Masterworks Broadway to Release "Paint Your Wagon" OCR

Masterworks Broadway will release the New York City Center Encores! cast recording of Lerner & Loewe's Paint Your Wagon starring Keith Carradine, Justin Guarini and Alexandra Socha, on May 27, 2016. Filled with gorgeous standards such as "They Call the Wind Maria," "I Talk to the Trees," and "Wand'rin' Star," Paint Your Wagon is Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe's sweepingly ambitious and surprisingly realistic take on freedom, family, and racism in the Gold Rush-happy America of 1853.

The outstanding March 2015 production by Encores! brought the almost-forgotten show back to New York's mainstream stage for the first time since the original Broadway production closed in 1952. And because the original cast album; an early limited capacity monaural LP,  had omitted so much of the music, the score was ripe for rediscovery and a brand new recording. Helping to capture the spirit of the original Broadway production were the full handwritten scores used in 1951 by Franz Allers (Loewe's favorite musical director) and discovered accidentally by Rodgers & Hammerstein musicologist Bruce Pomahac at the bottom of a musty Warner Chappell trunk stored, curiously, at the R&H offices in New York.

Album co-producer and Encores! Music Director Rob Berman leads the thirty member cast and thirty-one piece Encores! Orchestra, in the 2015 stereo cast album that celebrates the scope and riches of Lerner & Loewe's exceptional score. Much of the original dance music orchestrated by Trude Rittmann, created in close collaboration with both Loewe and choreographer Agnes de Mille, appears on this recording for the first time. Also recorded for the first time on this album is the bonus track "What Do Other Folks Do?" which was dropped from the original production before the show reached New York and whose historical importance is clear: Lerner and Loewe would later recycle the concept for Camelot's "What Do the Simple Folk Do?"

Love & Friendship OST Releasing May 13

Sony Classical has announced the release of LOVE & FRIENDSHIP (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) on CD, May 13. LOVE & FRIENDSHIP, writer-director Whit Stillman's adaptation of Jane Austen's Lady Susan, was the comedy hit of this year's Sundance and Rotterdam film festivals. The film arrives in theatres nationwide on May 13th 2016.

Set in the 1790s, earlier than most Austen tales, LOVE & FRIENDSHIP concerns beautiful young widow Lady Susan Vernon (Kate Beckinsale) who has come to Churchill, the estate of her in-laws, to wait out colourful rumours about her dalliances circulating through polite society. Whilst ensconced there, she decides to secure a husband for herself and for her daughter, Frederica, played by Morfydd Clark.

Chloë Sevigny, who starred with Beckinsale in Stillman's The Last Days of Disco (1998), plays Lady Susan's friend and confidante Alicia Johnson, with Stephen Fry as her husband, the "very Respectable" Mr. Johnson. The waters are troubled by the arrival at Churchill of the handsome, eligible Reginald DeCourcy (Xavier Samuel) and silly but cheerful -- and very rich -- Sir James Martin (Tom Bennett).

Mudcrutch Returns With " 2 "

Mudcrutch's second album entitled “2″ is being released by Reprise Records on May 20th. The album is the follow up to the band’s 2008 eponymous debut which Rolling Stone called “a country-rock instant classic” in a rave four star review.  The band has also announced their first national tour, starting at Denver’s Ogden Theater on May 26th.

Los Angeles-based rock band The Shelters, who will release their debut album on Warner Bros. Records this summer, will support all tour dates.

Mudcrutch was initially formed in 1970 in Gainesville, Florida and is the precursor to the legendary Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers. Tom Petty (bass/vocals), Tom Leadon (guitar/vocals), Benmont Tench (keyboards/vocals), Mike Campbell (guitar/vocals), and Randall Marsh (drums/vocals) make up the band’s current line up. In 1974, Mudcrutch was signed to Shelter Records and moved to Los Angeles where they released one single, “Depot Street,” to very little fanfare. The band broke up in 1975 and could have settled for being a legend, but instead Mudcrutch rose from the ashes in 2008 to remind us that the golden age of rock and roll bands still had a few treasures to unearth. Their debut, made some thirty-three years later, was an unexpected hit.

Edward Snowden Joins Jean-Michele Jarre on New CD

Just when the collaborator list for JEAN-MICHEL JARRE‘s upcoming ELECTRONICA VOL. 2: THE HEART OF NOISE (out May 6 via Sony Music/RED) couldn’t get any more diverse, it can now be revealed that Edward Snowden joined the proceedings as the final name to feature on the project.

Originally announced on the album as just ‘ES,’ Snowden; the whistleblower behind one of the biggest revelations of classified documents, contributes to the fifth track on THE HEART OF NOISE titled “Exit”.

Collaborating from Snowden’s delivery of his core message, JARRE layers and sculpts the American’s words around a driving techno beat that conjures up a grand sense of chase. The release of the track also coincides with an exclusive track story that has been made available to watch now. Having debuted via Rolling Stone recently, fans can see both Jarre and Snowden speaking with one another in the video about music, politics, privacy and more.  

Little Scream Shares "The Kissing"

 Today, Little Scream brings us “The Kissing,” the third single from the Merge Records,  Cult Following The song builds slowly to showcase a blazing guitar and vocal solo and features TV On The Radio’s Kyp Malone as the voice of a Magic 8 Ball with the power to give eerily specific answers.

