Cologne, Germany - MTC
11/21/23 - Manchester, UK - The Lodge (Deaf Institute)
11/22/23 - Glasgow, Scotland - Stereo
11/23/23 - Leeds, UK - Lending Room
11/28/23 - London, England - The Lower Third
11/29/23 - Brighton, England - The Hope & Ruin
12/02/23 - Norwich, England - Norwich Arts Centre
12/07/23 - Cardiff, Wales - Clwb Ifor Bach
12/08/23 - Bristol, England - The Louisiana

Wed, 10/11/2023 - 9:34 am

Bay Area native Alex Jordan has shared the stage with icons like Bob Weir, Phil Lesh and Peter Rowan, but today, he’s taking a step forward as a frontman and songwriter as he announces his new LP Queen Kerosene, produced by four-time GRAMMY-winner Steve Berlin of Los Lobos and releasing March 8, 2024 via Andy Logan Productions. Jordan has also shared the first single/title track, which is a sweeping coming-of-age story soundtracked by grungy electric guitar and his crystal-clear voice. The track arrived with a nomadic music video that was featured at Magnet Magazine who called the song “rootsy” and “groove-saturated.” Next month, Jordan will hit the road with The Band of Heathens for a run of shows through Portland, Seattle and more. See below for a full list of dates or at alexjordanjams.com.

Stream “Queen Kerosene”

Watch the official “Queen Kerosene” video via YouTube

“‘Queen Kerosene’ came together last in the process of making the record,” shares Jordan. “I sat on the edge of my bed the night before a flight home and had a new verse idea come to me in the moments before I gave up for the night. I stitched it together with an existing chorus I had written in 2020 and worked out a new story over the next week. What started out as a protest song turned into a story of self discovery and unexpected adventure.”

Queen Kerosene was recorded at The Finishing School in Austin, Texas with a band of
Austin-based musicians — including harmony singer Carrie Rodriguez and accordion player Josh Baca (the protégé of Norteño icon Flaco Jiménez). Jordan and Berlin captured the album's songs in a series of live takes, emphasizing the chemistry of the players in the room. After the instrumental parts were tracked, the two reworked each song tirelessly, with Jordan scrapping more than 50% of the record's original lyrics in favor of tighter, tauter lines.

The result is a quintessentially American LP composed of barn burners, piano ballads, Americana anthems and adventurous explorations of organic roots music. It pays homage to the artists Jordan consumed in his youth — from the jazz composers he discovered as a kid playing jazz trombone to rootsy acts like Buck Owens, Merle Haggard and Crosby, Stills & Nash and the songwriters who stuck with him as a young adult like Hayes Carll and Robert Hunter, famed lyricist for the Grateful Dead. Like those artists, Jordan’s new music is timeless in its sound and its songwriting, and his songs tell the stories of the people who have, who do and who always will inhabit this land we call home.

Jordan may be a fresh face when it comes to his solo career, but he’s spent the better part of the past decade playing with West Coast bands like Midnight North, fronted by Grahame Lesh. His ability to play guitar, piano and Hammond B3 organ landed him onstage with Bob Weir, Phil Lesh and Peter Rowan, becoming a fixture at Lesh’s Bay Area music venue Terrapin Crossroads. Now, Jordan has developed a sound that is entirely his own, resulting in a kaleidoscopic LP that pulls from soul, Tex-Mex, groove-driven R&B, Americana, jazz, honky-tonk and heartland rock & roll.

Queen Kerosene Tracklist
1. Queen Kerosene
2. Blue
3. Emily
4. Green Tends To Fade
5. Welcoming Call
6. Made To Fall Easy
7. What’s Become Of Me
8. Tidefall
9. Canyonland
10. Saving Grace

Tour Dates
10/21: Winters, CA - Berryessa Brewing
10/22: Sausalito, CA - Sausalito Cruising Club
11/6: Portland, OR - Polaris Hall ^
11/8: Seattle, WA - Tractor Tavern ^
11/9: Boise, ID - Treefort Music Hall ^
11/10: Salt Lake City, UT - The State Room ^
11/11: Flagstaff, AZ - Orpheum Theater ^
11/19: Sausalito, CA - Sausalito Cruising Club

^ - supporting The Band of Heathens

Sat, 10/14/2023 - 4:00 pm

When Trent Wagler, frontman/primary songwriter for the Virginia-based Americana band The Steel Wheels, was sending his daughter off to college, he finally understood how one person’s coming of age could be another person’s letting go. Today, the band shares new single “Baby Gone,” the second release from their upcoming LP Sideways (out 2/9 via Big Ring Records), and it chronicles Wagler’s experience with this. A jaunty track featuring a frenetic banjo, a mysteriously slinky fiddle and a funky bass riff, “Baby Gone” expertly details the complexities and duality of parenthood. Listen to it HERE. Also today, The Steel Wheels have announced a run of 2024 tour dates to accompany the release of the new album. See a full list of dates below and at thesteelwheels.com.

Listen to “Baby Gone”

Watch the official “Baby Gone” visualizer via YouTube

Pre-order/pre-save Sideways

“This was written as I said goodbye to my daughter (literally my "baby" girl), as she left for college,” shares Wagler. “It’s trying to manage the sadness of seeing inevitable change and loss, alongside the hope of future growth and positive change. The transformation of parenting is one that goes from being needed completely to understanding that many of the future adventures will have absolutely nothing to do with you. Your role as parent has fundamentally changed – as it should.”

The Steel Wheels are a band that has been redefining what it means to be Americana for nearly 20 years, and now with their 13th album Sideways, they’ve managed to create their most sonically adventurous full-length yet – a far cry from the band’s origins as an all-acoustic traditional string band. Produced by Sam Kassirer (Lake Street Dive, Langhorne Slim, Josh Ritter), Sideways takes influence from psychedelic rock, pop, jam and more to expand upon their distinctly Appalachian sound. From the LP, the band has shared first single “Easy On Your Way,” which earned praise from No Depression, Folk Alley, DittyTV and more.

Never ones to shy away from heavy topics, the group – particularly Wagler, its lead songwriter – penned many of the songs in response to loss and the fearful uncertainty that comes with facing what we can’t control. In 2019, The Steel Wheels were blindsided by the death of fiddle player and vocalist Eric Brubaker’s young daughter to a rare disease. And during the pandemic, Wagler’s child faced a mental health crisis that left Wagler and his family feeling lost and frustrated inside our country’s mental health care system.

“This album is dedicated to people who understand that even when we're growing sideways, we're still growing,” explains Wagler. “If you had a five year plan a few years ago, I bet it didn't quite come to fruition. These are songs that celebrate the Both/And of life. We are grieving and we are laughing. We are suffering and we are growing. We are isolated and we are connected. May it be again and again, cue music.”

Since 2005, The Steel Wheels have been melding the traditional with the contemporary, while always remaining firmly rooted in the sounds of the Virginia mountains where the band was formed. In 2017, the band first collaborated with Kassirer on the critically-acclaimed Wild As We Came Here, which features the now ubiquitous alt-folk battlecry “Scrape Me Off the Ceiling.” Through it all, The Steel Wheels have been about creating a community and sharing the experience of humanity with one another. Nowhere is this more evident than at the Red Wing Roots Music Festival, founded by the band in 2013. Taking place in the Shenandoah Valley, the festival has featured performances by Lucinda Williams, Billy Strings, Steve Earle & The Dukes, The Mavericks, Old Crow Medicine Show, Robert Earl Keen, Dawes, Trampled By Turtles and more. Outside of their own festival, the band is known for its road-dog mentality, spending many nights of the year on the road. The guys are currently on tour, and for a full list of dates, please see below or visit thesteelwheels.com/tour.

The Steel Wheels is Trent Wagler (vocals/guitar/banjo), Jay Lapp (guitar/mandolin/ vocals), Eric Brubaker (fiddle/vocals), Kevin Garcia (drums/percussion/mallet keyboards), Jeremy Darrow (bass).

The Steel Wheels 2023 + 2024 Tour Dates
October 10 – Nashville, TN @ Analog
October 11 – Kansas City, MO @ Knuckleheads
October 12 – Hastings, NE @ The Lark
October 13 – Omaha, NE @ Holland Performing Arts Center
October 14 – Denver, CO @ Ophelia’s Electric Soapbox
October 15 – Wray, CO @ 4th and Main
October 16 – Wray, CO @ 4th and Main
October 18 – Salt Lake City, UT @ The State Room
October 19 – Boise, ID @ The Olympic
October 20 – Bend, OR @ Volcanic Theatre Pub
October 21 – Spokane, WA @ The District Bar at Knitting Factory
October 22 – Seattle, WA @ Ballard Homestead
November 8 – Portland, OR @ Alberta Rose Theatre
November 10 – Prosser, WA @ Brewminatti
November 13 – Phoenix, AZ @ Musical Instrument Museum
November 14 – Tucson, AZ @ Hotel Congress
November 15 – Santa Fe, NM @ Tumbleroot Brewery
January 12 – Thomas, WV @ Purple Fiddle Cafe
January 13 – Thomas, WV @ Purple Fiddle Cafe
January 14 – Morgantown, WV @ Mountain Stage
January 15 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Club Cafe
January 16 – Cleveland, OH @ Music Box Supper Club
January 18 – Durham, NC @ Fletcher Hall Auditorium *
February 2 – Elkin, NC @ Reeves Theater
February 21 – Wichita, KS @ The Wave
February 24 – Cedar Rapids, IA @ CSPS Hall
February 27 – Milwaukee, WI @ Shank Hall
February 28 – Berwyn, IL @ FitzGerald’s
February 29 – Ann Arbor, MI @ The Ark
March 1 – Cincinnati, OH @ The Ludlow Garage
March 3 – Columbia, SC @ The Senate *

* - with Donna The Buffalo

Sideways Tracklist
1. Wait On You
2. Baby Gone
3. Sideways
4. Hero
5. Enemy
6. Dissidents
7. Good Thing Now
8. Morning Before Long
9. Yes I Know
10. Past The Breaks
11. Easy On Your Way
12. Just Like The Wind

Wed, 11/08/2023 - 9:40 am

Produced by four-time GRAMMY-winner Steve Berlin of Los Lobos, “Emily” – the latest single from Alex Jordan’s upcoming LP – finds the Bay Area native enlisting a bluesy horn section for a groovy track about finding comfort in someone who truly understands you. Glide Magazine featured the “infectious” song saying it “bounces with the revelatory musical instincts of The Band alongside the breezy California harmonies of Jackson Browne.” “Emily” is the second offering from Jordan’s new LP Queen Kerosene, produced entirely by Berlin and set for release on March 8, 2024 via Andy Logan Productions. Currently, Jordan is on tour supporting The Band of Heathens, and will play Seattle tonight. See below for a full list of dates or at alexjordanjams.com.

Stream “Emily”

“Six months or so before we started to work on the record, my friend Matt DeScala sent a demo of a pop crossover song called ‘Emily’ he’d been working with but felt stuck on,” shared Jordan. “I asked him if I could rework it, feeling that the chorus melody suggested a more R&B feel. After a handful of long sessions together, we created the story and structure as it is now. In the studio, the track begged for a horn section to be a melodic foil to the lead vocal and playful guitar line.”

Queen Kerosene was recorded at The Finishing School in Austin, Texas with a band of Austin-based musicians — including harmony singer Carrie Rodriguez and accordion player Josh Baca (the protégé of Norteño icon Flaco Jiménez). Jordan has already shared the album’s incendiary title track and its nomadic music video, directed by award-winning duo Neilson Hubbard & Joshua Britt (John Prine, Jason Isbell). So far, the track has earned praise from Guitar World, DittyTV, The Alternate Root and Magnetwho called it “rootsy” and “groove-saturated.”

Jordan and Berlin captured the album's songs in a series of live takes, emphasizing the chemistry of the players in the room. The result is a quintessentially American LP composed of barn burners, piano ballads, Americana anthems and adventurous explorations of organic roots music. Like the artists and songwriters the record pays homage to – namely Buck Owens, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Hayes Carll and Robert Hunter – Jordan’s new music is timeless in its sound and its songwriting, and his songs tell the stories of the people who have, who do and who always will inhabit this land we call home.

Jordan may be a fresh face when it comes to his solo career, but he’s spent the better part of the past decade playing with West Coast bands like Midnight North, fronted by Grahame Lesh. His ability to play guitar, piano and Hammond B3 organ landed him onstage with Bob Weir, Phil Lesh and Peter Rowan, becoming a fixture at Lesh’s Bay Area music venue Terrapin Crossroads. Now, Jordan has developed a sound that is entirely his own, resulting in a kaleidoscopic LP that pulls from soul, Tex-Mex, groove-driven R&B, Americana, jazz, honky-tonk and heartland rock & roll.

