The Grateful Dead have announced that they will release a new version of American Beauty to mark the famed album's 50th anniversary.

The new version will include audio from an unreleased 1971 concert

Making the announcement on Instagram, the Grateful Dead wrote, "The crown jewel of the Dead's studio output has gotten the deluxe treatment."

The three-CD deluxe edition features newly remastered audio, plus one of the most requested archival recordings in the Dead's vault - the unreleased concert recorded on February 18, 1971 at the Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, New York.

4,000 copies of an exclusive colored vinyl and 15,000 copies of a vinyl picture disc will also be issued, with both featuring the newly remastered version of the original album.

Models and pieces of apparel, accessories, posters, and more merchandise are also being offered to mark the occasion. The release date is 10/30/2020

By RTTNews Staff Writer

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A never-before-heard live recording from the First Lady of Song, Ella Fitzgerald, has surfaced. The Lost Berlin Tapes will be released on Verve Records on October 2, 2020.

The Lost Berlin Tapes were recorded in stereo at Berlin’s Sportpalast on March 25, 1962 and finds Ella at the top of her game with a trio led by pianist Paul Smith, Wilfred Middlebrooks on bass, and Stan Levey on drums. Fitzgerald played Berlin two years prior, where she famously turned forgotten lyrics into absolutely sensational improvisation — ad-libbing lyrics while channeling her best Louis Armstrong.

The Lost Berlin Tapes tracklist: 1. Cheek To Cheek, 2. He’s My Kind Of Boy, 3. Cry Me A River, 4. I Won’t Dance 5. Someone To Watch Over Me, 6. Jersey Bounce, 7. Angel Eyes, 8. Clap Hands, Here Come Charlie, 9. Taking A Chance On Love, 10. C’est Magnifique, 11. Good Morning Heartache, 12. Hallelujah, I Love Him So, 13. Hallelujah, I Love Him So (Reprise), 14. Summertime, 15. Mr. Paganini, 16. Mack The Knife, 17. Wee Baby Blues

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AUSTIN, Texas — A decade ago Jimmie Vaughan released his definitive album Blues, Ballads and Favorites. It was a stunning collection of 15 of his favorite songs, from Billy Emerson’s “The Pleasure’s All Mine” to Willie Nelson’s “Funny How Time Slips Away,” and featured guest vocals from band members Lou Ann Barton and Bill Willis. Vaughan followed the album up in 2011 with More Blues, Ballads and Favorites, digging deep into the music that had helped shape his life in the blues.

On October 30, 2020, the Last Music Co. will release a special 3-vinyl LP set of these two albums titled The Pleasure’s All Mine, spotlighting the music of one of the true pioneers in showcasing the roots of American music. It will also be available on a 2-disc CD collection.

“When I talk about country and blues, they’re the same thing,” Vaughan says. “Muddy Waters and Hank Williams, Webb Pierce and Jimmy Reed. When I was a kid, I didn’t understand the difference. Everybody was always asking me, ‘Why do you want to play blues? Why don’t you play country?’ But I would listen to the country guys and they would be doing a Jimmy Reed song.

They’re playing the same lick. And Ray Charles, Little Milton, Guitar Junior, Lonnie Brooks, B.B. King — they all did country songs. Is Bob Wills country blues or jazz? And the answer is, it’s American music. I’m tired of trying to pigeonhole everything. I want to bring it together; it comes from the same place.”

When Jimmie Vaughan was a young teenager in Oak Cliff, Texas, his father told him to take guitar lessons if he wanted to really learn the instrument. But when Vaughan’s teacher told the guitar student it wasn’t going to work because the student “was too far gone” to learn from the lesson books, Jimmie knew he was on his own.

Which was perfect for him because the blues would be his teacher for life. For those who find themselves living inside this true American music, it becomes a way of life, something that provides a musical force to follow forever.

Vaughan became possessed by his instrument, and the blues songs played on the Black radio station in Dallas. It has been that way ever since: more than a half-century of playing the blues the guitarist hears in his head and feels in his heart. When something this strong takes over, there is no way out. Rather, it becomes a pursuit that goes deeper and deep inside.

When Jimmie Vaughan first heard songs like Phil Upchurch’s “You Can’t Sit Down,” The Nightcaps’ “Wine, Wine, Wine,” and B.B. King’s many hit songs in the early 1960s, he knew he had found his music. And ever since then, it’s been a constant quest to play blues, whether it was in early 1970s Austin bands like Storm and then the Fabulous Thunderbirds, or later with brother Stevie Ray Vaughan on their Family Style album, and on his own releases throughout the 1990s and in 2001.

