Joni Mitchell’s upcoming live album, Joni Mitchell At Newport, is set to drop July 28, and now, fans are getting to hear another track from the record.
The latest is Joni’s performance of the George Gershwin classic “Summertime,” which was actually the first song she sang during the Joni Jam at the 2022 Newport Folk Festival, her first live performance in 20 years.
Joni Mitchell At Newport, produced by Joni and Brandi Carlile, features all the performances from the onstage Joni Jam. In addition to Carlile, Joni was joined by a host of guests, including Carlile’s bandmates Phil and TimHanseroth, Wynonna Judd, Celisse, Lucius’ Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig and Dawes’ Taylor Goldsmith.
Neil Young’s classic live album Odeon Budokan is being released on vinyl for the very first time.
The 10-track album was recorded in 1976 at two different venues: London’s Hammersmith Odeon and Tokyo’s Nippon Budokan Hall. Young’s acoustic performance in London on March 31 of that year is highlighted on side one of the release, while side two features an electric set with Crazy Horse, recorded March 11 in Tokyo. The album features performances of such songs as “Cortez the Killer,” “Old Man,” “After the Gold Rush” and more.
While this is the album’s first vinyl release, its contents aren’t completely unknown to fans. Odeon Budokan was previously released on CD as part of Young’s 2020 Archives Volume II box set.
Odeon Budokan will be released September 1 and is available for preorder now at the Greedy Hand Store at Neil Young Archives as well as all other retailers.
Here is the Odeon Budokan track list:
Side 1
“The Old Laughing Lady”
“After The Gold Rush”
“Too Far Gone”
“Old Man”
“Stringman”
Side 2
“Don’t Cry No Tears”
“Cowgirl In The Sand”
“Lotta Love”
“Drive Back”
“Cortez The Killer”
New Jersey’s native son Bruce Springsteen has teamed with fellow Garden State rockers The Gaslight Anthem on a new song. The Boss is featured on the New Brunswick band’s latest single, “History Books,” which is the title track from their new album, due out October 27.
“When Bruce Springsteen said I should write a duet for us, I think my head exploded,” says Gaslight frontman Brian Fallon. “It will never get old to me that one of the greatest songwriters in the world, and one of my hero’s voices, will forever be captured in a song I wrote at a small wooden desk, in October, in New Jersey.”
You can listen to “History Books” now via digital outlets and watch its accompanying video streaming now on YouTube.
Springsteen is still in Europe with the E Street Band and will play Hockenheim, Germany, on July 21. The tour returns to the U.S. with a two-night stand at Chicago’s Wrigley Field, August 9 and 11. A complete list of dates can be found at brucespringsteen.net.
Queen loves to keep their audience guessing at their live shows; that’s the subject of “Expect the Unexpected,” episode 26 of their weekly YouTube series Queen the Greatest Live.
In the episode, Brian May and Roger Taylor discuss their desire to throw in surprises in order to keep the audience engaged and keep things fresh for themselves on long tours.
Some of the ways they’ve done that is with acoustic sets, medleys of their hits and surprise covers of other people’s tunes. An example of the last approach is shown in the clip via a medley of Elvis Presley’s “(You’re So Square) Baby I Don’t Care,” Ricky Nelson’s “Hello Mary Lou” and the Little Richard classic “Tutti Frutti,” from their shows at London’s Wembley Stadium on their 1986 Magic Tour.
“Why cover other people’s songs? It’s just an instinct. Sometimes you just want to give it that thing which you loved when you were a kid,” May shares. “I suppose it refreshes us and sometimes it’s quite refreshing for the audience. It’s out of the blue. They don’t expect it. It just brings something out of you, you can be a bit more reckless with other people’s material than with your own sometimes. Fun. It’s just fun, I guess.”
Taylor adds, “It’s kind of telling people this is why we love rock and roll, because these songs really influenced us. It’s nice to do those. It keeps our interest up and kind of broadens the show a bit.”
Eight months after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters hosted a star-studded concert version of the band’s classic album The Wall at the site of its former location.
The concert featured a host of A-list musicians, including Bryan Adams, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, Scorpions, Sinead O’Connor, Cyndi Lauper and more. It did not include Waters’ former Pink Floyd bandmates David Gilmour, Nick Mason or Rick Wright, prompting controversy over whether they were ever asked to join.
A month after the concert, Waters released the live album and video, The Wall — Live in Berlin.
Roger Waters has finally stopped teasing fans about his reimagined The Dark Side of the Moon.
