Rob Thomas and Carlos Santana release new collab, “Move”

BMG

After first collaborating on the smash hit “Smooth” in 1999, Carlos Santana and Rob Thomas have released their new song together, “Move.”

The pop/Latin rock fusion track, out today, is the first single off Santana’s new album, Blessings and Miracles, which comes out October 15. The song also features American Authors.

Santana revealed new details about his album Wednesday. The album’s second single, a track called “She’s Fire,” was written by Diane Warren and features rapper G-Eazy. Blessings and Miracles also features collaborations with country star Chris Stapleton, pop star Ally Brooke and more.

“The title of this album comes from my belief that we’re born with heavenly powers that allows us to create blessings and miracles,” Santana says in a statement. “The world programs you to be unworthy of those gifts, but we have to utilize light, spirit and soul — they’re indestructible and immutable. Those are the three main elements on this album.”

On August 21, Rob and Santana will perform at We Love NYC: The Homecoming Concert in Central Park. Santana resumes his Las Vegas residency on August 25 and on September 11, he’ll kick off his Blessings and Miracles tour at the Borgata Spa & Resort in Atlantic City, NJ.

You can pre-order Blessings and Miracles now. Here is the track list:

“Ghost of Future Pull”/”New Light”
“Santana Celebration”
“Rumbalero” (featuring Salvador Santana & Asdru Sierra)
“Joy” (Carlos Santana & Chris Stapleton)
“Move” (Carlos Santana, Rob Thomas, Zac Barnett & American Authors)
“A Whiter Shade of Pale” (featuring Steve Winwood)
“Break” (featuring Ally Brooke)
“She’s Fire” (Diane Warren, G-Eazy & Carlos Santana)
“Peace Power” (featuring Corey Glover)
“America for Sale” (featuring Kirk Hammett & Marc Osegueda)
“Breathing Underwater” (featuring Stella Santana, Avi Snow, MVCA)
“Mother Yes”
“Song for Cindy”
“Angel Choir” (featuring Gayle Moran Corea)/ “All Together” (featuring Chick Corea)
“Ghost of Future Pull II”

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Chris Jagger releasing new album featuring backing vocals from his brother, Mick; publishing memoir next month

Credit: Barry Lewis

Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger‘s younger brother, veteran singer/songwriter Chris Jagger, will release a new studio album called Mixing Up the Medicine on September 10, and also will publish a memoir titled Talking to Myself the same day.

Mick has contributed some backing vocals to Chris’ album, which features several songs that the younger Jagger wrote with his frequent collaborator Charlie Hart, a multi-instrumentalist who also has played with late Faces bassist Ronnie Lane and Wreckless Eric.

Mixing Up the Medicine, which you can pre-order now, also features three songs with lyrics taken from poems by an obscure 19th-century poet named Thomas Beddoes that Chris set to music.

Among the other musicians featured on the album are one-time Who touring percussionist Jody Linscott and drummer Dylan Howe, son of Yes guitarist Steve Howe.

Chris has already released a few tunes from Mixing Up the Medicine as advance digital tracks, including “Talking to Myself,” a song inspired by his autobiography.

In the book, Chris delves in to his life story, including his childhood with older brother Mick, the siblings’ mutual appreciation of the blues, his own musical adventures and his travels around the world.

Talking to Myself will be the first autobiography from a member of the Jagger family, but Chris says that while he was working on it, he encouraged Mick to write his own.

“I said to [Mick], ‘I’ve almost finished my book, now let’s do yours’ and he laughed,” Chris reveals. “He’d do a fantastic book.”

Reflecting on his experience writing the memoir, Chris notes that “writing can be quite prosaic and descriptive. It doesn’t have to be all poetry. I have even included some recipes in [my book] too.”

You can check out an excerpt from the book at AmericanSongwriter.com.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Carlos Santana reveals details of new album ‘Blessings and Miracles’; first single “Move” out today

BMG

Carlos Santana has announced details of his new album, Blessings and Miracles, which is set to be released on October 15.