Then the solo albums stopped, until in 2010 Jimmie Vaughan had an idea to start recording the Great American Blues Songbook and found a home with Proper Music in the U.K. to release the music. He assembled the kind of band most musicians can only dream about and began recording his dream set list at the Top Hat and Wire Studios in Austin. Never one to back down from a great idea, in 2011 Vaughan and band went back into the same Top Hat Studio and recorded a second collection of some of his favorite songs, zeroing in on the music’s ability to light a fuse wherever it was heard.

To help celebrate the 10-year anniversary of the first album’s release and setting the stage for Vaughan’s 70th birthday in March 2021, the Last Music Co.’s Malcolm Mills wanted to mark the special occasion with these undeniable collections. Also included for release on the same date is the vinyl reissue of 2016’s Jimmie Vaughan Trio featuring Mike Flanigin, and the Live at C-Boy’s release, which featured songs recorded at the venerable Austin nightspot that Vaughan and crew call home when they are in town.

In true Texas fashion, Jimmie Vaughan has helped give new life to the music that has been his lifeline all these decades, becoming a hero to those who know the life-giving strengths of America’s real gift to musical history. Even better, Vaughan still feels like he’s just getting started, devoted to making sure he is able to give back to the music that has given him so much. The blues is in his blood and has been there since the start. And will stay there forever.

Rock & Blues Muse – Martine Ehrenclou

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The 1970s crash out in style with AC/DC, Pink Floyd and The Clash producing some of their best work, and Led Zeppelin’s last hurrah

In 1979 all 257 passengers and crew on an Air New Zealand sightseeing flight were killed when it crashed into Mt Erebus in Antarctica, and Iran became an Islamic Republic.

In February it snowed for 30 minutes in the Sahara Desert, Ugandan dictator Idi Amin was overthrown in April, The Voyager 1 spacecraft was launched in September, and armed terrorists seized the Grand Mosque in Mecca in November.

In music, Sex Pistols bass player Sid Vicious was found dead from a heroin overdose in New York, Ozzy Osbourne was fired by Black Sabbath, and The Who played their first show with new drummer Kenney Jones. Just six months later played a set in Cincinnati, unaware that 11 fans had been crushed to death prior to the show. These are the 20 best albums of 1979.

AC/DC - Highway To Hell

AC/DC’s first masterpiece was also their last before the death of Bon Scott. It’s impossible to imagine a better swansong. Highway was the band’s best set of songs so far, with 10 air-punching anthems that propelled them from the Australian club circuit to the heights of the US chart. It’s just a shame that Scott never saw how successful the record would be.

Aerosmith - A Night In The Ruts

Although an average album by Aerosmith is better than a great one by almost anyone else, Night In The Ruts actually deserves more credit. Despite Joe Perry jumping ship during its recording – musical and personal differences with Tyler were cited – the band dug in to produce a lean and muscular record, particularly on No Surprize and Bone To Bone.

Bad Company - Desolation Angels

As the decade played out, Bad Company updated their resolutely primitive rock sound to incorporate snatches of synthesizer and acoustic guitar. The concept sounded like the beginning of the end, but the resulting record was the strongest since the band’s debut, with Paul Rodgers pulling out all the stops and the band striking gold on tracks like Rock ‘N’ Roll Fantasy.

Cheap Trick - Dream Police

Although this production didn’t capture the band’s blood and thunder like their live album at the Budokan (released earlier that year), Dream Police was both Cheap Trick’s commercial peak and their creative high-water mark. The stellar musicianship doesn’t hurt, of course – Robin Zander and Rick Nielsen are on top form throughout – but Dream Police’s true appeal lay in its shifting moods.

The Clash - London Calling

The occasional lapse into white-boy reggae aside, The Clash’s masterpiece was all the better for the fact that its transcended punk. Ska, rockabilly, and jazz all sat effortlessly alongside the prescribed three chords on this double album, and if that sounds pretentious on paper, then it sounded irrepressible on vinyl. Worth it for the title track alone, London Calling was studded with gems, from The Right Profile to Spanish Bombs.

The Damned - Machine Gun Etiquette

More than quarter of a century on, we’re still trying to come up with adjectives to describe The Damned’s third album. It’s a resolutely – almost stubbornly – British masterpiece that dips into countless unlikely sources (including the melody from the Shake & Vac advert, according to Captain Sensible), and managed to make us think on Anti-Pope and snigger on These Hands.

Dire Straits - Communique

Released as Mark Knopfler turned 30, 1979’s Communique was a collection of character sketches whose quiet cynicism implied the Dire Straits front man had no idea they would later be performed on the stadium circuit. The album lacked a killer single, but songs such as Where Do You Think You’re Going? and Portobello Belle would waltz effortlessly into the band’s canon of classics.

