Asheville, North Carolina, native MJ Lenderman inhabits a crucial nexus of the Southern underground. The singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist is a graduate of the local house-show scene, and of an important bygone venue called the Mothlight. He’s been releasing his own music since 2017, and is also a guitarist in the country-soaked alternative-rock band Wednesday, lead by his partner Karly Hartzman.
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While still only 23, Lenderman comes off more like a timeworn indie veteran than an eager newcomer. When a certain music website bestowed its coveted “Best New Music” designation on his latest album, Lenderman didn’t even acknowledge the coverage on his social media. He’s too busy, it seems, creating his own take on a classic sound, and enthusing about the artists he loves, from The Dead C and Les Rallizes Dénudés to Jason Molina and Drive-By Truckers. “All I wanted to do was make songs that were as long as possible, and as slow as possible, with as few chords as possible,” he says, referring to the latter.
Yet, with the excellent Boat Songs, Lenderman clears his own path, blending sentimental and stirring everyman observations with guitar distortion, the results mostly three-minute bursts that at once embrace and skewer American life. Here, Lenderman takes listeners to theme parks, grocery stores and Michael Jordan’s sneaker deal with Nike. But his work also crystallises life’s tender moments: the crushing loneliness after a tense car ride with a partner on “Six Flags”; the emotional hollowing that occurs when childhood heroes die. “Your laundry looks so pretty/Soft threads hanging and relaxing in the wind/You’ll feel so much better/When you wear these clothes again”, he sings with John Prine-style clarity on “You Have Bought Yourself A Boat”, connecting the dots between generations of regular guys with guitars who transform their everyday observations into gratifying poetic morsels.
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“TLC Cagematch”, threaded with silken steel guitar and feathers of Lenderman’s ultra-light Southern accent, opens on a wrestling match, then circles around to self-medicating as a means of survival. “It’s hard to see you fall so flat/From so high up hard down on the mat”, he sings with resolve, his rhythmic delivery falling somewhere between concerned and weary. “Tastes Just Like It Costs” is filled with the staccato guitar attacks of Neil Young & Crazy Horse, and recalls Magnolia Electric Co’s “The Dark Don’t Hide It” with a leaner profile. In the song, he ties together two short anecdotes to a spin on a familiar adage, the title and final line a reminder that we get what we pay for. “Under Control” finds Lenderman’s character stuck in a literal and metaphorical ditch, a downtrodden loner ripe for a tear-in-your-beer scorcher.
Lenderman is a product of the underground, but he doesn’t dwell in wilful obscurity. He is of a distinctly regional, working-class realm where boat ownership is a complicated symbol of prosperity, and sport is the dominant thread in the social fabric. He pairs these external symbols with a distinct interior depth, and his version of country-rock music, with its noisy, explosive bent, is compelling enough as a capsule of modern youth. But it also signals an important postmodern antidote to the ’90s culture it often references, when alternate teens and college indie heads were forced to choose a lane for fear of being called a poser.
With Lenderman, high and low, underground and mainstream, are bedfellows. It’s a refreshing and thoroughly unpretentious perspective that signals the arrival of a new entrant to the pantheon inhabited by the likes of Prine, Molina, Mark Linkous, Patterson Hood, Vic Chesnutt and others, those who sang proudly from and for their Middle American corners. Lenderman is certainly a student of this pack, but after five years of releasing original music, he’s found his own voice within the lineage.
There’s added poignancy in this reissue of Nesmith’s fourth post-Monkees album, following his death in December last year. Yet rather than being a sentimental salute, Tantamount To Treason underscores Nez’s status as a country-rock forefather of a rather idiosyncratic bent.
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Produced by Nesmith himself, Tantamount To Treason was his only recording with the Second National Band, a sextet featuring just him and pedal-steel guitarist Orville “Red” Rhodes from the first incarnation, plus session musicians including bassist Johnny Meeks, who did time as lead guitarist with the Blue Caps, and noted jazz drummer Jack Ranelli. In the run-up to release, Nez had been feeling the impact of diminishing market returns on his First National Band records, which makes this set even more of a triumph. It’s the full realisation of his aesthetic, interpreted by skilled players – nine tracks of expansive country rock with psychedelic and jazzy flourishes, intriguing experimental touches and a relaxed, almost meditative feel.
This remastered edition – expanded for both vinyl and CD – follows right behind 7a’s reissue of And The Hits Just Keep On Comin’, from later the same year. First up is the stomping “Mama Rocker”, equal parts Chuck Berry and CCR, with a touch of Jimmy Page – likely a bid to win listeners over ahead of the more reflective and/or out-there tracks. It’s in sharp contrast to what immediately follows: “Lazy Lady” is cast as a traditional country number with lachrymose pedal-steel work, though it’s skewed by an odd, descending guitar coda. It’s also a reminder, were it needed, of the tender honesty of Nesmith’s lyrics and the keening power of his voice.
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Ravishing epic “In The Afternoon”, a reflection on change and the building of a home, is similarly languid and a standout, while the irresistibly woozy flow and reverb manipulations of “You Are My One” throw forward to Eric Chenaux’s “bent jazz” style. The band’s cover of the Lee/Duffy standard “She Thinks I Still Care” is a diametric opposite, but nowhere near as strikingly so as “Highway 99 With Melange”. Written by keyboardist Michael Cohen, it opens with metallic clanging, then suggests a car radio flipping between stations (faint snatches of Nesmith’s voice, sudden sub-Zep blasts), adding seagull cries and thunder. The song proper adopts a comically exaggerated tone for a road-trip monologue, while pianos hammer out what sounds like two different bar-room tunes behind. Cohen’s song is a curate’s egg but it’s also an indication of the breadth of Nesmith’s vision and his enthusiasm for change.
Record company pressure won the day, however, and rather than Tantamount To Treason Vol 2, he (and just Rhodes) delivered the more commercially viable And The Hits Just Keep On Comin’.
A festivalgoer who fainted during Paul McCartney‘s headline show at Glastonbury 2022 last weekend, which caused a brief halt to the set, has said she is “absolutely gutted” about missing the show.
The legendary Beatle‘s near-three-hour show on Saturday night (June 25), which featured a whole host of classic songs and special guest appearances from Dave Grohl and Bruce Springsteen, drew a huge crowd to the Pyramid Stage.
READ MORE: Paul McCartney live at Glastonbury 2022: history-making rock’n’Grohl with The Boss
Some fans, such as Lisa Morris, had waited hours to see McCartney’s set from the front of the crowd barriers.
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However, Morris, 50, from Bath, started to feel unwell shortly before McCartney came on stage. She fainted around 25 minutes into the performance, and had to be carried out of the crowd by security guards.
McCartney had been telling a story about Jimi Hendrix at the time, but stopped to check in on Morris. “What’s going on there? Something happening in the middle of the crowd,” he said. “Let’s attend to it.”
Once he saw that security were successfully dealing with the incident, he joked: “It wasn’t that solo I played, was it?”
Speaking to BBC News, Morris said that she was “absolutely gutted” to have missed the performance from her “hero” McCartney.
“Probably five, six songs in, that was it, game over,” she recalled about the moment she fainted, adding that she “absolutely sobbed” when she later realised that she had missed the set.
Paul McCartney at Glastonbury 2022 (Picture: Dave J Hogan/Getty Images)
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Morris had been celebrating her 20th year of volunteering at Glastonbury’s on-site church, and said the anticipation of going to see McCartney had been building up “for months and months and months”.
Her husband had recently been diagnosed with bowel cancer, meaning that he could not attend the festival with her this year. “Seeing Paul McCartney was my goal and just kept me going throughout all of this awful time at home,” she explained. “To get to the front was my biggest goal.”
After waiting at the barrier for seven hours, Morris fainted 25 minutes into the set and was carried to the medical tent, where she was told she was on the verge of hypothermia.
Upon realising that she was missing the rest of McCartney’s set, Morris said she “absolutely sobbed my heart out – my favourite song was playing in the background”.
Morris also said that she felt “absolutely ridiculous”, adding: “Why did I stand there? I’m a nurse, I should know better.” She now hopes that she will be able to see McCartney live in the future: “Hopefully if he tours again I’ll be able to get a ticket. That’s my only hope.”
McCartney’s set also featured a virtual duet between the musician and the late John Lennon of The Beatles’ ‘I’ve Got A Feeling’.
The man who is accused of fatally shooting Nipsey Hussle in 2019 has reportedly been assaulted while in jail.
READ MORE: Nipsey Hussle, 1985-2019 – a musician who gave a voice to the voiceless and changed the face of indie rap
As Rolling Stone reports, the 32-year-old Eric Holder Jr. was unable to attend his trial regarding the case on Tuesday (June 28). This was supposedly due to injuries he sustained in custody, shortly after leaving a Los Angeles courtroom on Monday afternoon (June 27).
It’s not clear where the altercation took place, as Holder is meant to be kept separate from other inmates when being transported to and from his court appearances.
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Holder’s public defender, Aaron Jansen, told Rolling Stone that he had been “attacked by two inmates and beaten” during the assault. “He was cut with a razor in the back of his head and received three staples. His face is swollen and his eye is swollen.”
Holder is accused of shooting Hussle outside his Marathon Clothing store in Los Angeles on March 31, 2019. According to prosecutors, Hussle was shot 10 times, with bullets striking him in his head and torso, and severing his spine.
Holder was indicted on one count of murder, two counts of attempted murder and one count of possession of a firearm by a felon. Holder, who has pleaded not guilty, faces life in prison if convicted.
Eric Ronald Holder Jr. is accused of killing of rapper Nipsey Hussle. CREDIT: Patrick Fallon-Pool/Getty Images
The trial into Hussle’s murder opened earlier this month, with Holder’s defender, Jansen, arguing that while Holder shot Hussle, causing his death, the killing was not premeditated and instead happened in “the heat of passion”.
He claimed that Hussle had accused Holden of “snitching”, and that Holder became “so enflamed and enraged” as a result that he opened fire “nine minutes later”, before he had time to “cool off”.
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Deputy District Attorney John McKinney, however, said that Holder exited the initial meeting showing no signs of aggression, leaving in a car, and driving around the block with Holder eating some chili cheese fries. It’s alleged he told a friend he was with to wait for him in a nearby parking lot, then returned to Marathon with a semi-automatic handgun and smaller revolver.