Queen Kerosene Tracklist
1. Queen Kerosene
2. Blue
3. Emily
4. Green Tends To Fade
5. Welcoming Call
6. Made To Fall Easy
7. What’s Become Of Me
8. Tidefall
9. Canyonland
10. Saving Grace

Tour Dates
11/6 - Portland, OR - Polaris Hall ^
11/8 - Seattle, WA - Tractor Tavern ^
11/9 - Boise, ID - Treefort Music Hall ^
11/10 - Salt Lake City, UT - The State Room ^
11/11 - Flagstaff, AZ - Orpheum Theater ^
11/19 - Sausalito, CA - Sausalito Cruising Club

^ - supporting The Band of Heathens

Fri, 11/10/2023 - 7:25 am

Today, Driftwood shares their rowdy new single “December Last Call,” which finds the New York-based Americana outfit enjoying a fun night out and letting go of their inhibitions over a swinging roots-rock rhythm. “December Last Call” is the first offering from the band’s forthcoming project, due out next year.

Listen to “December Last Call” via YouTube

Stream “December Last Call”

"The song came out of a wild night at the bar where I stayed a few hours past what I should have,” shares guitarist Joe Kollar who wrote the song. “The funny part is that I don’t fully remember coming up with the tune but thanks to voice memos, I must’ve hit record during my drunken stupor and captured what became the melody and chords. I say melody because the words at that point were nothing but mumbles. The next day, I woke up hazy and saw my guitar and phone sitting close by so I hit play on the last voice memo, then my mumbles came in and I set out to put some lyrics from whatever memories I could manage from that night. And so, ‘December Last Call’ is a drinking song, so much so I don’t remember writing it.”

"December Last Call" marks the band's first new music release since their 2019 critically acclaimed album Tree of Shade, which garnered praise from No Depression, PopMatters and more upon its release. Since debuting on the Americana music scene in 2009, the band has spent almost 15 years honing their live shows which have earned them a devoted underground fanbase. Over the years, Driftwood’s songs and arrangements have grown out of time spent on the road, weathering the ups and downs of their journey together.

Later this month, Driftwood will embark on a series of show dates in New York, Pennsylvania and West Virginia – a full list of dates can be found below or at driftwoodtheband.com/tour.

Hailing from Upstate New York, Driftwood is made up of Dan Forsyth (guitar/vocals), Joe Kollar (guitar/vocals), Claire Byrne (violin/vocals), Joey Arcuri (bass/vocals) and Sam Fishman (drums).

Driftwood Tour Dates

November 18 - Rochester, NY - Sticky Lips

November 24 - Apalachin, NY - Ransom Steele Tavern

November 25 - Apalachin, NY - Ransom Steele Tavern

December 8 - Wellsboro, PA - Deane Center-Performing Arts

December 30 - Homer, NY - Homer Ctr for the Arts

February 10 - Oswego, NY - Music Hall

February 16 - Thomas, WV - Purple Fiddle

February 17 - Thomas, WV - Purple Fiddle

February 24 - Walton, NY - Walton Theatre

Thu, 11/09/2023 - 5:36 pm

Today, New York-based, folk-pop artist Mackenzie Shivers shared a new single and music video, “a cautionary tale,” the lead track from her forthcoming album primrose was in season which is due in Spring 2024. On the album, Shivers boldly gives a glimpse into her healing process after losing her first pregnancy, triumphantly capturing a depth of feeling that illuminates both her resilience and vulnerability. Electric guitar, a mix of dance beats and organic drums, and Shivers’s trademark piano bolster her most adventurous work to-date.

With the ethereal pop opener “a cautionary tale,” Shivers examines who she is in the wake of loss and transition, capturing an internal struggle to confess that she’s not always as put together as she seems, all while pulling the listener into a stunning musical terrain.

Watch “a cautionary tale” Music Video

“The creation of ‘a cautionary tale’ and the subsequent nine tracks that would make up my upcoming album was creative and buoyant, bringing joy to a very difficult time in my life,” states Shivers. “I was struggling to get pregnant and stay pregnant. I felt like the odds were against me, like I couldn't gain control of my own life. But in the studio, I felt like I had some control over what I was making, and I was also having a blast.

“For ‘a cautionary tale,’ we layered organic textures like pump organ and pots and pans with drum beats and samples to create something hi-fi yet handmade. Driving my foot into the organ petal felt like a meditation, and with each press I let go of a little bit of anger. I felt a little more like myself with each piano take. And what took shape was my own version of dream pop, a world in which I could both escape and process a lot of difficult feelings.”

When Mackenzie Shivers creates music, it’s as if it demands to be heard. The Hudson Valley based singer-songwriter began writing music and playing piano when she was four years old, telling her mother she had “music locked inside of her that needed to come out.” Her writing provides a conduit for complex emotions, untangling as they poke through the surface, yearning to be explored and set free.

Her fourth full-length album primrose was in season, produced by frequent collaborator Kevin Salem (Rachel Yamagata, Emmylou Harris), is vivid feminine alt-folk, a powerful portrait of inner fragility and strength that’s at once gossamer and deeply profound. The ten new compositions intertwine magic with grief, illustrating the two can, and often do, co-exist. Shivers’ sound is constantly evolving yet instantly recognizable.

With primrose was in season, she proves her artistry is as versatile and definitive as the title’s early spring bloom. She is someone who is unafraid to grow, to dig, to unearth all sides of herself. The self-portrait she paints is honest and flawed, shimmering and spirited. The title, a lyric from the gritty and grooving “Hush Now”, holds meaning beyond its wistful beauty. The primrose, signaling the end of winter with its vast array of colors, has a reputation for healing wounds.
 
“This album has been an empowering way for me to move forward,” says Shivers. “And I hope it gives listeners a space to feel any and all things. Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned from this process, it’s that nothing you feel is wrong. Feeling all emotions is the only way to move through them. Maybe even towards joy.”

Fri, 11/10/2023 - 10:26 am

In the opening moments of The Steel Wheels’ new album, frontman/songwriter Trent Wagler sings, “This year hit like a hurricane. The winds they knocked me over.” From the jump, you understand that this record represents a series of poignant realizations for the long-running Virginia-based folk band. Those lines appear on opening track “Wait On You,” which comes out today ahead of the February 9 release of Sideways via the band’s own Big Ring Records. An anthemic track with arena-ready drums and soft banjo, “Wait On You” was featured at Relix who said, “As the sails of ‘Wait On You’ unfurl they unite and harmonize over the lyrics ‘They’re not going to wait on you’ before Wagler takes the lead with sweeping twangy words of wisdom moving the ship forward.”
 
The band also announced a special Winter Roots Concert on January 20, an offshoot of their highly-successful and long-running Red Wing Roots Music Festival, featuring an album release show with Lindsay Lou at Wilson Hall in Harrisonburg, VA. See more information HERE. Also next year the group will appear on NPR’s Mountain Stage, taping live on January 14, and will perform at the Folk Alliance International Conference in Kansas City, MO on February 22 and 23. Find a full list of tour dates below or visit http://thesteelwheels.com/tour.

Listen to “Wait On You”

Watch the official “Wait On You” lyric video via YouTube

Pre-order/pre-save Sideways

“This song is a very clear story from the end of my first year of college: I was supposed to take a train from VA back to KS with two friends, but we missed the train,” shares Wagler. “Somehow it all felt like in that time, we believed we were the young experts. We had just read Noam Chomsky, we saw the Matrix, and the world NEEDED to listen to us, with all our big deep thoughts, and yet, we were being met with the reality check that trains don’t wait for scatter-brained philosophy students simply because they have too many ideas in their head to bother securing the details required to make the train.”

Nearly 20 years after debuting as an all-acoustic string band, the group has crafted an expansive album that mixes their knack for crafting big pop hooks with traditional Appalachian instrumentation. Produced by Sam Kassirer (Lake Street Dive, Langhorne Slim, Josh Ritter), Sideways takes influence from psychedelic rock, pop, jam and more to expand upon their distinct, well-established sound. From the LP, the band has shared singles “Easy On Your Way” and “Baby Gone,” which have attracted attention from No Depression, Folk Alley, The Americana Music Association and more.

Over twelve tracks, the LP covers heavy topics such as grief, loss, fatherhood and mental health with many of the songs being penned in response to direct events in the band members’ lives. Namely, the sudden passing of fiddle player and vocalist Eric Brubaker’s young daughter to a rare disease. And during the pandemic, when Wagler’s child faced a mental health crisis that left Wagler and his family feeling lost and frustrated inside our country’s mental health care system.

The band first collaborated with Kassirer on 2017’s critically-acclaimed Wild As We Came Here, which features the now ubiquitous alt-folk battlecry “Scrape Me Off the Ceiling.” Through it all, The Steel Wheels have been about creating a community and sharing the experience of humanity with one another. Nowhere is this more evident than at the Red Wing Roots Music Festival, founded by the band in 2013. Taking place in the Shenandoah Valley, the festival has featured performances by Lucinda Williams, Billy Strings, Steve Earle & The Dukes, The Mavericks, Old Crow Medicine Show, Robert Earl Keen, Dawes, Trampled By Turtles and more. Outside of their own festival, the band is known for their road-dog mentality, spending many nights of the year on the road.

The Steel Wheels is Trent Wagler (vocals/guitar/banjo), Jay Lapp (guitar/mandolin/vocals), Eric Brubaker (fiddle/vocals), Kevin Garcia (drums/percussion/mallet keyboards), Jeremy Darrow (bass).

The Steel Wheels 2023 + 2024 Tour Dates
November 10 – Prosser, WA @ Brewminatti
November 13 – Phoenix, AZ @ Musical Instrument Museum
November 14 – Tucson, AZ @ Hotel Congress
November 15 – Santa Fe, NM @ Tumbleroot Brewery
January 12 – Thomas, WV @ Purple Fiddle Cafe
January 13 – Thomas, WV @ Purple Fiddle Cafe
January 14 – Morgantown, WV @ Mountain Stage
January 15 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Club Cafe
January 16 – Cleveland, OH @ Music Box Supper Club
January 17 – Columbus, OH @ Woodlands Tavern
January 18 – Durham, NC @ Fletcher Hall Auditorium *
January 19 – Charlotte, NC @ Neighborhood Theatre
January 20 – Harrisonburg, VA @ Wilson Hall
February 1 – Atlanta, GA @ City Winery
February 2 – Elkin, NC @ Reeves Theater
February 21 – Wichita, KS @ The Wave
February 22-23 – Kansas City, MO @ Folk Alliance International
February 24 – Cedar Rapids, IA @ CSPS Hall
February 25 – Minneapolis, MN @ The Parkway Theater
February 27 – Milwaukee, WI @ Shank Hall
February 28 – Berwyn, IL @ FitzGerald’s
February 29 – Ann Arbor, MI @ The Ark
March 1 – Cincinnati, OH @ The Ludlow Garage
March 2 – Asheville, NC @ The Salvage Station *
March 3 – Columbia, SC @ The Senate *

* - with Donna The Buffalo

Sideways Tracklist
1. Wait On You
2. Baby Gone
3. Sideways
4. Hero
5. Enemy
6. Dissidents
7. Good Thing Now
8. Morning Before Long
9. Yes I Know
10. Past The Breaks
11. Easy On Your Way
12. Just Like The Wind

Wed, 11/15/2023 - 3:05 pm

Today, Petaluma Records has announced the upcoming release of Amghar: The Godfather of Tuareg Music - VOL. 1, a compilation of both classic and previously unreleased tracks from Abdallah Oumbadougou, the Saharan-born Tuareg guitarist and originating architect of the “Desert Blues” genre. Also shared today is the previously unreleased track “Le Iwitian Ourgueza Gueakelen,” whose circular rhythms and joyous vocals provide a fitting introduction to Oumbadougou’s musical legacy. The album is currently available for pre-order HERE.

Listen: Abdallah Oumbadougou - “Le Iwitian Ourgueza Gueakelen”

Watch the trailer for Amghar: The Godfather of Tuareg Music - VOL. 1 via YouTube

For the first time, Petaluma Music’s Amghar: The Godfather of Tuareg Music, vol.1 compiles studio recordings that Oumbadougou made in the first decade of the 21st century — many of them previously unreleased — to create a broad survey of the work by a revolutionary guitarist and community leader whose impact in spreading awareness of Touareg music and culture cannot be overstated. Over the course of his remarkable life, Oumbadougou would find himself literally fighting for his people’s culture, identity, and right to be heard.

