Foghat is commemorating the 20th anniversary of 9/11 by offering free tickets to all police officers, firefighters and emergency medical service workers who’d like to attend the band’s concert this September 11 at the Paramount theater in Huntington, New York.
The offer is good for both active and retired workers, and tickets can be reserved by visiting Foghat.biz. The free passes can be picked up at the “Will Call” window at the venue. ID will be required.
Foghat’s 2021 tour schedule runs through a November 27 show in Hiawassee, Georgia, and the band also has a few 2022 dates on the books. Visit Foghat.com for more information.
Meanwhile, the “Slow Ride” rockers released a new live album and concert video last month called 8 Days on the Road in celebration of the group’s 50th anniversary. The collection, which is available as a two-CD/DVD package and digitally, documents a November 2019 performance at the Daryl Hall-owned Daryl’s House club in Pawling, New York.
Keith Urban celebrates all the dreamers, drifters and wildcards out there in “Wild Hearts,” his breezy new summer anthem. The song arrived on Thursday, and it’s the first taste of new music fans have gotten from the singer since he dropped The Speed of Now Part 1 in 2020.
“Has anyone told you you’ll never amount to anything? / You’re just wasting your time chasing / This tail-of-a-dragon kinda dream?” Keith questions in the song’s second verse. “But I’m here to tell you anything can happen in this life / If you got the heart and the passion / And a God-lit fire inside…”
“To all of the lost ones who aren’t really lost ones, this song is for you,” Keith explained on social media this week, referencing one of the lyrics in the chorus.
Keith hasn’t shared any more details about the song, and it’s unclear whether the arrival of “Wild Hearts” signifies more new music ahead.
In addition to putting out his own new album last year, Keith’s been a featured guest on some exciting collaborations recently. He joined Jimmie Allen for a rendition of “Boy Gets a Truck” on the younger singer’s Bettie James Gold Edition album.
Also, when Taylor Swift dropped her re-recorded “Taylor’s Version” of Fearless back in April, Keith sang on two “From the Vault” tracks, duetting with Taylor on “That’s When” and lending some harmonies to “We Were Happy.”
The reissue, which will be available in multiple formats and configurations, will arrive on October 22, and will feature nine previously tracks from that period. One of the unheard tracks, the rollicking tune “Living in the Heart of Love,” has been released as an advance digital single.
All versions of the Tattoo You reissue will feature a newly remastered version of the original 11-track album, which includes hits and gems like “Start Me Up,” “Waiting on a Friend,” “Hang Fire,” “Little T&A” and “Neighbours.”
The Super Deluxe edition will be available as either a four-CD or five-LP vinyl set. It includes the nine unreleased tracks, gathered on one CD or two-LP under the title Lost & Found: Rarities, plus a two-disc live collection dubbed Still Life: Wembley Stadium 1982, featuring a 26-song performance by The Stones at the famed London venue.
Lost & Found also features covers of the 1963 Jimmy Reed song “Shame, Shame, Shame” and Dobie Gray‘s soulful hit 1973 ballad “Drift Away,” as well as a reggae-flavored rendition of “Start Me Up.” The tracks have been enhanced with newly added vocals and guitars.
Still Life: Wembley Stadium 1982 was recorded in June of that year during the Tattoo You tour, and features performances of various Stones classics, select covers like Eddie Cochran‘s “Twenty Flight Rock” and The Big Bopper‘s “Chantilly Lace,” and several songs from Tattoo You.
The box sets also come with a 124-page book featuring hundreds of 200 rare photos, interviews and more.
You can pre-order the reissue now. Here’s the track list of the four-CD version:
CD 1: Tattoo You (2021 Remaster)
“Start Me Up”
“Hang Fire”
“Slave”
“Little T&A”
“Black Limousine”
“Neighbours”
“Worried About You”
“Tops”
“Heaven”
“No Use in Crying”
“Waiting on a Friend”
CD 2: Lost & Found: Rarities
“Living in the Heart of Love”
“Fiji Jim”
“Troubles a’ Comin”
“Shame Shame Shame”
“Drift Away”
“It’s a Lie”
“Come to the Ball”
“Fast Talking Slow Walking”
“Start Me Up” (Early Version)
CD 3: Still Life (Wembley Stadium Concert 1982)
“Under My Thumb”
“When the Whip Comes Down”
“Let’s Spend the Night Together”
“Shattered”
“Neighbours”
“Black Limousine”
“Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me)”
“Twenty Flight Rock”
“Going to a Go Go”
“Chantilly Lace”
“Let Me Go”
“Time Is on My Side”
“Beast of Burden”
“Let It Bleed”
CD 4: Still Life (Wembley Stadium Concert 1982)
“You Can’t Always Get What You Want”
Band Introductions
“Little T&A”
“Tumbling Dice”
“She’s So Cold”
“Hang Fire”
“Miss You”
“Honky Tonk Women”
“Brown Sugar”
“Start Me Up”
“Jumpin’ Jack Flash”
“(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”
It’s the moment Ed Sheeran fans have been waiting for: The singer announced his new album, =[Equals], will be out October 29.