“You’re going to hear and see evidence that he had plenty of opportunity to think about what he was going to do before he did it,” the prosecutor told jurors. “From the time he got out of the car and all the way back to that strip mall and walked up to those gentlemen and started shooting and shooting and shooting.”
Closing arguments in the case are due to begin this Thursday (June 30).
Paul McCartney ended the second main day of Glastonbury 2022 by headlining the Pyramid Stage (June 25), ending his set by inviting both Dave Grohl and Bruce Springsteen on stage. Check out footage and the setlist below.
The legend took to the stage after Noel Gallagher tonight, performing a stellar set of classics from throughout his colourful career – including solo staples alongside many numbers from his time with The Beatles and Wings.
After playing ‘Get Back’ by the Fab Four, McCartney beckoned the Foo Fighters frontman on stage.
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“Now, I’ve got a little surprise for you,” teased McCartney, before inviting “your hero from the west coast of America – Dave Grohl!”
After some light banter of Paul offering, “Hi Dave,” before Grohl replied, “Hi Paul. How are you?” the pair then tore into The Beatles’ ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ and Wings’ ‘Band On The Run’.
“This guy flew in especially to do this,” Macca then jovially told the crowd, revealing how Grohl overcame flight cancellations from Los Angeles. This moment also marked the first time that Grohl had appeared on stage since the death of his Foo Fighters bandmate Taylor Hawkins in March.
When the crowd thought that the surprises were over, McCartney told the crowd: “We’ve got another surprise for you”, teasing another guest “from the East Coast Of America”.
Then, to the awe of the thousands in attendance, Springsteen took to the stage to a rapturous response to perform his own ‘Glory Days’ and The Beatles’ ‘I Wanna Be Your Man’. This comes after the pair did the same in New York earlier this month.
“Are you kidding?” joked McCartney after turning to Springsteen. “Thank you for coming, man.”
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After a virtual duet with John Lennon, McCartney and band then welcomed Grohl and Springsteen back to close the set.
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DAVE GROHL IS ON STAGE WITH PAUL MCCARTNEY. #GLASTONBURY pic.twitter.com/fwlzKF25Wp
— Mark Savage (@mrdiscopop) June 25, 2022
Paul McCartney has just brought out Dave Grohl ?
pic.twitter.com/cnqWkMAIVq
— The Rock Revival (@TheRockRevivaI) June 25, 2022
Paul McCartney played:
‘Can’t Buy Me Love’ ‘Junior’s Farm’ ‘Letting Go’ ‘Got to Get You Into My Life’ ‘Come On to Me’ ‘Let Me Roll It’ ‘Getting Better’ ‘Let ‘Em In’ ‘My Valentine’ ‘Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five’ ‘Maybe I’m Amazed’ ‘I’ve Just Seen a Face’ ‘Love Me Do’ ‘Dance Tonight’ ‘Blackbird’ ‘Here Today’ ‘New’ ‘Lady Madonna’ ‘Fuh You’ ‘Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!’ ‘Something’ ‘Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da’ ‘You Never Give Me Your Money’ ‘She Came in Through the Bathroom Window’ ‘Get Back’ ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ (with Dave Grohl) ‘Band on the Run’ (with Dave Grohl) ‘Glory Days’ (Bruce Springsteen cover with Bruce Springsteen) ‘I Wanna Be Your Man’ (with Bruce Springsteen) ‘Let It Be’ ‘I’ve Got a Feeling’ ‘Helter Skelter’ ‘Golden Slumbers’ ‘Carry That Weight’ ‘The End’
Come back to NME.com soon for the full review of Paul McCartney
Check back at NME here for the latest news, reviews, interviews, photos and more from Glastonbury 2022.
Check back at NME here for the latest news, reviews, interviews, photos and more from Glastonbury 2022.
Paul McCartney has played a warm-up gig at Frome’s Cheese & Grain this evening (June 24), ahead of his Glastonbury headline set tomorrow.
READ MORE:The Beatles: every song ranked in order of greatness
The 800 capacity Somerset venue took to Twitter yesterday (June 23) to announce that it would be hosting the legendary Beatle for a surprise gig, writing: “@PaulMcCartney Live in Frome? Tomorrow night at 5pm? Ok then!”
Tickets could only be purchased at the venue and were available on a strictly first come first served basis.
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A statement on Cheese & Grain’s website read: “What an incredible opportunity to watch Paul warm up for his Glastonbury headlining performance this weekend. What an amazing treat… we are told this won’t be his normal set either so should be an afternoon full of wonderful surprises.”
McCartney arrived on stage in Frome just after 6pm, playing to an audience that included Olivia Harrison, Judd Apatow, Leslie Mann, Brian Johnson from AC/DC and Olivia Rodrigo.
His set included ‘I Wanna Be Your Man’, ‘Maybe I’m Amazed’, ‘Hey Jude’ and ‘Let It Be’. Before ‘Out Of College’ he told the crowd: “Here’s a song that we’ve never done live in England until tonight, so it’s a first for Frome.”
Ahead of final track ‘Golden Slumbers’, McCartney said: “Ok so there does come a time when we’ve got to go and it coincides with the time you’ve got to go. Most of all we want to thank you for coming along and having a ball with us tonight!”
As he left the stage, he thanked fans saying: “Thank you Frome-anians, we had a good time in here tonight. This was a good idea.”
I Wanna Be Your Man
Juniors Farm
Letting Go
Got To Get You Into My Life
Come Onto Me
Let Me Roll It
Getting Better
My Valentine
1985
Maybe I’m Amazed
I’ve Just Seen A Face
From Me To You
Blackbird
Fuh You
Ob la di
Out of College
She Came In Through The Bathroom Window
Get Back
Lady Madonna
Band on the Run
Let it Be
Hey Jude
Birthday
Helter Skelter
Golden Slumbers
McCartney – who recently celebrated his 80th birthday – will take to the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury at 9.30pm tomorrow (June 25).
Check back at NME here for the latest news, reviews, interviews, photos and more from Glastonbury 2022.
Check back at NME here for the latest news, reviews, interviews, photos and more from Glastonbury 2022.
When Barbara Keith, acoustic in hand, headed from Massachusetts to Greenwich Village during the height of the folk era, she became one of countless aspiring troubadours tentatively following in Dylan’s footsteps, singing folk standards at Café Wha? and Gerde’s Folk City. She fell in with a bunch of Café Wha? regulars, and they formed the short-lived band Kangaroo. By the time they’d scored a record deal, Keith was starting to write songs, and soon after the group dissolved, she was signed by MGM/Verve, with Peter Asher assigned to produce her self-titled 1969 debut album. Although the LP caused barely a ripple, several labels saw enough promise in the youngster to keep tabs on her.
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During a brief fling with A&M in 1970, Keith had her first taste of success when her song “Free The People” was covered by Delaney & Bonnie and Barbra Streisand, dramatically increasing her visibility. Before long she was auditioning for Columbia chief Clive Davis and Warner/Reprise Chairman Mo Ostin, who personally signed Keith to a three-album deal. Producer/A&R rep Larry Marks (Gene Clark, Phil Ochs, The Flying Burrito Brothers), who’d become her co-manager, got the job of helming her LP, and his first move was recruiting the very best musicians in LA to play on it.
Ostin had signed Keith at the perfect time – or so it seemed to the Warners brass on her arrival in 1972. Joni Mitchell had just jumped to Asylum and Bonnie Raitt was just getting started, so there was a void to be filled, and the 26-year-old Keith appeared to have the goods to become Mitchell’s heir apparent. She’d grown exponentially as a songwriter and had matured into a strikingly original singer, the urgency of her delivery further enlivened by her “hummingbird” vibrato, as one critic described it. But what most distinguished Keith from her contemporaries was her utter fearlessness, which was apparent from the opening notes of the second LP bearing her name.
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Who in their right mind would dare cover Dylan’s “All Along The Watchtower” after Jimi Hendrix had made it monumentally, indelibly his own? Keith didn’t just cover it, she opened the album with it, her feral vocal powering through a gauntlet formed by John Brennan’s galloping acoustic, Lee Sklar’s rumbling bassline and David Cohen’s pecking wah-wah licks. By the time Jim Keltner joins the fray, the performance has attained a sinewy ferocity. “…Watchtower”, like the bulk of the LP, was cut live off the floor, as Marks skilfully matched the players with Keith’s songs. The austere ballad “Burn The Midnight Oil No More” contains nothing more than Sklar’s bass and Keith’s regal piano amid a gossamer Nick DeCaro string arrangement. At the other extreme are “Shining All Along”, which gets a full-bodied, Band-like treatment, as Lowell George, pianist Spooner Oldham, organist Mike Utley, drummer Jim Keltner, Sklar and percussionist Milt Holland wail away in sepia-toned bliss, and the vivid road anthem “Detroit Or Buffalo”, which climaxes with pedal-steel maestro Sneaky Pete Kleinow and George conjuring a gilded rhapsody out of steel cylinders sliding over strings.
A half century later, “Free The People”, with its secular-gospel uplift, seems rooted in the era of Nixon and Vietnam, in contrast to the timeless country-folk ballad “The Bramble And The Rose” and the rousing rock anthem “A Stone’s Throw Away”. Keith had co-written the latter song with Doug Tibbles, who’d recently abandoned a successful career as a sitcom scriptwriter to try his hand at drumming for a living. He was enlisted to keep the beat during rehearsals, and it wasn’t long before Tibbles and Keith fell madly in love, turning her priorities upside down. Soon after the album was completed, she returned her advance money and blithely walked away from a career filled with seemingly limitless potential. Reprise released Barbara Keith in 1973 with zero fanfare, and among the handful of people aware of the album’s existence were singers from Valerie Carter to Olivia Newton-John, who were delighted to cover its songs.
Keith and Tibbles spent a couple of decades in LA before eventually settling back in Massachusetts, where they raised two sons and, in 1998, when elder son John was 11, formed a family band, The Stone Coyotes. Early on, Elmore Leonard became a big fan, describing the band as “AC/DC meets Patsy Cline”. He used Keith’s lyrics in his 1999 novel Be Cool, which was released with a Stone Coyotes CD sampler, and took the band on a tour promoting the book. To date, they’ve filled 16 LPs and three EPs with songs penned by the prolific Keith, who’s as energised as ever at 76. If ever an artist’s story begged to be made into a biopic, it’s Barbara Keith’s topsy-turvy saga.
John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s son Sean Ono Lennon has paid tribute to Paul McCartney on his 80th birthday with a cover of ‘Here, There and Everywhere.’ Check it out below.
