London trio Girl Ray have shared a new song, “Everybody’s Saying That,” via a music video. Ben H Allen (Gnarls Barkley, Animal Collective, MIA, Belle & Sebastian) produced the song, which finds the band embracing ’70s disco, as filtered through modern indie-pop. Alice Harding directed the video, which fittingly takes place at a club, complete with a rollerskating dancer. .
“The lyrics on this single were inspired by the straight-to-the-heart simplicity of the disco greats,” says singer/guitarist Poppy Hankin in a press release. “I wrote it while missing my partner while on tour in 2020, and it plays on themes of new love and self-doubt. Musically we took reference from the nu-disco resurgence that seemed to be taking off in 2020, in particular from the likes of Kylie Minogue (Disco), Jessie Ware (What’s Your Pleasure?), Dua Lipa (Future Nostalgia), and Róisín Murphy (Róisín Machine). We were really inspired by all of these women re-imagining disco.”
Hankin had this to say about the video: “We met Alice, the director, while we were all working in a coffee truck on film sets over the pandemic. Alice is the special kind of person you can put total faith in and know she’ll make something amazing, so when she agreed to direct our video we were beyond excited. We wanted the video to have an emphasis on atmosphere and colour rather than narrative to fit in with the feel of the song, which Alice achieved wonderfully. Lyrically the song is about longing, and even though it was filmed in Slough, the video has pure Hollywood vibes thanks to a hugely talented cast and crew, and countless favours that Alice managed to pull in. We hope you enjoy it.”
Harding adds: “It was such a pleasure to direct this video for Girl Ray. We forayed into the underground to a party harking back to the halcyon days of Studio 54—in a boy-meets-boy story of love, lust, music and pure ’70s disco joy.”
Girl Ray, the three-piece comprising Poppy Hankin, Iris McConnell and Sophie Moss, announce new single ‘Everybody’s Saying That’
The Tallest Man on Earth (aka Swedish musician Kristian Matsson) has announced a new album, “Henry St”., and shared its first single, “Every Little Heart,” via a music video. “Henry St”. is due out April 14th via ANTI-Records. Jeroen Dankers directed the video for “Every Little Heart.”
“Henry St”.is Matsson’s first album of original songs in four years, although last September he released the covers album, “Too Late For Edelweiss”, via ANTI-Records. His last regular album was 2019’s “I Love You, It’s a Fever Dream”.
In 2020, Matsson left New York City to return to his farm in Sweden. It was only after he returned to touring in 2021 that the inspiration to write and record new music struck.
“When I’m in motion, I can focus on my instinct, have my daydreams again. When I was finally able to tour again, I started writing like a madman,” Matsson says in a press release.
The album features Ryan Gustafson (guitar, lap steel, ukulele), TJ Maiani (drums), CJ Camerieri of Bon Iver (trumpet , French horn), Phil Cook (piano, organ), Rob Moose of Bon Iver, yMusic (strings), and Adam Schatz (saxophone).
“They opened everything up, and understood what the songs that I’d written needed: sounds that I couldn’t ever have thought of or created myself,” says Matsson of the band of players. “We recorded so many of the songs live in the studio, playing, having fun and being really open with each other.”
Of “Every Little Heart,” Matsson says: “But of course I still have little demons inside of me. I wrote some key changes in the song that came natural to me, but I worried they might sound unnatural to others. When TJ Maiani heard it, he straightaway went into this drumbeat that shocked me a little at first, but came completely natural to him. It fit’s the song perfectly.”
Dankers shot the video on 16mm Kodak film and it’s the first part of a trilogy. Dankers says that the video “portrays a conflict you can have with your inner child, which you sometimes still have inside you and you want to let go, but that isn’t always easy.”
Summing up the new album, Matsson says: “Henry St“. is the most playful, most me album yet, because it covers so many of the different noises in my head. When you overthink things, you get further away from your original ideas. And God knows I overthink things when I’m by myself.”
Vocal, Acoustic Guitar – Kristian Matsson Electric Guitar – Ryan Gustafson Drums – TJ Maiani Bass – Nick Sanborn
Unknown Mortal Orchestra (mainly the project of New Zealand-born Ruban Nielson) have announced a new album, “V”, and shared a new song from it, “Layla,” via a music video. “V”is due out March 17th via Jagjaguwar Records.
