Dave Grohl said the Foo Fighters have completed work on their 10th studio album, adding he was “so fucking proud” of the record. He’d previously hinted that the follow-up to 2017’s Concrete and Gold was “fucking weird,” having earlier noted that he "can see the songs In my head. … I don’t read music; I can see the songs in shapes and patterns. So, I can see the next record. I know that there’s another one there. I don't know when, but I think I know what we should do.”

If you want to experience what Norm and Joe are talking up, the Keeping The Blues Alive at Sea Mediterranean II five-night cruise sets sail this summer, from August 14th to 19th, 2020. The luxurious 93,500-ton Norwegian Jade cruise ship will sail from Barcelona, Spain to Genoa, Italy and Cannes, France, with a stellar line-up of artists which includes the likes of Ian Anderson presents Jethro Tull, Johnny Lang, Walter Trout, Marc Broussard, Samantha Fish, and Ana Popovic, just to name a few.

This year marks the band’s 25th anniversary – but the front man said he doesn't think of their career in those terms. “It’s funny, some people measure time in days and months and years,” he explained. “But with me, I measure time in musical terms. When I think about 1995 to ’96, that was one thing. When I think of ’90 to ’99, that’s another, and so on. I see my life in these markers that are represented by our music. I feel like I’ve been writing this big story, and specific lyrics and songs relate to specific things that happened to me at those times.”

Foo Fighters previously announced a North American road trip named The Van Tour that celebrates their early days, when they traveled from gig to gig in a battered old vehicle. Their schedule begins on April 12 and runs until May 20.

CREDITS: ultimateclassicrock.com – Martin Kiellty

Carlos Santana and Buddy Guy have been named as the honorees at this year’s “A Great Night in Harlem” benefit at the Apollo Theater, the annual fundraiser for the Jazz Foundation of America. The benefit will take place at the Apollo April 14, with drummer and producer Steve Jordan set to return as musical director. Guest performers have yet to be announced.

Blues great Guy will receive the 2020 JFA Lifetime Achievement Award, while rock legend Santana will be the recipient of the JFA’s first-ever Claude Nobs Award, named for the founder of the Montreux Jazz Festival. Last year, it was Tony Bennett and Harry Belafonte being saluted at the same event and storied venue, with Patti Smith, Common, Savion Glover, Bettye LaVette and Bruce Willis as well as Bennett himself among the performers. The JFA also does an intimate west coast benefit at L.A. Vibrato club in November each year, the most recent of which was a tribute to Joni Mitchell and Wayne Shorter starring Chaka Khan, Wendy & Lisa and others.

Also being feted at the Apollo will be Jazz Foundation founder-director Wendy Oxenhorn, who is getting the Quincy Jones Q & You Award as she steps aside from leading the organization to serve as vice chair. Oxenhorn previously won the A.B. Spellman NEA Jazz Masters Award for Jazz Advocacy in 2016.

“Wendy has been the heart and soul of the Jazz Foundation for 20 years,” JFA Executive Director Joe Petrucelli said in a statement. “Her spirit of generosity and selflessness have shaped the culture of the organization and touched the lives of everyone associated with it, not just the musicians but our supporters, board, and staff. These values are her legacy and will continue to inspire our work as she moves on to the next chapter in her storied life of service.” The Jazz Foundation supports musicians in need, with examples cited as the most recent benefit including those who fell victim to the hurricanes in New Orleans and Puerto Rico, as well as 1100 individual cases a year that include employment support, health care and even the replacement of damaged instruments for indigent musicians.

CREDITS: Variety Magazine – Chris Willman

Debbie Harry is hailing the educational experience of a first tour that saw Blondieopening for David Bowie and Iggy Pop. She discussed how Marilyn Monroebecame her first heroine in a new interview with Rolling Stone, while alsoreflecting on the best advice she’d ever been given.

“There was a certain amount of improvisation in their performances,” Harry said ofwatching Bowie and Pop during the tour. “It wasn’t robotic, and the passion wasthere. Mr. Pop is passionate. It’s pretty obvious he’s kind of a wild guy, but he hasstandards; he has a controlled madness, and this is what it’s really all about.”Asked if the road trip changed her, Harry replied: “Probably. Experience iseverything and I was sort of in an odd position as being a woman in a man’s band,and I tried not to be too coy or too cute — other than the fact that I was cute —but I tried to bring other elements into it. Whether I always achieved that isanother story.”

She said the best advice had come from an early manager. “His favorite answer toa lot of things was, ‘Well, there’s no such thing as a free lunch.’ I was verydisappointed about that, because we were being taken out to lunch a lot, but Iunderstand the underpinnings for that. And then the serious best advice that I gotwas to get good legal advice.”