Abdallah Oumbadougou is a seminal figure in development of what western audiences have termed “Desert Blues” or “Tuareg rock,” but which was originally known as assouf, which means ‘longing’, ‘nostalgia’, ‘the pain that isn’t physical’ in Tamashek, the language of the Tuareg; a large and diverse group of peoples that inhabit the Sahara in a vast area across northwest Africa. “Amghar,” a Berber term for a tribal chief, is a reference to the artist’s role in shaping this culture, and makes the case for Oumbadougou’s legendary status as an instrumentalist, narrator, and a worthy rock guitar hero. Indeed, Oumbadougou’s early work was instrumental in influencing current successful Tuareg musicians such as Mdou Moctar, Bombino and Tinariwen.

“He was like a father to us. Like our first inspiration,” says the Nigerien Tuareg superstar Bombino, who became a close friend in the mid 1990s, when Abdallah’s star was at its zenith. “He was among the first musicians to bring us the music and take it far. He made it possible for us to know it.”

Born in 1962 in a tiny village deep in the deserts of northern Niger, Oumbadougou came of age during a period of social transition, environmental challenges, and political strife for the nomadic peoples of the Sahara. As a teenager he managed to learn guitar while working as a miner, and soon became a regular performer at impromptu gatherings of mineworkers and weddings in the local village. However the region was plunged into drought, and he soon found himself among the vast number of nomadic people of the region now displaced and dispossessed.

In 1985 Oumbadougou traveled to Libya to undergo military training along with thousands of other Tuareg groups who had accepted Muammar Gaddafi’s invitation to form a revolutionary Saharan legion. Music was an integral part of the cohesion of these training camps, and it was here that Oumbadougou encountered a nascent version of Tinariwen, another group who would famously go on to popularize the Desert Blues genre. Oumbadougou established his own group of musicians under the name Takrist Nakal, which means “rebuilding of the country” and thus reflected the aspirations of a unified Tuareg movement. Though their style of music differed to that of Tinariwen’s, with greater ornamentation and rolling rhythms that were more loping and upbeat, Takrist Nakal was an essential part of the same machinery of musical revolution, and the two bands forged a friendship that would last a lifetime.

“I remember Abdallah when we were young.” Recalls Ibrahim ag Alhabib, one of the founders of Tinariwen. “He was part of the story, and maybe there’s not enough about him now in the history. I think he gave something important to the Tamashek, a message for the young.”

In 1990 he fought with a revolutionary militia against Niger’s authoritarian regime as part of the wider Tuareg Rebellion taking place across Niger and Mali which endured for 5 years. By this time, the music of Abdallah Oumbadougou had spread across the North African region organically, often through cassette tapes recorded on boomboxes and spread through word of mouth. Utilizing both his guitar and Kalashnikov rifle in equal measure to fight for his people, Oumbadougou had become the voice of the rebellion to such an extent that his music was a valuable recruitment tool and being found in possession of a cassette by Takrist Nakal or Tinariwen was often considered grounds for imprisonment.

Amghar: The Godfather of Tuareg Music - VOL. 1 provides an essential overview of the music that Oumbadougou was ultimately able to record in a formal studio setting, and reveals the vibrant sound of contemporary Tuareg songwriting that he himself played an essential role in defining. The brand new portrait of Abdallah that adorns the album’s cover art was created by Nigerian-born illustrator Diana Ejaita, an accomplished fine artist and illustrator who has created 8 covers for the New Yorker magazine.

The liner notes of Amghar also provide a crucial element for appreciating these recordings, The France-based Ishamar guitarist Moussa Bilalan provided lyrical translations for the songs in Tamashek, French and English and thus brings Oumbadougou’s songs to life, showing them to be both front-line reports and poems. Addi2as covered Sahel music for nearly two decades (and at one point managed Tinariwen), apply an incredible historical context, and are a must-read for anyone who cares about the world that made this music, and about the life that Abdallah Oumadougou lived.

The influence that Oumbadougou continues to exert through his music is palpable in these tracks, along with his dedication to singing the story of his tribe. This collection provides a ready entry point for both faithful supporters and new listeners alike to celebrate his work, and opens a new chapter for exploring his legacy.

Amghar: The Godfather of Tuareg Music - VOL. 1 Tracklist:
1. Tigrawahi Talgha
2.  Le Iwitian Ourgueza Gueakelen (unreleased)
3.  Iwouksane
4.  Imidiwan
5.  Nigsar Tenere
6.  He Ténéré (live)
7.  Illilagh Teneré (unreleased)
8.  Dague Oudouniya Zagzag Bass Tchilla
9.  Sarho Nawan (unreleased)
10. Afrikya
11. Tenertin Taranin Tenertine Ounour Nin
12. Tabsiq Dalet (unreleased)
13. Wirhin Titiwé Tchi Higren (unreleased)
14. Afrikya (Live / unreleased)

Sat, 12/16/2023 - 12:00 pm

Today, JAZZ HOUSE KiDS announced world-renowned singer-songwriter, musician, actor, activist and 17-time GRAMMY-winner Sting as the special guest for the RALPH PUCCI  8th Annual Jazz Set, The Lowdown: Conversations with Christian® on February 28, 2024.

Sting will perform alongside eight-time GRAMMY-winning virtuosic bassist and JAZZ HOUSE Artistic Director Christian McBride. The two will deliver a once-in-a-lifetime evening, performing together, trading stories, and celebrating Sting’s illustrious career.

McBride and Sting have collaborated frequently over the years, including on Sting’s albums All This Time and Sacred Love, McBride’s album Conversations with Christian, and for a number of live performances. “I’m so glad Sting was able to join us for the annual RALPH PUCCI Jazz Set for JAZZ HOUSE in 2024,” says McBride. “He is a dear friend of mine and someone full of knowledge and wisdom. I was honored to play bass on his album All This Time and in his touring band and look forward to playing with him again in February.”

The intimate evening will benefit JAZZ HOUSE KiDS, an nationally acclaimed nonprofit that uses the power and legacy of jazz to give young people an artistic edge, providing access to world-class education and performances, no matter what their financial constraints.  A talented group of JAZZ HOUSE students will join Sting and McBride for the finale.

The backdrop of this exceptional musical pairing is the ultra-modern 30,000 square-foot New York City showroom and warehouse of RALPH PUCCI International, a special setting filled with limited-edition designs, from furniture to lighting to art. This is the eighth year Ralph Pucci has partnered with JAZZ HOUSE to turn the New York luxury furniture design gallery into a world-class jazz club. McBride’s past special guests have included Norah Jones, Wynton Marsalis, Diana Krall, Laurie Anderson, Gregory Porter, John Pizzarelli and Esperanza Spalding.

VIP event packages to the RALPH PUCCI 8th Annual Jazz Set go on sale starting Monday, December 18 with patron tickets released mid-January. Information is here.

About Sting
Composer, singer-songwriter, actor, author, and activist Sting was born in Newcastle, England before moving to London in 1977 to form The Police with Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers. The band released five studio albums, earned six GRAMMY Awards® and two Brits, and was inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003.

One of the world’s most distinctive solo artists, Sting has received an additional 11 GRAMMY Awards®, two Brits, a Golden Globe, an Emmy, four Oscar nominations, a TONY nomination, Billboard Magazine’s Century Award, and MusiCares 2004 Person of the Year. In 2003, he was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) by Queen Elizabeth II for his myriad of contributions to music. Also a member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame, he has received the Kennedy Center Honors, The American Music Award of Merit and The Polar Music Prize. Sting has received Honorary Doctorates of Music by the University of Northumbria (1992), Berklee College of Music (1994), University of Newcastle upon Tyne (2006) and Brown University at its 250th Commencement ceremony (2018).

Throughout his illustrious career, Sting has sold 100 million albums from his combined work with The Police and as a solo artist. His acclaimed My Songs World Tour recently resumed with the complete itinerary available here.

About Christian McBride
Christian McBride is an eight-time GRAMMY®-winning bassist, composer, and bandleader. He is the Artistic Director of the historic Newport Jazz Festival, the New Jersey Performing Art Center’s TD James Moody Festival, and the National Jazz Museum in Harlem. McBride is also a respected educator and advocate for youth, and serves as Artistic Director of JAZZ HOUSE KiDS and the Jazz Aspen Snowmass Summer Sessions. In addition to artistic directing and consistent touring with his ensembles, he hosts NPR’s “Jazz Night in America” and “The Lowdown: Conversations With Christian” on SiriusXM. Whether behind the bass or away from it, Christian McBride is always part of the music. From jazz to R&B, and pop/rock and hip-hop/neo-soul to classical, he is a luminary with one hand ever reaching for new heights, and the other extended in fellowship—and perhaps the hint of a challenge—inviting us to join him.

RALPH PUCCI International
RALPH PUCCI International is a luxury furniture, lighting and mannequin company based in New York City. What began as a family business in the 1950s fabricating mannequins has grown to a gallery and showroom regarded as one of the best in the world, with outposts in Miami, Los Angeles and London.

About JAZZ HOUSE KiDS
Now in its third decade, JAZZ HOUSE KiDS transforms lives using the power and legacy of jazz through world-class education and performances that create avenues of access, learning, career development and community building. The organization and students have received more than 150 awards and honors for excellence in jazz and jazz education. Every day of the week through a series of in-school programs in New Jersey and out-of-school programs in Montclair and New York City, JAZZ HOUSE helps young people gain an artistic edge, fostering community leaders and global citizens who help us build thriving communities. JAZZ HOUSE produces 150+ free public concerts per year to audiences close to 150,000, including the organization’s far-reaching cultural signature program, the award-winning MONTCLAIR JAZZ FESTIVAL, the largest free jazz festival in the NYC area, attracting 25,000+ attendees to downtown Montclair each year.

Sun, 12/17/2023 - 12:13 pm

Today, revered producers and multi-instrumentalists Karriem Riggins and Madlib announced a March 1st release date for YHWH is LOVE, their second album together as Jahari Massamba Unit. The full-length will be the official release for Law of Rhythm, a new record label founded by Riggins and music executive Jae Barber. The album announcement comes with the first single “Stompin Gamay.”

Listen to Jahari Massamba Unit “Stompin Gamay”

Gamay grapes are often known for their abundance of production, much like the prolific talents of Karriem Riggins and Madlib. As a preview of their forthcoming album, "Stomping Gamay" elevates the listener with its vibrant harmonies, playful rhythm, and bright melodies brimming with unbridled spontaneity and boundless creativity.

Riggins and Madlib were first introduced nearly 20 years ago by their late mutual friend and collaborator J Dilla, going on to collaborate on Madlib’s 2007 album Yesterdays Universe and together as Supreme Team. Jahari Massamba Unit started as a natural extension of Riggins and Madlib's relationship and mutual appreciation for each other's artistry. The two producers would send beats back and forth until eventually, Karriem didn't have anything new to share. Instead he began sending raw drum loops, which were returned back to him with overlaid beds of harmonies and melodies by Madlib. This was the creation of a new body of work from the two cherished collaborators.

YHWH is LOVE will be Jahari Massamba Unit’s second record, and has been highly anticipated since their first album Pardon My French was released in 2020. Pitchfork said Pardon My French “sounds like experimental jazz and feels like a beat tape,” while Rolling Stone called it “a brand-new LP that sounds like it could have been fished out of a dusty dollar bin.”

YHWH is LOVE will be released March 1, 2024 via Law of Rhythm.

About Karriem Riggins
Karriem Riggins is a renowned jazz musician, producer, DJ, and EMMY Award winner from Detroit, Michigan. With a career spanning over two decades, Riggins has made a significant impact on the music industry with his versatile style and innovative approach to production. Riggins has worked with some of the biggest names in the industry, including Diana Krall, Common, Erykah Badu, Paul McCartney, J Dilla, and Steve Lacy. In addition to jazz, Karriem has received widespread recognition for his contributions to the hip-hop genre. Whether in the studio or on the stage, Riggins continues to push the boundaries of music and inspire a new generation of musicians and artists around the world. Riggins earned a GRAMMY nomination as a producer and drummer on H.E.R.’s 2021 album Back of My Mind.