The rocker just announced that the album, The Dark Side of the Moon Redux, will be released October 6 and shared the first track from it, his reimagined take on “Money.”
“He’s gone and done it. He’s reimagined it,” Waters is heard saying in a video post on Instagram, adding, “He must be mad.”
Waters first revealed he was rerecording the 1973 album back in February ahead of the album’s 50th anniversary. He shared a tease of his new take on “Us and Them” back in March, explaining his rerecorded album was “a way for me to honor a recording that Nick [Mason] and Rick [Wright] and Dave [Gilmour] and I have every right to be very proud of.”
E Street Band guitarist Nils Lofgren is ready to share his latest solo project, Mountains, which was recorded during the pandemic.
Lofgren tells ABC Audio that while he loved being home with his wife, Amy, and their dogs, “it was the first time in my life that I didn’t do anything kind of professionally,” and he knew he needed to change that.
“So I just really hunkered down and I was kind of excited to write a record, just write what I was feeling,” he shares. “And it really was kind of a great adventure when I got into it.”
Lofgren says the title of the album is reflective of the hard times the world was going through with the pandemic and the divisive political climate.
“Mountains was obvious to me because I felt all of us climbing new mountains, new challenges. Everybody had surprising stuff going on that was very challenging,” he says.
The album features special guests like Neil Young, Ringo Starr, Ron Carter and the late David Crosby, who Lofgren says had wanted to work with him for a while.
“David Crosby, God rest his soul, friend of 55 years, had told me at the end of the last record, Blue with Lou, ‘Let me sing on your record,’” Nils says. Unfortunately, he had already finished that record, which was released in 2019. But then a new opportunity came with the Mountains track “I Remember Her Name.”
Nils says, “I called and said, ‘Look, I got an idea for a song, give me a little bit, I’ll send it to you,’” and Crosby simply replied, “Great. Count me in.”
Meddle Reimagined – A Tribute To Pink Floyd, a new album celebrating Pink Floyd‘s sixth studio release, is on the way, and the latest star-studded collaboration from it has just been released.
The latest is a reimagining of the Meddle track “One of These Days,” featuring Billy Idol guitarist Steve Stevens, Parliament-Funkadelic’s Bootsy Collins, Vanilla Fudge drummer Carmine Appice and Yes keyboardist Geoff Downes. Jyrki 69, of the Finnish goth metal band The 69 Eyes, provides the one spoken line of the song, said by Nick Mason in the original.
This is the second song released from Meddle Reimagined – A Tribute To Pink Floyd, following “San Tropez,” which featured Yes’ Rick Wakeman, Blue Öyster Cult’s Joe Bouchard, ex-Megadeth guitarist Chris Poland, former Slayer drummer Dave Lombardo and Rainbow vocalist Graham Bonnet.
Meddle Reimagined – A Tribute To Pink Floyd will be released digitally and on CD September 1, with the vinyl dropping September 22. It is available for preorder now.
Now that we’re a month into summer, former President Barack Obama is letting us know what he’s listening to this year.
Obama just released his 2023 Summer Playlist. It features a diverse group of songs, including Bob Dylan’s “Everything Is Broken,” The Rolling Stones’ “Soul Survivor,” Pearl Jam’s “Just Breathe” and JacksonBrowne’s “Doctor My Eyes.”
“Like I do every year, here are some songs I’ve been listening to this summer — a mix of old and new,” Obama shares. “Look forward to hearing what I’ve missed.”
Other songs making his playlist this year include: The Pretenders’ “I’ll Stand By You,” boygenius’ “Not Strong Enough,” Aretha Franklin’s “Dr. Feelgood (Love is a Serious Business),” Leonard Cohen’s “Dance Me To The End of Love (Live)” and The Bangles’ “Walk Like An Egyptian.”
The recent documentary What The Hell Happened to Blood, Sweat & Tears? is getting a very special online premiere.
Veeps is set to host the first global premiere of the film on August 20. There will actually be two airings of the movie, at 12 p.m. ET and 8 p.m. ET. Prior to both there will be a special live Q&A with Blood, Sweat & Tears drummer and co-founder Bobby Colomby and the film’s director, John Scheinfeld.
The doc, which was made with the full cooperation of band members, explores their 1970 State Department-sponsored tour of Iron Curtain countries Yugoslavia, Romania and Poland. It features interviews and archival footage from the controversial tour, which resulted in the band suffering backlash from fans.
Tickets for screenings are on sale now, and fans can also purchase a bundle that includes the screening and a copy of the soundtrack.