VIRA-LATA directed the “Layla” video, which stars Mia Bueno and Fernanda Peyerl. The album includes “I Killed CaptainHook,” a single shared last November, and “Weekend Run,” a single from 2021.
“V “was recorded in Palm Springs with Nielson’s brother, Kody Nielson, alongside their father, Chris Nielson (saxophone/flute), and longstanding Unknown Mortal Orchestra member Jake Portrait. At the start of the pandemic, Nielson took a break from recording and spent some time in Hawaii to be there for a sick uncle and to help his mother and another uncle move to Hawaii from New Zealand and Portland. There was also a family wedding in Hawaii. The Nielson brothers then returned to Palm Springs to finish the album.
“In Hawaii, everything shifted off of me and my music,” Ruban Nielson says in a press release. “Suddenly, I was spending more time figuring out what others need and what my role is within my family. I also learned that things I thought were true of myself are bigger than I thought. My way of making mischief—that’s not just me—that’s my whole Polynesian side. I thought I was walking away from music to focus on family, but the two ended up connecting.”
In 2018, Unknown Mortal Ochestra released two albums: “Sex & Food” and “IC-01 Hanoi”.
For the first six years of their existence, LA’s Death Valley Girls purveyed scathing garage-rock and Suzi Quatro-esque glam with true-believer monomania, with very few detours into mellower territory. Sure, bands that rock hard and heavy could fill the Grand Canyon, but Death Valley Girls did it with more conviction and skill than 93% of the pack.
The thing is, they’d taken that style as far as they could, and it was time for a paradigm shift. So, beginning with 2020’s “Under the Spell of Joy”, Death Valley Girls loosened up a bit, psychedelicized to a degree, and broadened and added depth to their sonic palette (one inspiration was Ethiopian funk), and the changes did them good.
You can hear Death Valley GirlsBonnie Bloomgarden (vocals, organ), Larry Schemel (guitar), Rikki Styxx (drums), and Sammy Westervelt (bass, vocals)—inching further away from their garage-rock roots on their forthcoming album, “Islands in the Sky” (out February 24 via Seattle’s Suicide Squeeze label). “What Are the Odds” flirts with a fuzzy brand of bubblegum pop; “Journey to Dog Star” traffics in the sort of dark psychedelia that Echo & the Bunnymen took to the bank in the ’80s; “Watch the Sky” cruises elegantly down the Autobahn with krautrocking panache. The latter is Death Valley Girls most cosmic moment.
The group’s expansive sound arises partially from auxiliary musicians Gabe Flores (sax), Mark Rains (percussion), Gregg Foreman (synth, Wurlitzer, Hammond organ), and backing vocalists Little Ghost, Pickle, and Kelsey R. And on “Sunday,” the second single from “Islands in the Sky”, they venture into gospel’s holy caverns and show they got soul to burn.
Elevated by Foreman’s Hammond and Flores’s sax, Bloomgarden turns in a show- and time-stopping vocal performance, and the rave-up coda with the backing singers urging, “keep on movin’” perfectly caps off this thrilling, motivational anthem for Death Valley Girls. To quote the last song on Island, “it’s all really kind of amazing.”
The band have shared its latest single, “Magic Powers,” via a music video. The band’s bassist/co-lead singer Samantha Westervelt directed the video, which features the band in a video game.
The band’s main singer Bonnie Bloomgarden had this to say about the “Magic Powers” in a press release: “I was walking down the street, and all of the sudden it dawned on me that almost all the things that kids bullied me about, or I got in trouble for in school, or was told would make me never amount to anything, were actually my magic powers! My voice isn’t too high, or funny, it’s how I cast my spells! I’m not a bad student, I love learning, and being a seeker! And I’m not a crazy person with weird ideas, that will never fit into society, I’m a witch, and I have magic powers!”
Westervelt had this to say about the video: “This was a really exciting video to work on. The concept of the song and the concept of the video go hand-in-hand: facing challenges in life are part of the obstacle course we go through when we are training to get Magic Powers. No situation is ever going to be perfect and mistakes or adversity will challenge us, but if we stay true to who we are in the face of the lessons we’re served, and try try try again no matter what stands in our way, we can have magic powers. I am a firm believer in reincarnation, manifestation, and divine timing, and the video also plays around with those ideas, in addition to playing with a recurring theme from our ‘What Are the Odds’ video (i.e., living in a simulated world).”