READ MORE: Paul McCartney: read the exclusive track-by-track story of ‘McCartney III’
Sharing the video, Sean Lennon wrote: “A little birdy told me this was one of [your] fav Beatles tunes.”
He continued: “So Happy Birthday! Thank you for all the beautiful music. You have mine and the whole world’s undying love and respect. (This version is a bit rough because it’s such a pretty song I kept getting choked up…!)”
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Check out the cover here:
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A post shared by Sean Ono Lennon (@sean_ono_lennon)
Fans and stars alike have flocked to social media today to pay tribute to McCartney on the legendary singer-songwriter’s birthday.
“They say it’s your birthday Saturday happy birthday Paul love you man have a great day peace and love Ringo and Barbara love love peace and love,” McCartney’s Beatles bandmate Ringo Starr wrote on Twitter.
The official Twitter accounts for McCartney’s late bandmates John Lennon and George Harrison each posted a birthday message. Lennon’s birthday shoutout came alongside a playlist of the pair’s greatest songwriting collaborations; Harrison’s included some old footage of McCartney, shot by Harrison himself.
They say it’s your birthday Saturday happy birthday Paul love you man have a great day peace and love Ringo and Barbara love love peace and love ?✌️?❤️❤️ pic.twitter.com/foex8TZa8m
— #RingoStarr (@ringostarrmusic) June 17, 2022
HAPPY BIRTHDAY PAUL! ? → Listen To This Playlist. Notable writing collaborations between @JohnLennon & @PaulMcCartney. What's your favourite Lennon & McCartney song?https://t.co/lSeMcMHvId
— John Lennon ☮️?️ (@johnlennon) June 18, 2022
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Happy Birthday, @PaulMcCartney.
? Film footage shot by George. pic.twitter.com/dYLPmKTuri
Paul McCartney is set to become the oldest Glastonbury headliner when he takes to the Pyramid Stage next Saturday evening (June 25). He’ll top the bill alongside Kendrick Lamar and Billie Eilish, the latter of whom will become the festival’s youngest-ever solo headliner.
On Thursday night (June 16), McCartney joined forces with Bruce Springsteen as he wrapped his ‘Got Back’ US tour in New York.
McCartney welcomed The Boss onstage at the MetLife Stadium in New Jersey as a “birthday present to myself” to perform the latter’s 1984 classic ‘Glory Days’ before the pair played The Beatles‘ ‘I Wanna Be Your Man’.
Later in the show, Jon Bon Jovi also joined McCartney onstage to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to him.
Fans and stars alike have flocked to social media to pay tribute to Paul McCartney on the legendary singer-songwriter’s 80th birthday.
READ MORE: Paul McCartney: read the exclusive track-by-track story of ‘McCartney III’
The highly influential musician, known as both a hugely successful solo artist and member of the legendary Beatles, as well as founder of the band Wings, was born James Paul McCartney on June 18, 1942, in Liverpool.
His seismic impact on music and pop culture is hard to put into words. His relentless innovation and God-tier songwriting has been one of the great driving forces of modern music, which in turn has inspired countless other musicians.
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His honours include two inductions into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame (as a member of The Beatles in 1988 and as a solo artist in 1999), an Academy Award, 18 Grammy Awards, an appointment as a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 1965 and a knighthood in 1997 for services to music.
Today (June 18), fans, friends and entertainers have been sharing stories, tributes, photographs and more to mark the singer’s landmark birthday.
“They say it’s your birthday Saturday happy birthday Paul love you man have a great day peace and love Ringo and Barbara love love peace and love,” McCartney’s Beatles bandmate Ringo Starr wrote on Twitter.
They say it’s your birthday Saturday happy birthday Paul love you man have a great day peace and love Ringo and Barbara love love peace and love ?✌️?❤️❤️ pic.twitter.com/foex8TZa8m
— #RingoStarr (@ringostarrmusic) June 17, 2022
The official Twitter accounts for McCartney’s late bandmates John Lennon and George Harrison each posted a birthday message. Lennon’s birthday shoutout came alongside a playlist of the pair’s greatest songwriting collaborations; Harrison’s included some old footage of McCartney, shot by Harrison himself.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY PAUL! ? → Listen To This Playlist. Notable writing collaborations between @JohnLennon & @PaulMcCartney. What's your favourite Lennon & McCartney song?https://t.co/lSeMcMHvId
— John Lennon ☮️?️ (@johnlennon) June 18, 2022
Happy Birthday, @PaulMcCartney.
? Film footage shot by George. pic.twitter.com/dYLPmKTuri
Seán Ono Lennon, son of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, shared an acoustic rendition of ‘Here, There And Everywhere’ in tribute to the singer-songwriter.
“A little birdy told me this was one of your your fav Beatles tunes,” Ono Lennon wrote in the video’s caption. “So Happy Birthday! Thank you for all the beautiful music. You have mine and the whole world’s undying love and respect. (This version is a bit rough because it’s such a pretty song I kept getting choked up and staring again!)”
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A post shared by Sean Ono Lennon (@sean_ono_lennon)
Simply Red‘s Mick Hucknall tweeted: “Britains greatest living songwriter Sir Paul McCartney is 80 today. He shares his birthday with my Daughter who is now 15 and admires the Beatles enormously. Today is a beautiful day.”
The Rolling Stones’ Ronnie Wood wished McCartney “a very happy 80th birthday!!” alongside some photos of them, while Carole King tweeted: “Welcome to the 80’s.”
Britains greatest living songwriter Sir Paul McCartney is 80 today. He shares his birthday with my Daughter who is now 15 and admires the Beatles enormously. Today is a beautiful day. ❤️MH
— Simply Red (@SimplyRedHQ) June 18, 2022
Wishing @PaulMcCartney a very happy 80th birthday!!????? pic.twitter.com/v68yWFaDsY
— Ronnie Wood (@ronniewood) June 18, 2022
Happy birthday @paulmccartney. Welcome to the 80’s. ❤️ pic.twitter.com/1WRlUFffPn
— Carole King (@Carole_King) June 18, 2022
Legendary BBC Radio 2 presenter “Whispering Bob” Harris shared a photo from an old interview with McCartney, writing: Happy Birthday @PaulMcCartney I love this photo taken when we recorded an interview together for the @BBCRadio2 show I made celebrating ‘The Day John Met Paul’ broadcast on the 50th anniversary of that historic day. Thanks for all the memories Paul. Love you x”
Happy Birthday @PaulMcCartney I love this photo taken when we recorded an interview together for the @BBCRadio2 show I made celebrating ‘The Day John Met Paul’ broadcast on the 50th anniversary of that historic day. Thanks for all the memories Paul. Love you x pic.twitter.com/ZX0taiV5JX
— Bob Harris ? (@WhisperingBob) June 18, 2022
A bevy of other tributes from fans and other stars have been coming in from around the globe. Take a look at some of them below:
A Friend Like You: Happy 80th Birthday to Paul McCartney! pic.twitter.com/LYJropOi0y
Working class northern council estate kid who changed the history of the world. Just the greatest. Happy birthday Macca @PaulMcCartney https://t.co/ObEkZK2Lwz
— Stuart Maconie (@StuartMaconie) June 18, 2022
Happy 80th Birthday to one of my biggest heroes on the planet (and one of the nicest ones I’ve ever met!) Thank you for everything you’ve given us all for all of these years Sir @PaulMcCartney ? pic.twitter.com/rIYDyeiqQd
— Mike Portnoy ? (@MikePortnoy) June 18, 2022
“They say it’s your birthday…” Wishing the legendary Sir @PaulMcCartney a brilliant 80th birthday from all of us here at the Studios!
From his visit here 60 years ago this month, his legacy remains deeply connected to us. #HappyBirthdayPaul pic.twitter.com/Jo2Rr13Hb2
— Abbey Road Studios (@AbbeyRoad) June 18, 2022
Paul McCartney is 80 years old today. Stunning! How wonderful that he’s lived a long life and can be celebrated for his genius – unfettered and radiant. (And, yes, I was a John person, but how can you not LOVE Paul?) pic.twitter.com/dUe7IZXqAg
— Shaun L Kelly (@ShaunLKelly1955) June 18, 2022
Wishing @PaulMcCartney a happy 80th birthday with this version of one of his most famous songs, performed with @FrankieMoreno. I'm sure you can guess the name of the song from these few bars! ? Full video: https://t.co/LgZ8Imn4dT pic.twitter.com/2s6jpPpgq8
— Joshua Bell (@JoshuaBellMusic) June 18, 2022
Happy 80th Birthday to his royal highness Paul McCartney. Here's an illustration I did in celebration. An illustration that lead to me vowing to never draw a tweed jacket ever again. pic.twitter.com/QmRBjTbk4T
— Stuff_By_Mark (@The_Ren1981) June 18, 2022
Met this young man as he was coming offstage at #SNL in 2015. Might be my first selfie with a hero. He asked “What should we do”? I said, “Can we sing ooooooh”? Happy Birthday Sir. ❤️@PaulMcCartney pic.twitter.com/fF8DbeOEjq
— Phil Rosenthal (@PhilRosenthal) June 18, 2022
happy 80th birthday sir paul mccartney! you have inspired me and many others through your music and through the years you've never stopped sharing your talents with us, thank you so so much. i wish you good health and all the best in life. may you have more birthdays to come ? pic.twitter.com/jQhliC3oUb
— zephyr ✰ #McCartney80 (@taeharrisons) June 18, 2022
Happy 80th birthday @PaulMcCartney and thank you for filling our lives with unforgettable, beautiful, world-changing music for nearly all those 80 years. Ram on, maestro ♥️
— Howard Goodall (@Howard_Goodall) June 18, 2022
It’s not even 9am and I’m already nearly crying… #PaulMcCartney80 @PaulMcCartney https://t.co/v8YU7Eq4W3
— Matt Everitt (@matteveritt) June 18, 2022
paul mccartney 80 this paul mccartney 80 that . what about paul mccartney IN the 80s pic.twitter.com/ljAjyAkeLG
— coogang member (@maccasguitar) June 18, 2022
Happy 80th birthday @PaulMcCartney. The greatest songwriter of all time and by all accounts a fantastic person.