Fleetwood Mac - Tusk

Costing the band two years and a million dollars to record, Tusk betrayed the pressure Fleetwood Mac were feeling following Rumours. Endless changes of tack over a sprawling tracklist give the album an incoherent but undeniably exciting feel, with Lindsey Buckingham’s exquisite folk-rock writing to the forefront.

The Jam - Setting Sons

The Jam’s reputation as a singles band sometimes meant their albums didn’t receive equal credit. Setting Sons deserves praise, though. Paul Weller’s fourth was a concept album (about a reunion between friends) that couldn’t always be bothered to stick to the concept but featured some of his best lyrics and most biting portraits of Britain.

Judas Priest - Unleashed In The East

Rob Halford had the flu when Judas Priest played their 1978 shows at the Koseinenkin and Nakano Sunplaza Halls in Tokyo, which lead to his vocals being slightly ‘touched-up’ before Unleashed In The East was released the following year. If you can forgive this flouting of live album etiquette, you’ll find a record that nails Priest’s essence in a way that their studio albums managed only fleetingly.

Led Zeppelin - In Through The Out Door

Led Zeppelin’s seventh and final album (not including the posthumous Coda) hinted at the direction the band might have taken had they not been derailed by John Bonham’s death the following year. Recorded at the Polar Studios in Stockholm, In Through The Out Door fused vintage Zep chest-beating (In The Evening) with convincing forays into synth territory (All Of My Love), and serves as a frustrating reminder of how much gas the band had left in the tank.

Motorhead - Overkill

Thanks to its blurring of the lines between metal subgenres, Overkill refused to settle neatly into a pigeon-hole, instead establishing Motörhead as the band who prowled around the periphery of NWOBHM and growled at anyone who suggested they might like to come in. Regarded by many as the band’s debut proper, Overkill is still the definitive scream into the void.

Pink Floyd - The Wall

Whichever way you look at it, The Wall was enormous. Since its release, Pink Floyd’s masterwork has gone platinum 23 times, making it the top-selling album of the decade. A 26-track journey through the mind of a jaded rock star (Roger Waters, to be specific), The Wall broke Floyd’s soundscapes into actual songs and yielded the weirdest ever Christmas No.1 in Another Brick In The Wall (Part II).

Marianne Faithfull - Broken English

Nobody saw Broken English coming. After nearly a decade in the shadows, Faithfull’s comeback traded the handclaps and falsettos of her youth for an unflinching account of her years on the edge. If her scorched delivery and explicit lyrics were shocking – particularly on Why’d Ya Do It – it was impossible to look away.

Rainbow - Down To Earth

Having binned the lineup of Long Live Rock’N’Roll and brought in vocalist Graham Bonnet, Ritchie Blackmore emerged from the studio with an album that owed more to bluesy hard rock than the ‘fantasy-metal’ of his work with Ronnie James Dio. The big one was Since You Been Gone (written by Argent’s Russ Ballard), but All Night Long charted higher at UK No.5.

The Ramones - It’s Alive

The ultimate live punk album? We can’t think of many to top it. With barely a breath drawn by the band between songs, this is the sound of London’s Rainbow Theatre – so often the setting of cozy all-star jams – being battered into submission by the world’s fastest setlist. Three decades later, and the sweat still doesn’t smell stale.

The Scorpions - Lovedrive

It probably dismayed Scorpions guitarist Uli Jon Roth when his former band responded to his departure with their best album so far. With Matthias Jabs on guitar, and erstwhile axeman Michael Schenker dropping back in for a couple of solos, Lovedrive was knocked out at double speed and maximum volume, with tracks like Can’t Get Enough and Coast To Coast proving the Scorpions hadn’t lost their sting

Thin Lizzy - Black Rose: A Rock Legend

With only The Very Best Of Leo Sayer standing between this album and the top of the UK chart, Black Rose: A Rock Legend proved a notable success for Thin Lizzy and was arguably the band’s most varied record to date. Alongside odes to his new daughter Sarah and the funk-driven S&M, Phil Lynott told dark tales of mean streets and substance abuse, while the newly rejoined Gary Moore was on blistering form throughout.

Van Halen - Van Halen II

Van Halen’s second album was knocked out in six days, and consequently exudes the charm that comes from boundless technique, minimal thought, and no reverse gear. The two hits – Dance The Night Away and Beautiful Girls – both strayed into pop territory, but at its heart this record is another formidable slice of flair-metal, and the unmistakable sound of a bar being raised.

The Undertones - The Undertones

An album that had few aspirations beyond making you jump up and down, The Undertones made no apologies for its naivety or the limited scope of its musical worldview. This was the sound of pockmarked youth crystallized into a medley of three-chord classics. Teenage Kicks remains the pick, but Jimmy Jimmy and Get Over You give it a bloody good run for its money.

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