New Chuck Berry Album ‘CHUCK’ Set For June 16 Release On Dualtone

Dualtone Records (an Entertainment One Company), has set a June 16 release date for ‘CHUCK,’ the final album and first new recordings in nearly four decades by founding rock and roll legend Chuck Berry, who passed away last week at the age of 90.

Comprised of ten new recordings, eight of which were written by Berry, ‘CHUCK’ is his first new album since 1979’s ‘Rock It.’ It was recorded and produced by Berry in various studios around St. Louis and features his longtime hometown backing group - including his children Charles Berry Jr. (guitar) and Ingrid Berry (vocals, harmonica), plus Jimmy Marsala (Berry’s bassist for forty years), Robert Lohr (piano), and Keith Robinson (drums) - which supported him for nearly two decades on over two hundred residency shows at the famed Blueberry Hill club.  The album also includes guest performances from Gary Clark Jr., Tom Morello, Nathaniel Rateliff, and Chuck’s grandson Charles Berry III.  Acclaimed author and historian Douglas Brinkley contributes liner notes.
Both Morello and Rateliff appear on album track “Big Boys,” which Brinkley calls “a guitar player’s national anthem” in his notes.  The song is streaming now; listen below.

Rolling Stones Set December 2 for Release of "Blue & Lonesome"

On 2nd December 2016, the Rolling Stones will release Blue & Lonesome, their first studio album in over a decade. Recorded in just three days in London, England, Blue & Lonesome takes the band

back to their roots and the passion for blues music which has always been at the heart and soul of the Rolling Stones.

Blue & Lonesome is available in various formats and will be released on December 2nd by Polydor Records. It was produced by Don Was and the Glimmer Twins and is available now for pre-order from B&E

The album was recorded over the course of just three days in December last year at British Grove Studios in West London, just a stone’s throw from Richmond and Eel Pie Island where the Stones started out as a young blues band playing pubs and clubs.

THE PRETENDERS RETURN WITH NEW ALBUM, ALONE, ON OCTOBER 21

The Pretenders has announced the release of its long-awaited new album. ALONE (out via BMG)
arrives everywhere on October 21 and is available for pre-order now with B&T,The complete album tracklisting is below. And, the album's electrifying first single LISTEN TO "HOLY COMMOTION" below.

ALONE was recorded with The Black Keys' Dan Auerbach at his Easy Eye Studio in Nashville and mixed by Tchad Blake (The Black Keys, Elvis Costello, Richard Thompson). The  album was initially conceived as follow-up to legendary bandleader Chrissie Hynde's acclaimed 2014 solo debut, STOCKHOLM, but as its songs and sonics took shape, the collection soon revealed itself as the first all new Pretenders LP since 2008's BREAK UP THE CONCRETE.

ALONE sees the one and only Hynde backed by a team of what she proudly calls "real people playing real instruments," helmed by the multi-talented Auerbach and featuring Nashville session luminaries including bassist Dave Roe (Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn, Sturgill Simpson), pedal steel pioneer Russ Pahl (Blake Shelton, Don Williams, Luke Bryan), and guitarist Kenny Vaughan (Marty Stuart & His Fabulous Superlatives, Lana Del Rey, Ray LaMontagne), as well as keyboardist Leon Michels and drummer Richard Swift - both charter members of Auerbach's adventurous garage rock combo The Arcs.Hynde and Auerbach made for ideal foils, two idiosyncratic songwriter/musicians each possessing a deep knowledge and even deeper love of rock 'n' roll, both of course hailing from the City of Invention itself, Akron, Ohio. Though neither remain, Akron continues to inform both artists' work, the Rubber City's long history of progressivism and ingenuity, hard work and musical experimentation, are all very much present in their first full-length collaboration. ALONE indeed bears all the trademarks of the Pretenders' legendary canon - raw and rollicking riffs, poignant balladry, taut hooks and indelible melodies, all in service of Hynde's heartworn, ever-unsentimental songcraft. Nearly four decades on from The Pretenders' epochal 1980 debut album, Hynde's instantly identifiable voice is perhaps more emotional, more aggressive than at any other time in her career as all the vocals were recorded in 48 hours. That extra bit of edge only serves to add fire to new Pretenders classics like the brutally candid "I Hate Myself" and the defiant title track, a spiky rocker that sees Hynde extolling the joys and virtues of solitude."We were in the studio hanging out," Hynde says, "and the guys were talking about their families and their wives and I said, 'Well, I do everything alone. I go to  the cinema alone. I go to restaurants alone. I live alone. I pretty much do everything on my own. I don't mind.' Dan says, 'Write a song about it.' "The more I thought about it," she continues, "I thought, I've heard 1,000 songs  in my life, they're all about, I am so tired of being alone. I can't live without you. Since you've left my world has fallen apart. When am I going to see you again? Marry me and be with me for the rest of my life. I have never heard anyone celebrate being alone in a song. I couldn't think of one."