"Some people want to fill the world with silly love songs: and what's wrong with that, I'd like to know." pic.twitter.com/LOKQnoZJAq
— David Quantick (@quantick) June 18, 2022
Paul McCartney let a stranger claiming to be Jesus Christ sit in on a Beatles recording session in 1967. McCartney figured, "Well, it probably isn’t. But if he is, I’m not going to be the one to turn him away" pic.twitter.com/KCPKeoHHML
— Eric Alper ? (@ThatEricAlper) June 13, 2022
Happy birthday to the greatest of all, Paul McCartney pic.twitter.com/J9HS6zLKNd
— melina #McCartney80 (@flowersmacca70s) June 17, 2022
“Let it be” that Sir @PaulMcCartney know that his musical generosity of spirit and love have forever changed the world with positivity, joy and screaming happiness. HAPPY 80th to the greatest entertainer who ever lived. May God bless you. You are a blessing for us all! pic.twitter.com/AVoF8qelzO
— Rob Schneider (@RobSchneider) June 18, 2022
Happy 80th @PaulMcCartney Multiple thumbs aloft for 60+ years of utter class. I love the old stuff, I love the new stuff and ‘Temporary Secretary’ was the real start of the 1980s. No one argue. I’m right. pic.twitter.com/04cNJgYQAw
— Rae Earl (@RaeEarl) June 18, 2022
Happy 80th birthday to @PaulMcCartney, here is me slightly less than 80 years ago looking rather uncomfortable in my shirt which my mother had painted ?? pic.twitter.com/3vR17HcbeE
— Wendy Andresen (@WendyWings) June 18, 2022
Happy Eightieth Birthday to Paul McCartney, tomorrow: pic.twitter.com/IzWaqceEg5
— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) June 17, 2022
Happy 80th to the great man @paulmccartney – he’s given me some of my best memories. Recreating Band On The Run with Kasabian in 2010, Cologne was something else on tour in 2009 (I think?), visiting Windmill studios in Sussex or MPL in Soho, where he noodled away on an acoustic. pic.twitter.com/HTdsXFoX0P
— Gordon Smart (@gordonsmart) June 18, 2022
Paul McCartney’s childhood pics — a thread ?; #mccartney80 pic.twitter.com/nzMEftudRX
— mar #McCartney80 ☮️?️ (@maccadonia) June 17, 2022
Paul McCartney outside a Glasgow pub in 1970. Image by Linda McCartney. Happy 80th birthday to Macca #PaulMcCartney80 #Glasgow pic.twitter.com/e317ktyAef
— thi wurd (@thiwurd) June 18, 2022
HAPPY 80TH BIRTHDAY TO SIR JAMES PAUL MCCARTNEY ?? pic.twitter.com/2LfZgjJnyX
— jaz | #McCartney80 (@lennonswalrus) June 18, 2022
Paul McCartney is set to become the oldest Glastonbury headliner when he takes to the Pyramid Stage next Saturday evening (June 25). He’ll top the bill alongside Kendrick Lamar and Billie Eilish, the latter of whom will become the festival’s youngest-ever solo headliner.
On Thursday night (June 16), McCartney joined forces with Bruce Springsteen as he wrapped his ‘Got Back’ US tour in New York.
McCartney welcomed The Boss onstage at the MetLife Stadium in New Jersey as a “birthday present to myself” to perform the latter’s 1984 classic ‘Glory Days’ before the pair played The Beatles‘ ‘I Wanna Be Your Man’.
Later in the show, Jon Bon Jovi also joined McCartney onstage to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to him.
Riding high in the US charts at the start of punk rock’s annus mirabilis, Al Stewart was eager to make clear to an NME interviewer exactly how well he was doing. “Only two albums from the British folk scene have ever got into the American Top 30,” said the 31-year-old, who had moved to California a few months earlier. “Out of Steeleye Span, Incredible String Band, Pentangle, Fairport Convention, Ralph McTell – you know the list – only two albums have ever made it. They’re Modern Times and Year Of The Cat – both by me.”
ORDER NOW: THE BEATLES ARE ON THE COVER OF THE LATEST ISSUE OF UNCUT
Having spent much of his career being regarded as a minor talent (“When I looked for respect all I got was neglect”, he fumed quietly on 1976’s “If It Don’t Come Naturally, Leave It”), commercial success proved to be intoxicating for Stewart. In the sleevenotes to this colossal summation of his life’s work – 21 commercially released albums, 18 live discs, eight sets of outtakes and home recordings and three more of BBC sessions, plus a 160-page book – Paul Simon’s one-time London flatmate remembers wallowing in his vindication as he took to the clubs of Los Angeles in 1977. “It is the only time that I have been truly happy in my life,” he recalls. “I was in the Rainbow Bar And Grill, I had a record in the Top 10 and every girl in the place wanted to come and sit on my lap.”
Born in Scotland but raised in genteel Dorset, Stewart was the skiffle king of Wycliffe House boarding school before graduating to rock’n’roll: his group, the Trappers, were originally Tony Blackburn’s backing band. He briefly took electric guitar lessons from Wimborne Minster maestro Robert Fripp, but found what felt like his calling when he first heard Bob Dylan. Reconfigured as a singer-songwriter with a sideline in Lewis Carroll surrealism, Stewart gravitated towards Soho and served his musical apprenticeship at Greek Street mecca Les Cousins.
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The Admiralty Lights features some unheard Phil Ochs-alike songs from this period, “Child Of The Bomb” and “Do I Love My Neighbour?”, plus the 1966 Tolkien knock-off, “The Elf”, that Stewart recorded as his debut single before being signed to CBS, apparently because the label wanted to get hold of The Piccadilly Line, who shared the same management. The company nonetheless invested considerable effort in making his debut album, Bedsitter Images, heavy-handed Judy Collins-style orchestration swamping Stewart’s self-conscious lyrics on the “Norwegian Wood”-ish “Swiss Cottage Manoeuvres” and his takedown of unhip suburbanites, “The Carmichaels”.
Follow-up Love Chronicles – featuring half of Led Zeppelin, most of Fairport Convention, and the first documented use of the word “fucking” on an overground record release – was Melody Maker’s folk album of the year for 1969. However, while Stewart’sColin Blunstone-winsome voice and ear for a melody served him well on “Life And Life Only” and “You Should Have Listened To Al”, the ingrained sexual politics have not aged well, the romantic encounters depicted on “In Brooklyn” and the side-long title track uncomfortably close to the self-aggrandisement of the Playboyletters page.
A host of recordings from the early part of his career show why the genial Stewart was a popular club turn, the crowd at a 1971 Warwick University show being won over by his tale of meeting Leonard Cohen in the gents at Montreal Airport. However, if his early work aspired to the voice-of-a-generation cachet of Dylan and the confessional finesse of Joni Mitchell, he came across on record as a gauche wannabe, clean-shaven in a hairy age. Admirably self-aware, he told an interviewer in 1972: “I’m forced to admit, looking at the songs on the four albums that I’ve made, that all of them have been different but not different enough.”
He may not have realised it at the time, but with “Manuscript”, from his third outing 1970’s Zero She Flies, Stewart had found his USP. A taut meditation on the days leading up to World War I, shot through with family history and a report of a day at the beach at Worthing, it’s a magnificently dense piece, held in place by a meandering, teasing melody. Songs rooted in history (mostly military or naval) ultimately provided Stewart with an escape route from his own head and an endless supply of yarns to spin. Olde worlde material provided swashbuckling backdrops for all of his LPs from 1973’s Past, Present And Future – which features the ode to British sea power “Old Admirals” – though his subsequent ascent to million-sellerdom owed as much to a crowd-pleasing electric backing band and a determination to be born again in the USA.
While Stewart could still concoct distinctly British songs when the mood took him – hear the vengeful, Sandy Denny-worthy “The Dark And The Rolling Sea” from 1975’s Modern Times – it was a determinedly mid-Atlantic colour-palette, developed as he did the hard yards in American venues, that allowed him to thrive. The live recordings here show him ruthlessly stripping the oldies from his set by the middle of the decade, with the albums of his 1975–78 imperial phase a purposeful rejection of his folk-club days. They have a Fleetwood Mac-ish reach for the back of big venues, exotic Moody Blues touches and a Randy Newman smartness with a tasteful trace of Pink Floyd pomp courtesy of producer Alan Parsons.
Crucially, Stewart’s baroque melodies matched the grand drama of his subject matter; “Not The One” (“Queen Bitch”, approximately) from 1975’s Modern Times; “Sand In Your Shoes” and Amy Johnson tribute “Flying Sorcery” from 1976’s Year Of The Cat; Mock Tudor monstrosity “A Man For All Seasons” and “Almost Lucy” from 1978’s Hipgnosis-sleeved Time Passages. Mass-market oriented, but superbly engineered.
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Sales slowly declined thereafter, though The Admiralty Lightsshows that Stewart did not give up easily. His 1980s records stand up well, the cheeseville production of Indian Summer and 24 Carrots gaining a pleasing patina with the passage of time, while other follies – such as his unreleased “(World According To) Garp” single and vintage wine-themed 2000 LP Down In The Cellar– show an artist with endless faith in their vision, however ridiculous. True to eccentric form, his most recent studio album, 2008’s Sparks Of Ancient Light, features riffs on the lives of classical adventurer Hanno The Navigator and the final Shah of Persia, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, among others.
Given the giant sweep of Stewart’s historical works, The Admiralty Lights is appropriately oversized. His songs can be wordy and portentous, and incur into David Brent territory at times (“negress”, as heard on “Zero She Flies”, is certainly not a word anyone else will be singing any time soon). However, that kind of linguistic overreach is the hallmark of a stylist with a burning need to impress – see also: Donovan, Steve Harley, Marc Bolan, Morrissey.
Judged on his early albums, Stewart was a two-bob Dylan with moderately heavy friends, but The Admiralty Lights shows that he raised his game magnificently from the mid-1970s. Those US chart figures he quoted in 1977 were a pointed reminder to the folkies back home that none of his Liege & Lief-literate contemporaries harnessed arcane drama as successfully as Stewart. And as Lord Nelson, Napoleon, Robespierre, Joseph Stalin and Winston Churchill would doubtless tell him if they had the chance, history loves a winner.
The Beatles, George Clinton, The Osees, Sessa, Chris Blackwell, Bikini Kill, Nina Nastasia, Christine McVie, Roger Chapman, Neil Young and Al Jardine all feature in the new Uncut, dated August 2022 and in UK shops from June 16 or available to buy online now. This issue comes with an exclusive free CD, comprising the best tracks of the month.