Death Valley Girls are releasing a new album, “Islands in the Sky”, on February 24th via Suicide Squeeze.
On an August evening in 1968, the sun was sinking in the western sky as the cab crawled up Laurel Canyon, bathing the Hollywood Hills in a golden flush of summer. Graham Nash stopped in front of a small wooden house on Lookout Mountain Avenue. Inside, lights glowed and I could hear the jingle-jangle of voices.
I leaned on my guitar case – the only baggage I’d carried off the plane at LAX – and considered again where I was and what I was doing here: leaving my country, my marriage and my band, all at once. It was August 1968, and the Hollies and I had come to an impasse. We had grown up together and enjoyed incredible success, but we were growing apart.
The same with my marriage: Rosie was off in Spain chasing another man, and I was in Los Angeles, the city that already felt like my new home, to visit Joni Mitchell, who had captured my heart. I was an English rock star – I had it made. I had co-written a fantastic string of hits with The Hollies. I was friends with the Stones and The Beatles.
Suddenly, Joni was at the door and nothing else mattered. She was the whole package: a lovely, sylphlike woman with a natural blush, like windburn, and an elusive quality that seemed lit from within. Behind her, at the dining room table, were my new American friends David Crosby and Stephen Stills – refugees, like me, from successful, broken bands. I grinned the moment I laid eyes on them.
I had never met anybody like Crosby. He was an irreverent, funny, brilliant hedonist who had been thrown out of The Byrds the previous year. He always had the best drugs, the most beautiful women, and they were always naked. Stephen was a guy in a similar mould. He was brash, egotistical, opinionated, provocative, volatile, temperamental, and so talented. A very complex cat, and a little crazy, he had just left Buffalo Springfield, one of the primo LA bands. That night, while Joni listened, the three of us sang together for the first time. I heard the future in the power of those voices. And I knew my life would never be the same.
Joni and I had first met after a Hollies show in Ottawa, Canada in March. I’d seen this beautiful blonde in the corner by herself, and I’d shuffled over and introduced myself. ‘I know who you are,’ she said, slyly. ‘That’s why I’m here.’ She had invited me back to her room at a beautiful old French Gothic hotel, where flames licked at logs in the fireplace, incense burned in ashtrays and beautiful scarves were draped over the lamps. It was a seduction scene extraordinaire.
She picked up a guitar and played me 15 of the best songs I’d ever heard, and then we spent the night together. It was magical on so many different levels. That evening with Crosby and Stills at Joni’s, five months later, was the first time I’d seen her since. From the moment I first heard her play, I thought she was a genius. I’m good at what I do, but genius? . She was finishing her “Clouds” album and writing songs for what would become Ladies Of The Canyon.
After that, I moved out to Los Angeles for good, as soon as I had messily extricated myself from The Hollies.
The plan was to crash at Crosby’s house, where a party was always in full swing: beautiful young women all over the place, some clothed, some not so clothed. Music pulsing through the place. It was Hippy heaven.
On my first night, in the midst of the party, Joni appeared. Taking me by the arm, she said: ‘Come to my house and I’ll take care of you.’ I moved into Joni’s and never made it back to David’s. Joni had a great little place, built in the 1930s by a black jazz musician: knotty pine, creaky wooden floors, a couple of cabinets full of beautifully coloured glass objects and Joan’s artwork leaning discreetly here and there.
We both wrote whenever the spirit moved us, but in Joni’s house, when it came to the piano, I always gave way. If she was working there or playing guitar in the living room, I’d head into the bedroom with my guitar or simply take a walk. Occasionally, I lingered in the kitchen, just listening to her play. I wrote there too. On one of those grey days in LA that foreshadows spring, Joni bought a vase on the way home from breakfast. When we got back, she gathered flowers in the garden, and while she was away from the piano, I wrote “Our House”, capturing that little domestic moment.
Early on, Joan and I went to visit her parents in her Canadian hometown of Saskatoon. I can’t describe what her childhood room looked like because I wasn’t allowed within 20 feet of it. Bill and Myrtle were a very straight, religious couple, and they weren’t about to let a long-haired hippy sleep with their daughter under their roof.