Ed revealed the news in an Instagram Live on Thursday, telling fans this new collection contains 14 tracks. The artwork features a backdrop painted by Ed, surrounded by butterfly imagery symbolizing “new life.”
Ed says the album is the “best bit of work” he’s done so far. It of course follows his previous mathematically-titled efforts, + [Plus], x [Multiply] and ÷ [Divide], as well as 2019’s No. 6 Collaborations Project. You can pre-order Equals now.
“= [Equals] is a really personal record and one that means a lot to me,” Ed says in a statement. “My life changed greatly over the past few years — I got married, became a father, experienced loss, and I reflect on these topics over the course of the album. I see it as my coming-of-age record, and I can’t wait to share this next chapter with you.”
Ed also dropped a new song called “Visiting Hours” on Thursday, which he had previously performed at a memorial for his friend and mentor, late Australian music industry legend Michael Gudinsky. Ed clarified that “Visiting Hours” is not the next single — the second single off the album will be coming out on September 10, following “Bad Habits.” He played fans a snippet of that song during the livestream.
Here is the Equals track list:
“Tides”
“Shivers”
“First Time”
“Bad Habits”
“Overpass Graffiti”
“The Joker and The Queen”
“Leave Your Life”
“Collide”
“2step”
“Stop the Rain”
“Love in Slow Motion”
“Visiting Hours”
“Sandman”
“Be Right Now”
R. Kelly‘s sex trafficking trial officially got underway in Brooklyn, New York on Wednesday.
The 54-year-old singer, born Robert Sylvester Kelly, faces state and federal charges for sex trafficking, racketeering, coercion and other charges related to the alleged abuse and exploitation of six women — three of whom were underage at the time — over the course of 25 years.
In her opening statement, assistant U.S. Attorney Maria Cruz Melendez accused Kelly of being a serial manipulator who used the access granted by his fame to prey on his fans, according to The New York Times, adding that he and his inner circle “used every trick in the predator handbook to present himself as a mentor to girls and their families.”
Once the women entered into relationships with Kelly, Cruz Melendez continued, they were forced to “receive his permission to use the bathroom, having sex with whomever he wanted, whenever he decided” and demanding what Melendez called “absolute obedience.”
“He began collecting girls and women as if they were things,” she continued, “hoarding them like objects that he could use however he liked.”
Kelly’s defense team, led by lawyer Nicole Blank Becker, countered that his accusers had willingly traveled to see Kelly and “knew what they were getting into.” She further alleged that some became spiteful after their relationships became tense and sought “revenge.”
While testifying, one of Kelly’s accusers, Jerhonda Pace, claimed Kelly abused her sexually and physically when she was just 16 years old, forcing her to abide by “rigid restrictions.” When she failed to do so, Pace claimed Kelly “slapped me and choked me until I passed out” and “spit in my face and told me to put my head down in shame.”
If convicted, Kelly could be sentenced up to 20 years in prison.
Carly Pearce considered Patty Loveless an inspiration while crafting her latest hit, “Next Girl.” Then, when it came time to expand 29, the fellow Kentuckian once again looked to the 1996 CMA Female Vocalist of the Year.
But when Carly reached out to the respected traditionalist — who hasn’t released a new album since 2009 — Patty had different ideas about singing on the new record.
“This is a great, funny Opry story, honestly…” Carly explains. “I asked her to be a part of this different song on my album. And she said, ‘You know, I don’t think that that song is right for my voice. But I was watching the live stream of the Opry a couple of nights ago. And you debuted this song about Loretta Lynn. And I really — can I sing on that song?'”
“And I was like, ‘Patty Loveless is asking me if she can sing on a song,'” Carly recalls in disbelief. “And it felt just so meant to be, and if I wouldn’t have [sung] it on the Opry, I don’t know that that would have even happened.”
Patty recorded her part of the duet separately, which resulted in another overwhelming moment for Carly.
“I’ll never forget [writer/producer] Shane McAnally saying… ‘Are you sitting down? I need you to listen to this,'” Carly remembers. “And he sent me her voice on it. And she sang more than we thought she was gonna sing, which was beautiful.”
“And I cried the whole way home, driving,” Carly admits, “because… it felt like my big sister was singing with me.”
Carly and Patty have since “shared many FaceTimes” and “sit up late talking,” having become “dear friend[s].”