Harry continued: “I’m not a trained businesswoman, and there are some realcomplexities with authorship, and publishing and recording, and the different waysthat your recordings can be used or sold. So, it’s not as simple as I imagined itwould be at one time.” Asked if she learned that lesson early in her career, Harrysaid: “Not early enough!”

She went on to discuss the advantages of having found fame in her late 20s ratherthan earlier in her life, saying it enabled her to “have a little bit more flexibilitywith my ego.” It meant Harry was able to “realize that sometimes you hold strongon what your idea is and sometimes you step back and accept another person’sidea, and you know that nothing is so precious. A little bit of age gave me that.”

CREDITS: ultimateclassicrock.com – Martin Kielty

They will include a new box set, a compilation and individual vinyl reissues of an often overlooked and underappreciated period in Cash’s career. The albums that Johnny Cash made for Mercury Records between 1986 and 1991 are to be honored with a suite of releases from Mercury/UMe on 24 April. They will include a new box set, a compilation and individual vinyl reissues of an often overlooked and underappreciated period in the career of the country titan.

The comprehensive new box set, The Complete Mercury Recordings 1986-1991, will be available on 7CD or 7LP on 180-gram vinyl. It collects all six albums made during that era: Class of ’55: Memphis Rock & Roll Homecoming (1986), Johnny Cash Is Coming to Town (1987), Water From The Wells Of Home (1988), Classic Cash: Hall of Fame Series (1988), Boom Chicka Boom (1990) and The Mystery Of Life (1991).

The albums are presented in a handsome slipcase emblazoned with the distinctive, bold Cash logo. All of the LPs have been remastered from the original Mercury master tapes by Kevin Reeves at UMG Studios Nashville. The set was assembled by the Grammy Award-winning producer Bill Levenson and includes extensive new liner notes by respected music journalist Scott Schinder.

This deep dive into a lesser-discussed period of Cash’s career provides an important link to the celebrated resurgence he enjoyed under the production of Rick Rubin with the American Recordings series, from 1994. As Schinder writes, the recordings “stand as a notable transitional body of work, and an illuminating prelude to the full-blown creative resurgence that Cash would experience in the 1990s.”

The Complete Mercury Recordings 1986-1991 and Easy Rider: The Best Of The Mercury Recordings are released on 24 April, along with individual reissues of Johnny Cash’s Mercury albums.

This deep dive into a lesser-discussed period of Cash’s career provides an important link to the celebrated resurgence he enjoyed under the production of Rick Rubin with the American Recordings series, from 1994. As Schinder writes, the recordings “stand as a notable transitional body of work, and an illuminating prelude to the full-blown creative resurgence that Cash would experience in the 1990s.” The Complete Mercury Recordings 1986-1991 and Easy Rider: The Best Of The Mercury Recordings are released on 24 April, along with individual reissues of Johnny Cash’s Mercury albums.

CREDITS: Udiscovermusic.com - Paul Sexton

In 1990 Garth Brooks made his Austin City Limits debut at Studio 6A. Already a longrunning series, this particular episode of “Austin City Limits” spotlighted a fairly stillnewcomer who performed some of his early hits like ‘The Dance,” “If Tomorrow NeverComes,” and “Much Too Young (To Feel This Damn Old).” Throughout the years, Brooksreturned to Studio 6A for its 25th anniversary in 2000, and on May 24, he will play afinal, intimate performance at the studio where it all began.

Farewell to Studio 6A: An Evening with Garth Brooks will honor the studio and alsocelebrate the series’ new beginning as the public television station that produces it,Austin PBS, moves from the University of Texas Austin campus to the Austin CommunityCollege Highland by fall of 2020. The performance will benefit the new state-of-the-artfacility, which will continue to broadcast the “Austin City Limits” series and allow AustinPBS to develop some new initiatives.

Birthplace of Austin City Limits, the intimate soundstage debuted with a 1974performance by Willie Nelson, and continued to spotlight artists like Dolly Parton,Johnny Cash, Ray Charles, Leonard Cohen, B.B. King, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Bonnie Raitt,Loretta Lynn, Merle Haggard, Pearl Jam, and Dixie Chicks throughout the next 36 years.Officially designated a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Landmark in 2009, Studio 6A was alsofeatured in the Foo Fighters’ documentary Sonic Highways.

The final “Austin City Limits” episode was recorded in 2010 before it moved to TheMoody Theater in Austin, where it will continue to film and is now in its 46th season.

For its final run, Brooks was the perfect artist to bring some closure to the legendaryspace. “Thirty years ago, Garth made history when he stepped onto the Austin CityLimits stage for the first time, and since then he has become one of the biggestworldwide stars in music history,” Terry Lickona, executive producer, ACL,

tells American Songwriter. “We are thrilled and honored to have him return and makehistory once again with the final performance ever on a stage that was the originalhome for what’s become the longest-running music series on television.”

CREDITS: American Songwriter - Tina Benitez-Eves