Joni represented one aspect of my new life in LA; Crosby and Stills the other. Crosby and Joni had been lovers not long before, but he wasn’t the possessive type. He had fallen in love with a beautiful girl named Christine Hinton, Crosby had far worse problems. His girlfriend Christine was taking the cats to the vet, when one escaped in the van. Veering into the opposite lane, she was hit by a school bus and killed instantly. I watched a part of David die that day. He wondered aloud what the universe was doing to him. And he went off the rails; he was never the same again.
When David, Stephen and I flew out to The Hamptons for our first serious Crosby Stills & Nash rehearsals, we rented a wooden chalet by the lake and invoked the ‘no women’ rule. We were finally free from our previous bands.
We had a hell of a time, cementing our friendship, getting wasted, working up the first CSN album – three hippies wired to their eyeballs in a snowbound cabin for a month.
We recruited Stills’s old bandmate Neil Young as our fourth member and played our first show in Chicago. Now, I know a few things about crazy tours. At our height, the Hollies’ shows had been insane: wall-to-wall teenage girls, screaming their heads off in a sexual frenzy at these young, good-looking guys playing loud rock ’n’ roll.
At one of our shows in Glasgow, 75 girls fainted during the Hollies’ set and had to be passed hand-over-head, like in a mosh pit. Some of those gigs had an eerie, war-zone quality. If a chick took a shine to the lead singer, you could bet he was going to get his ass kicked by her boyfriend and his pals after the show. I can’t tell you how many buses I ran for after concerts. One time, I got three front teeth shattered.
The period between the fall of 1970 and the summer of ’71 was an auspicious one for America’s prime supergroup, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. Each of the individual members released crucial solo albums within a year and a half of Déjà Vu’s arrival: Stephen Stills’ released “Stills 2”, David Crosby’s first outing of his own, “If I Could Only Remember My Name” and Neil Young’s career-defining “After the Gold Rush” and along with Graham Nash’s initial individual offering, “Songs for Beginners”. In many ways, Nash’s album, released on May 28th, 1971, was the most anticipated effort of all. Stills and Young had proven their muster with earlier efforts, while Crosby’s previous behaviour negated any great hope for significant achievement. Nash’s work, on the other hand, had heightened expectations, given a lengthy early résumé that included his tenure with the Hollies as one of the group’s chief singers, songwriters and original architects. After all, his high harmonies were an integral element in the band’s biggest songs “On a Carousel,” “King Midas in Reverse” and “Carrie Anne,” to name but a few—and indeed, when he joined forces with Crosby and Stills, his songs and singing helped define the sound of that union as much as anything else brought to bear by his colleagues.
Given his signature style, he already had all the elements needed when it came to plotting his long-awaited outing. Not that he was going it alone; like his partners, Nash took a populist approach, inviting the same friends and fellow travellers that populated the prodigious post-’60s West Coast music scene: Jerry Garcia and Phil Lesh of the Grateful Dead, fellow expatriate Dave Mason, Jackson Browne accompanist David Lindley, his then-current paramour Rita Coolidge, and, of course, his erstwhile compadres Crosby and Young. Consequently, while Nash naturally takes centre stage, any one of these songs could easily have found a fit in the CSNY repertoire. The highly charged anthem written in support of the so-called Chicago Eight, “Chicago” proved the point after making its debut on “4 Way Street” the year before.
Like the album’s lead-off track “Military Madness,” Nash’s autobiographical narrative on the futility of army conscription, “Chicago “was rooted in the anti-war stance that fully ignited within the band following the student killings at Kent State and the rush-release of their single “Ohio” in its immediate aftermath.
