The as-yet-untitled album is produced by Rick Rubin. Nash wouldn’t speculate on a release date, but he told Billboard that the trio was finished with “about one-third” of the recording.

A complete tracklisting hasn’t been revealed yet, but the band has confirmed that the project will feature The Rolling Stones’ “Ruby Tuesday,” The Beatles’ “Norwegian Wood,” Bob Dylan’s “Girl From The North Country,” Jackson Browne’s “Lives in the Balance,” The Allman Brothers Band’s “Midnight Rider,” The Grateful Dead’s “Uncle John’s Band,” and Tim Hardin’s “Reason to Believe.”

Here Jewell, backed only by her accomplished combo of Jerry Miller on guitars/pedal steel, Johnny Sciascia on upright bass and Jason Beek on drums, presents a dozen Lynn tunes from the ’60s and ’70s. Jewell doesn’t inject the same drawl and grit into these songs as her hero; rather, she interprets them with a slightly more folky, melodic voice. But with the spare country rocking and honky-tonkin’ at the hands of her backing boys, Jewell maintains the integrity of each feisty, melodic Lynn composition. The unflinching songs come alive as Jewell and her band keep it simple, allowing Lynn’s clever lyrics and attitude come through.

This is real country music at its rootsy best. Loretta Lynn never sounded so good on this Jewell of a tribute.

– Eric Feber

Reprinted courtesy of The Virginian Pilot

Over the last 43 years Musselwhite has released over 30 albums. Three of those — 1990s Ace Of Harps, 1991’s Signature and 1993’s In My Time — were recorded for Alligator Records and remain among his best-selling titles. Now, Charlie Musselwhite returns to Alligator with The Well. With musical flavors from Mississippi to Memphis to Chicago, The Well is steeped in the music of Charlie’s youth — country and city blues as well as rockabilly and gospel — the music that inspired his signature sound. The fresh, new songs speak from his decades of experience, hard living, and his triumph over adversity.

The Well is the first full-band recording in Musselwhite’s long career for which he wrote or co-wrote every track on the album, and it is the most personal and the emotionally deepest cycle of songs he has ever created. The Well was recorded at Los Angeles’ legendary Sunset Sound with guitarist Dave Gonzales (Paladins, Hacienda Brothers), bassist John Bazz (The Blasters) and drummer Stephen Hodges (Tom Waits, Mavis Staples), and was produced by Chris Goldsmith (Ruthie Foster, Grammy-winning Blind Boys of Alabama). The revealing, autobiographical songs recall specific events and places in Musselwhite’s amazingly colorful life. His conversational vocals and masterful harmonica work are perfectly matched with the stories he tells and the near-telepathic musicianship behind him. Simply put, The Well is Charlie Musselwhite at his very best.

Central to the album are stories looking back at hard times and personal healing. Dig The Pain recalls his drinking days, while The Well tells of his recovery. In Cook County Blues, he wryly remembers his short stint behind bars. The most poignant song on the album, Sad And Beautiful World — a duet with Charlie’s close friend, legendary vocalist Mavis Staples — is his response to the tragic murder of his 93-year-old mother in her own home (and the house Charlie grew up in) during a burglary. Each track on The Well is a chapter from Charlie’s life, and in the liner notes to the CD he offers some very personal insights into the meaning behind the songs.

According to Alligator president Bruce Iglauer, having Musselwhite back on the label is pure pleasure. “I’m thrilled to welcome Charlie back to the Alligator Records family. He’s a real icon of American roots music, a brilliant harmonica player and a true storyteller as a vocalist and songwriter. Charlie’s a terrific guy to work with, a genuine road warrior who is out there pleasing the fans night after night. We’re looking forward to renewing a great relationship.” And Musselwhite couldn’t agree more, saying, “I don’t think anybody is happier than I am being back in the Alligator family. It feels good to be home.”

Musselwhite’s personal history is the kind of story a novelist would sell his soul for, but his indomitable spirit is crafted by him alone. Tough times have been a huge part of his life, and have shaped him into a true working-class hero. His fans include young hipsters, Vietnam veterans, convicts, bikers, jazz aficionados, aging hippies and hard-core blues fans. He is a larger-than-life musical legend, writing and singing what he calls, “music from the heart.” According to Musselwhite, “It’s about the feeling, and about connecting with people. And blues, if it’s real blues, is loaded with feeling. And it ain’t about technique, either. It’s about truth, connecting to the truth and communicating with the people.”

