2005

Cat Power chanteuse Chan Marshall soaks up Memphis soul on her new album, “The Greatest,” due Jan. 26 via Matador. The 12-track set was recorded in three days at the city’s Ardent Studios and produced by Stuart Sikes, who previously worked with Marshall on her 1996 album “What Would the Community Think.”

The artist is surrounded on the set by a who’s-who of Memphis session veterans, led by Al Green guitarist Mabon “Teenie” Hodges, who plays guitar on all but three tunes. Among the other contributors are bassists Leroy Hodges and David Smith, guitarist Doug Easley, keyboardist Rick Steff, saxophonist Jim Spake and trumpeter Scott Thompson.

Marshall had been playing some of these songs live before the sessions, but as Sikes tells Billboard.com, “I don’t think she had any idea how they were going to turn out. When they got to the studio, she played them the song and they charted it out and then just played it. Most of it was done by the first, second or third take.”

And while Marshall has become notorious for her erratic live performances and shy demeanor, Sikes says the musicians quickly set her at ease. “The first day, I know she was pretty nervous walking into a room full of these guys who have been on a gazillion records,” he says. “But all those guys are amazingly nice. All they wanted was to make her comfortable.”

“The Greatest” is highlighted by such jaunty soul-infused tracks as “Could We” and the organ-tinged first single “Living Proof” and emotional numbers with a country bent like “Lived in Bars” and “Empty Shell” (sample lyric: “All that’s left of my heart is an empty shell / it’s crushed”).

The songs “Where Is My Love” and “Hate” return Marshall to the ultra-sparse musical backdrops of her early work; the first a drum-less lament with piano and strings and the latter featuring just Marshall and a repeated three-chord electric guitar figure.

Marshall will begin a solo tour tonight (Oct. 12) in Oberlin, Ohio, but is planning to mount a number of high-profile shows with the Memphis backing band around the new album’s release.

“The Greatest” is the follow-up to 2003’s “You Are Free,” which debuted at No. 1 on Billboard’s Heatseekers chart and has sold 131,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen Soundscan.

Here is the track list for “The Greatest”:

“The Greatest”
“Could We”
“Lived in Bars”
“Islands”
“After It All”
“The Moon”
“Living Proof”
“Empty Shell”
“Willie”
“Where Is My Love”
“Hate”
“Love & Communication”

Source billboard.com.

Sonic Youth are currently in pre-production of their next studio record which is currently entitled

Rock legend Eric Clapton, now sixty, is set to write his autobiography for Doubleday, due for publication in spring of 2007.

The as-yet-untitled book, which will also be issued in audio format by Random House, will be written in collaboration with Christopher Simon Sykes, a close friend of Clapton’s since 1967. The book will also coincide with a North American tour and a Warner Brothers release of a complete retrospective box set of the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer’s recordings.

The announcement finds Clapton following in the footsteps of two other high-profile rock autobiographies: Sting’s Broken Music: A Memoir (2003) and Bob Dylan’s Chronicles: Volume One (2004). Both were strong sellers.

Meanwhile, Clapton will join his original Cream bandmates — bassist Jack Bruce and drummer Ginger Baker — for three nights at New York’s Madison Square Garden from October 24th through the 26th. The performances come on the heels of their triumphant four-night stand in London last May. Those shows were released on a two-CD live album and DVD earlier this month.

Clapton released a new studio album, Back Home, featuring guests John Mayer, Steve Winwood and Robert Randolph, in August. The set debuted at Number Thirteen.

Source rollingstone.com.

A few hundred lucky wedding guests got the surprise of their life Saturday (Oct. 8) as R.E.M.’s original four members reunited to play a seven-song set at the wedding of R.E.M. guitar tech Dewitt Burton. The action went down at Kingpins Bowl & Brew in the group’s Athens, Ga., home base and marks just the second time Michael Stipe, Peter Buck and Mike Mills have performed with drummer Bill Berry since his 1997 departure.

“Nobody really knew it was going to happen,” Kingpins owner Ed Connolly tells Billboard.com. “As a matter of fact, I think it was fairly hit and miss up until the time it happened. I heard they didn’t know if Bill was even going to make it, and I don’t know if they had a chance to rehearse.”