About Madlib
Otis Jackson Jr., known professionally as Madlib, is an American DJ, music producer, multi-instrumentalist, and rapper. He is widely known for his collaborations with MF Doom (as Madvillain), J Dilla (as Jaylib), and Freddie Gibbs. An enthusiastic crate-digger with a deep reverence for jazz and soul, Madlib branched out into a number of ambitious, engaging solo projects. After hooking up with Los Angeles DJ Peanut Butter Wolf, Madlib did a lot of production for Wolf's Stones Throw label. In 1999 the label released Quasimoto's astonishing The Unseen LP. Doubling as himself and his alter ego Quasimoto, Madlib handled vocals and production duties on the album, a huge critical success. Not resting on his laurels, Madlib followed The Unseen a year later with his Yesterdays New Quintet project. Madlib played all the instruments himself, infusing his exploration of jazz with both style and substance.

Tracklisting:
1. RUBATO LOVE
2. Stomping Gamay
3. Otis' Tambourine
4. ALL THINGS...
5. Anointed Soul
6. Karriem's BOLERO
7. JMU's Voyage
8. Six 8ight (Interlude)
9. The Clappers Cousin
10. Massamba Afundance
11. e11even (Interlude)
12. WITH YHWH LOVE
13. Boppin'
14. Seven Miles to the Oxnard

Thu, 01/04/2024 - 1:21 pm

Petaluma Records has announced the upcoming release of Amghar: The Godfather of Tuareg Music - VOL. 1, a compilation of both classic and previously unreleased tracks from Abdallah Oumbadougou, the Saharan-born Tuareg guitarist and originating architect of the “Desert Blues” genre. Also shared today is the previously unreleased track “Le Iwitian Ourgueza Gueakelen,” whose circular rhythms and joyous vocals provide a fitting introduction to Oumbadougou’s musical legacy. The album is currently available for pre-order HERE.

Listen: Abdallah Oumbadougou - “Le Iwitian Ourgueza Gueakelen”

Watch the trailer for Amghar: The Godfather of Tuareg Music - VOL. 1 via YouTube

For the first time, Petaluma Music’s Amghar: The Godfather of Tuareg Music, vol.1 compiles studio recordings that Oumbadougou made in the first decade of the 21st century — many of them previously unreleased — to create a broad survey of the work by a revolutionary guitarist and community leader whose impact in spreading awareness of Touareg music and culture cannot be overstated. Over the course of his remarkable life, Oumbadougou would find himself literally fighting for his people’s culture, identity, and right to be heard.

Abdallah Oumbadougou is a seminal figure in development of what western audiences have termed “Desert Blues” or “Tuareg rock,” but which was originally known as assouf, which means ‘longing’, ‘nostalgia’, ‘the pain that isn’t physical’ in Tamashek, the language of the Tuareg; a large and diverse group of peoples that inhabit the Sahara in a vast area across northwest Africa. “Amghar,” a Berber term for a tribal chief, is a reference to the artist’s role in shaping this culture, and makes the case for Oumbadougou’s legendary status as an instrumentalist, narrator, and a worthy rock guitar hero. Indeed, Oumbadougou’s early work was instrumental in influencing current successful Tuareg musicians such as Mdou Moctar, Bombino and Tinariwen.

“He was like a father to us. Like our first inspiration,” says the Nigerien Tuareg superstar Bombino, who became a close friend in the mid 1990s, when Abdallah’s star was at its zenith. “He was among the first musicians to bring us the music and take it far. He made it possible for us to know it.”

Born in 1962 in a tiny village deep in the deserts of northern Niger, Oumbadougou came of age during a period of social transition, environmental challenges, and political strife for the nomadic peoples of the Sahara. As a teenager he managed to learn guitar while working as a miner, and soon became a regular performer at impromptu gatherings of mineworkers and weddings in the local village. However the region was plunged into drought, and he soon found himself among the vast number of nomadic people of the region now displaced and dispossessed.

In 1985 Oumbadougou traveled to Libya to undergo military training along with thousands of other Tuareg groups who had accepted Muammar Gaddafi’s invitation to form a revolutionary Saharan legion. Music was an integral part of the cohesion of these training camps, and it was here that Oumbadougou encountered a nascent version of Tinariwen, another group who would famously go on to popularize the Desert Blues genre. Oumbadougou established his own group of musicians under the name Takrist Nakal, which means “rebuilding of the country” and thus reflected the aspirations of a unified Tuareg movement. Though their style of music differed to that of Tinariwen’s, with greater ornamentation and rolling rhythms that were more loping and upbeat, Takrist Nakal was an essential part of the same machinery of musical revolution, and the two bands forged a friendship that would last a lifetime.

“I remember Abdallah when we were young.” Recalls Ibrahim ag Alhabib, one of the founders of Tinariwen. “He was part of the story, and maybe there’s not enough about him now in the history. I think he gave something important to the Tamashek, a message for the young.”

In 1990 he fought with a revolutionary militia against Niger’s authoritarian regime as part of the wider Tuareg Rebellion taking place across Niger and Mali which endured for 5 years. By this time, the music of Abdallah Oumbadougou had spread across the North African region organically, often through cassette tapes recorded on boomboxes and spread through word of mouth. Utilizing both his guitar and Kalashnikov rifle in equal measure to fight for his people, Oumbadougou had become the voice of the rebellion to such an extent that his music was a valuable recruitment tool and being found in possession of a cassette by Takrist Nakal or Tinariwen was often considered grounds for imprisonment.

Amghar: The Godfather of Tuareg Music - VOL. 1 provides an essential overview of the music that Oumbadougou was ultimately able to record in a formal studio setting, and reveals the vibrant sound of contemporary Tuareg songwriting that he himself played an essential role in defining. The brand new portrait of Abdallah that adorns the album’s cover art was created by Nigerian-born illustrator Diana Ejaita, an accomplished fine artist and illustrator who has created 8 covers for the New Yorker magazine.

The liner notes of Amghar also provide a crucial element for appreciating these recordings, The France-based Ishamar guitarist Moussa Bilalan provided lyrical translations for the songs in Tamashek, French and English and thus brings Oumbadougou’s songs to life, showing them to be both front-line reports and poems. Addi2as covered Sahel music for nearly two decades (and at one point managed Tinariwen), apply an incredible historical context, and are a must-read for anyone who cares about the world that made this music, and about the life that Abdallah Oumadougou lived.

The influence that Oumbadougou continues to exert through his music is palpable in these tracks, along with his dedication to singing the story of his tribe. This collection provides a ready entry point for both faithful supporters and new listeners alike to celebrate his work, and opens a new chapter for exploring his legacy.

Amghar: The Godfather of Tuareg Music - VOL. 1 Tracklist:
1. Tigrawahi Talgha
2.  Le Iwitian Ourgueza Gueakelen (unreleased)
3.  Iwouksane
4.  Imidiwan
5.  Nigsar Tenere
6.  He Ténéré (live)
7.  Illilagh Teneré (unreleased)
8.  Dague Oudouniya Zagzag Bass Tchilla
9.  Sarho Nawan (unreleased)
10. Afrikya
11. Tenertin Taranin Tenertine Ounour Nin
12. Tabsiq Dalet (unreleased)
13. Wirhin Titiwé Tchi Higren (unreleased)
14. Afrikya (Live / unreleased)

Fri, 01/05/2024 - 9:42 am

Today, the Josh Abbott Band shares new single “She’ll Always Be,” a sweetly poetic serenade to Abbott’s eternally free-spirited six-year-old daughter. The song is from the band’s seventh studio LP Somewhere Down The Road, due out on January 26, 2024 via their Pretty Damn Tough label. Over the next two days, the band will play a pair of shows at Fort Worth’s famed Billy Bob’s Texas club before heading out on the road for the Somewhere Down The Road tour next month. For a full list of dates, please see below or visit joshabbottband.com.

Listen to “She’ll Always Be”

Pre-save/add Somewhere Down The Road

Produced by Dwight A. Baker (who also produced 2015’s Front Row Seat) and recorded at his Matchbox Studios in Austin, Somewhere Down The Road is the Josh Abbott Band’s first full-length LP since 2020’s critically-acclaimed The Highway Kind. It also marks the first effort from the band’s newly reconfigured lineup, including longtime members Eddie Villanueva (drums), Austin Davis (banjo), David Fralin (keys) and Jimmy Hartman (bass) as well as recent additions Adam Hill (fiddle) and guitarists Cale Richardson and Kris Farrow. Sonically, thematically and lyrically, the album represents the very beginning of a new chapter for the band.

“For a long period of time I wanted to write hooky three-minute songs that would sound good on the radio, but now I’m writing from the heart more than I ever have,” shares Abbott about the album. “This record came from getting back to who I really am as a songwriter, and there was a lot of exorcizing some of the demons from my past.”

A staple in the Texas music scene since forming in 2006 at Lubbock’s Texas Tech University, the Josh Abbott Band has become an icon in the Lone Star State thanks to numerous successful singles and albums over the last decade plus. The group’s relentless on-stage attitude quickly made it a successful touring act, building out from a Texas band to a regional act to a national crew with a devoted following from coast to coast. Over the course of their career, the group has earned two top 10 debuts on the Billboard country albums chart, two RIAA Certified Gold singles, two top 40 hits including features with Kacey Musgraves and Carly Pearce and upwards of 235 million streams, fully affirming JAB as a formidable force in modern country music.

Somewhere Down The Road tracklist:
1. Astronaut (Intro) (Josh Abbott, Dwight A. Baker)
2. Astronaut (Erik Dylan, Randy Montana, Driver Williams)
3. The Sale (Josh Abbott)
4. What Were You Thinking (Josh Abbott)
5. Guilt of a Man (Josh Abbott)
6. She’ll Always Be (Josh Abbott, Neil Medley, Grant Gilbert)
7. Somewhere Down The Road (Josh Abott, Jon Randall)
8. Back To Normal (Josh Abbott)
9. Closer To You (Erik Dylan, Doug Waterman)
10. Unplug The Jug (Ryan Beaver, Neil Medley, Joe Clemmons)
11. Barstool Boys (Josh Abbott, Erik Dylan, Josh Kiser)
12. Brutus Judas And You (Josh Abbott, Erik Dylan, Brett Sheroky)

Josh Abbott Band Tour Dates:
1/5/24 - Fort Worth, TX - Billy Bob’s Texas
1/6/24 - Fort Worth, TX - Billy Bob’s Texas
1/26/24 - Key West, FL - Mile 0 Fest
1/27/24 - Key West, FL - Mile 0 Fest
2/1/24 - Orlando, FL - House of Blues Orlando
2/2/24 - Charlotte, NC - The Underground
2/3/24 - Atlanta, GA - Terminal West
2/10/24 - Andrews, TX - Ace Arena
2/15/24 - Athens, GA - Georgia Theatre
2/16/24 - Starkville, MS - Rick’s Cafe
2/17/24 - Little Rock, AR - Little Rock Hall
2/22/24 - Springfield, MO - Midnight Rodeo
2/23/24 - Manhattan, KS - The Hat
2/24/24 - Wichita, KS - The Cotillion Ballroom
3/22/24 - Wichita Falls, TX - The Warehouse
4/5/24 - Fayetteville, AR - George’s Majestic Lounge
4/6/24 - Tulsa, OK - Cain’s Ballroom
4/10/24 - Nashville, TN - Exit/In
4/11/24 - Lexington, KY - Manchester Music Hall
4/12/24 - Chicago, IL - Joe’s on Weed St.
4/13/24 - Indianapolis, IN - 8 Seconds Saloon
4/19/24 - Kansas City, MO - Uptown Theater
4/20/24 - St. Louis, MO - The Hawthorn
4/26/24 - Indio, CA - Stagecoach Festival
5/31/24 - Houston, TX - White Oak Music Hall

Wed, 01/10/2024 - 3:00 am

Musical Swiss army knife Alex Jordan makes a lively plea for forgiveness on new single “Saving Grace,” out today. With a robust horn section and wailing vocals, the track arrives with a spirited music video that tells the story of a man desperately trying to win back his girlfriend any way he knows how, directed by award-winning duo Neilson Hubbard & Joshua Britt (John Prine, Jason Isbell). “Saving Grace” is from Jordan’s upcoming album Queen Kerosene (out 3/8 via ALP), produced by four-time GRAMMY-winner Steve Berlin of Los Lobos and mastered by seven-time GRAMMY-winner Jim Scott (The Rolling Stones, Tom Petty, Sting).

Stream “Saving Grace”

Watch the official video for “Saving Grace” via YouTube

Pre-order Queen Kerosene

“Only a few weeks before we solidified plans to make the record, I recall sitting in my bedroom on a cool night and jamming aimlessly on my Taylor until a verse appeared,” shared Jordan about writing the track. “I worked out the remaining parts of the song over the next few nights. I spent perhaps the most time on this song with lyrical edits, working with Kevin Russell (Shinyribs) who served as my lyrical spirit guide for much of the record. Closing the record out with the strong horn section and wailing vocals felt incredibly satisfying. I knew from the first take that this record was going to be a blast to make.”

