Music

Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones is one of more than 20 musicians from seven different countries featured in a video performing a new version of the blues song “When the Levee Breaks.” It premiered this weekend at PlayingforChange.com and on the Playing for Change YouTube channel.

“When the Levee Breaks,” a song written about about the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, was originally recorded by Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie in 1929. Led Zeppelin’s reworked version of the tune appears on the band’s 1971 album, Led Zeppelin IV.

The video, which features various musicians and singers performing their parts in different locations around the world, also includes Jane’s Addiction drummer Stephen Perkins and ex-Allman Brothers Band guitarist Derek Trucks, as well as Trucks’ wife and current band mate Susan Tedeschi on vocals, Robbie Robertson‘s son Sebastian on guitar, singer/songwriter Ben Lee on harmonica, and many others.

The clip also includes footage such natural disasters as flooding and drought.

“It seems that little has changed since 1927, or even 2005 with [Hurricane] Katrina,” Jones says in a statement regarding “When the Levee Breaks.” “It’s still a really powerful track, both musically and lyrically.”

Those who view the video are encouraged to donate money to the Playing for Change Foundation to aid its efforts raise awareness about and support organizations focused on various environmental issues.

The new recording and video of “When the Levee Breaks” is the latest in a series of covers of famous songs by international musicians that have been put together by  Playing for Change organization, which connects people around the world through music.

The “When the Levee Breaks” video originally premiered in December 2021 as part of the Peace Through Music: A Global Event for the Environment virtual benefit event.

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Edgar Winter has released a second advance single from his upcoming album project, Brother Johnny: An All-Star Tribute to Johnny Winter: a rendition of his late older sibling’s 1968 song “Mean Town Blues.”

Edgar’s version of the driving blues-rock gem, which is available to stream now, also features acclaimed contemporary blues guitarist Joe Bonamassa, drummer Gregg Bissonette of Ringo Starr‘s All Starr Band, and longtime John Mayer bassist Sean Hurley.

“Johnny’s most highly respected authenticity was as a blues man, particularly his style of slide guitar, and if there’s one song that best epitomizes and brings all those elements together to represent the many aspects of who Johnny was in the early days, it is ‘Mean Town Blues,'” Edgar writes in the liner notes for Brother Johnny. “Every time I hear it I think, ‘Now that’s Real Johnny Winter.’ It just captures the essence of everything he was.”

As previously reported, Brother Johnny, which Edgar organized as a tribute to his brother, blues-rock guitar great Johnny Winter, will be released on April 15. The album features contributions from an impressive list of guest musicians, including Starr, Joe Walsh, ZZ Top‘s Billy Gibbons, Michael McDonald and John McFee of The Doobie Brothers, ex-Allman Brothers Band members Warren Haynes and Derek Trucks, Foo Fighters‘ Taylor Hawkins, Toto‘s Steve Lukather, and many others.

The 17-track collection, which was curated by Edgar and producer Ross Hogarth, was put together to present Johnny’s artistic evolution. In addition to featuring various covers and renditions of songs by Johnny, it also includes two new originals by Edgar.

The album’s lead single, which was released in January, is a cover of the Chuck Berry classic “Johnny B.Goode” that features Edgar and Walsh sharing lead vocals.

Johnny Winter died in 2014 at age 70.

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The Scorpions have released another advance track from their their forthcoming studio album, Rock Believer, which is due out next Friday, February 25.

The new tune, titled “Shining of Your Soul,” is available via digital formats now, and is one of the few love songs on Rock Believer. Scorpions frontman Klaus Meine, who wrote the lyrics for the track, says it’s about the intensely passionate attraction that one person can sometimes feel for another.

Meine notes that “Shining of Your Soul” is about that emotion you may experience “[w]hen someone enters the room and you sense an aura that makes everything else fade into the background. When the atmosphere changes inexplicably, and one is enveloped in a warm glow. The shining of a soul.”

Musically, the song features verses that offer up a taste of reggae, while the choruses burst forth with the German rockers’ trademark melodic metal sound.

“Shining of Your Soul” is the fourth advance track from Rock Believer that the Scorpions have released, following “Peace Maker,” the album’s title track and “Seventh Sun.”

You can pre-order Rock Believer now.

As previously reported, The Scorpions will kick off their 2022 tour in support of the Rock Believer album with a nine-date Las Vegas residency at the Zappos Theater at Planet Hollywood, running from March 26 to April 16. Visit The-Scorpions.com for more info.

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Paul McCartney just announced a 2022 U.S. tour today, which should help him offset the big loss he recently took on the sale of a New York City penthouse he owned with his wife, Nancy Shevell.

The Wall Street Journal reports the the former Beatles star and his spouse sold their luxury apartment on Fifth Avenue overlooking the Big Apple’s Central Park for $8.5 million, which is $7 million less than they purchased the residence for in 2015.

According to the newspaper, the duplex apartment initially was listed at $12 million in June of 2021, then was reduced to $10.5 million in September.

McCartney and his wife bought the apartment, located at at 1045 Fifth Ave., for $15.5 million, which is about 40% less than they sold it for.

As reported by the Street Easy real-estate website in 2015, the co-op residence boasts wraparound balconies, a living room, library, master bedroom, and master sitting room that all face Central Park above the Jacqueline Onassis Reservoir, plus a formal dining room and “a double height gallery.” The duplex also boasts floor-to-ceiling windows that are 40 feet high.

The New York Post reports that the building was built in 1967 by late developer Manny Duell, who created the duplex for his wife. She lived there until her death in 2014.

McCartney’s upcoming trek, dubbed the Got Back Tour, is scheduled to run from an April 28 concert in Spokane, Washington, through a June 16 show in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

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