That said, the majority of the album could be considered an emotional salve of sorts, given that the songs were written in the immediate aftermath of Nash’s breakup with one-time lover and subject of the song “Our House,” Joni Mitchell. Indeed, Nash makes little attempt to hide his tattered emotions, especially as they’re reflected within such songs as “Better Days,” “Sleep Song” and “I Used To Be a King.” The latter is especially telling, a distraught attempt to reconcile his heartbreak with the serenity and security he thought he once attained: “I used to be a king and everything around me turned to gold/I thought I had everything and now I’m left without a hand to hold…” The lyric becomes even more explicit as Nash conveys his sentiments in the resolute yet remorseful chorus:
“And in my bed where are you Someone is going to take my heart But no one is going to break my heart again”
The feelings of heartbreak and happenstance morph into words of advice in the emotional thrust of the bittersweet ballad “Better Days,” in which Nash attempts to impart lessons learned into abject advice for others:
Back in the U.S., with Crosby torturing himself over Christine’s death, he and I took his boat and embarked on a trip from Fort Lauderdale, Florida to San Francisco: 3,000 miles, seven weeks at sea, with a bottomless supply of weed and coke. Joni met us just outside Panama, and it wasn’t pleasant. A row broke out, Joan yelling that I hated all women. Things had turned ugly between us. She decided to leave us and fly back to LA.
When I got home, Joni decided she needed a break. I was laying a floor in her kitchen when a telegram arrived from her. It said: ‘If you hold sand too tightly in your hand, it will run through your fingers. Love, Joan.’ I knew at that point it was truly over between us.
That’s how things were by 1973. But Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young were a habit I couldn’t kick, and we jumped at that 1974 tour. We made $12 million, though David, Stephen, Neil and Nash only got $300,000 each. Plenty of people took their cuts off the top, while we picked up the tab for the decadence.
We were our own worst enemy. Put the four of us in a room, and anything could trigger a fatal blast. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young wouldn’t tour together again for 26 years.
It was the biggest tour ever staged. The Beatles had played Shea Stadium and the Stones had done some big dates, but until Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young hit the stadiums and arenas of America in the summer of 1974, no rock band had ever played to that many people, night after night, for two-and-a-half months.
Everything was going to be first-class. Travel was in private planes, helicopters and limousines with police escorts. There were hand-embroidered pillowcases in every hotel with Joni Mitchell’s drawing of the four of us silk-screened in five colours on the front. That same logo was burned into the teak plates we all ate from.
It was a wild, profligate, orgiastic, self-indulgent tour. David Crosby, our resident free spirit, took two beautiful young women on the road with him.
Some nights, we’d have great parties, with strange people all taking the weirdest things and eating the best food – all paid for by us. Other nights, the excess would overwhelm. Tensions between us crept up all the time.
It was six years since Crosby, Stephen Stills and I had first sung together and discovered a flawless three-part harmony that came naturally to us.
Our first album caught fire and went burning up the charts; our second show was Woodstock. We were in love with each other and in possession of something magical.
By 1974, things had changed. Music, drugs, talent, ego, excess, stubbornness – mix them together and it’s a powerful explosive.
We hadn’t been out on the road for a while and all of us had expensive lifestyles. We liked to play small venues, where you could see the audience’s eyes. That’s difficult with 50,000 people. So we did it for the money. We’d fallen for the rock ’n’ roll bull**** in a big way.
“The Sacred Now” and “How Long,” two new singles from the forthcoming album “Workin’ On A World”,are out today.
On February 24th, Iris DeMent contemplates the external and internal issues of our world with her 7th album, the inspiring “Workin’ On A World”. During the course of her celebrated career, the pioneering artist has continued to evolve as she thoughtfully touches on the critical moments in our lives. On “Workin’ On A World”, her songs are her way of healing our broken inner and outer spaces.
DeMent sets the stage for the album with the title track in which she moves from a sense of despair towards a place of promise. “Now I’m workin’ on a world I may never see / Joinin’ forces with the warriors of love / Who came before and will follow you and me.” “Goin’ Down To Sing in Texas” is an ode not only to gun control, but also to the brave folks who speak out against tyranny and endure the consequences in an unjust world.
About “The Sacred Now,” DeMent notes, “Every day in 2020, some new trauma was being added to the old ones that kept repeating themselves, and like everybody else, I was just trying to bear up under it all. Songs, ever since I was a child, have been lending me a hand. Writing songs, singing songs, putting them on records, has been a way for me to extend that hand to others. One day, in the middle of the mayhem, I got the idea to send a melody and a title for a song I’d been working on to my friend, and fellow songwriter, Pieta Brown. Within a few hours, she’d sent me a handful of verses she’d come up with; I sent her a handful back. We looked over all our verses and noticed that two of hers and two of mine went good together. Abracadabra! The SacredNow.”
Elton John’s “Honky Château” album will be reissued in expanded 50th Anniversary editions by UMR/EMI on March 24th. in 2CD, 2LP, and limited edition gold vinyl LP configurations.
