November 2005

Nellie McKay will return Jan. 3 with her sophomore Columbia album, “Pretty Little Head.” As previously reported, the 16-track set features collaborations with k.d. lang (“we had it right”) and Cyndi Lauper (“Beecharmer”), as well as first single “Real Life.”

“Pretty Little Head” is the follow-up to McKay’s 2003 double-disc debut album, “Get Away From Me.” That set peaked at No. 7 on Billboard’s Heatseekers chart and has sold 104,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

On the same day as the new album’s release, Columbia will issue the DVD “Live at the Independent,” recorded in November 2004 in San Francisco. The 24-song performance boasts two songs from “Pretty Little Head”: “GLADD” and “Columbia’s Bleeding.”

Meanwhile, McKay is gearing up star as Polly Peachum in a new Broadway version of Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht’s “The Threepenny Opera,” which will open in April. The translation was provided by Wallace Shawn; Alan Cumming and Edie Falco will also star.

Beforehand, six of her songs will be heard in the Rob Reiner film “Rumor Has It,” which opens Christmas Day in U.S. theaters. McKay will also return to concert duty for shows Nov. 29-30 at Los Angeles’ Troubadour and Largo and Dec. 5-6 at New York’s Makor and Mercury Lounge.

Here is the track list for “Pretty Little Head”:

“Cupcake”
“Pink Chandelier”
“Big One”
“GES”
“Beecharmer” featuring Cyndi Lauper
“Columbia’s Bleeding”
“Tipperary”
“Real Life”
“we had it right” featuring k.d. lang
“I Will Be There”
“I Am Nothing”
“Long and Lazy River”
“Down Low”
“There You Are in Me”
“GLADD”
“Happy Flower”

Source billboard.om.

Singer/songwriter Ryan Adams is following through on his pledge to release three separate albums this year. On the heels of May’s “Cold Roses” and September’s “Jacksonville City Nights,” the series will conclude with “29,” due Dec. 20 via Lost Highway.

While the first two projects were credited to Adams and his new band, the Cardinals, “29” is billed as a solo album. The set was produced by longtime collaborator Ethan Johns and features contributions from the Cardinals’ J.P. Bowersock as well as bassist Jennifer Condos, who previously played on Adams’ “Gold.”

The ambitious 2005 release slate has generated significant sales for the artist. “Cold Roses” has moved more than 123,000 units, while “Jacksonville City Nights” has shifted more than 57,000. Adams’ best-selling release to date is 2001’s “Gold,” which has moved nearly 350,000 copies.

Adams will play a two-night stand beginning tomorrow (Nov. 16) with Willie Nelson at New York’s Beacon Theatre, and will then headline his own gig Friday at the city’s new Tribeca Performing Arts Center as part of the Wall Street Rising concert series.

Here is the track list for “29”:

“29”
“Strawberry Wine”
“Night Birds”
“Blue Sky Blues”
“Carolina Rain”
“Starlite Diner”
“The Sadness”
“Elizabeth, You Were Born To Play That Part”
“Voices”

Source .

Originally planned for release earlier this year and then bumped to December, the soundtrack to the OutKast film “Idlewild” has now been removed from LaFace/Jive’s 2005 schedule. Group member Big Boi said over the weekend at the Vibe Awards that it would appear sometime during the first quarter of 2006, but a label spokesperson says there is no confirmed date.

“We’re trying to pick the single right now. It’s all about a gut instinct,” Big Boi said at the Vibe Awards.

The change in the soundtrack’s release date has apparently had a corresponding affect on the roll-out of the movie, which HBO Films was eyeing for early January. A company spokesperson says a new date has yet to be nailed down.

“Idlewild” is set in the 1930s, and Big Boi says that period in history has rubbed off on some of the music. “In our own little way,” he told Billboard.com earlier this summer. “Just with the Ragtime feel. It’s hip-hop. It’s OutKast. It is what we’ve been doing for years. Some songs have a little more piano or whatever, but the whole project was a natural progression from a double CD. It was like, where do we go from here?”