Connolly, who has known Burton for years, said the actual wedding band was taking a break when he noticed Stipe and company setting up in the bowling alley’s arcade. “I couldn’t believe it,” he says. “I was transfixed. I heard the count in and then ‘Sitting Still,’ and by the time they got to the first chorus, it was packed shoulder to shoulder.”

The group went on to play some of its most beloved early tunes: “Don’t Go Back to Rockville” (with Mills on vocals), “Wolves, Lower,” “Begin the Begin,” “The One I Love,” “Permanent Vacation” and “Radio Free Europe.”

“The beauty is that it was in Athens on a warm Saturday night, with the band on the floor with no production,” Connolly says. “I had three old disco mirror balls and they hung them up — that was the extent of the lighting show.”

As for the possibility of the performance seeing commercial release, Connolly says with a laugh, “If it’s cool with [R.E.M. manager] Bertis [Downs], it’s cool with me.”

Source billboard.com.

Pixies guitarist/vocalist Frank Black is eyeing an early 2006 release for his second consecutive solo album that has been recorded in Nashville with top session musicians. The artist tells Billboard.com he has about 25 songs to choose from for the upcoming Back Porch/EMI set, which will be the follow-up to this summer’s “Honeycomb,” which debuted at No. 11 on Billboard’s Heatseekers chart.

“It will either be a lean and mean record with 11 songs on it, or a self-indulgent opus with everything,” he says with a laugh. Although the provisional name for the album was “La Sicilian,” Black says, “That probably won’t be the title.”

Black recently completed a second round of recording with such artists as Steve Cropper, Spooner Oldham, David Hood, the Band’s Levon Helm, Al Kooper, Buddy Miller and Rich Gilbert, a member of his solo band the Catholics. He also recorded duets on the country oldie “Dirty Old Town” with Marty Brown and Cowboy Jack Clement on the original “Golden Shore,” the latter of which he describes as “very James Taylor-ish.”

Black has even revived an outtake from “Honeycomb,” an old traditional song called “Been All Around the World.” The artist says, “Dylan and the Dead have done it. I sort of updated the lyrics and that one is also James Taylor-ish.”

Among the other cuts in consideration for the album are “You Can’t Crucify Yourself,” “I’m Not Dead, I’m in Pittsburgh” (co-written with Reid Paley), “Elijah,” “If Your Poison Gets You,” “My Terrible Ways,” “Fitzgerald” and “Holland Town.”

Black was finally able to present some of the Nashville material live during a one-off show when he was in the city earlier this fall, and he’s still hoping to mount a tour at some point. “It makes sense if I put out a couple of records on Back Porch with various lineups, I’d be more comfortable doing a tour with whoever I can get,” he says.

“Whereas with just ‘Honeycomb,’ that band was such a classic lineup and it was the only record representing my so-called ‘Nashville’ period, that I felt under a little pressure to have that band,” Black continues. “I didn’t want to go out with some young buck alternative rock guys. But now that there’s a second record with different people, I could find some alt-country guys. A lot of the ‘Honeycomb’ guys have expressed interest in going on tour, but half the time they’re flying around with Neil Young!”

Source billboard.com.

Dinosaur Jr. – who has never before released a DVD – has finally announced plans to issue an official Dinosaur Jr. DVD release. This full length concert DVD, which will feature the band in its original line-up, will be filmed at New York’s legendary Irving Plaza during the bands upcoming two night stand on December 2-3, 2005. The DVD will be directed by Gold In Berlin, which is run by Mascis’ own brother in-law, German filmmaker Phillip Virus. With unfettered access to this famously elusive band, fans can expect complete backstage access to Dinosaur Jr.’s recent reunion tour, one-on-one interviews, behind the scenes goings-on and a full set of performances of Dinosaur Jr. favorites. The DVD will be packed with bonus materials that any fan of the band -seasoned or brand new – will find thrilling and entertaining. Look for the DVD to be released during the first half of 2006.

In spring of 2005 the original members of Dinosaur Jr. – J Mascis, Lou Barlow, and Murph – announced they would play their first shows together in fifteen years; one of music’s most celebrated alternative rock pioneers, who split abruptly after only three albums, would roam again. Avid fans of the band knew that the impossible had happened – the reunion of J and Lou seemed as likely as aliens landing, music lovers quietly anticipated a rare second chance to see the legendary live show they had regretfully missed over a decade before, and young listeners, too young to have been there for the first time around, lined up for venue entrance like the generation before them.