Queen Kerosene was recorded at The Finishing School in Austin, Texas with a band of Austin-based musicians — including harmony singer Carrie Rodriguez and accordion player Josh Baca (the protégé of Norteño icon Flaco Jiménez). Jordan has already shared the album’s incendiary title track and its nomadic music video, also directed by Hubbard & Britt. Along with second single “Emily,” the tracks have attracted early attention from Guitar World, American Blues Scene, Magnet and Glide Magazine who praised Jordan’s “revelatory musical instincts of The Band alongside the breezy California harmonies of Jackson Browne.”

Jordan and Berlin captured the album's songs in a series of live takes, and the result is a quintessentially American LP composed of barn burners, piano ballads, Americana anthems and adventurous explorations of organic roots music. Like the artists and songwriters the record pays homage to – namely Buck Owens, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Hayes Carll and Robert Hunter – Jordan’s new music is timeless in its sound and its songwriting, and his songs tell the stories of the people who have, who do and who always will inhabit this land we call home.

Jordan may be a fresh face when it comes to his solo career, but he’s spent the better part of the past decade playing with West Coast bands like Midnight North, fronted by Grahame Lesh. His ability to play guitar, piano and Hammond B3 organ landed him onstage with Bob Weir, Phil Lesh and Peter Rowan, becoming a fixture at Lesh’s Bay Area music venue Terrapin Crossroads. Now with a kaleidoscopic LP that pulls from soul, Tex-Mex, groove-driven R&B, Americana, jazz, honky-tonk and heartland rock & roll, Jordan has developed a sound that is entirely his own.

Queen Kerosene Tracklist
1. Queen Kerosene
2. Blue
3. Emily
4. Green Tends To Fade
5. Welcoming Call
6. Made To Fall Easy
7. What’s Become Of Me
8. Tidefall
9. Canyonland
10. Saving Grace

Sat, 01/13/2024 - 11:23 am

Today, Virginia-based Americana pioneers The Steel Wheels have shared new single/video “Hero” ahead of the February 9 release of Sidewaysvia the band’s own Big Ring Records. The music video features the band performing a playful and contemplative dance routine choreographed by Wagler’s daughter and five of her classmates in the dance & choreography program at Virginia Commonwealth University, all of whom also star in the clip. “Hero” was written in response to frontman/songwriter Trent Wagler trying to help one of his children through a mental health crisis, and it tracks his realization that you can't always be the ‘hero’ in everyone’s story — even those you love the most.

Also today, the group will begin their Sideways Tour with two shows at the Purple Fiddle in Thomas, WV. Later this weekend, they will appear on NPR’s Mountain Stage, taping live this Sunday January 14. Find a full list of tour dates below or visit http://thesteelwheels.com/tour.

Watch the official “Hero” video via YouTube

Listen to “Hero”

Pre-order/pre-save Sideways

“‘Hero’ was written to describe the way we all cast ourselves in the leading role of our story, while also touching on some of the particular pitfalls of a white, straight, cis-gendered man trying to ‘help’ or ‘fix’ situations where I just need to be a supporting role,” shares Wagler. “I wrote this song in the midst of trying to help my child in a serious mental health crisis and needing to be ok with it being their story and really taking a backseat to try to listen and understand exactly what they were needing in the moment rather than what I NEEDED to tell them about the situation they were in.”

Nearly 20 years after debuting as an all-acoustic string band, The Steel Wheels have crafted an expansive album that mixes their knack for crafting big pop hooks with traditional Appalachian instrumentation. Produced by Sam Kassirer (Lake Street Dive, Langhorne Slim, Josh Ritter), Sideways takes influence from psychedelic rock, pop, jam and more to expand upon their distinct, well-established sound. Previous single “Wait On You” was featured at Relix who said, “As the sails of ‘Wait On You’ unfurl they unite and harmonize over the lyrics ‘They’re not going to wait on you’ before Wagler takes the lead with sweeping twangy words of wisdom moving the ship forward.” Additional singles like “Yes I Know” and “Easy On Your Way” have attracted early attention from No Depression, Folk Alley, The Bluegrass Situation and more.

The band first collaborated with Kassirer on 2017’s critically-acclaimed Wild As We Came Here, which features the now ubiquitous alt-folk battlecry “Scrape Me Off the Ceiling.” Through it all, The Steel Wheels have been about creating a community and sharing the experience of humanity with one another. Nowhere is this more evident than at the Red Wing Roots Music Festival, founded by the band in 2013. Taking place in the Shenandoah Valley, the festival has featured performances by Lucinda Williams, Billy Strings, Steve Earle & The Dukes, The Mavericks, Old Crow Medicine Show, Robert Earl Keen, Dawes, Trampled By Turtles and more. Outside of their own festival, the band is known for their road-dog mentality, spending many nights of the year on the road.

The Steel Wheels is Trent Wagler (vocals/guitar/banjo), Jay Lapp (guitar/mandolin/ vocals), Eric Brubaker (fiddle/vocals), Kevin Garcia (drums/percussion/mallet keyboards), Jeremy Darrow (bass).

The Steel Wheels 2023 + 2024 Tour Dates
January 12 – Thomas, WV @ Purple Fiddle
January 13 – Thomas, WV @ Purple Fiddle
January 14 – Morgantown, WV @ Mountain Stage
January 15 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Club Cafe
January 16 – Cleveland, OH @ Music Box
January 17 – Columbus, OH @ Woodlands Tavern
January 18 – Durham, NC @ Fletcher Hall at The Carolina Theater *
January 19 – Charlotte, NC @ Neighborhood Theatre *
January 20 – Harrisonburg, VA @ Wilson Hall #
January 31 – Chattanooga, TN @ Barrelhouse Ballroom
February 1 – Atlanta, GA @ City Winery
February 2 – Elkin, NC @ Reeves Theater
February 22-23 – Kansas City, MO @ Folk Alliance International
February 24 – Cedar Rapids, IA @ CSPS
February 25 – Minneapolis, MN @ The Parkway Theater
February 26 – Duluth, MN @ The West Theatre
February 27 – Milwaukee, WI @ Shank Hall
February 28 – Berwyn, IL @ FitzGerald’s
February 29 – Ann Arbor, MI @ The Ark
March 1 – Cincinnati, OH @ Ludlow Garage
March 2 – Asheville, NC @ The Salvage Station *
March 3 – Columbia, SC @ The Senate *
March 21 – Live Oak, FL @ Suwanee Spring Reunion
March 22 – Macon, GA @ Grant’s Lounge
March 23 – Athens, GA @ 40 Watt Club
March 24 – Charleston, SC @ Charleston Pour House
March 26 – Wilmington, NC @ Brooklyn Arts Center
March 27 – Richmond, VA @ The Broadberry
March 28 – Hagerstown, MD @ Live at Hub City Vinyl
March 29 – Lancaster, PA @ West Art
March 30 – Annapolis, MD @ Rams Head On Stage - Matinee
May 22 – Wichita, KS @ WAVE

* - with Donna The Buffalo
# - with Lindsay Lou

Sideways Tracklist
1. Wait On You
2. Baby Gone
3. Sideways
4. Hero
5. Enemy
6. Dissidents
7. Good Thing Now
8. Morning Before Long
9. Yes I Know
10. Past The Breaks
11. Easy On Your Way
12. Just Like The Wind

Sat, 01/13/2024 - 11:51 am

Today, legendary guitarist Carlos Santana released "Let The Guitar Play," a reimagination of his 2021 song "Song for Cindy." Teaming up with producer Narada Michael Walden (Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey), and remix producer Lino Nicolosi, “Let The Guitar Play” brings the original song to new heights  —  Run DMC's Darryl McDaniels delivers a poetic rap over an EDM-style drum beat, serving as a dynamic catalyst for Santana to intricately weave his signature guitar magic.

Listen to Santana “Let The Guitar Play” ft. Darryl “DMC” McDaniels

Watch the Official Video for “Let The Guitar Play”

“Now, more than ever, it is essential that we heal life, people, and the planet,” says Carlos Santana. “This music is assigned and designed to touch your heart, take you out of your misery, and to remind you that you are significant, meaningful, and can make a difference in the world. It is a joy to collaborate with brother Darryl ‘DMC’ McDaniels, producers Narada Michael Walden and Lino Nicolosi, Cindy Blackman Santana, and with our partners at Candid. Our collective vision is to heal and to bring light and peace. Please join us!”

The release features three distinct remixes—The Radio Version, The Soul Radio Version, and The 70's Version—each showcasing Santana's commitment to pushing musical boundaries and extending his legacy to captivate a fresh generation of listeners. As reflected in the music, Santana's work continues to be a beacon of positivity. His mission of healing the planet and touching people's hearts through art reinforces Santana's legacy as an artist committed to spreading positive messages and making a lasting impact on the world.

“Let The Guitar Play” is out now via Candid Records.

About Carlos Santana:
For more than five decades — from Santana’s earliest days as a groundbreaking Afro-Latin-blues-rock fusion outfit in San Francisco — Carlos Santana has been the visionary force behind artistry that transcends musical genres and generational, cultural, and geographical boundaries. To date, Santana has won ten GRAMMY Awards and three Latin GRAMMY Awards, with a record-tying nine GRAMMY Awards for a single project for 1999’s Supernatural (including Album of the Year and Record of the Year for “Smooth”). He has received the Billboard Century Award (1996), was ushered into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1998), received the Billboard Latin Music Awards’ Lifetime Achievement honor (2009), and was the recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors Award (2013). Among many other distinctions, Carlos Santana has been cited by Rolling Stone as #11 on their list of the “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time;” and has joined The Rolling Stones as one of only two bands to have an album reach the Top 10 in every decade since the 1960s. In 2018, he released his first MasterClass, and recently celebrated three epic milestones — the 20th anniversary of his groundbreaking album Supernatural, the 50th anniversary of his legendary performance at Woodstock, and the 50th anniversary of his masterpiece Abraxas. His most recent album, the powerful, energy-infused Blessings and Miracles (2021) features collaborations with Rob Thomas, Chris Stapleton, Steve Winwood, and many others. Santana continues his residency at the House of Blues Las Vegas where he recently celebrated his 10th anniversary of performing in the intimate venue.

Sun, 01/14/2024 - 2:55 pm

Today, groove titans Ghost-Note announced an April 19th release date for their upcoming third album Mustard n’Onions. Led by Snarky Puppy's multi-GRAMMY-winning duo of drummer-keyboardist Robert Sput Searight and percussionist Nate Werth, Mustard n’Onions will be the group’s first new LP in six years, and their debut for Artistry Music/Mack Avenue Music Group. The announcement comes with the masterfully funky first single “Bad Knees,” co-written by the band’s visionary bass player MonoNeon.

Listen to Ghost-Note “Bad Knees”

“It’s a funny story, MonoNeon dislocated his knees three or four times dancing to James Brown,” Robert Sput Searight explains of the track’s origins. “When you listen to the song, it’s a knee jerking groove that makes you wanna dance.”

Also along for the funky ride of Mustard n’Onions is a who’s who of groove-music greats. Most moving is the presence of R&B/jazz hero Bernard Wright (1963-2022), whose performances on three tracks would be some of his final recorded appearances. Other guests on Mustard n’Onions include Karl Denson, founding Robert Glasper Experiment member Casey Benjamin, Snarky Puppy standouts Mark Lettieri and Jay Jennings, pedal-steel luminary Travis Toy, electric-bass GOAT Marcus Miller, blues-rock god Eric Gales, and many more.

Well over a decade ago, Sput and Werth found themselves gigging together in the Texas-rooted fusion powerhouse Snarky Puppy — Werth on his creatively, globally curated percussion setup, and Sput on keys and, later, drums. What developed was a great mutual respect and a musical kinship between the two that bordered on telepathy. At a certain point during their ceaseless tour schedule, Sput’s nightly improvised solo began to signify a new pathway. “I got bored taking drum solos,” Sput says, “so I asked Nate to join me. It was like we were finishing each other’s sentences. We did it so well to where fans started coming up and asking, ‘What was the name of that song you and the percussion player were quoting?’” An idea for a beat CD was hatched, which quickly flowered into Ghost-Note — a group that would function less as a “collective” à la Snarky Puppy and more as a dedicated squad.  