Big Boi stressed, “This is an OutKast album. It isn’t like a soundtrack where we go get this person or that person.”

Source billboard.com.

As it prepares for its maiden tour of South America, which begins Nov. 22 in Santiago, Chile, Pearl Jam continues to work on its new studio album, which is due next spring via J Records.

“It’s been a difficult record and it’s like sometimes the harder something is, then the more valuable it becomes,” frontman Eddie Vedder said earlier this week during a Brazilian radio interview. “It’s easily the best stuff we’ve done but also some of the hardest stuff. It’s very aggressive, because again, it’s kind of a product of what it’s like to be an American these days. It’s pretty aggressive, especially when you turn it loud.”

The band has been working on and off throughout the year on the as-yet-untitled set, but Vedder admitted, “It’s not quite done. I’m hoping to finish the last of the songs while I’m down [in South America]. I’m bringing my tape machines and all that down. If I can come back and finish the last few songs in January, then it will be out in April or something.”

For now, Pearl Jam is not planning to unveil any new songs in a live setting. “We want them to be heard for the first time when the record comes out,” Vedder said.

But he added he had been mulling an album title that was a play on Soundgarden’s “Superunknown”: “I was thinking of the word ‘un-owned’ — not owned by anybody,” he said. “The sky is un-owned. The moon is un-owned. We’re un-owned. We want to remain un-owned. The title was ‘Superun-owned.'”

Continuing a new initiative launched during Pearl Jam’s recent fall North American tour, the South American shows will be available for paid download from the band’s Web site within hours of their completion.

Source billboard.com.

Elvis Costello is slated to head into the studio the week of Thanksgiving to begin a collaboration with songwriter/arranger/pianist Allen Toussaint. Joe Henry will produce the album for Verve Records.

Henry likens the project to Costello’s 1998 pairing with Burt Bacharach, “Painted from Memory” (Mercury/Universal). “That project was a very legitimate collaboration between the two artists, and this will feature Elvis as a singer doing both classic songs that Allen has written as well as new material [the two are writing],” Henry tells Billboard.com.

New Orleans veteran Toussaint recently performed with Costello at a number of New York benefits for the victims of hurricane Katrina. Toussaint, who has written such songs as Dr. John’s “Right Place, Wrong Time” and Lee Dorsey’s “Workin’ in a Coal Mine,” appeared as a pianist on some of Costello’s early 1980s albums.

“Elvis, like a lot of people, re-committed himself to the importance of the legacy of [New Orleans] music,” Henry says. “I was talking to Allen about doing a solo record, and Elvis had appeared with Allen on stage at various benefits in New York, and the wheels were turning.”

Henry, who has toured with Costello in support of his own solo releases, recently produced Bettye LaVette’s “I’ve Got My Own Hell To Raise” for Epitaph’s Anti- imprint, as well as the multi-artist “I Believe to My Soul” for his newly formed Work Song label. The latter was released via a partnership with Rhino Records and Starbucks’ Hear Music, and features Toussaint, Billy Preston, Mavis Staples, Ann Peebles and Irma Thomas.

Henry says he and Costello have discussed working together for a few years now, and Henry had been prodding Toussaint to record a solo effort for Work Song. “Elvis and I talked off and on about working together,” Henry says. “He’s been a big booster of ‘I Believe to My Soul’ and he’s a big a Bettye LaVette fan. After the hurricane, it brought home to him how significant that relationship with Allen was.”

Source billboard.com.

Two Boston Music Award 2005 nominees, The Slip and Apollo Sunshine, have announced their New Years Eve show will be held at Pearl Street in Northampton, MA. The Slip will headline the event, with AS starting off the evening. Tickets are on sale now.

Leading up to the holiday celebration, The Slip will also be playing at Lupo’s in Providence, RI on 12/28 (with Apollo Sunshine opening) and at Southpaw in Brooklyn on Friday, 12/30.

for more info see: theslip.com