After a four-year hiatus, Stevie is back

Stevie Wonder has released two new singles titled “Where Is Our Love Song” and “Can’t Put It in the Hands of Fate.” The 70-year-old R&B wonder shared the news during a virtual press conference today, October 13, the day of his son Mumtaz Morris’ birthday.

The songs, both written and produced by Wonder, are the first to be released through his own Republic Records imprint, So What The Fuss Music. They will be marketed and distributed by Republic Records, which is part of Universal Music Group. Wonder leaves Motown after nearly 60 years.

“Even though I have left Motown, I never leave Motown,” he said. “That’s Detroit. So, I’m sure that we can figure out how we can do some things at Motown.” Wonder was only 11 years old when Motown signed him to a contract in 1961.

“Where Is Our Love Song” is a track he first started working on at 18 years old. At the time, he wasn’t sure what to make of it. “But then there came this year that we’re dealing with, and there came all of the confusion and all of the hate, and all the east versus west, left versus right, just heartbreak.” And just like that, he was galvanized to finish the song, a collaboration with Gary Clark Jr. Wonder is donating 100 percent of its proceeds to Feeding America.

“In these times, we are hearing the most poignant wake-up calls and cries for this nation and the world to, please, heed our need for love, peace and unity.”

In his statements today, Wonder also encouraged Americans to make a voting plan for next month’s presidential election.

Rappers Busta Rhymes, Rapsody, Chika, and Cordae contribute verses to “You Can’t Put It in the Hands of Fate.”

“We can’t put voting in the hands of fate. The universe is watching us. And for me, we’ve got to vote justice in and injustice out. That’s just what time it is. That’s down the ballot, by the way, from your local to your state to your national — handle that,” he urged.

– American Blues Scene: Lauren Leadingham

Time did not fly while we’ve been waiting for this much Fun.

That is the title of Garth Brooks’ upcoming 12th studio album, due out on Nov. 20. But we have been here for it for more than two years.

Because way back in June of 2018, Brooks released the hit song “All Day Long,” which he said would be on his next album. So now, at long last, that album is ready. As is his live album Triple Live Deluxe, which will be released on Nov. 20 as well.

The 14-track Fun will have collaborations with Blake Shelton and with Trisha Yearwood. And Triple Live Deluxe covers three years of his World Tour and his Stadium Tour.

“The title of the album was sparked because making it has been such a fun process to go through. Being able to go in and out of the studio while being on the tour, working with the same guys,” Brooks said, “it’s been amazing.”

CREDITS: by Alison Bonagura – CMT

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of their 1970 album Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround Part One, The Kinks have announced that a newly remastered album will be released on December 11.

The re-mastered album will be issued as a Deluxe Box Set and on black heavyweight gatefold vinyl, 2CD and 1CD formats.

The Deluxe Box Set consists of 3 CDs — the original album plus "singles (stereo and mono mixes), B-sides, alternate original mixes, new medleys with Ray and Dave Davies' spoken word commentary, new Ray Davies remixes and original session outtakes, previously unreleased session and live tape audio, instrumental and acoustic versions, previously unreleased demos and BBC material — plus a pair of reproduced 7-inch singles from the era, 'Lola'/'Berkeley Mews' and 'Apeman'/'Rats.'

By RTTNews Staff Writer

Do You Feel Like I Do? is the incredible story of Peter Frampton’s positively resilient life and career told in his own words for the first time. His monu-mental album Frampton Comes Alive! spawned three top-twenty singles and sold eight million copies the year it was released (more than seventeen million to date), and it was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in January 2020.

Frampton was on a path to stardom from an early age, first as the lead singer and guitarist of the Herd and then as cofounder — along with Steve Marriott — of one of the first supergroups, Humble Pie. Frampton was part of a tight-knit collective of British ’60s musicians with close ties to the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, and the Who. This led to Frampton playing on George Harrison’s solo debut, All Things Must Pass, as well as to Ringo Starr and Billy Preston appearing on Frampton’s own solo debut. By age twenty-two, Frampton was touring incessantly and finding new sounds with the talk box, which would become his signature guitar effect.