To preview the release, “Rocket Man” (Live at The Festival Hall, London 1972) and “Mellow” (Session Demo) are shared today. The live version of what became an undying Elton signature marked its first public performance on February 5th, 1972, two months before the song became the first single from “Honky Château” in April, itself one month before the LP appeared. It features what became Elton’s classic band line-up of the era, with Davey Johnstone on guitar, Dee Murray on bass and NigelOlsson on drums, and mirrors the track’s studio arrangement on stage with accuracy and freshness.
‘Honky Chateau – 50 Anniversary Edition’ will include a bonus disc of live tracks records at The Festival Hall, London two months before the album was released including the first time ‘Rocket Man’ was performed live.
‘Honky Chateau’ was released in May, 1972, just six months after the previous album ‘Madman Across The Water’ (with ‘Levon’ and ‘Tiny Dancer’) and seven months before the next album ‘Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only The Piano Player’ (With ‘Crocodile Rock’ and ‘Daniel’). Elton says the songs for the album came fast.
“The first morning we were there, I had three (songs) done by the time the band drifted downstairs looking for something to eat: ‘Mona Lisas And Mad Hatters,’ ‘Amy’ and ‘Rocket Man.’” The remainder of the album would follow suit; ‘Susie (Dramas),’ ‘Hercules,’ ‘Salvation,’ ‘Honky Cat,’ ‘Slave,’ ‘I Think I’m Going To Kill Myself’ and ‘Mellow.’”
The demo of “Mellow” is from the Honky at the Château segments of the expanded 2LP and 2CD editions of the album. These are spread across two sections which feature the demo versions of every track on the album with the exception of “Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters.” The 2CD edition adds eight tracks from the finished LP as performed at the Royal Festival Hall, “Rocket Man” among them. A 40-page booklet with rare photos, memorabilia, and an essay featuring eye witness interviews accompanies the 2CD edition, and an eight-page booklet the 2LP version.
As detailed “Honky Château” was Elton’s fifth studio album and a significant step towards his global superstardom. It also marked the first time he recorded at the residential Château d’Hérouville studio of its title, situated 25 miles north-west of Paris.
It was a time of unbridled creativity, as the superstar would later remember of the prolific sessions.
I’m excited to release brand new formats of “Honky Château” to celebrate the album’s 50th anniversary!
This was one of the most creative periods with Bernie and I writing song after song including ‘Rocket Man’, ‘Honky Cat’ and ‘Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters’, so I hope you enjoy joining me back at the Château!
Releasing on March 24th, a newly created selection of outtakes from the original session demos, and unseen photos and memorabilia from 1972 have been unearthed.
“Honky Château 50th anniversary edition”, which are released on March 24th.
2CD – The double CD offers the original album, a newly created selection of outtakes from the original session tapes and eight live recordings from the Royal Festival Hall show in 1972, where the tracks received their live debut, just a few days after being recorded at the Château. It includes a 40-page booklet with an essay featuring interviews from those who were there at the time.
2LP – The 2LP vinyl edition includes the nine session demos but not the Royal Festival Hall live performances. It comes with a booklet featuring an essay and images etc.
Los Angeles, CA – January 30, 2023 – In 1977, Joe Ely boldly emerged from West Texas, establishing himself as one of country’s most exciting songwriters and fiercely rebellious new voices. With his unique blend of hardcore honky-tonk, Tex Mex, rockabilly, and rock ‘n’ roll swagger, Ely was well on his way to becoming one of the genre’s most recognizable and respected artists. At the core of this foundational period was a trio of broadly-acclaimed albums: “Joe Ely,” (1977), “Honky Tonk Masquerade” (1978), and “Down on the Drag” (1979). “It was exciting for me to make these first three albums in the beginning,” says Joe Ely. “Now I’m really glad MCA and UMe chose to remaster and re-release these albums this year and they’ll once again be available on vinyl.”
The albums capture the excitement generated by the bold and rebellious songwriter and his unique combination of honky-tonk, Tex Mex, rockabilly, and rock’n’roll. Each has been meticulously remastered from the original analog tapes by the Grammy-winning engineer Dave Donnelly.