The star-studded track list features the album’s first single, “Move,” which re-teams Santana with his “Smooth” collaborator Rob Thomas. “Move” is out today.

The album’s second single, a track called “She’s Fire,” was written by Diane Warren and features rapper G-Eazy.

Blessings and Miracles also features collaborations with Steve Winwood, Kirk Hammett, country star Chris Stapleton, pop star Ally Brooke and more.

“The title of this album comes from my belief that we’re born with heavenly powers that allows us to create blessings and miracles,” Santana says in a statement. “The world programs you to be unworthy of those gifts, but we have to utilize light, spirit and soul — they’re indestructible and immutable. Those are the three main elements on this album.”

On August 25, Santana resumes his Las Vegas residency and on September 11, he’ll kick off his Blessings and Miracles tour at the Borgata Spa & Resort in Atlantic City, NJ.

You can pre-order Blessings and Miracles now. Here is the track list:

“Ghost of Future Pull”/”New Light”
“Santana Celebration”
“Rumbalero” (featuring Salvador Santana & Asdru Sierra)
“Joy” (Carlos Santana & Chris Stapleton)
“Move” (Carlos Santana, Rob Thomas, Zac Barnett & American Authors)
“A Whiter Shade of Pale” (featuring Steve Winwood)
“Break” (featuring Ally Brooke)
“She’s Fire” (Diane Warren, G-Eazy & Carlos Santana)
“Peace Power” (featuring Corey Glover)
“America for Sale” (featuring Kirk Hammett & Marc Osegueda)
“Breathing Underwater” (featuring Stella Santana, Avi Snow, MVCA)
“Mother Yes”
“Song for Cindy”
“Angel Choir” (featuring Gayle Moran Corea)/ “All Together” (featuring Chick Corea)
“Ghost of Future Pull II”

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Lizzo urges her fans and haters to band together to stop global catastrophes

Frazer Harrison/Getty Images for Coachella

Lizzo is stressing the message of her new song, “Rumors,” telling her fans and haters alike to pay attention to what’s going on in the world.

“Rumors,” also featuring Cardi B, is a song that tells haters to be more concerned about what’s happening in the world and not obsess over what women choose to do with their bodies and free time.

In a video posted Tuesday to Instagram, Lizzo featured various catastrophes happening around the globe as she plays the song’s chorus, “Spending all your time/ Tryna break a woman down/ Realer s*** is going on/ Baby, take a look around.”

Among the disasters featured in the brief clip are the skyrocketing cases of COVID-19 in the U.S., the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, the earthquake that devastated Haiti, the wildfires in Turkey and Greece, and the troubling new reports concerning climate change.

“The internet has brought the world together, for better and for worse. Right now there are people in peril,” Lizzo expresses in the caption. “If I can help bring awareness to these issues it’s the least I can do.”

She also linked to several organizations that her followers can donate to and support.

Lizzo later took to Instagram live to call out the backlash she’s received for “Rumors,” telling fans. “We really need to check ourselves for how we treat people… I want this to be a conversation on how we treat people.  A conversation on how so much toxicity is rooted in our culture and in the way that we speak to each other and how we can progress and grow from that.”

She added that she will continue to be “transparent” about how she feels if “it is necessary to start a conversation for some progress.” 

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Meghan Trainor’s “super-lucky” that for her, every day is “take your child to work day”

Hannah Hillier

Since becoming a mom, Meghan Trainor has pivoted from music to TV, because it allows her to spend more time with her son Riley — and the Grammy winner says she knows how lucky she is to be able to have that option.

Along with Adam Lambert and others, Meghan will be a judge on the upcoming reality competition show on E! called Clash of the Cover Bands.  She’ll also be the host of a new Top Chef spinoff called Top Chef Family Style, which will stream on Peacock.  In both cases, she gets to work a normal day and return home in the evening, with the added bonus of Riley being able to join her on set.  It’s quite a change from her previous life as a globe-traveling pop star.