You can check out “Dear Miss Loretta” now, ahead of the September 17 arrival of 29: Written in Stone.
Police guitarist Andy Summers‘ first fiction book, Fretted and Moaning: Short Stories, a collection of 45 short tales that all in some way involve a guitar, was published today.
The stories, which are filled with dark humor, ironic twists and whimsy, involve a wide range of characters and scenarios set in various locations and time periods.
Summers tells ABC Audio that featuring a guitar in every tale “was a way for me simply to present myself yet again to the public as a writer, but not…go so far out that [readers] go, ‘We don’t know this guy at all.'”
He adds, “So I’d include a guitar in each story somehow, but it wasn’t really about the guitar. It was about the characters, the way their lives would revolve and be involved maybe somewhat around the instrument.”
While many of the stories focus on rock musicians, Fretted and Moaning also includes tales about country singers, 1930s jazz musicians, gangsters, painters and even cowboys and Indians.
In many of the tales, things don’t end well for the main character.
“The idea is that they’re sort of dark comic tales,” Andy explains. “Most of them have got a tragic ending, you know…[T]hat’s my English sense of irony.”
As for how much of the book is based in reality, Summers notes, “Some of [the stories] are really made up completely. [With others,] someone might [tell me] an anecdote and I go, ‘Oh, let me see if I could…really broaden that out into a thing.”
Three hardcover versions of Fretted and Moaning are available now at AndySummersBook.com — a standard “Classic” edition, a signed “Signature” version and the “Ultimate” edition. Copies of the “Ultimate” version are signed and numbered by Summers and are packaged with a limited photo print.
311 is bursting from the Hive and returning to the road.
After keeping fans entertained with their Live from the Hive streaming series over the past year, the “Down” rockers are launching a real-life tour this Saturday in Camden, New Jersey. As frontman Nick Hexum tells ABC Audio, he reckons the outing will be 311’s “best-looking and best-sounding tour ever.”
“We keep evolving our live production to have really cool visuals and keep making the sound better,” Hexum says. “There’s just always little ways where you can tweak and evolve.”
While they were sidelined from the road, 311’s streaming shows allowed Hexum to rediscover a few deep cuts in the band’s catalog. Between that and not having a new album to promote, Hexum predicts some set list experimentation on this tour.
“The best way to keep the shows fresh is to rotate more different songs, special things that people will be really excited and glad they were there for, and more variation from night-to-night,” he says.
311 will also be taking an in-person/virtual hybrid approach to the tour, as select shows will stream live online, as well.
“There’s plenty of people who for whatever reason can’t travel, can’t go to a show,” Hexum says. “So to be able to actively include them in our community, that feels really good.”
Hexum gives a special shout-out to the 311 road crew, which was able to master the technology needed for streaming.
“It was like telling them, ‘OK, quick, learn a new language,'” Hexum says. “They did it very well, so now we see that this is just something that can be a regular part of what we do.”
Last month, Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood told The Times of London that he and Mick Jagger had been working on tracks that will be featured on an upcoming reissue of the band’s 1981 album, Tattoo You, and now it appears that details of that release will be announced on Thursday.
The Rolling Stones have posted a somewhat cryptic message on their socialmediasites that features a poster with cartoonish drawings labeled with various songs titles from the album, along with a note that reads, “‘Tattoo You’ 2021 Flash Sale…August 19th, 2PM BST/9AM EST…RSVP Now!…Get Ready to Be ReInked.”
The message is captioned, “Which would you get? Thursday 2pm BST/9am EST,” and includes a link to a webpage that let’s fans sign up for The Stones’ mailing list “to be the first for all future news & updates!” and asks for a first name and an email address.
So, judging by the posts, it looks like The Rolling Stones plan to announce official information about a 40th anniversary Tattoo You reissue at 9 a.m. ET tomorrow.
Tattoo You was released on August 24, 1981, and featured such hits as “Start Me Up,” “Waiting on a Friend” and “Hang Fire.” It spent nine straight weeks at #1 on the Billboard 200 chart, and went on to sell over 4 million copies in the U.S.
The “S.O.B.” rocker has announced a new album with his backing band titled The Future, due out November 5. You can listen to the first single, “Survivor,” now via digital outlets.
The Future is the first Night Sweats album since 2018’s Tearing at the Seams, which spawned the single “You Worry Me.” Following that, Rateliff returned to his solo roots for a new record on his own called And It’s Still Alright, which dropped last year.
Here’s the track list for The Future:
“The Future”
“Survivor”
“Face Down in the Moment”
“Something Ain’t Right”
“Love Me Till I’m Gone”
“Baby I Got Your Number”
“What If I”
“I’m on Your Side”
“So Put Out”
“Oh, I”
“Love Don’t”