Frampton remembers his enduring friendship with David Bowie. Growing up as schoolmates, crossing paths throughout their careers, and playing together on the Glass Spider Tour, the two developed an unshakable bond. Frampton also shares fascinating stories of his collaborative work with Harry Nilsson, Stevie Wonder, B. B. King, and members of Pearl Jam. He reveals both the blessing and curse of Frampton Comes Alive!, opening up about becoming the cover boy he never wanted to be, his overcoming sub-stance abuse, and how he has continued to play and pour his heart into his music despite an inflammatory muscle disease and his retirement from the road.

Peppered throughout his narrative is the story of his favorite guitar, the Phenix, which he thought he’d lost in a fiery plane crash in 1980. But in 2011, it mysteriously showed up again — saved from the wreckage. Frampton tells of that unlikely reunion here in full for the first time, and why the miraculous reappearance is emblematic of his life and career as a quintessential artist.

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You may read the review and purchase the book here!

On October 6th, Steve Perry got a text from his recording engineer that read, “Oh man, Eddie Van Halen. I can’t believe it.” The former Journey frontman had no idea what he was talking about. “I don’t watch the news anymore,” he says. “And so, I picked up the phone and said, ‘What’s going on?'”

When he heard the tragic news that the guitarist died after a long battle with cancer, Perry’s mind instantly went back to 1978 when Van Halen opened for Journey for eight weeks on the Infinity tour. He phoned up Rolling Stone to tell stories from that legendary tour and to reveal that he got a call from Eddie after David Lee Roth left the band in 1985 that could have changed rock history in a profound way. These are Perry’s words.

I am convinced that Journey became something we would not have become had we not spent time with Van Halen in 1978. That band was the opener on my first tour as a frontman with Journey, just after we made Infinity. That was the one with “Lights” and “Wheel in the Sky” and all that.

In Los Angeles, Van Halen had been playing the Whisky, Gazzarri’s, and Starwood right off the strip. Warner Bros. signed them, and they made a record with them, the first Van Halen record.

Our manager, Herbie Herbert, decided to take us to the headliner status at that time and said we needed a good opener. He heard about Van Halen and he got them to open that tour. It was about eight weeks of 3,000-seater proscenium-stage gigs. If my memory serves me, it was Van Halen opening, Ronnie Montrose second, and then Journey. This went from the beginning of March to the end of April. We had a good eight weeks where we were all together touring, staying in hotels.

That band was so on fire and Eddie Van Halen was the driving, demonstrative force of that group. The DNA was so strong musically between him and his brother Alex that when they played just on their own together, they sounded liked Led Zeppelin meets punk music. They were truly that powerful.

Then you had David Lee Roth who was a real showman and a real fun guy to be entertained by. And you had Michael Anthony on bass who had this real high, literally operatic tenor voice. Eddie sang beautifully too. They were loaded with what they needed to come out there and do what they did.

Every fuckin’ night I’d stand on the side of the stage and watch their set. I would bring [Journey guitarist] Neal [Schon] and say, “Check this out.” Neal was blown away by Eddie. I’m a drummer and I was blown away by Eddie and Alex. I knew the lock they had going.

There is something that cannot be duplicated when you have DNA in your band. The Everly Brothers had kind of a harmony that the Beatles and Simon and Garfunkel, in documentaries I’ve seen, admit that they cannot get close to. It was something they had within each other that was deeper than just musicality. It was DNA. Alex and Eddie had that.

Eddie was just so amazing. I was so respectful, but at the same time envious at what he had and what he was contributing and what they had together. Eddie was a big, big driving force in that band, but that whole band was a force to be reckoned with, believe me. Following them was a learning experience.

Back then, rock was about competition and rivalry. It’s like the San Francisco Giants playing the [Los Angeles] Dodgers. There is a rivalry. There is competition. Those two teams bring the best out of each other when they play each other. Back in those days, the headliner was always going to be challenged by the opener. The opener wants to be the winner of the evening. They want to come home victorious against the headliner, no matter who it is. There was competition. It was pro sports.

Somewhere along the line, as soon as laptops came around and everybody could play with a click trick and enhanced tracks from their albums and extra background vocals, extra guitar parts, and extra ambient, floating things, everything changed. The drummer gets the click track with his headphones, everyone plays with the drummer, and the arrangement is locked because he’s playing with the laptop. Nothing moves like it used to because of that. Everything has been neutralized to a playing field called a grid and beats per minute.

Back then, you walked out, and you played. The question was, “Who is kicking whose ass?” It was that simple. And every band would be challenging the others, and every band would learn a little something from the others, if not a lot.