Now, more than four decades and thirty-plus albums later, MCA Nashville/UMe and Ely have partnered to celebrate these long-out-of-print titles with three special reissues. Set for release on February 17th and available for pre-order today, “Joe Ely,” “Honky Tonk Masquerade,” and “Down on the Drag” will all return to vinyl for the first time since 1980.
While “Joe Ely” introduced the singer-songwriter to the world, the 30-year-old Lubbock native had built a following in his home state long before his first album dropped. After co-founding The Flatlanders in his early 20s, alongside Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Butch Hancock. Ely embarked on a solo career, assembling a backing band that included steel guitarist Lloyd Wayne Maines, guitarist Rick Hulett, and bassist Gregg Wright. By the time Ely signed to MCA Records, his band had expanded by eight members – all of whom joined him at Chip Young’s Tennessee studio to record their first album.
“It was exciting for me to make these first three albums in the beginning,” says Ely. “Now I’m really glad MCA and UMe chose to remaster and rerelease these albums this year and they’ll once again be available on vinyl.”
Released at the height of the outlaw country music craze, Ely’s eponymous 1977 debut announced its namesake as the scene’s most exciting new voice. Featuring all original material (penned by Ely, as well as his former Flatlanders bandmates), the album offered up a variety of memorable western ballads, including “She Never Spoke Spanish to Me,” “Tennessee’s Not The State I’m In,” and “If You Were a Bluebird.” Other highlights include the rollicking tracks, “Suckin’ a Big Bottle of Gin,” and album closer “Johnny Blues,” both bolstered by the legendary Muscle Shoals Horns. To celebrate the release of the album, Ely rode a covered wagon to New York City’s Lone Star Café where he performed for five nights.
Following a busy schedule of touring around the U.S., U.K., and Europe, Ely and his band returned to the studio to record their follow up, “Honky Tonk Masquerade.” Long considered a masterpiece by critics around the globe, Ely’s sophomore album cemented him as a force in the industry. Melody Maker declared that “Honky Tonk Masquerade” will establish Joe Ely as the most exciting and talented country rock artist around today. Bar none.” Village Voice’s Robert Christgau, the “dean of American rock critics,” exclaimed, “Ely’s emotional openness seems neither sentimental nor contrived. He balls the jack with irrefutable glee and sings the lonesome ones so high and hard he makes the next room sound 500 miles away. In short, there hasn’t been anything like this since Gram Parsons.
Spanning a variety of styles, “Honky Tonk Masquerade” showcased the breadth of Ely’s talents, particularly through introspective numbers like “Boxcars,” “Tonight I Think I’m Gonna Go Downtown,” and “Because of the Wind.” Featuring such fan favorites as “Fingernails” and the title track, “Honky Tonk Masquerade” has since appeared on several rankings, including Rolling Stone’s “50 Essential Albums of the 70s” (hailing it as “the decade’s most sure-footed country-rock collaboration”) and the encyclopedic “1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.”
The final album in Ely’s ‘70s discography, 1979’s “Down on the Drag,” found the artist reaching new heights in his career, following an extensive tour with Linda Ronstadt, a feature in TIME magazine, and an inaugural performance on Austin City Limits where he’d become a fixture and favourite. Looking to mix things up, Ely paired up with producer Bob Johnston, whose extensive credits included Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, and Leonard Cohen. Together, they recorded an acclaimed collection of poignant ballads (including the Butch Hancock-penned “Standin’ at the Big Hotel” and “Fools Fall in Love”) and energetic stompers (“Crawdad Train,” “Crazy Lemon,” and the title track, among them).
As the decade turned, Ely’s star would only continue to rise, as he played sold-out shows across the world, recorded with The Clash and launched Lubbock’s popular Tornado Jam festival. And yet, these were still the early days of his lengthy and highly influential career. Today, Ely remains one of the great prides of Texas and one of Americana’s most admired acts, with a solo catalog that boasts more than 20 studio and live albums, including 2020’s “Love in the Midst of Mayhem.”
Additionally, Ely continues to tour and record with The Flatlanders, who released their latest album, “Treasure of Love,” in 2021, while he earned a GRAMMY® for his work with Los Super Los Super Seven, a supergroup featuring members of Los Lobos, Ozomatli, and Calexico.