THE BEATLES: Welcome to 1962: the first annus mirabilis of many in the extraordinary life of The Beatles. We relive the key events in this fast-moving, transformative year – from disaster in Decca’s Studio 2 to triumph on the stage of the Empire Theatre. Familiar faces appear here for the first time, old friends depart, the tempo is set for the rest of their career – and by the end of the year, John, Paul, George and Ringo are poised to release their first No 1 single. The future, Peter Watts discovers, is born here.
OUR FREE CD! FROM US TO YOU: 15 of the best new tracks this month, including songs by Andrew Tuttle, Black Midi, Ty Segall, Laura Veirs and more.
This issue of Uncut is available to buy by clicking here – with FREE delivery to the UK and reduced delivery charges for the rest of the world.
Inside the issue, you’ll find:
GEORGE CLINTON: As George Clinton’s ‘latest farewell’ tour rolls into town, Uncut hitches a ride aboard the Mothership. There, veteran Funkateers and new recruits bear testimony to the joyous legacy of Parliament–Funkadelic. But where next for the collective’s visionary Patriarch. “This particular cherub,” hears Nick Hasted, “may be here forever.”.
THE OSEES: Having spent the past 20 years boldly exploring the extremities of garage rock, psychedelic sludge and free-jazz meltdowns, Osees have returned with a thrillingly intense new album, A Foul Form. Sam Richards discovers how the band’s new “scum-punk” direction is providing catharsis at a troubled time. “I would never consider the Osees to be the conscience of humankind,” says their fearless leader John Dwyer, “but at the same time it’s never bad to hold a mirror up…”.
CHRIS BLACKWELL: A gambler by nature, Island Records visionary Chris Blackwell has backed many winners in a long and colourful career, from Free, Bob Marley and King Crimson to Roxy Music, Grace Jones and Tom Waits. Peter Tosh called him “Whiteworst!”, Lee Perry branded him an “energy pirate”, but the label supremo has been hugely respected, if not loved, by his artists. “I knew I wanted to spend my life close to music,” he tells Graeme Thomson.
SESSA: From São Paulo to New York, via a remote island off the southeast coast of Brazil, Sessa has taken his dreamy, stripped-down brand of Tropicália with him. But how does he contend with the movement’s history and tradition as well as Brazil’s turbulent political landscape? “I’m a musician, that’s where my heart is,” he tells Allison Hussey.
ROGER CHAPMAN: Chapeau to Chappo! The former Family frontman looks back on a long career spent dodging spivs, scallywags and hypnocrats to hobnob with Jimi, Elton and the Stones.
BIKINI KILL: The making of “Rebel Girl”.
NINA NASTASIA: Album by album with the Californian songwriter.
NEIL YOUNG WITH CRAZY HORSE: At last! Twenty-two years late… the Horse’s mythic ‘lost’ album arrives. But has it been worth the wait?
CLICK TO GET THE NEW UNCUT DELIVERED TO YOUR DOOR
In our expansive reviews section, we take a look at new records from Ty Segall, Gwenno, Kendrick Lamar, Andrew Tuttle and more, and archival releases from The Walkmen, Grateful Dead, David Michael Moore, and others. We catch the Wide Awake Festival and Kim Gordon live; among the films, DVDs and TV programmes reviewed are Elvis, Il Buco, Earwig, Pleasure and Nitram; while in books there’s Peter Doherty and David Leaf.
Our front section, meanwhile, features Elvis Costello, Richie Furay, Revalators Sound System, and World Of Twist, while, at the end of the magazine, Al Jardine shares his life in music.
You can pick up a copy of Uncut in the usual places, where open. But otherwise, readers all over the world can order a copy from here.
Eurovision entry Sam Ryder has announced details of a new 2023 UK and Ireland tour.
READ MORE: Eurovision 2022: Ukraine beats Sam Ryder into second at hope-filled pop bash
The tour will be in support of his upcoming debut album ‘There’s Nothing But Space, Man!’, which is due to be released on October 14. Fans can pre-order the record now to get access to an early tour pre-sale.
The 14-date tour will begin at Belfast’s Ulster Hall on March 17, 2023, with dates in Glasgow, London and Cardiff, before finishing up at Brighton Dome on April 5. Tickets for the 2023 tour go on general sale from June 17 at 9am and can be found here.
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Ryder came second during this year’s Eurovision Song Contest in Turin, with Ukraine’s Kalush Orchestra winning the event with a massive 631 points. It was the UK’s best performance result since 1997.
Reviewing Eurovision, NME wrote: “Eurovision 2022 was all about looking forward: Sam Ryder reminding us that the UK can actually win this thing, and Ukraine showing the world just how much agency it has. Yes, the contest can be silly – hello, ‘Give That Wolf A Banana’ – but it’s also strangely and fundamentally profound.”
BIG NEWS ALERT! ?? PRE-ORDER MY DEBUT ALBUM ‘THERE’S NOTHING BUT SPACE, MAN!’ FROM MY OFFICIAL STORE, WHICH GIVES YOU EARLY ACCESS TO UK & IRISH TOUR TICKETS ??https://t.co/A7wK9AX0wc pic.twitter.com/1g4aQ7XSjd
— Sam Ryder ?? (@SamRyderMusic) June 13, 2022
Viral TikTok sensation Ryder went into the competition as the bookmakers second-favourite to win with his song ‘Space Man’. The track reached Number Two in the UK single charts, becoming one of the biggest selling tracks of 2022.
He also recently performed the song at the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee concert on June 4, which was headlined by Queen, Diana Ross and Elton John.
Ryder is due to play brand-new London venue Outernet on November 24, with any remaining tickets available here.
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See the list of new tour dates below.
MARCH 2023 17 – Belfast, Ulster Hall 18 – Dublin, 3Olympia 21 – Manchester, Academy 22 – Glasgow, O2 Academy 23 – Newcastle, O2 City Hall 25 – Liverpool, O2 Academy 26 – Leeds, O2 Academy 28 – Birmingham, O2 Academy 29 – Cambridge, Corn Exchange 30 – London, Eventim Apollo
APRIL 2023 1 – Cardiff, The Great Hall 2 – Bristol, O2 Academy 4 – Bournemouth, O2 Academy 5 – Brighton, Dome
Reviewing Eurovision, NME wrote: “Eurovision 2022 was all about looking forward: Sam Ryder reminding us that the UK can actually win this thing, and Ukraine showing the world just how much agency it has. Yes, the contest can be silly – hello, ‘Give That Wolf A Banana’ – but it’s also strangely and fundamentally profound.”
BIG NEWS ALERT! ?? PRE-ORDER MY DEBUT ALBUM ‘THERE’S NOTHING BUT SPACE, MAN!’ FROM MY OFFICIAL STORE, WHICH GIVES YOU EARLY ACCESS TO UK & IRISH TOUR TICKETS ??https://t.co/A7wK9AX0wc pic.twitter.com/1g4aQ7XSjd
— Sam Ryder ?? (@SamRyderMusic) June 13, 2022
Viral TikTok sensation Ryder went into the competition as the bookmakers second-favourite to win with his song ‘Space Man’. The track reached Number Two in the UK single charts, becoming one of the biggest selling tracks of 2022.
He also recently performed the song at the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee concert on June 4, which was headlined by Queen, Diana Ross and Elton John.
Ryder is due to play brand-new London venue Outernet on November 24, with any remaining tickets available here.
Where The Crawdads Sing star Daisy Edgar-Jones shipped out DJ decks and put on shows for the cast, according to one co-star.
The Normal People actress takes on the lead role in the upcoming adaptation of Delia Owens’ 2018 bestselling novel.
However, fellow star Taylor John Smith has spoken on Edgar-Jones’ love for DJing, revealing she taught him how to spin decks.
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“It was phenomenal,” he told the PA news agency at the MTV Movie and TV Awards (via Irish News). “[Daisy’s] so funny when you’re not working that you forget how brilliant of an actor she is.
‘Where The Crawdads Sing’ with Daisy Edgar-Jones and Taylor John Smith. CREDIT: Sony Pictures/TCD/Prod.DB / Alamy Stock Photo
“It was a great experience. I didn’t feel like we had any tough days, it was just enjoyable, every moment.”
Smith added: “She was teaching me how to spin decks and DJ in our off time, she’s so rad. She shipped them out from the UK and was full-on DJ-ing in our apartment.”
He went on to reveal they also had film nights and nature walks, and said he would work with Edgar-Jones again “in a heartbeat” and do it “for free”.
Where The Crawdads Sing also stars Harris Dickinson, Michael Hyatt and David Strathairn, and has been produced by Reese Witherspoon.
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The film has also generated talk because it features a new song from Taylor Swift called ‘Carolina’, which has been previewed in the film’s trailers.
Speaking about her relationship with the film, Swift previously said: “Where The Crawdads Sing is a book I got absolutely lost in when I read it years ago. As soon as I heard there was a film in the works starring the incredible Daisy Edgar Jones and produced by the brilliant Reese Witherspoon, I knew I wanted to be a part of it from the musical side.
“I wrote the song ‘Carolina’ alone and asked my friend Aaron Dessner to produce it. I wanted to create something haunting and ethereal to match this mesmerising story.”
In Steve Jones’s splenetic autobiography, Lonely Boy, the Sex Pistols’ guitarist does his best to puncture the fables which have grown up around the group. He admits to being hazy about the facts – relying on a radio interview he did with manager Malcolm McLaren in 2005 for the chronology of how the band evolved. Jones’ tenure as the frontman of Kutie Jones And His Sex Pistols ended when McLaren was urged by Vivienne Westwood to look out for a good-looking boy called John. John Lydon is hired, though it transpires that the John that Westwood had in mind was John Ritchie, the future Sid Vicious. And the rest is history, or at least myth.
ORDER NOW: Queen are on the cover of the latest issue of Uncut
Pistolis loosely based on Lonely Boy, but it has an uncertain tone, fluctuating between cartoonish awe and the predictable dynamics of a rock’n’roll exploitation film. Pistol’s creator, Baz Luhrmann collaborator Craig Pearce, and writer Frank Cottrell-Boyce, flatten Jones’s plainspokenness to the point of self-parody. “I screw a lot of birds and I act tough,” Jones (Toby Wallace) says, explaining his inadequacy as a frontman. “But when I’m up there I’ve got nowhere… nowhere left to hide.”