“Yeah, it’s my dream and I still get to, like, come home and be working on music whenever I can,” Meghan tells ABC Audio. “And I just love that I don’t have to travel, honestly!”  She laughs, “Like, I don’t even know…I couldn’t even picture me dragging him on a plane right now.  It seems like a lot of work!

“I’m just so happy that we can drive 10 minutes to work and do our work and he gets to come with me,” she notes. “So many moms out there can’t bring their child to work every day. And I get to do that. So I’m super-lucky and I know how blessed I am. So it’s been awesome!”

So far, neither show has a premiere date set.  Meghan’s most recent album was A Very Trainor Christmas, which came out in October of 2020.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Imagine Dragons’ Dan Reynolds recalls early pushback to “Radioactive”: “This song won’t play on radio”

Credit: Neil Krug

For the last seven years, Imagine Dragons‘ hit “Radioactive” has held the record for the most weeks spent on the Billboard Hot 100. While that record has now been broken by The Weeknd‘s “Blinding Lights,” it’d be hard to call “Radioactive” anything but a rousing success, especially given where it started.

As frontman Dan Reynolds tells Billboard, “Radioactive” wasn’t on anybody’s radar when ID was first getting started.

“Once we signed [to Interscope], it wasn’t like everybody at the label was like, ‘This is the song,'” Reynolds recalls. “In fact, it was the opposite. ‘It’s Time’ was the first single, and we [already] had ‘Radioactive’ at that point.”

“Nobody thought that that song would play on radio,” he continues. “In fact, I remember our radio department specifically being like, ‘This song won’t play on radio.’ But the song just started to go on its own, and then it just went to radio because it kind of had a life of its own, and it kinda dictated its own way.”

Surely that conversation will be a pivotal scene if anyone decides to make an Imagine Dragons biopic.

As for “Radioactive’s” now-beaten record, Reynolds feels good that it fell to The Weekend, whom he calls a “legend” and an “icon.”

“I think his music is the type of music that’s going to live on for a long time, and do good things,” Reynolds says. “So if there was ever someone to take the record, I think it’s good company.”

Meanwhile, Imagine Dragons is gearing up to release a new album called Mercury — Act 1 on September 3. It features the singles “Follow You,” “Cutthroat” and “Wrecked.”

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

“If It Wasn’t for…” Riley Green, this might be just another song about “Trucks”

Big Machine

At first glance, Riley Green‘s latest hit, “If It Wasn’t for Trucks,” might seem like just another ode to country’s favorite vehicle for riding backroads, throwing tailgate parties, and hauling hay. 

But for the Alabama native, it hits much closer to home than that. 

“The whole song is really personal,” Riley reveals. “And talking about when my granddaddy died, and ‘where would I have first heard Merle [Haggard],’ the line about ‘where was I supposed to cry.'”

“You didn’t cry in front of anybody,” he explains. “You pulled off in your truck somewhere if you were gonna do it.”

“And I love the line, ‘how would anybody’s daddy get around,'” he goes on. “That thought to me is pretty cool to go, ‘Everybody’s dad drives a truck. What would they do if there weren’t trucks?’ They’d have to walk everywhere, because nobody’s dad drives a car.”

While Riley freely admits it’s almost impossible to come up with an entirely new idea, he maintains it’s the execution that can really make a song special.

“Everything’s probably been said. Anything you can ever say, any idea’s probably been written in one of the eight billion country songs that are out there,” Riley points out. “But finding a cool way to say it and finding a personal way to say it, I think is what makes a song stick out, in my mind.”

Right now, Riley’s busy with the Beers on Me Tour with Dierks Bentley and Parker McCollum.

“If It Wasn’t for Trucks” is the title track of Riley’s 2020 EP, and is also included on his new collection, Behind the Bar.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Director’s cut of Rush’s 2019 ‘Cinema Strangiato’ film to be screened in theaters on September 9

Trafalger Releasing

An updated version of Rush‘s 2019 screening event Cinema Strangiato will be shown in select theaters for one night only on September 9 in honor of the 40th anniversary of the legendary Canadian prog rockers’ 1981 album, Moving Pictures.