Mustard n’Onions presents a story of the ensemble maturing and solidifying and finding their identity. On the band’s freewheeling 2018 release, Swagism, the lineup was still developing and, as Sput explains, “We didn’t have a sound; we didn’t know what we were gonna sound like.” The music on Mustard n’Onions, he says, reflects the firmed-up character of a unit whose “camaraderie and chemistry” have accrued over countless gigs, and nearly every band member has at least one writing credit. Sput remains Ghost-Note’s primary writer and de facto musical director, but he’s now shaping his music for and with his bandmates.    

Mustard n’Onions is out April 19th via Artistry Music/Mack Avenue Music Group.

Tracklisting:
1. JB’s Out! (Do It Babay) feat. Mackenzie
2. Move With a Purpose feat. Karl Denson
3. Where’s Danny?
4. Origins feat. Keith Anderson
5. PoundCake feat. Casey Benjamin
6. Phatbacc
7. Grandma’s Curtains feat. Eric Gales
8. Revival Island feat. Travis Toy & Mark Lettieri
9. Yellow Dan feat. Marcus Miller
10. Bad Knees
11. Synesthesia
12. Slim Goodie
13. Mustard n’Onions feat. Jay Jennings
14. Origins Reprise
15. Nard’s Right feat. Bernard Wright

Tour Dates:
Jan 13 - Brooklyn, NY - Brooklyn Bowl
Jan 14 - Washington, DC - The Atlantis
Jan 16 - West Hartford, CT - New Park Brewing
Jan 17 - Portsmouth, NH - Jimmy's Jazz & Blues Club
Jan 18 - Cambridge, MA - The Sinclair
Jan 19 - Ardmore, PA - Ardmore Music Hall
Jan 20 - York, PA - Appell Center for the Performing Arts
Apr 5 - Live Oak, FL - Resonate Suwannee
Apr 7 - Houston, TX - Jazz Sundays in The Park Series @ Buffalo Bayou Park
Jul 6-7 - Quincy, CA - High Sierra Festival

Tue, 01/23/2024 - 2:29 pm

Today, the New York-based artist The Bones of J.R. Jones (a.k.a. Jonathon Linaberry) released a cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “My Hometown” that will appear on the deluxe version of his latest album Slow Lightning. Available February 9, the deluxe album will add the cover and brand new song “Out For Blood” to his first full-length album in more than five years that was released last fall. Tomorrow, J.R. will hit the road on an 4-date east coast run making stops in Massachusetts, Brooklyn and Philadelphia before embarking on a west coast tour that kicks off February 7 at Soda Bar in San Diego, CA. Find a full list of tour dates below or visit his website. Additionally, this Sunday, January 28, The Bones of J.R.’s song “Sing Sing” from his 2012 debut album will be featured on S4E3 of True Detective on HBO.

Listen to “My Hometown” via YouTube.
Listen to Slow Lightning

J.R. Jones explains: “‘My Hometown’ was one of the first songs that spoke to me as a kid. I must have been 6 or so and my dad bought me, Born In The USA. I had a little boom box and played that cassette until it warbled and went off its spools. I will never forget what that music meant to me. The way it made me feel. It's probably a big reason why I do what I do.

Truthfully, the Deluxe record came around because I'm proud of the way ‘Out For Blood’ came out. It might be one of my favorite tracks. It feels understated and still direct to me. Something that just sort of settles into itself. The trouble was I couldn't find a home for it in the sequencing of the record, but I knew I wanted to release it. This felt like the best way for it to receive the focus it deserves, while still being an outlier on the record.”

Released on October 13, 2023, Slow Lightning was met with acclaim from American Songwriter, Holler, Magnet Magazine, Glide Magazine, NYS Music and The Alternate Root, who called it ​​”a record that doesn’t sound like anything but itself.” The album’s radio single “The Good Life,” which was released alongside a moving official videostarring actress Maggie McDowell, was praised by Atwood Magazine who proclaimed, “‘The Good Life’ radiates with smoldering folk rock passion and perseverance as The Bones of J.R. Jones echoes our endless individual pursuit in song.”

The Bones of J.R. Jones is a New York-based songwriter, storyteller, visual artist and “one man band who can hold an audience rapt, rendering the cacophony of a stage full of musicians utterly unnecessary” (Noisey). His 2021 EP, A Celebration, was praised by American Songwriter, Under The Radar and Atwood Magazine, who called it “an intimate, visceral outpouring of vulnerability, reflection, connection, and wonder.”

Slow Lightning Deluxe tracklist:
1) Animals
2) Slow Lightning
3) The Good Life
4) Blue Skies
5) Preservation
6) The Flood
7) Heaven Help Me
8) I Ain’t Through With You
9) Love Is A Sickness
10) I’ll See You In Hell
11) Salt Sour Sweet
12) Baby Run
13) Out For Blood
14) My Hometown

Tour Dates:
1/24 - Allston, MA - Brighton Music Hall
1/25 - Philadelphia, PA - Johnny Brenda's
1/26 - Brooklyn, NY - Baby's All Right
1/27 - Amherst, MA - The Drake
2/7 - San Diego, CA - Soda Bar
2/8 - Venice, CA - The Venice West
2/9 - Templeton, CA - Club Car Bar
2/10 - Mill Valley, CA - Sweetwater Music Hall
2/14 - Reno, NV - Cypress Reno
2/15 - Talent, OR - Talent Club
2/16 - Portland, OR - The Showdown
2/17 - Seattle, WA - Madame Lou's
2/18 - Bellingham, WA - Wild Buffalo House

Thu, 01/25/2024 - 3:11 pm

Today, Driftwood has announced their new album December Last Call, due out March 22. December Last Call finds the Americana outfit returning to their Upstate New York roots for a reflective album showcasing the evolution of the band – both as musicians and close friends – over their 15-year career. Along with the announcement, Driftwood has shared their driving new single “Every Which Way But Loose,” which was praised by Magnet Magazine as a “catchy, uncomplicated gem, with its easy sway.”

Listen to “Every Which Way But Loose” via YouTube

Stream “Every Which Way But Loose”

Pre-order December Last Call

“When I wrote ‘Every Which Way But Loose,’ I was listening to a lot of Eric Clapton’s Slowhand,” says guitarist and vocalist Dan Forsyth. “I love the production on that album and I would put it on the record player five times a day. There was one song in particular that was resonating with me at the time and I wanted to capture a similar feeling. I wrote it quick but brought it to the band a few years later. Most of the album was recorded when I introduced it, but the recording went down really quick and easy and the fun stuck to tape. So it made the cut.”

“Every Which Way But Loose” follows “December Last Call,” the rowdy title track of Driftwood’s upcoming album that garnered praise last fall including Holler, the Americana Music Association and Glide Magazine who noted, “This is the kind of big-hearted roots rocker that is meant to be cranked up.” Self-produced and recorded in the basement studio of guitarist Joe Kollar's family home, December Last Call is a full-circle moment for a band who grew up making music together in that very same space. The new album is a reflective snapshot of the group over the last 15 years – documenting everything from childhood memories to navigating parenthood. Sonically, December Last Call is Driftwood’s most expansive effort yet, featuring a wide palette of anthemic guitar-laden rock tracks as well as more intimate, stripped-down ballads.

December Last Call marks Driftwood’s first release since their 2019 album Tree of Shade, which received widespread acclaim from No Depression, PopMatters and others upon its release. In February, the band will embark on a series of dates in New York, Boston, Washington, D.C., and more cities throughout the spring – a full list of dates can be found below or at driftwoodtheband.com/tour.

Driftwood is Dan Forsyth (guitar/vocals), Joe Kollar (guitar/vocals), Claire Byrne (violin/vocals), Joey Arcuri (bass/vocals) and Sam Fishman (drums).

2024 Tour Dates

February 10 - Oswego, NY - Oswego Music Hall

February 16 - Thomas, WV - Purple Fiddle

February 17 - Thomas, WV - Purple Fiddle

February 24 - Walton, NY - Walton Theatre

March 1 - Woodstock, NY - Levon Helm Studios

March 2 - New York, NY - Hill Country Live

March 8 - Syracuse, NY - Funk ‘n Waffles

March 9 - Syracuse, NY - Funk ‘n Waffles

March 21 - Raleigh, NC - Kings

March 22 - Greensboro, NC - Flat Iron

March 23 - Charlotte, NC - The Evening Muse

April 3 - South Burlington, VT - Higher Ground

April 4 - Boston, MA - City Winery Boston

April 5 - Portland, ME - Portland House Of Music and Events (HOME)

April 19 - Buffalo, NY - Buffalo Iron Works

April 20 - Albany, NY - Lark Hall

May 2 - Washington, DC - Union Stage

May 3 - Philadelphia, PA - MilkBoy

May 10 - Ithaca, NY - Deep Dive

May 11 - Ithaca, NY - Deep Dive

December Last Call Tracklist

1. December Last Call

2. Every Which Way But Loose

3. Just a Kid

4. Float Away

5. Continental Lincoln

6. Up All Night Blues

7. Here at Last

8. Know You’re Mine

9. Stardust

Thu, 02/08/2024 - 2:16 pm

Today, singer/songwriter Cole Gallagher shares new track “Lost Sounds,” co-written with GRAMMY-winning Muscle Shoals legend Barry Billings, produced by Michael Fahey, mixed by seven-time GRAMMY-winner Vance Powell(Phish, Chris Stapleton, Jack White) and featuring 400 Unit members Jimbo Hart and Chad Gamble on bass + drums, both fresh off their Best Americana Album GRAMMY win for Weathervanes with Jason Isbell. The melodic soft folk song finds Cole coming to terms with the suffering and loss in the world, while effortlessly switching between his powerful wail and delicate falsetto. Serving both as a plea for peace and a dedication to his late grandfather (who appears on the single cover with a 3-year-old Cole), the track is a bit of a departure from the more raucous roots rock of his debut EP The Confluence released last summer to critical acclaim.

Listen to “Lost Sounds”

Listen to The Confluence

“‘Lost Sounds’ is my favorite track that I’ve recorded,” shares Gallagher. “I was so lucky to have gotten the chance to write it with one of the local legends of Muscle Shoals, my good friend, Barry Billings. The song is a hopeful and nostalgic sonic call-back to the times of The Byrds’ ‘Turn! Turn! Turn!’ and ‘As Tears Go By’ by The Rolling Stones. I could not be more proud of this track’s message and the production of it, which was masterfully orchestrated by both Michael Fahey and Barry Billings. I am so excited for people to hear this.”

Voted the #2 album of 2023 by Americana Highways readers and steadily climbing the AMA/CDX Top 200 Americana Album and Roots Music Report Charts, The Confluencewas also produced by Powell and features David Hidalgo of Los Lobos on “Chatting Through Steel,” in addition to the same members of the 400 Unit as well as guitarist Sadler Vaden.

The Confluence earned additional acclaim from Guitar World, Ones To Watch, The Bluegrass Situation, Magnet Magazine and Americana UK. The EP featured the first official cover of Bruce Springsteen rarity “Sugarland,” which Springsteen’s team signed off on, as well as “Lines In The Sky”, which was also named a Song You Need to Know by Rolling Stone. Gallagher released a series of videos from the EP, including the black-and-white vampire-romance of “Stumbling In The Dark.”

Last week, Gallagher performed a special fundraiser show for CoachArt, an organization that matches kids affected by serious illness with volunteers who can teach them arts or athletics skills. Watch it HERE.

Fri, 02/09/2024 - 2:16 am

Today, Virginia-based Americana pioneers The Steel Wheels have released new album Sideways via the band’s own Big Ring Records. Produced by Sam Kassirer (Lake Street Dive, Langhorne Slim, Josh Ritter), Sideways is at once a meditation on the nonlinear nature of personal growth and a joyous celebration of life. The band also shared the stop-motion video for the title track directed by Stefan Zeniuk. The abstract clip tells the story of a lonely woman searching for a companion in a vast barren desert landscape and was praised by Holler who called it “extraordinary” and said “…the suitably naïve animation works its magic to transform the music it’s set to, as it further explores the song’s dark undercurrents.” Later this month, the band will play Folk Alliance and will perform at the organization’s International Folk Music Awards before heading back out on the road for their album release tour. Find a full list of tour dates below or visit http://thesteelwheels.com/tour.

Listen to Sideways

Watch the official “Sideways” music video

“It’s beautiful and crushing to be alive sometimes,” shares frontman Trent Wagler. “We aren’t here to sing songs that only cut one way—but if they do, they’ll cut sideways.”