In their premiere of the track, Consequence of Sound wrote:

What opens as a dejected acoustic track is slowly laced with bold rage through the first pair of verses. It’s there in the beating percussion, the suddenly ringing guitar strums, and the heavy yet contained chaos of the choruses. But underneath all the dark coatings is the all too frustratingly real damage of failed love, echoed in the disconsolate harmony provided by TV on the Radio’s Kyp Malone on the phrase, “It’s time to stop doing some things in the rain/ Especially the kissing.”

“The Kissing” joins the dance-pop heaven of “Love as a Weapon” and emotional heft of “Someone Will Notice” in continuing to unlock the inner psyche of Little Scream through her sensational new album, Cult Following . The CD is available to pre-order now, for the May 5 street date.

Eric Clapton Says "I Still Do" on May 20

Music legend Eric Clapton has reunited with famed producer Glyn Johns for his forthcoming 23rd studio album I Still Do.  The new album is due to release on May 20, 2016 via his Bushbranch Records/Surfdog Records.  Clapton and Johns; who has also produced albums for The Eagles, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin and The Who, most famously worked together on Clapton’s iconic Slowhand album, which is RIAA-certified 3x-platinum and topped charts globally.

The 12-track record includes some original songs written by Clapton. This album follows his last release, the 2014 chart-topping Eric Clapton & Friends: The Breeze, An Appreciation of JJ Cale.

“This was a long and overdue opportunity to work with Glyn Johns again, and also, incidentally, the fortieth anniversary of 'Slowhand'!” said Eric Clapton.

The album’s artwork; a carefully crafted illustration of Clapton, is the work of esteemed artist Sir Peter Blake, whose previous art includes the co-design of The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album sleeve, as well as the Band Aid single “Do They Know It’s Christmas?,” Paul Weller’s Stanley Road and The Who’s Face Dances. I Still Do features Blake’s signature at the bottom right corner of the cover.

The Okee Dokee Brothers Gear Up for May CD Release and Tour

The Grammy-winning The Okee Dokee Brothers; "a sort of two-man Nitty Gritty Dirt Band for the kindiesphere" (Paste), continue to entice families and children to get outside and get moving with their latest album, 'Saddle Up,' out May 13. Inspired by their own 30-day horseback trek along the Continental Divide, the duo produces fun, engaging and interactive family-friendly shows across the U.S., adding summer dates with stops in hometowns both past (Denver) and present (Minneapolis), New York City, D.C., the Midwest and the East Coast.

Mixed with songs from the Grammy-winning 'Can You Canoe?' and the Grammy-nominated 'Through The Woods,' families can expect hours of entertainment featuring lyrics that are "playful, engaging and subtly filled with life lessons" (Chicago Tribune).

Nonesuch to Release Two New Pat Metheny Albums on May 6: "The Unity Sessions" & "Cuong Vu Trio Meets Pat Metheny"

Nonesuch Records will release a pair of new albums from guitarist, composer, and bandleader Pat Metheny on May 6, 2016. Metheny is well-known as a musical collaborator, and both records feature friends and colleagues with whom he has worked for years.  The Unity Sessions is taken from a filmed performance with Pat Metheny Unity Group that was recently released on DVD; the set comprises 13 songs by Metheny, one he co-wrote with Ornette Coleman, and one well known standard by Ray Noble.

And Cuong Vu Trio Meets Pat Metheny joins the guitarist with a trio led by longtime Pat Metheny Group trumpeter Cuong Vu.  The release comprises five tunes written by Vu plus one by Metheny and one by Andrew D'Angelo.

In 2013, for the first time since 1980, Metheny recorded with a band that highlighted tenor saxophone. The resulting Unity Band, which went on to win him his 20th Grammy Award, featured Chris Potter on sax and bass clarinet, longtime collaborator Antonio Sanchez on drums, and Ben Williams on bass. Metheny then took that same ensemble into new territory with the addition of his Orchestrion and a focus on more through-composed material and christened the ensemble Pat Metheny Unity Group. The Group's first record, Kin (←→), was released by Nonesuch back in 2014 and was named the best jazz album of the year in the DownBeat Readers Poll Awards. The Group went on a world tour of more than 150 cities; and at the end, they hunkered down in a small Manhattan theater to film new performances of music from the original Unity Band, the expansive Kin(←→), and touchstones from the entirety of Metheny's music catalog. The results were released on DVD last year as The Unity Sessions, and now Nonesuch releases the album of the same name.

Cyndi Lauper Goes Country on May 6, With DETOUR

Cyndi Lauper’s celebrated musical journey takes an unexpected southern turn on DETOUR, her 11th studio album, which finds the Grammy, Emmy and Tony-winning singer-songwriter putting her signature spin on a dozen classic country songs.

DETOUR showcases Lauper’s unmistakable voice on country classics from the ‘40s, ‘50s and ‘60s and features guest appearances from county music stars Vince Gill, Emmylou Harris, Alison Krauss, and Willie Nelson. Lauper recorded the album in Nashville alongside a band comprised of the city’s top session players.

The album will be Cyndi Lauper’s first for Sire Records and executive produced by legendary Sire founder, Seymour Stein. DETOUR will be available May 6, 2016 on CD and  LP.

Lauper says recording a country album is something she’s dreamed about for many years. Growing up, she recalls listening to singers like Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, and Wanda Jackson in her Aunt Gracie’s kitchen. “When I was a really young kid, country music was pop music, so this is what we grew up listening to. These songs are part of some of my earliest memories so it has been an absolute thrill to revisit them.”