February 2005

Muscle Shoals Sound Studios, at which artists including the Rolling Stones, Aretha Franklin, Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Bob Seger recorded classic songs, has closed. The studio, owned since 1985 by Malaco Records, closed last month; a film production company is in the final stages of purchasing the building.

Musicians Jimmy Johnson, David Hood, Barry Beckett and Roger Hawkins, known collectively as the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, founded Muscle Shoals Sound Studios in Sheffield, Ala., in 1969. A Rolling Stones session at Muscle Shoals featuring sideman Jim Dickinson, who played on the Stones’ “Wild Horses,” is featured in the film “Gimme Shelter,” which documents the band’s 1969 U.S. tour.

In 1978, the facility moved to a 31,000 square-foot building, also in Sheffield.

Malaco Records principal Wolf Stephenson explains that he and his partners were more interested in acquiring Muscle Shoals Sound Publishing, a catalog that includes “Old Time Rock & Roll” and “Torn Between Two Lovers,” than the recording studio. “To be quite frank with you,” Stephenson tells Billboard, “the only reason we bought the studio was, the banks we were dealing with wouldn’t loan us the money on the publishing company; they didn’t have any idea what it was. It was just a stack of paper to them.”

The two-room facility was used extensively by Malaco artists, Stephenson adds, but the last four years saw a sharp decline in outside projects. “When computer and hard-disk recording really got cheap and better at the same time, it just knocked the socks off a lot of studios, [Muscle Shoals] included,” he says. “It was just a very difficult thing to compete with.”

Muscle Shoals was put up for sale on Internet auction site eBay in 2004. The asking price of $650,000, which included the building, property and equipment, yielded no serious offers, Stephenson says. The studio’s two Neve consoles have been sold to studios in Detroit and Los Angeles.

Source billboard.com.

How does Starbucks, which partnered with Concord on Ray Charles’ Grammy Award-sweeping “Genius Loves Company,” follow up that phenomenally successful album? By taking another legendary artist and pairing him with a stellar array of acts for what promises to be another strong duets album.

Billboard has learned that the artist is Herbie Hancock and that among the performers already on tape with the keyboardist are Sting, Annie Lennox, John Mayer, Carlos Santana, Damien Rice and, as previously reported, Trey Anastasio.

The album will arrive Sept. 13 on Nashville-based Vector Records. “Starbucks is our partner in the record, it is Starbucks’ next big push,” Vector principal Ken Levitan confirms. Like “Genius,” the CD will be available at traditional retail and in Starbucks outlets.

For Hancock, working with the various artists has been very rewarding. “The kind of energy and magic that they are bringing to the project is fantastic,” he says. “So often artists are put into a pigeonhole and expected to stay there, and I never liked that. Coming from jazz, we like to try new things … and I know there’s a lot more to artists than that which they’re kind of forced to do, in a sense.”

Some artists brought finished songs to the project, while some wrote tunes specifically for the record. In Mayer’s case, he brought in a few notes that they crafted into a song in the studio.

“The tune is like 15 minutes long, but the actual song is only four or five minutes long,” Mayer says. “The rest is Herbie going around and around on my chord progression, and every time he tags home, he puts on 50 more pounds of weight and starts lifting that. It’s incredible.”

Hancock is in the midst of a tour with Directions In Music, featuring saxophonist Michael Brecker and trumpeter Roy Hargrove. The trek hits Washington, D.C., tonight (Feb. 18).

Source billboard.com.

National, regional and local talents collide on a Spotsylvania farm to create a truly unique musical experience. The Haymaker Music Festival is the only place where concert goers will see Keller Williams perform alongside local Virginia favorites such as, Cephas & Wiggins, King Wilkie, The Hackensaw Boys, AJ Roach, and DJ Williams.

Journalist and author Hunter S. Thompson, who unleashed the concept of “gonzo journalism” in books like “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” fatally shot himself in the head Sunday at his home near Aspen, Colorado, police and his family said.

“On February 20, Dr. Hunter S. Thompson took his life with a gunshot to the head at his fortified compound in Woody Creek, Colorado,” said a statement issued by Thompson’s son, Juan Thompson, to the Aspen Daily News.

A dispatcher for the Pitkin County Sheriff’s Department confirmed Thompson’s death.

Neither the family statement nor Pitkin County sheriff’s officials said whether Thompson left a note, The Associated Press reported.

His account of a drug-fueled trip to cover a district attorneys’ anti-drug conference as a writer for Rolling Stone magazine was the seed of “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” perhaps his best-known work.

Source: cnn.com

Upon the release of his March 1st album, “In Between Dreams,” Singer/songwriter/surfer Jack Johnson will be the music guest on the March 12th episode of Saturday Night Live with host, actor David Spade.

Be sure to check out Glide Magazine’s exclusive interview with Jack Johnson

Rocker Glen Philips has announced a series of dates to coincide with his upcoming Lost Highway Release – Winter Pays For Summer. Philips’ backing band will include Jonathan Kingham on keys and guitars, Myles Corbin on bass, and Sean Bendickson on drums.

Tour Dates

3/30 Madison, WI/Luther’s Blues
3/31 Minneapolis, MN/Fineline Music Caf

Stephen Kellogg & The Sixers may be the hardest working rock band in the land. Kellogg has built a solid fan base and a growing national buzz the old fashion way, by logging thousands of miles on the road. In the last two years alone, Kellogg & The Sixers have played more than 300 shows and moved over 10,000 copies of their independently released albums, including last year