Nearly 20 years after debuting as an all-acoustic string band, The Steel Wheels have crafted an expansive album that mixes their knack for crafting big pop hooks with traditional Appalachian instrumentation. Taking influence from psychedelic rock, pop, jam and more to expand upon their distinct, well-established sound, Sideways covers heavy topics such as grief, loss, fatherhood and mental health, beautifully strung together with a duo of instrumental interludes that at once honor where they’ve been and where they’d like to go.

“We’re more than a string band, what we do has fundamentally changed from four guys around a mic. This was clearest to me when we were writing Sideways. I realized we were being influenced by so much other music, just overall paying attention to a broader palette of sound, not so focused on our own little world.”

The album has already attracted acclaim from No Depression, Relix, Folk Alley, Wide Open Country, The Bluegrass Situation, Magnet, Americana Highways, Glide Magazine and many more.  

The band first collaborated with Kassirer on 2017’s critically-acclaimed Wild As We Came Here, which features the now ubiquitous alt-folk battlecry “Scrape Me Off the Ceiling.” Through it all, The Steel Wheels have been about creating a community and sharing the experience of humanity with one another. Nowhere is this more evident than at the Red Wing Roots Music Festival, founded by the band in 2013. Taking place in the Shenandoah Valley, the festival has featured performances by Lucinda Williams, Billy Strings, Steve Earle & The Dukes, The Mavericks, Old Crow Medicine Show, Robert Earl Keen, Dawes, Trampled By Turtles and more. The 11th annual festival will take place from June 21-23 and will include performances by Kurt Vile & The Violators, Bonny Light Horsemen, Brent Cobb, Amy Helm, Margo Cilker, Lindsay Lou and more.

The Steel Wheels is Trent Wagler (vocals/guitar/banjo), Jay Lapp (guitar/mandolin/ vocals), Eric Brubaker (fiddle/vocals), Kevin Garcia (drums/percussion/mallet keyboards), Jeremy Darrow (bass).

The Steel Wheels 2023 + 2024 Tour Dates
February 22-23 – Kansas City, MO @ Folk Alliance International
February 24 – Cedar Rapids, IA @ CSPS
February 25 – Minneapolis, MN @ The Parkway Theater
February 26 – Duluth, MN @ The West Theatre
February 27 – Milwaukee, WI @ Shank Hall
February 28 – Berwyn, IL @ FitzGerald’s
February 29 – Ann Arbor, MI @ The Ark
March 1 – Cincinnati, OH @ Ludlow Garage
March 2 – Asheville, NC @ The Salvage Station *
March 3 – Columbia, SC @ The Senate *
March 21 – Live Oak, FL @ Suwanee Spring Reunion
March 22 – Macon, GA @ Grant’s Lounge
March 23 – Athens, GA @ 40 Watt Club
March 24 – Charleston, SC @ Charleston Pour House
March 26 – Wilmington, NC @ Brooklyn Arts Center
March 27 – Richmond, VA @ The Broadberry
March 28 – Hagerstown, MD @ Live at Hub City Vinyl
March 29 – Lancaster, PA @ West Art
March 30 – Annapolis, MD @ Rams Head On Stage - Matinee
May 22 – Wichita, KS @ WAVE

* - with Donna The Buffalo

Wed, 02/14/2024 - 10:31 pm

Today, 8-time GRAMMY® Award winner Christian McBride has shared a new single “Philly Slop,” recorded with renowned Bassist and composer Edgar Meyer, from the duo’s upcoming album But Who’s Gonna Play The Melody?. "This was my way of putting in the love for my hometown,” writes McBride. “This comes out of that Philly groove. Edgar is a classical bassist with perfect execution, but when he plays the blues that kid from Oak Ridge, Tennessee comes out."

But Who’s Gonna Play The Melody? explores the vast variety possible with the pairing of two limitless bassists, encompassing diverse original compositions, American Songbook standards, and familiar classics by jazz and bluegrass masters. The album will be released on March 22 via Mack Avenue Music Group, and is currently available for digital preorder here, and will be available as an exclusive 2-LP vinyl Record Store Day Release in April. On release day, McBride and Meyer will perform as a duo at Big Ears Festival in Knoxville, TN.

The Christian McBride Big Band will perform at the 92nd Street Y in New York this Thursday, February 15th. McBride will also host a discussion with author and cultural critic Nelson George about the intersection of artistry and advocacy at the New York Public Library on February 26th. The event will be streamed live, with more information available here.

Listen: Christian McBride & Edgar Meyer - “Philly Slop” via YouTube

In January, McBride and Meyer released the track “Barnyard Disturbance” which draws on both blues and country influences, and finds McBride and Meyer extracting the full range of sonic possibilities from their instruments.

McBride also received acclaim at the 2024 GRAMMY Awards for producing Nicole Zuraitis album How Love Begins, which won in the Best Jazz Vocal Album category.

“Edgar and I come from two different places,” McBride explains. “I come from the jazz and R&B worlds with a little bit of classical, and he comes from the bluegrass and classical worlds with a little bit of jazz. With this album we're meeting each other in uncharted territory.”

McBride and Meyer were initially introduced by their mutual mentor, the legendary jazz bassist Ray Brown. It took nearly a decade before they shared a stage together in 2007 under the auspices of Jazz Aspen Snowmass, the Colorado-based non-profit jazz performance and education organization. The pair quickly discovered that the common ground between their disparate backgrounds was a firm foundation in the blues.

Hundreds of miles separate Meyer’s hometown of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and McBride’s in Philadelphia, but their roots feel intertwined throughout But Who’s Gonna Play the Melody? “The center of our connection is in things that are earthy and funky and rooted in a blues dimension,” Meyer says. “Then it ranges out from there.”

Intimate and raucous, playful and exquisite, gritty and refined – But Who’s Gonna Play the Melody? reveals worlds of influence, experience and inspiration in just two basses. While Meyer is the first to profess that “the bass is a pretty limited instrument,” in his and McBride’s hands it sounds as close to limitless as it ever has.

About Christian McBride:

McBride is renowned as both a globally esteemed artist and one of the most respected and influential advocates and educators in jazz. He’s been awarded eight GRAMMY Awards, garnered acclaim for his poignant ode to the Civil Rights era, The Movement Revisited, and performed at the White House. He leads several acclaimed and diverse ensembles, including the Christian McBride Big Band, the scintillating quintet Inside Straight, and the adventurous New Jawn.

McBride’s most recent album Prime exemplifies jazz greats at the zenith of their powers who insist on scaling greater heights, and received praise from The New York Times, NPR’s World Cafe, Forbes, Jazziz, and many more. In 2023 Christian also performed on NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert Series, released the track “Why Am I Treated So Bad” with Norah Jones and Questlove, and performed on Saturday Night Live with Billie Eilish.

Beyond his own work he’s a tireless champion for jazz’s continued relevance through his work as Artistic Director of the Newport Jazz Festival, host of the NPR radio program Jazz Night in America, Artistic Director of the music education organizations Jazz House Kids and Jazz Aspen, Artistic Advisor for the New Jersey Performing Arts Center and its TD James Moody Jazz Festival, and Associate Artistic Director for the National Jazz Museum in Harlem.

He is a living example of the torch-passing tradition of jazz, having worked and apprenticed with genre icons like Sonny Rollins, McCoy Tyner, Milt Jackson, Chick Corea, Freddie Hubbard, and Ray Brown, as well as giants of R&B, rock, hip-hop, and classical music; while sharing that priceless experience with new generations through his work as a bandleader (rising stars who’ve risen through the ranks of his ensembles include vibraphonist Warren Wolf, pianist Christian Sands, and drummer Ulysses Owens, Jr.) and as an educator.

About Edgar Meyer:

In demand as both a performer and a composer, Meyer has formed a role in the music world unlike any other. He has won five Grammy Awards for his artistry, bridging the realms of bluegrass, classical and folk music in a fashion that appeals to broad audiences and connoisseurs alike. His expansive list of collaborators include many of the most acclaimed figures in contemporary music, including Joshua Bell, Hilary Hahn, Yo-Yo Ma, Jerry Douglas, Béla Fleck, Zakir Hussain, Sam Bush, Stuart Duncan, Chris Thile, Mike Marshall, Mark O'Connor, Christian McBride, and Emanuel Ax.

Tracklist:

    Green Slime
    Barnyard Disturbance
    Bebop, Of Course
    Bass Duo #1
    Solar
    Canon
    Philly Slop
    Interlude #1
    FRB 2DB
    Bewitched, Bothered And Bewildered
    Bass Duo #2
    Lullaby For A Ladybug
    Days Of Wine And Roses
    Interlude #2
    Tennessee Blues

Christian McBride Tour Dates:
02/15/24 - New York, NY - 92nd St Y (Christian McBride Big Band)
02/16/24 - Chapel Hill, NC - Memorial Hall
02/23/24 - Charlotte, NC - Belk Theater
03/06/24 - Durango, CO - Community Concert Hall
03/09/24 - Lone Tree, CO - Lone Tree Arts Center
03/14/24 - 03/15/24 - Orlando, FL - Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts
03/22/24 - 03/24/24 - Knoxville, TN - Big Ears Festival
04/06/24 - Homer, NY - Center for the Arts of Homer
04/07/24 - Arlington, MA - Arlington Jazz Festival
04/09/24 - Pittsburgh, PA - August Wilson African American Cultural Center
04/10/24 - Baltimore, MD - Keystone Korner
04/11/24 - Baltimore, MD - Keystone Korner (Early & Late show)
04/13/24 - Germantown, TN - Germantown Performing Arts Center
05/03/24 - Durham, NH - Paul Creative Arts Center (Christian McBride and Inside Straight)
05/07/24 - 05/12/24 - New York, NY - Blue Note Jazz Club (Early and Late Show)
05/22/24 - Roanoke, VA - Shaftman Performance Hall (Christian McBride and Inside Straight)
05/24/24 - St. Louis, MO - The Sheldon Concert Hall (Christian McBride and Inside Straight)
05/25/24 - 05/26/24 - Cincinnati, OH - Caffe Vivace (With Inside Straight)
07/05/24 - 07/07/24 - Glynde, UK - Glynde Place (Love Supreme Festival)

Sat, 02/24/2024 - 8:47 am

Today, groove titans Ghost-Note released the new funk anthem “Where’s Danny?” from their upcoming third album Mustard n’Onions (out April 19th). Led by Snarky Puppy's multi-GRAMMY-winning duo of drummer-keyboardist Robert Sput Searight and percussionist Nate Werth, Mustard n’Onions will be the group’s first new LP in six years, and their debut for Artistry Music/Mack Avenue Music Group. The vinyl format will be released as a Record Store Day exclusive 2-LP set on limited edition orange/yellow eco mix (100% recycled) vinyl.

Listen to Ghost-Note “Where’s Danny?”

Many of the most extraordinary moments throughout Mustard n’Onions belong to the core Ghost-Note players, and stem from the band’s nearly nonstop life on the road. Take “Where’s Danny?,” with its tour-de-force solo by the group’s youngest member, trombonist Danny Wytanis: The title, a band in-joke, came about after Sput, feeling the effects of psychedelics, couldn’t find his surrogate little bro at a music festival. “We lost Danny for two hours!” Sput chuckles today. “I was like, ‘I haven’t met his parents yet! It would be horrible for me to tell them I lost their kid!’”

Also along for the funky ride of Mustard n’Onions is a who’s who of groove-music greats. Most moving is the presence of R&B/jazz hero Bernard Wright (1963-2022), whose performances on three tracks would be some of his final recorded appearances. Other guests on Mustard n’Onions include Karl Denson, founding Robert Glasper Experiment member Casey Benjamin, Snarky Puppy standouts Mark Lettieri and Jay Jennings, pedal-steel luminary Travis Toy, electric-bass GOAT Marcus Miller, blues-rock god Eric Gales, and the group’s visionary bass player MonoNeon, who co-wrote the first single “Bad Knees.”

Well over a decade ago, Sput and Werth found themselves gigging together in the Texas-rooted fusion powerhouse Snarky Puppy — Werth on his creatively, globally curated percussion setup, and Sput on keys and, later, drums. What developed was a great mutual respect and a musical kinship between the two that bordered on telepathy. At a certain point during their ceaseless tour schedule, Sput’s nightly improvised solo began to signify a new pathway. “I got bored taking drum solos,” Sput says, “so I asked Nate to join me. It was like we were finishing each other’s sentences. We did it so well to where fans started coming up and asking, ‘What was the name of that song you and the percussion player were quoting?’” An idea for a beat CD was hatched, which quickly flowered into Ghost-Note — a group that would function less as a “collective” à la Snarky Puppy and more as a dedicated squad.  