Jones is presented as an amphetamine-fueled herbert whose early flirtations with the music business involve stealing equipment from the Hammersmith Odeon. Wallace doesn’t quite convince as Jones – his streetwise charms have a whiff of Jamie Oliver. Glen Matlock (Christian Lees) is introduced as “a jumped up little ponce who likes The Beatles” and never really recovers. Paul Cook (Jacob Slater) is Jones’s straight man and little else. Ironically, as Lydon has been vociferous in his disapproval of the TV series, Anson Boon’s mincing Rotten is one of the more convincing impersonations, perhaps because the real-life Rotten seems to exist within the realms of performance, and Boon can anchor the character in his sneers and verbal tics. Chrissie Hynde (Sydney Chandler) floats around McLaren/Westwood’s shop Sex, resisting Jones’ advances, being endearing and quite unlike Chrissie Hynde. Jordan (Maisie Williams) gets to set up a joke by wearing a see-through top on a suburban train. “Being seen is a political act,” she says, explaining that she has embarked on a vulva-powered revolution. “Why take the train if you’ve got a Volvo?” Jones replies.
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Visually, it’s lovely. Director Danny Boyle brings his customary panache. The dilapidation of 1970s London is framed with fusty news clips which highlight the dull conformity the Pistols’ were trying to smash. There are some low-key eureka moments, such as the hamster cameo which gives Sid Vicious his name. The use of music – non-punk – is fantastic. Jordan’s defiance is soundtracked by Lesley Gore’s “You Don’t Own Me”, The Kinks add colour to a journey through Soho, and the growing confidence of Rotten as a singer is hailed with a blast of the Bay City Rollers’ “Shang-A-Lang”. Scam or revolutionary act? In McLaren’s telling, the Sex Pistols were both. Pistol opts for a bit of a Carry On.
Paolo Nutini has shared another track from upcoming album ‘Last Night In The Bittersweet’ – check out the anthemic ‘Shine A Light’ below.
READ MORE: Paolo Nutini turns 850-year-old church into house of soul at intimate hometown show
The track follows on from ‘Lose It’ and ‘Through The Echoes’ which were both released last month to announce Nutini’s fourth album, the follow-up to 2014’s ‘Caustic Love’.
‘Shine A Light’ is an upbeat slice of arena-ready pop which is perfectly timed, since Nutini will headline TRNSMT and Victorious Festival this summer, and later this month he’ll perform two large outdoor shows in Bristol and Belfast. He’s also set to support Liam Gallagher this weekend at one of his two Knebworth shows.
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Listen to ‘Shine A Light’ below:
Nutini’s ‘Last Night In The Bittersweet’ is released on July 1 via Atlantic Records. Written by Nutini (with some select co-write contributions from members of his band), the record was produced by the artist alongside Dani Castelar and Gavin Fitzjohn.
Following a run of intimate shows last month, Nutini will be celebrating the release of ‘Last Night In The Bittersweet’ with a string of UK and European shows. Get your tickets here and check out the dates below.
AUGUST 21 – Milk Market, Limerick, Ireland 24 – Olympia Theatre, Dublin, Ireland
OCTOBER 2 – E-Werk Cologne, Cologne, Germany 3 – La Cigale, Paris, France 5 – Cirque Royal, Brussels, Belgium 6 – Rockhal Club, Luxembourg 8 – Paradiso, Amsterdam, Netherlands 9 – Paradiso, Amsterdam, Netherlands 22 – O2 Victoria Warehouse, Manchester 25 – Alexandra Palace, London 28 – O2 Academy 1, Birmingham 29 – Bonus Arena, Hull 31 – O2 Academy, Edinburgh
NOVEMBER 1 – Music Hall, Aberdeen
Speaking about Nutini’s influence on him, Lewis Capaldi told NME that he “was the first solo artist that I was ever really into. I was always into guitar bands, like Queens Of The Stone Age and Kings of Leon.”
“But Paolo was the first person where I was like ‘fuck, this is cool’. I remember listening to ‘Iron Sky’ and thinking ‘fuck me this is incredible.’ Before that, I was writing shite Arctic Monkeys songs and it just wasn’t happening because I wasn’t those bands. But with Paolo, I just kind of got it. It’s a good thing, you can kinda tell that I grew up listening to it.”
Julian Lennon, son of John Lennon, has released an official cover of ‘Imagine’. Listen to the track below.
In April, he performed the track for the first as part Stand Up For Ukraine campaign, a global fund-raising effort broadcast from Warsaw, Poland. At the time, he wrote “Today, for the first time ever, I publicly performed my Dad’s song, ‘Imagine’” adding: “The song reflects the light at the end of the tunnel, that we are all hoping for.”
A portion of the proceeds from the new release will be donated to Ukraine refugee relief through Lennon’s nonprofit, The White Feather Foundation to Global Citizen.
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“I had always said, that the only time I would ever consider singing ‘Imagine’ would be if it was the ‘End of the World’,” Lennon previously said about the infamous song.
He continued: “The War on Ukraine is an unimaginable tragedy. As a human, and as an artist, I felt compelled to respond in the most significant way I could.”
“Within this song, we’re transported to a space, where love and togetherness become our reality, if but for a moment in time,” Julian said. “The song reflects the light at the end of the tunnel, that we are all hoping for.”
Last year, Julian said that watching the new Beatles documentary Get Back was a “life-changing” experience that “made me love my father again”.
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Peter Jackson’s three-part film, which came to Disney+ last November, focuses on the making of the band’s penultimate studio album ‘Let It Be’ and showcases their final concert as a band, on London’s Savile Row rooftop, in its entirety.
Julian and his brother Sean attended a special screening of the documentary in Los Angeles ahead of an event held by Stella McCartney.
“What an Amazing night,” Julian reflected in an Instagram post after the event. “Firstly seeing Get Back and then [attending] Stella’s event afterwards. The One True thing I can say about it all is that it has made me so proud, inspired & feel more love for my/our family, than ever before.”
Recently, Julian released two new singles from his upcoming seventh studio album, ‘Jude’.
Chance The Rapper has shared a new video for ‘A Bar About A Bar’ – check it out below.
READ MORE: Vic Mensa: “Hip-hop is resistance in its purest manifestation”
The video sees Chance and Vic Mensa doing writing exercises together while Chicago-based painter Nikko Washington works in the background.
Both Chance and Mensa have previously worked together on the track ‘Cocoa Butter Kisses’ from Chance’s breakout 2013 mixtape ‘Acid Rap’, and on Mensa’s song ‘Tweakin”. Last year, they collaborated on a track called ‘Shelter’ with Wyclef Jean.
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Recently, the pair also shared another collaboration via ‘Writing Exercise #3: Wraith’.
Mensa recently teased that yet more new music from him and Chance would be coming soon, telling Complex: “Me and Chano have been working on a lot of music for a while now, there’s much more to come.
As Chance raps his piece in their latest video, the scene he describes starts to materialise around him, and Washington creates the story through his art.
Check out Chance’s video here:
Back in March, Chance shared the single ‘Child Of God’, which features Moses Sumney on vocals and was performed on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert last month.
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In the video for the song, artist Naïla Opiangah paints on a canvas behind him. The pair met during a trip to Accra, Ghana and have recently opened a contemporary art project together called ‘Child Of God’ at Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art.
Last year Chance also shared the solo single ‘The Heart & The Tongue’, and released a concert film called Magnificent Coloring World.
He also appeared on the soundtrack for Space Jam: A New Legacy, linking up with John Legend and Symba for the track ‘See Me Fly’, and on Smoko Ono’s afrobeat-inspired ‘Winners’. His long-awaited team-up with R&B legend Dionne Warwick, ‘Nothing’s Impossible’, was also finally released last year.
More than 50 years on from the release of her self-titled debut, Bonnie Raitt returns with her first LP since 2016’s Dig In Deep and some key dates in her diary. Early April found her at the Grammy ceremony picking up a lifetime achievement award, and she’s gearing up for a busy touring schedule that will include shows with fellow veteran traveller Mavis Staples.
ORDER NOW: Queen is on the cover of the latest issue of Uncut
On the surface, Just Like That…is business as usual, its maker’s default setting of blues-based AOR and soulful country balladry all present and correct, but much of its content is informed by specific events during the period since she last took a record to market. Artists reacting in song to Covid has become commonplace, though few have addressed the pandemic in a manner as upbeat and optimistic as on one of the album’s pivotal tracks, “Livin’ For The Ones”.
Written by Raitt and her long-serving guitarist George Marinelli, a sly strut that recalls ’70s Stones provides the bedrock for a pragmatic lyric commemorating friends and loved ones “who didn’t make it” but urging those who did to honour them by making their own lives count: “Just keep ’em in mind, all the chances denied/If you ever start to bitch and moan”.
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It’s a philosophy that’s also at the heart of a standout cover in the running order. Early plans for the album included a third duet with past collaborator Toots Hibbert, but following the Maytals’ figurehead’s death in 2020, the bouncy, percussive arrangement of his “Love So Strong” takes on the mantle of a tribute. “You’re sure to see me shine”, Raitt sings, as if talking directly to her fallen friend, “Shine as the stars in the morning/That brighten up the sky”.
There’s a similar message of positivity in difficult, unwanted circumstances on “Down The Hall”, inspired by a 2018 New York Times magazine article about inmates who volunteer to counsel others in a prison hospice without visitors from the outside world. Against a backdrop of Raitt’s tender acoustic picking and Glenn Patscha’s warm Hammond organ flourishes, the singer packs a formidable emotional punch by casting herself as one of those offering succour.
It plays out like a short story, the initially cautious narrator befriending jailbirds they’d previously feared in the exercise yard, sharing jokes while helping them shave or washing their feet (“The thought of those guys goin’ out alone, it hit me somewhere deep/I asked could I go sit with ’em, for some comfort and relief”). There are few songs as eloquent about finding love and kindness in unexpected places.
“Livin’ For The Ones” and “Down The Hall” are two of just four inclusions on which Raitt has a writing credit, but that’s a familiar state of affairs for an artist with an impressive track record for sourcing material from others that dovetails elegantly with her signature sound. The funk-fuelled “Here Comes Love” comes courtesy of Lech Wierzynski of Oakland-based R&B outfit the California Honeydrops, and was originally earmarked for Dig In Deep but ultimately surplus to requirements.