Rush: Cinema Strangiato — Director’s Cut will feature an alternate version of the film, which boasts highlights from the 2015 concert film R40 Live, plus behind-the-scenes segments and soundcheck footage.

The updated flick features bonus performances of “One Little Victory” and “Red Barchetta,” as well as the Neil Peart drum medley “Cygnus X-1″/”The Story So Far,” which is described as Neil’s “final recorded drum solo masterpiece.”

R40 Live features performances filmed in 2015 at a number of stops on Rush’s 40th anniversary trek, which turned out to be the band’s farewell tour. Peart died of brain cancer in January 2020.

Cinema Strangiato also includes interviews with The Smashing Pumpkins‘ Billy Corgan, Foo Fighters‘ Taylor Hawkins, Rage Against the Machine‘s Tom Morello, The Trailer Park Boys, Rush producer Nick Raskulinecz, and others.

Tickets for Cinema Strangiato — Director’s Cut are on sale now in the U.S. at CinemaStrangiato.com. Tickets will be available for screenings in Canada on September 1.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Camila Cabello says Taylor Swift taught her the value of friendship

Jeff Kravitz/AMA2019/FilmMagic for dcp

There was a time, if you can believe it, when Camila Cabello “never had any friends,” she tells Bustle. But now she has plenty, and she says she was taught the importance of friendship by none other than Taylor Swift.

Camila tells Bustle that when her music career began, she and her mom did everything together “to the extreme. Because I never had any friends.”  She explains, “I’ve been [working] since I was 15. I’ve been traveling so much, and it’s been really hard for me to water the soil for friendships.”

But when Camila was chosen to open for Taylor Swift on her 2018 Reputation tour, she says, she finally learned how important it was to cultivate non-romantic relationships.

“Taylor has always been so kind and supportive and also goes out of her way to give you artist advice,” Camila tells Bustle. “[She’s] really about making friendships and relationships the most important thing. She is so brave at watering those seeds of friendships and relationships.”

Camila adds, “She always answers my texts and she’s so busy. I don’t even answer texts because I’m just worse at it. It takes intention to be like, ‘Let me write all my friends back.’”

Luckily, Camila isn’t lacking in the romantic relationship department either, as her romance with Shawn Mendes proves.  “There’s a lot of sweetness and tenderness [between us],” she tells Bustle. “I think we’re both sensitive. I’m really lucky to be able to surround myself with tenderness; it’s really important to me.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Watch mini documentary about London installation celebrating George Harrison’s ‘All Things Must Pass’ reissue

Capitol Records/UMe

On August 6, in celebration of the release of the 50th anniversary reissues of the late George Harrison‘s 1970 album All Things Must Pass, a temporary living-art installation depicting the album’s cover opened at London’s Duke of York Square.

Now, a mini documentary about the creation of the installation, featuring appearances by George’s son, Dhani, and widow, Olivia, has premiered at Harrison’s official YouTube channel.

The All Things Must Pass cover features a photo of George seated on a stool on the lawn of his Friar Park estate outside of London, surrounded by several garden-gnome statues. For the installation, which will remain open until August 20, celebrated floral artist Ruth Davis created two giant gnomes out of flowers and foliage.

The display also features a wooden stool and oversized rubber gardening boots, similar to the ones Harrison wears in the album’s cover pic.

The documentary features an interview with Dhani at Friar Park discussing his father’s passion for gardening at the estate, noting that “the connection with nature…that’s how he meditated and prayed.”

Dhani also explains how the florist was given a tour of Friar Park’s grounds and conferred with Olivia Harrison about the types of foliage to use for the display, “trying to deconstruct Friar Park and then build it in the center of London as a gnome.”

The video ends with Olivia visiting the finished installation.

Checking out the display, Olivia gushes, “It’s the most joyous thing I’ve ever seen!”

She then notes, “I know how I feel so I know that George [would]…be over the moon with this. He loved nothing more than being in a garden, and his association with gnomes precedes him. It’s beautiful and skillful…and it’s very creative.”

The All Things Must Pass reissues are available now.

Copyright © 2021, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.