Author: Lauren Leadingham

Elvis Costello earned his second GRAMMY win last night at the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards. Elvis & The Imposters have won the Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album category for his thirtieth studio album, Look Now (Concord Records), the latest with longtime band The Imposters. The nomination of this album was Costello’s fifteenth to date. His first GRAMMY win was in 1998 for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals for “I Still Have That Other Girl,” a duet with Burt Bacharach. The singer-songwriter nonpareil did not know Look Now had been entered into the category until he got the nomination. Costello is among a class…

Pearl Jam have returned! And they’ve announced a North American tour in support of their new album, Gigaton, slated for a March 27th release via their own Monkeywrench Records. Gigaton is the band’s 11th studio album and their first in seven years. “Making this record was a long journey. It was emotionally dark and confusing at times, but also an exciting and experimental road map to musical redemption. Collaborating with my bandmates on Gigaton ultimately gave me greater love, awareness and knowledge of the need for human connection in these times,” lead guitarist Mike McCready said in a statement.…

Roger Waters has announced his summer tour dates for a North American tour he aptly designates This Is Not a Drill. This comes just over a year after his Us + Them Tour, which garnered rave reviews. The former Pink Floyd co-founder will commence This Is Not a Drill, an “all-new show,” in Pittsburgh on July 8th; he’ll trek west then central before ending in Dallas on October 3rd. “As the clock ticks faster and faster and faster down to extinction, it seemed like a good thing to make a fuss about it, so that’s why I’m going on the…

Sam Cooke, the King of Soul, would have turned 89 today. Accordingly, on January 24th, ABKCO Music & Records will launch a yearlong campaign leading up to the 90th anniversary of his birth with the release of The Complete Keen Years (1957 – 1960) CD Box Set. ABKCO announces a series of eight vinyl editions, including several Tracey Limited titles back in print restored with the original artwork. This box set anthologizes Cooke’s body of work during the years he spent with John and Alex Siamas’s Keen label from 1957 to 1960. Sam had seen great success as a gospel…

For some of us, including myself, the nostalgia of the ‘90s will live on forever. One of the bands that rouse my sentiment for the decade is Spin Doctors. The 1991 album Pocket Full of Kryptonite was paradigmatic of just how musically dynamic the ‘90s could be. The Spins’ melange of pop hooks, funk, neo-hippie jam, rock, and blues, turned the alternative world on its ear. And I know my ears still perk up at the intro drum fill of “Two Princes” every time, like clockwork.  The girl in me, with sloppy braids daydreaming out the car window to a Pocket…

“It was so beautiful it went up in flames,” Robbie Robertson says of the Band’s story. From executive producers Martin Scorsese, Brian Grazer, and Ron Howard and director Daniel Roher is the latest Band documentary, which touches extensively on Robertson’s own journey. Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and the Band comes to theaters on February 21. Also interviewed are Robertson’s collaborators and friends: Bruce Springsteen, Van Morrison, Eric Clapton, Scorsese himself, and others. “Once Were Brothers” refers to a song on Robbie’s sixth solo album, Sinematic, which features Citizen Cope and Frederic Yonnet. Magnolia Pictures trailer: https://youtu.be/ZYTpMZjZxwI

Filming has commenced in Los Angeles, CA on the latest feature film from director Denny Tedesco. His award-winning music documentary The Wrecking Crew shone an overdue spotlight on the most iconic session musicians of the ’60s, who backed practically every major American artist of the era including The Beach Boys, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, and Sonny & Cher. Denny is the son of Wrecking Crew guitarist Tommy Tedesco. Immediate Family is something of a sequel to The Wrecking Crew, with Tedesco exhibiting another group of recording studio masters who have been at it from the early 1970s to present day: Danny…

I am very sad to announce that Neil Peart died in California this past Tuesday, January 7, due to complications from brain cancer. He was 67. Peart made his debut with Rush on the 1975 album Fly by Night. He stayed on as a prized drummer and primary songwriter, writing songs such as “New World Man,” “Subdivisions,” “Spirit of Radio,” “Limelight,” “Freewill,” and “The Trees.” Not only did he write those philosophical lyrics, but he played consummately to the respective emotion of each song behind his colossal double drum kit. When I think of drummers who are also songwriters, I…

There’s Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, and Ella Fitzgerald. And then there’s Jolie Holland: the present day éminence grise of the jazz-folk-blues vein, whose voice so exquisitely demarcates the difference between solid gold and Pinchbeck alloy. The singer/songwriter will be reissuing her first full-length studio album, Escondida, as a limited edition vinyl-only release on January 31st to commemorate its 15th anniversary. Pressed on 140-gram vinyl for optimal audio quality, Escondida will come as two 45RPM LPs.   “It’s been really interesting just looking back. I often think about everything that’s changed in the music industry, how that record was made,” Jolie tells…

Louis Armstrong once spoke about his hit song “What a Wonderful World,” lecturing, “It ain’t the world that’s so bad but what we’re doin’ to it. And all I’m saying is, see, what a wonderful world it would be if only we’d give it a chance.” And all I’m saying is, did we heed his exhortation to give way to a more peaceful world order? Jolie Holland and Booker T. Jones collaborated back in 2007 to commemorate then 40th anniversary of “What a Wonderful World,” originally penned by Bob Thiele and George David Weiss. The song proved succor for the…