The sparse blues “Something’s Got A Hold Of My Heart” has been in Raitt’s pocket since it was offered to her by its writer, Al Anderson on NRBQ, in the mid-’90s, while opening track and first single “Made Up Mind” found its way to her more recently via the Canadian alt.country duo the Bros Landreth, and although the song seems tailor-made for Bonnie, the band roadtested it by sneaking out their own version in 2019.
On an album bursting with selections that confidently stand tall with almost any high-water mark in the Raitt canon, the atmospheric torch of “Blame It On Me” warrants special mention, the singer returning to the catalogue of reliable hit maker John Capek she first mined for “Deep Water” on 2005’s Souls Alike. Meanwhile, of the self-penned cuts, “Waitin’ For You To Blow” channels the laconic moods of Mose Allison, and the reflective title track examines a parent’s loss of a son to violent crime.
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A vital component to the success of Just Like That… is Raitt surrounding herself with a core of trusted musicians with whom she’s worked since 2002’s Silver Lining, creating ebbs and flows that embellish the material without ever overwhelming it. It makes for another assured chapter in a celebrated life, a celebrated achievement.
Noel Gallagher has revealed that he needed stitches after being accidentally headbutted by Manchester City player Rúben Dias’ father during the team’s title celebrations yesterday (May 22).
City won the Premier League title in dramatic circumstances yesterday, coming from 2-0 behind in five minutes to beat Aston Villa 3-2 and get the win needed to beat Liverpool to the title.
READ MORE: Honorary Cityzen: Noel Gallagher’s love affair with Manchester City, Pep Guardiola and the beautiful game in photos
As Gallagher revealed to TalkSPORT in an interview this morning (May 23), the Oasis man was seated next to the players’ families for the game at the Etihad Stadium, and “absolute bedlam” broke out when German midfielder Ilkay Gündoğan scored the winning goal.
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He said: “As the third goal goes in, right, there is absolute bedlam. As you can imagine, in the stadium where we sit, Rúben Dias’s family are in the box, a couple of boxes up.
“So I’m jumping around like an idiot, passing my 11-year-old son around like the Premier League trophy, everyone is lifting him up, and I turn around and Rúben Dias’ dad runs straight into me – headbutts me while I’m on the floor covered in blood.”
Manchester City. (Picture: Getty)
Gallagher went on: “I don’t see the last two minutes – I’ve got to get taken down by the St John Ambulance and had to get stitched up. I’ve got stitches in my top lip, I’ve got two black eyes. As I’m going down the corridor, Pep’s running up crying and we kind of hug each other and he says, ‘What’s up with your face?'”
He added: “If you’ve seen me today, I look like I’ve just arrived home from the ’80s, from Elland Road. I look like I’ve had my head smashed in. It’s unbelievable. A lot of City fans are asking, ‘You alright? What’s happened?’ and I said, ‘You’ll never guess’.”
Gallagher then confirmed that Dias’ father left with “not a mark on him,” saying: “He’s a big bear of a man – he almost knocked my teeth out. But as days go at the Etihad, that’s got to be up there with the best.”
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Back in 2019, Gallagher was at the centre of the celebrations as City celebrated winning the Premier League for the second year in a row. As ‘Wonderwall’ played out from the speakers at Brighton and Hove Albion’s Amex Stadium, where City won their final match, Noel was seen celebrating among the travelling City fans – and singing the words to the 1995 track.
Elsewhere, Noel’s brother Liam engaged in a spat with pundit and former Liverpool player Jamie Carragher following the title win. “What you saying Carra you [bell] end,” Gallagher tweeted at one point. Carragher quickly shot back, saying that Man City would “never win the Champions league” and that “Oasis are shite compared to the Beatles”.
Carl Barât has issued an appeal after two of his guitars were stolen ahead of a rehearsal with Dirty Pretty Things.
The Libertines man took to Twitter today (May 18) to share photos of the two instruments and ask fans to keep an eye out and “spread the word”. His appeal was also shared on The Libertines’ account.
READ MORE: Carl Barat on The Libertines’ new album progress and how ‘landfill indie’ is “a cruel term”
“In the early hours of this morning, two of Carl’s most treasured guitars were stolen in the Homerton area of London, as Dirty Pretty Things rehearsals were about to commence,” a statement on his account reads.
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“These guitars hold an unfathomable amount of sentimental value so any news on their whereabouts would be greatly appreciated, the police have already been informed. Please spread the word and DM if you have any info.”
PLEASE HELP IF YOU CAN ? x https://t.co/SfrBxNvE1c
— Libertines (@libertines) May 18, 2022
Dirty Pretty Things are due to perform a show at London’s Electric Ballroom next week to mark the 15th anniversary of their debut album ‘Waterloo To Anywhere’ (2006). The show was originally scheduled to go ahead on March 24, but was postponed due to the COVID pandemic.
All tickets purchased for the original dates remain valid, and you can purchase any remaining tickets here.
The Libertines, meanwhile, are due to play six dates over the summer to mark the 20th anniversary of their seminal debut studio album, ‘Up The Bracket’ (2002). Tickets for the shows are available here.
Back in January, Pete Doherty gave NME an update on The Libertines’ long-awaited follow-up to 2015’s ‘Anthems For Doomed Youth’. When he last spoke about the new material back in 2019, he said it had an eclectic mix of styles in the same vein as The Clash’s ‘Sandinista’.
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“That’s still the format that we’re talking about,” Doherty said of the record. “At the end of the tour we did that ended last month, everyone was really upbeat by the fact that we were all still alive after the various quarantines and [bassist] John [Hassle] coming and going. We were all really upbeat about the future, so I don’t know how or when it’s going to happen but I think it will.
“‘Sandinista’ still encapsulates it because there are still a lot of ideas. It’s just about getting everyone in a room and getting on with it.”
Chance The Rapper and Vic Mensa have teamed up for a new song and video – watch ‘Writing Exercise #3: Wraith’ below.
READ MORE: Vic Mensa: “Hip-hop is resistance in its purest manifestation”
The pair – both members of the Savemoney hip-hop collective – have previously worked together on the track ‘Cocoa Butter Kisses’ from Chance’s breakout 2013 mixtape ‘Acid Rap’, and on Mensa’s song ‘Tweakin”. Last year, they collaborated on a track called ‘Shelter’ with Wyclef Jean.
To mark the release of ‘Writing Exercise #3: Wraith’, Mensa also teased that more new music from the pair would be coming soon, telling Complex: “Me and Chano have been working on a lot of music for a while now, there’s much more to come.
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“This was produced by the homie Smoko Ono and Beat Butcha,” he added of ‘Wraith’. Watch the video for that below.
Last year Chance also shared the solo single ‘The Heart & The Tongue’, and released a concert film called Magnificent Coloring World.
He also appeared on the soundtrack for Space Jam: A New Legacy, linking up with John Legend and Symba for the track ‘See Me Fly’, and on Smoko Ono’s afrobeat-inspired ‘Winners’. His long-awaited team-up with R&B legend Dionne Warwick, ‘Nothing’s Impossible’, was also finally released last year.
Back in March, he shared the single ‘Child Of God’, which features Moses Sumney on vocals and was performed on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert last month.
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At the start of the year, Mensa was arrested at a US airport for the alleged possession of psychedelic mushrooms.
The Chicago rapper (real name Victor Mensah) flew from Ghana to Dulles International Airport in Virginia on January 15. Undergoing a secondary search at the airport, Mensa was alleged to have been found by authorities to be in possession of a range of narcotics, including LSD, psilocybin capsules and gummies.
He was arrested by US Customs and Border Patrol and charged with felony narcotics possession. He had been retuning from a promotional trip to Africa with Chance The Rapper.
Abbey Road Studios held their first ever Music Photography Awards (MTAs) last night (May 14) – see the list of winners below.
READ MORE: The greatest debut albums recorded at Abbey Road Studios
Announced back in February, the first ever MPAs celebrated the best music photography of 2021, with awards voted for by a panel including Moses Sumney, Shygirl and David Bowie photographer Rankin.
Among the winners of last night’s ceremony, held at Abbey Road, was Eric Johnson, who won the Icon Award for his legendary photographs of the late ’90s and early ’00s New York hip-hop scene, including famous shots of Biggie Smalls, Aaliyah, Nas, Missy Elliott, Lauryn Hill and many more.
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Abbey Road’s Managing Director Isabel Garvey said of the awards: “Everyone at Abbey Road Studios is thrilled with the quality of the entries and winners in our first Music Photography Awards. More broadly, we’re also incredibly encouraged by the way in which the MPAs has been embraced across the arts and creative landscape.
“It’s been brilliant to create a platform to recognise emerging and established talent in this important field, and we’re already looking forward to doing it all again in 2023!”
See the full list of winners below:
We are proud to have played a part in recognising the year’s most unforgettable, unique, and unsung moments in music photography for the inaugural Abbey Road Studios Music Photography Awards 2022!
Full gallery: https://t.co/LFInyZQ94M
Until next year, keep on snapping! #MPA22 pic.twitter.com/FBTkGQeRxp
— Abbey Road Studios (@AbbeyRoad) May 15, 2022
Championing Scenes
Megan Doherty (winner) Above Ground
Rob Jones
Chris Suspect
Cicely Ellison
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Live
John Lyons (winner) Anthony Harrison
Gary Mather
Jérôme Brunet
Chris Suspect (winner) Riccardo Piccirillo
DeShaun Craddock
Alec Castillo
Jason Sheldon
Undiscovered
Joe Puxley (winner) Jada & David Parrish
Oscar Hetherington
Hana Kovacs
Thomas Weidenhuapt
Artist At Work
Greg Noire (winner) Jack McKain
Jennifer McCord
CJ Harvey
Dean Chalkley
Above Ground
Editorial
Samuel Trotter (winner) Yana Yatsuk
Craig McDean
David LaChapelle
Fernando Aceves
Paul Sepuya
Portrait
Yana Yatsuk (winner) Aidan Zamiri
Vicky Grout
Lucas Garrido
Nicholas O’Donnell
Josiah Rundles
Last August, Abbey Road ran an open house event to mark 90 years of recording, with ‘Abbey Road: Open House’ giving visitors the opportunity to explore all three of the original recording rooms made famous by artists including The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Kate Bush, Oasis, Kanye West, Adele, Ed Sheeran and Frank Ocean.
It was announced at the start of 2021 that a new documentary about Abbey Road Studios was in development, with Mary McCartney set to direct.
If These Walls Could Sing is set to be the first feature-length documentary about the iconic studios, produced by Mercury Studios – the must-first content studio from Universal Music Group.