People think that Eddie is the most amazing guitar player lead-wise and he is. But nobody talks about his absolute definitive rhythm pocket. When you start a song [hums the riff to “Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love”]. It was just so definitive by itself. The band hadn’t even come in yet. You hear all the instruments around it before they even come in. That’s how definitive he was as a rhythm player.

I remember telling Eddie one time, “I really love that ‘Jamie’s Cryin” song. You should be playing that.” He wants, “Naw, I don’t like it.” I think he felt it was too pretty. Isn’t that crazy?

But to be honest, I didn’t spend a lot of time with Eddie on that tour. They really had a bit of a punk “fuck you” thing going. They really didn’t hang with me. Neal may have hung with Eddie, but I didn’t.

But one night, I decided I had to go tell him, “I just love you guys.” I open the door and was about to say, “Hey, guys …” Now, back in these days, guacamole came in a cottage-cheese–like container. The band was having a food fight. Just as I was opening the door, a container of guacamole bumped off the mirror to my left and splashed against my most prized possession, being a small-town kid from Fresno. It was my satin tour jacket that had “Journey” on the back of it. Wearing that, I felt like I was finally somebody.

The guacamole went on my left shoulder and my left arm. I looked down on it and I looked up at them and they sheepishly laughed like, “Oh shit.” I just looked at them and I closed the door and left because I was pissed. I went into the bathroom and I was just pissed. That was my prized jacket. I still loved them, but I couldn’t give them props anymore after that. I wiped my guacamole off my satin jacket.

No. There was no crying! I wouldn’t cry over guacamole [laughs]. It becomes folklore at some point. It becomes silly.

Now let me tell you something Van Halen did do on that tour that was a little bit of a cardinal sin against the headliner. Back when Journey opened for Emerson, Lake, and Palmer or anyone else, often before I joined, they would get the PA slightly limited peak-wise, so they’d save the ears of the audience from the opener being too loud.

And so, when the headliner comes on, you’re in the headliner position, and you get to have the rest of the amplification in the hall that the headliner classically deserved being the headliner. That was a tradition in the music business that we did not create, but we had to live in when we opened for people.

When Van Halen opened for us and Montrose, the PA had a slight limiting on it. But let me tell you how brilliant their mixer is. Eddie had stacks of Marshalls. Michael had stacks of SVT bass amps and they only ran the drums and vocals through the PA. As I said, it sounded like Led Zeppelin meets the Sex Pistols.

I don’t think anyone knows this, but when David Lee Roth left Van Halen [in 1985] I was living in the Bay Area and not sure what I was or wasn’t going to do anymore. I don’t remember how it went down, but either I called Eddie or Eddie called me. Back in those days, we were both having what you could call “late-night behaviors” on the phone. All I know is we both ended up on the phone that night having some fun talking trash.

Eddie said that I should come down sometime and we should jam, have a play. Man, at some level within me I felt so honored because I was in awe of Eddie’s natural talent. He was just born with it. I wanted so badly to do that. We talked about how cool that could be musically. This was before Sammy [Hagar].

The next day and in the weeks to come I thought, “I don’t know that I should do that. If it goes creatively to what I know it can go to …” Whatever I could bring to that, I know it would be something I’d really love doing. My only problem I had with it was the thought, “I don’t know that I could be the guy to go out and represent the David Lee Roth years with my voice. I don’t know if I want to be that guy.” And shortly therefor, they got Sammy and he was the perfect version of that guy.

I don’t know what Eddie’s intentions were when he called me. He was just saying, “Let’s get together and play.” It wasn’t a promise. It was just, “Why not? Let’s see what this sounds like.”

As I said, I think representing their legacy up to that point would have been something vocally that I don’t think i was really suited to doing. It’s a different kind of singing. David had something vocally that I would say was in kinship with Louis Prima. Later on, he did “Just a Gigolo” and sounded more like Louis Prima. He was a real character.

Looking back at that 1978 tour with Van Halen, and I mean this from the bottom of my heart, we were really blessed to be around that kind of musicality because it changed my life. It changed what I wanted out of myself. It changed what I wanted out of my songwriting. It changed what I appreciated. People should really know that not only did Van Halen truly make Journey a better band, but they also made a lot of bands a better band.

CREDITS: Rolling Stone Magazine By Andy Greene