Mustard n’Onions presents a story of the ensemble maturing and solidifying and finding their identity. On the band’s freewheeling 2018 release, Swagism, the lineup was still developing and, as Sput explains, “We didn’t have a sound; we didn’t know what we were gonna sound like.” The music on Mustard n’Onions, he says, reflects the firmed-up character of a unit whose “camaraderie and chemistry” have accrued over countless gigs, and nearly every band member has at least one writing credit. Sput remains Ghost-Note’s primary writer and de facto musical director, but he’s now shaping his music for and with his bandmates.    

Mustard n’Onions is out April 19th via Artistry Music/Mack Avenue Music Group.

Tracklisting:
1. JB’s Out! (Do It Babay) feat. Mackenzie
2. Move With a Purpose feat. Karl Denson
3. Where’s Danny?
4. Origins feat. Keith Anderson
5. PoundCake feat. Casey Benjamin
6. Phatbacc
7. Grandma’s Curtains feat. Eric Gales
8. Revival Island feat. Travis Toy & Mark Lettieri
9. Yellow Dan feat. Marcus Miller
10. Bad Knees
11. Synesthesia
12. Slim Goodie
13. Mustard n’Onions feat. Jay Jennings
14. Origins Reprise
15. Nard’s Right feat. Bernard Wright

Tour Dates:
4/5/24 - Live Oak, FL - Resonate Suwannee
4/7/24 - Houston, TX - Jazz Sundays in The Park Series @ Buffalo Bayou Park
5/10/24 - Pittsburgh, PA - Thunderbird
5/11/24 - Cleveland, OH - Grog Shop
5/12/24 - Rochester, NY - Rochester Lilac Festival
5/14/24 - Detroit, MI - El Club
5/15/24 - Kalamazoo, MI - Bells
5/16/24 - Chicago, IL - Chop Shop
5/17/24 - Minneapolis, MN - The Dakota
6/28/24 - San Diego, CA - Winstons
6/29/24 - Pioneertown, CA - Pappy & Harriets
6/30/24 - Los Angeles, CA - Lodge Room
7/4/24 - Santa Cruz, CA - Moe's Alley
7/6-7/24 - Quincy, CA - High Sierra Music Festival
7/9/24 - Berkeley, CA - Cornerstone
7/11/24 - Seattle, WA - Neptune Theatre
7/12/24 - Portland, OR - The Get Down
7/13/24 - Veneta, OR - Oregon Country Fair

Sat, 03/02/2024 - 2:34 pm

Today GRAMMY-winning UK duo Blue Lab Beats released the double single “Take Time / Guava,” taken from their eagerly anticipated fourth studio album Blue Eclipse (out April 19th via Blue Note Records). “Take Time” features two of the UK’s most singular talents, Mercury nominated Kojey Radical and the sweet soul voice of Daley, while “Guava” features Kaidi, Poppy Daniels, Richie Seivwright and Camilla George. Blue Eclipse heralds an exciting new era for Blue Lab Beats, and the 12 songs reveal the depth and breadth of producer NK-OK, and multi-instrumentalist Mr DM’s musical ambition.

Listen to Blue Lab Beats “Take Time / Guava”

“Whilst working on ‘Take Time,’ we wanted to capture the essence of our song ‘Hi There’ but with a more house arrangement,” says Blue Lab Beats. “We really wanted our brother Kojey Radical on the verse and, as we knew he would, he gives the track a real nice bounce. We then asked Daley to jump on the chorus and again he absolutely kills it with his sweet, smooth melodies over the beat. Daley & Kojey on the same track is just so sooooo beautiful.”

“The energy and bounce grabbed me immediately, and I had such fun layering melodies, stacking harmonies and infusing some soul into the hook and adlibs,” says Daley. “Amazing to have Kojey on the track too, admire him so much as an artist. Looking forward to working more with my Blue Lab boys.”

Blue Lab Beats explains of the origins of “Guava”: “For many years we wanted to capture a song that has the essence of 'Pineapple' – after many attempts NK had a dream of how ‘Pineapple’ came about and every step of the creation of it, that made us look at Samba Mapangala again as ‘Pineapple’ was influenced by one of his tracks and we love the hi-life energy his music brings. Having the amazing Richie Seivwright, Camilla George, Poppy Daniels and Kaidi in the studio to record these incredible horn parts was a blessing.”

Tracklisting
1. Never Doubt
2. Say Wow (feat. IDK, Jay Prince)  
3. Rice & Peas (feat. Kyra, Bnny Hunna, Aidan)  
4. Cherry Blossom (feat. Ben Jones & Parthenope)
5. Sky Paradise (interlude)
6. Wait A While (feat. Amber Navran, Farah Audhali)
7. Sunset In LA  
8. Nights In Tokyo (feat. Kaidi)
9. Take Time (feat. Kojey Radical & Daley)
10. Guava (feat. Poppy Daniels, Richie Seivwright, Camilla George, Kaidi)
11. Blue Eclipse (feat. Poppy Daniels)
12. Brother (feat. Natalie Lindi)

Fri, 03/08/2024 - 7:47 am

Today, Bay Area heavy-hitter Alex Jordan releases his new LP Queen Kerosene via ALP. Produced by four-time GRAMMY winner Steve Berlin of Los Lobos and mastered by seven-time GRAMMY winner Jim Scott (The Rolling Stones, Tom Petty, Sting), the album finds Jordan coming into his own as a frontman and songwriter after years of playing with bands like the Grahame Lesh-fronted Midnight North and sharing the stage with icons like Bob Weir, Phil Lesh and Peter Rowan. To celebrate the release of the record, Jordan will play a special album release show at Sweetwater Music Hall in Mill Valley on March 14 with a slew of special guests including Berlin.

Stream Queen Kerosene

Queen Kerosene was recorded at The Finishing School in Austin, Texas with a band of Austin-based musicians — including harmony singer Carrie Rodriguez who also played violin and fiddle and accordion player Josh Baca (the protégé of Norteño icon Flaco Jiménez). Prior to today’s release, Jordan shared the album’s incendiary title track and its nomadic music video, directed by award-winning duo Neilson Hubbard & Joshua Britt (John Prine, Jason Isbell). The duo also directed the spirited music video for most recent single “Saving Grace.” The LP has already garnered acclaim from Guitar World, American Blues Scene, Americana Highways, Glide Magazine and Magnet who praised the album’s “bluesy rock consistency and distinct pop sensibility.”

Jordan and Berlin captured the album's songs in a series of live takes, and the result is a quintessentially American LP composed of barn burners, piano ballads, Americana anthems and adventurous explorations of organic roots music. Like the artists and songwriters the record pays homage to – namely Buck Owens, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Hayes Carll and Robert Hunter – Jordan’s new music is timeless in its sound and its songwriting, and his songs tell the stories of the people who have, who do and who always will inhabit this land we call home.

Jordan may be a fresh face when it comes to his solo career, but he’s spent the better part of the past decade playing with West Coast bands like the aforementioned Midnight North. His ability to play guitar, piano and Hammond B3 organ landed him onstage with Weir and Lesh, becoming a fixture at the latter’s Bay Area music venue Terrapin Crossroads. Now with a kaleidoscopic LP that pulls from soul, Tex-Mex, groove-driven R&B, Americana, jazz, honky-tonk and heartland rock & roll, Jordan has developed a sound that is entirely his own.

Queen Kerosene Tracklist
1. Queen Kerosene
2. Blue
3. Emily
4. Green Tends To Fade
5. Welcoming Call
6. Made To Fall Easy
7. What’s Become Of Me
8. Tidefall
9. Canyonland
10. Saving Grace

Tue, 03/19/2024 - 9:30 am

Today, six-time GRAMMY-winning musician, producer, composer, and Blue Note Records President Don Was announced his new group Don Was and The Pan-Detroit Ensemble. Made up of stellar jazz musicians from his hometown, the band features longtime collaborators including Blue Note Records artist Dave McMurray on sax and Eminem’s Oscar-winning collaborator keyboardist Luis Resto. The band’s first US tour kicks off this May (full tour routing below).

Watch Don Was and The Pan-Detroit Ensemble Live In Studio

“When the opportunity came to put together a new band, the message was clear to me: go back to Detroit where I came from, be who I am, play like who I am and team up with some like-minded individuals,” says Was. In addition to McMurray and Resto, band members include trombonist Vincent Chandler, trumpeter John Douglas, drummer Jeff Canaday, percussionist Mahindi Masai, guitarist Wayne Gerard, and vocalist Steffanie Christi’an. “There’s a unique sound and feel to Detroit that permeates the music in a way that resonates all over the globe,” Was continues. “There is a rawness, a lack of pretension and an unmistakable, underlying groove that reflects the people and culture of the entire city.”

Inspired by the music of John Lee Hooker, Donald Byrd, Joe Henderson, George Clinton, Mitch Ryder, The Stooges, Electrifying Mojo, and more, The Pan-Detroit Ensemble will perform a mix of new originals, interpretations of songs written by artists like Yusef Lateef, Olu Dara, and Henry Threadgill, and of course updated cuts from albums that Don recorded with his Orquestra Was and Was (Not Was).

“I’ve been chasing a sound in my head for the last 30 years,” explains Was. “It’s jazzy and improvisational, but also glued together with a sinewy R&B groove. It’s not slick or smooth — it’s a very raw, honest, Detroit kind of thing. The experiences I’ve had touring with Bobby Weir over the last six years, along with what I’ve learned from the artists on the Blue Note roster have pointed the way towards realizing that sound; The Pan Detroit Ensemble finally manifests that ‘thing’ I’ve been pursuing. The intention is to make communicative music that gets under the listener’s skin and brings them some joy, comfort and understanding in deeply troubled times. It’s all connected.”

“This tour is just the start,” Was asserts. “I know we’ve got some special chemistry going on in this band, and I can’t wait to see what it evolves into. The plan is to keep learning and growing until we drop… It’s too late to turn back now!”

Tour Dates:
5/21 - Minneapolis, MN - Dakota
5/22 - Evanston, IL - SPACE
5/24 - Detroit, MI - Orchestra Hall
5/25 - Cincinnati, OH - Memorial Hall
5/26 - Cumberland, MD - Delfest
5/28 - Red Bank, NJ - The Vogel at Count Basie Center
5/30 - Washington, DC - The Hamilton Live
5/31 - New York, NY - City Winery
6/2 - Ardmore, PA - Ardmore Music Hall

About Don Was

Music has always loomed large in the life of Don Was. Born in Detroit in 1952, he has enjoyed a multi-faceted career as a musician, record producer, music director, film composer, documentary filmmaker and radio host. Since 2011, he has also served as President of the venerated jazz label, Blue Note Records.

For his work as a record producer, he has won six Grammy Awards – including Album of the Year in 1989 for Bonnie Raitt’s Nick of Time and Producer of the Year in 1994. Records produced by Was have sold nearly 100 million albums for artists ranging from The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, and Willie Nelson to The B-52's, Wayne Shorter, John Mayer and Charles Lloyd. In 1995 he produced and directed a documentary about the life of Brian Wilson, I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times, that won the San Francisco Film Festival’s Golden Gate Award. As a film composer, he won the 1994 British Academy Award (BAFTA) for Best Original Score in recognition of his work on the film Backbeat. He won the 2014 Emmy Award for Outstanding Music Direction for his work on the CBS TV special The Beatles: The Night That Changed America. In 2018 Don was invited to join Grateful Dead guitarist Bob Weir to form the Wolf Brothers. They continue to consistently tour the US.

In 2011 Was became President of the iconic jazz label Blue Note Records. He fiercely protects the company’s 85 year-old legacy, meticulously caretaking this revered catalog of Black American Music. This includes maintaining the availability and quality of vinyl reissues in the Tone Poet and Classic Jazz audiophile release series. He also signs and produces many of the label’s recent roster of artists including, Robert Glasper, Charles Lloyd, Wayne Shorter, Dr Lonnie Smith, Gregory Porter and Jason Moran.

Don’s deep Detroit roots keep him anchored to the city; for the last 15 years he has music directed and played bass in the Don Was Detroit All Star Revue concerts, part of Detroit's annual diversity festival, The Concert of Colors. From 2009-2012 Don hosted a weekly Sirius XM radio show on the Outlaw Country channel called The Motor City Hayride. Since 2021, he co-hosts a weekly, live radio show on Detroit’s NPR station, WDET-FM called The Don Was Motor City Playlist. Don is also the voice of Neville the Dog in the hit Amazon Prime Video children's show, Pete the Cat.