James Bay has announced the release of his third studio album, ‘Leap’. Check out new single ‘One Life’ along with our interview with Bay below.
READ MORE: James Bay live in London: new music aplenty, and a passionate call to “keep small venues alive”
Bay’s new album will be released on July 8 via EMI Records/Republic Records, and comes previewed by the single ’One Life’. Arriving on the heels of March’s ‘Give Me The Reason’, the song is a tribute to Lucy Smith, Bay’s longtime girlfriend and the mother of his daughter Ada, who arrived last October.
“I’d never written from this perspective before,” Bay told NME. “I’d never written from a place of such joy and positivity. Lucy and I first got together at 16 and have been together ever since. She’s supported me since day one. From open mic nights, right through to my biggest shows. It’s been one adventure after another, but now we’re on the biggest one of all. Raising our beautiful daughter Ada.”
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The Hitchin singer-songwriter’s upcoming LP will be his first full-length project since 2018’s ‘Electric Light’ – a record that saw Bay take on a more experimental range of sounds. For ‘Leap’, Bay told NME how he was returning to the stripped-back, guitar-driven sounds of his 2015 chart-topping debut ‘The Chaos And The Calm’.
“On my second album, I threw a bunch of synths at my music and electronic sounds, and I had a brilliant time pushing the boundaries in that respect,” he said. “This time I’ve fallen back to the guitar and an even more stripped back type of sonic.”
He continued: “I’m always going to push boundaries in the music I’m making. The boundaries I’ve pushed this time around have been with the lyrics. I’ve found a way to write from a place of vulnerability that I have not gone to or written from before.”
Earlier this month, while performing at London’s O2 Kentish Town Forum and performing some of his new material, Bay told the audience that his upcoming music would be more upbeat and positive than his previous work.
“I think the bridge between what is ultimately more positive songwriting than I’ve ever delivered before and my usual sadness is typically as emotional as it’s ever been, just in a different way and from a different place in in me, a place of hope and thanks and joy, and there’s a more positive anticipation of the future,” explained Bay.
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James Bay. CREDIT: Press
This new emotional perspective came after the BRIT Award-winner dropped into “depths of anxiety, frustration and emotional struggle” in 2019. “It was a very busy year for me,” he recalled. “I was doing all sorts of touring. I did six weeks of headlining shows in America; I did three months opening up for Ed Sheeran, which was a lot of fun, and I released a new EP, ‘Oh My Messy Mind’, and even that title reflected how I was feeling: ‘What am I about? What am I doing? What am I doing this for? Who am I?'”
Bay went on: “I wrote a lot of weird, sad and awkward songs to help myself through it, but it didn’t do too much for me. But there was a small revelation. I came to the point in all of that writing where I looked around me at a few people, particularly Lucy, who carry me when I metaphorically can’t stand.
“I found myself with two options: fall apart or lean into the genuine strength and life wrapped around me. I leaned into the latter.”
For ‘Leap’, Bay worked with sought after producers and songwriters including Ian Fitchuk, Dave Cobb, Foy Vance and Joel Little in a mixture of in-person and remote sessions in Nashville and London, with songs recorded both before and during the coronavirus pandemic.
“I got home [from Nashville] on March 21, 2020, and two days later everything shut down,” he explained. “So I stayed home and we mixed and mastered the 12 songs that I had, thinking we were going to put them out. I found out over an excruciatingly long period of months that that was absolutely not going to happen.”
It was during lockdown that Bay picked up Julia Cameron’s 1992 manual for creatives, The Artist’s Way, where he stumbled upon the words of American essayist John Burroughs: “Leap, and the net will appear,” which ended up inspiring the title of the album.
“That quote stuck with me,” Bay told NME. “How do I know if the net will appear? How do I know if it will be OK? The second half of the quote says that it will, and you have to therefore trust it. It’s saying you’ve got to take a leap of faith. It’s as beautiful as it is terrifying; that’s what draws me towards it.”
James Bay – ‘Leap’ album artwork. CREDIT: Press
Featuring six songs from the Nashville sessions and six newer compositions, the album is made up of a balance between “light and shade”, according to Bay. “It’s a cohesive album, born out of the least cohesive time,” he said.
Recalling some of his Nashville sessions with Cobb, Bay said the producer – who has worked with Brandi Carlile, Chris Stapleton and Lady Gaga – wanted to keep their recordings to just a couple takes per song.
“He loves old rock ‘n’ roll like I do,” said Bay. “So he said, ‘Well, if that’s what we love, let’s take a leaf out of the book of The Rolling Stones,’ and he dared me to do our songs in just a few takes, without a click track. At one point I did start to get a bit wobbly because I’m used to hearing what I hear on the radio today, when it’s quite polished in comparison to stuff from decades past. But once I loosened up, I really fell in love with doing it.”
Someone else Bay worked with on ‘Leap’ was Finneas, the in demand US producer and songwriter best known for creating hits for his pop star sister, Billie Eilish. He produced the song ‘Save Your Love’.
Bay’s A&R knew Finneas’ manager and so put the two in touch. They first met on a Zoom call during lockdown, and to Bay’s surprise, Finneas had been a longtime fan of his music and had even sat in on some Q&As with Bay when he was a teenager.
“When I first went ever to the Grammys in 2016, I did a few Q&As in front of live audiences; it turns out that Finneas was in some of those audiences,” said Bay. “He was like, 16 or something. He was there as a fan, he was just running around town watching all sorts of different things, including me. Which I still couldn’t believe.”
Sharing his experience of working with Finneas, Bay said he was impressed with the musician’s creative instincts. “He’s not an over-thinker,” Bay said. “He’s quite an instinctive sort of fellow who follows his gut in the moment. I really liked that.”
The pair have not yet met in person, but Bay hopes that changes soon. “I hope I get out there soon so we can sit down for a drink and connect in the real world.”
‘Leap’ will be released July 8 and can be pre-ordered here. Check out the album’s tracklist below.
1. ‘Give Me The Reason’ 2. ‘Nowhere Left To Go’ 3. ‘Save Your Love’ 4. ‘Everyone Needs Someone’ 5. ‘One Life’ 6. ‘Silent Love’ 7. ‘Love Don’t Hate Me’ 8. ‘Brilliant Still’ 9. ‘Right Now’ 10. ‘We Used To Shine’ 11. ‘Endless Summer Nights’ 12. ‘Better’
U2’s Bono and The Edge held a surprise acoustic concert in a bomb shelter in Kyiv earlier today (May 8), at the invitation of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
The duo delivered a set featuring some of their biggest hits as they showed their support for the country, which has been fending off an invasion by Russia since February 24.
READ MORE: Ukrainian band Antytila talk to us from the frontline ahead of benefit show: “We try to show people some light”
Bono and The Edge performed in one of Kyiv’s subway stations that have been repurposed as a bomb shelter since the invasion began. According to the Irish Times, the musicians started the set with ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’ as the sound of air-raid sirens went off in the distance.
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Elsewhere in the setlist were ‘With Or Without You’, ‘Desire’ and ‘Angel Of Harlem’. Before the latter, Bono told the crowd that there was “nowhere in the whole world that we would rather be in today than in the great city of Kyiv”.
The pair also covered Ben E. King’s ‘Stand By Me’, bringing up a Ukrainian soldier on stage to help them sing it, and changing the “me” in the lyrics to “Ukraine”. Musicians who have had to join the military in recent months also joined the band on stage throughout the set, including Antytila’s Taras Topolya, according to Rolling Stone.
During the performance, Bono also addressed the war that is ongoing in Ukraine and has taken the lives of 3,280 Ukrainian civilians as of Friday (May 6), according to the OHCHR. “The people in Ukraine are not just fighting for your own freedom, you are fighting for all of us who love freedom,” he said. “We pray that you will enjoy some of that peace soon.”
After the surprise concert, the singer and the guitarist posted a tweet on U2’s Twitter page, explaining: “President @ZelenskyyUa invited us to perform in Kyiv as a show of solidarity with the Ukrainian people and so that’s what we’ve come to do.”
President @ZelenskyyUa invited us to perform in Kyiv as a show of solidarity with the Ukrainian people and so that’s what we’ve come to do. — Bono and The Edge #StandWithUkraine
— U2 (@U2) May 8, 2022
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The performance follows U2 taking part in the ‘Stand Up For Ukraine’ campaign last month, alongside the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Elton John and more. “The brave people of Ukraine are fighting for their freedom – and for ours – in the face of unspeakable violence and an unjust invasion,” the band wrote in a statement to accompany their performance of their 2000 song ‘Walk On’.
“More than four million people, mostly women and children, have had to flee for their lives – a population nearly the size of Ireland.”
Meanwhile, last month a Norwegian DJ bought a number of billboards on the road to Coachella to raise awareness and funds for the Ukraine relief effort. The posters, which read “Drop beats not bombs” on blue and yellow to represent the Ukrainian flag, were put up by Matoma in collaboration with the Music Saves UA charity.
You can donate here to the Red Cross to help those affected by the conflict, or via a number of other ways through Choose Love.
Through the past couple of years of fresh hell there have been records that might console you (Ignorance), albums that might sustain you (Rough And Rowdy Ways) and even pop songs so defiantly absurd they could make you briefly forget the relentless ongoing catastrophe (“WAP”/“Chaise Longue”). But no song from the long years of lockdown was more likely to make you throw open the windows and dance on the table than “Like I Used To”, Sharon Van Etten’s magnificent 2021 collaboration with Angel Olsen.
ORDER NOW: Miles Davis is on the cover of the latest issue of Uncut
Way back in 2009, on her first album that wasn’t a homemade CD-R, Van Etten sang “I am the tornado, you are the dust”. The terrible beauty of her voice was already plain, but She sounded weary of emotional turbulence, hemmed in by fences “that fall but still surround me”. “Like I Used To” felt like the storm that had been gathering in Van Etten’s work for over 10 years finally breaking in a force-twelve epic worthy of Roy Orbison. And it left you wondering where the storm might take her next.
She’s arguably been the hardest-working woman of lockdown, joining Fountains Of Wayne, covering Elvis Costello, The Beach Boys, Daniel Johnston, Yoko Ono and the Velvets, releasing one of the most desolate Christmas singles of all time, recording an audiobook memoir and curating a 10th-anniversary edition of her second album, Epic, including a disc of remarkable covers from peers and inspirations including Courtney Barnett, Lucinda Williams and Fiona Apple.