Outside of the studio, Ely is also an accomplished author, who has published two novels. Among his many honours, he has received a Lifetime Achievement Award for Live Performance from The Americana Music Association and was a 2016 inductee into the Texas Heritage Songwriter Associations Hall of Fame. That same year, Ely was named the Official Musician for the State of Texas, following in the footsteps of Willie Nelson, Lyle Lovett and Billy F Gibbons. In 2017, he became the first musician to be honored by the prestigious Texas Institute of Letters.
Ely will close the 48th season of Austin City Limits with a Hall of Fame tribute to him recorded live at ACL’s 8th Annual Hall of Fame honours on October 27th, 2022. The musical salute features performances from Ely as well as revered Lone Star musicians and his longtime collaborators in The Flatlanders, Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Butch Hancock, along with fellow Texans Rodney Crowell and Marsha Marcia Ball. The hour-long special episode includes a memorable induction by renowned Texan author Lawrence Wright along with historic highlights from the influential Texas legend’s eleven appearances on the ACL stage.
Housed in replicas of their original jackets, each album has been meticulously remastered from their original analogue tapes by GRAMMY®-winning engineer Dave Donnelly and pressed on 180-gram vinyl. All LPs will also be reissued on digital platforms – and available for the first time in stunning 192/24 HD audio.
Bruce Springsteen launched his 2023 tour tonight in Tampa, Fla., marking his first live performance with the E Street Band in close to six years.
“Good evening, Tampa!” he declared as he stepped on stage, greeted by thunderous applause from the fans in attendance. From there, Springsteen jumped straight into opening song “No Surrender,” the side two opener from 1984’s “Born in the U.S.A.“.
He then proceeded to deliver material from throughout his career. Early on the set featured some of Springsteen’s more recent tunes, such as “Ghosts” and “Letter to You” from 2020’s album of the same name. Two other songs from that album made their live debut this night: “Last Man Standing,” which he delivered solo acoustic and “Burnin’ Train.” He also performed his rendition of “Nightshift,” the Commodores classic he covered on 2022’s “Only the Strong Survive”.
After 21 songs, Springsteen took a breather, only to return for an encore featuring many of his most beloved hits. “Born to Run,” “Glory Days” and “Dancing in the Dark” ramped up the energy, with the Boss then closing his night with a solo acoustic rendition of “I’ll See You in My Dreams.”
Springsteen’s last concert with the E Street Band took place on February 2017 in Auckland, New Zealand, though he has participated in some other projects since then — he launched “Springsteen on Broadway” in the fall of 2017, co-hosted a podcast with former President Barack Obama and released three albums, “Western Stars” (2019),”Letter to You” (2020) and“Only the Strong Survive” (2022).
“I’m going to consider myself lucky if I lose just a year of touring life,” Springsteen said to Rolling Stone in 2020, about six months into the pandemic. “Once you hit 70, there’s a finite amount of tours and a finite amount of years that you have. And so you lose one or two, that’s not so great. Particularly because I feel the band is capable of playing at the very, very, very top, or better than, of its game right now. And I feel as vital as I’ve ever felt in my life. … It’s not being able to do something that is a fundamental life force, something I’ve lived for since I was 16 years old.”
Springsteen will continue touring across the U.S. in the coming months, and then bring the show to Europe for a string of dates that begin on April 28th in Barcelona. He’ll then return to the States for a second North American leg that starts in August.
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, 1st Feb 23, Amalie Arena, Tampa
1. “No Surrender” 2. “Ghosts” 3. “Prove It All Night” 4. “Letter to You” 5. “The Promised Land” 6. “Out in the Street” 7. “Candy’s Room” 8. “Kitty’s Back” 9. “Brilliant Disguise” 10. “Nightshift” (Commodores cover) 11. “Don’t Play That Song (You Lied)” (Ben E. King cover) 12. “The E Street Shuffle” 13. “Johnny 99” 14. “Last Man Standing” 15. “House of a Thousand Guitars” 16. “Backstreets” 17. “Because the Night” (Patti Smith Group cover) 18. “She’s the One” 19. “Wrecking Ball” 20. “The Rising” 21. “Badlands” 22. “Burnin’ Train” 23. “Born to Run” 24. “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)” 25. “Glory Days” 26. “Dancing in the Dark” 27. “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” 28. “I’ll See You in My Dreams”
The Fat Angel Sings 