Born into a blue collar family in Kosciusko, Mississippi on January 31, 1944 and raised by a single mother, Musselwhite grew up surrounded by blues, hillbilly and gospel music on the radio and outside his front door. His family moved to Memphis, where, as a teenager, he worked as a ditch digger, concrete layer and moonshine runner. Fascinated by the blues, Musselwhite began playing guitar and harmonica. It wasn’t easy growing up a poor, white boy in Memphis, even among the rich musical influences the city offered. He felt like an outcast and a stranger (themes that have informed, inspired and haunted his music to this day). As a teen, Musselwhite attended parties hosted by Elvis Presley and hobnobbed with many of the local musicians, including Johnny Cash and Johnny Burnette, but the celebrities young Charlie sought out were Memphis’ veteran bluesmen like Furry Lewis, Will Shade and Gus Cannon.

Following the path of so many, Musselwhite moved to Chicago looking for better paying work. While driving an exterminator truck as a day job, Charlie lived on the South Side and hung out in blues clubs at night, developing close friendships with blues icons Little Walter, Big Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson, Big Joe Williams, Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf. Before long, he was sitting in at clubs with Muddy and others, building an impressive word-of-mouth reputation. Soon after, Charlie was being paid to play in the same South Side neighborhood. Noted blues journalist Dick Shurman says, “The black Chicago blues artists all liked Charlie as a person. They felt that he was one of them — a southern country boy with a deep affinity for the blues.”

His first recording, under the name Memphis Charlie, was with Big Walter Horton on the famous Vanguard Records series, Chicago/The Blues/Today!. Signing with Vanguard, Musselwhite (along with Paul Butterfield who was as urban as Charlie was rural) brought the amplified harmonica blues to a new audience of young, white rock and rollers, who discovered that Charlie personified the cool and hip counter-culture icons they admired.

After the release of his first full-length LP — Stand Back! Here Comes Charlie Musselwhite’s South Side Band — he was embraced by the growing youth counter-culture and the newly emerging progressive rock FM radio stations, especially on the West Coast. His iconic status established, he relocated to San Francisco, often playing the famed Fillmore Auditorium. Over the years, he has released albums on a variety of labels, ranging from straight blues to music mixing elements of jazz, gospel, Tex-Mex, Cuban and other world music, winning new fans at every turn. He has been touring nationally and internationally for four decades and is among the best-known and best-loved blues musicians in the world.

Musselwhite has guested on numerous recordings, as a featured player with Tom Waits, Eddie Vedder, Ben Harper, John Lee Hooker, Bonnie Raitt, The Blind Boys of Alabama, INXS and most recently Cyndi Lauper. He has shared stages with countless blues and rock musicians. He was inducted into the Blues Foundation’s Blues Hall Of Fame in 2010, has been nominated for six Grammy Awards and has won 24 Blues Music Awards. The San Francisco Chronicle says, “Charlie Musselwhite’s harmonica playing shows taste, bite, restraint and power. He’s one of the best, and as a bluesman, he’s as real as they come.”

Charlie Musselwhite today is as vital and creative as at any point in his long career. DownBeat calls him, “the undisputed champion of the blues harmonica.” In addition to his always-busy schedule, he hosts a weekly radio show, “Charlie’s Backroom,” on KRSH-FM in Santa Rosa, California (streamed at KRSH.com Sundays at 10:00am PST). He considers himself a lifelong learner and is constantly perfecting his craft. With The Well, Charlie Musselwhite returns with the strongest, most intimate album of his career — a powerful, personal collection of songs. Musselwhite’s blues, imparting his hard-won knowledge and working class wisdom, are a window into the deep well of his Mississippi soul.

Whereas 2008′s Gossip in the Grain was a more expansive release, God Willin’ exists in a more compact musical space. As the album’s title suggests, it’s a country-tinged record complete with slide guitar and the occasional banjo. The songs conjure images of a simple life of hammock naps and skillet-cooked breakfasts within a universe devoid of cell phones, laptops and televisions. The only interruption to his scene of melancholy serenity occurs in the first track, “Repo Man,” which kicks off the album with an aggressive guitar riff and accusatory lyrics. The rest of the album operates at a much slower pace, though, wandering from regret to occasional contentment.

With God Willin’, LaMontagne continues to churn out soulful tunes that relentlessly tug at the heart strings. He isn’t covering new territory, but his music is no less satisfying for its familiarity. For example, in “New York City’s Killing Me,” he laments the sterility of urban living, singing, “I was just kicking along the sidewalk / No one looks you in the eyes / No one asks you how you’re doing / Don’t seem to care if you live or if you die.”

LaMontagne reins in his characteristic raspiness on God Willin’. It’s still very much present, but he rarely belts the notes as on previous records. Instead, he favors clarity and a smoother delivery, as evidenced by the contemplative “Old Before Your Time.”

In a live performance review in The New York Times, writer Nate Chinen praised JJ’s “balance of wildness and cool” describing his music as “Southern swamp rock with undercurrents of Memphis soul. His songs chronicle ambiguous truths and unambiguous urges,” delivered by Grey’s “winningly uncontrived vocals.” Likewise, Billboard has praised Grey’s “world-beating blend of Southern rock, blues and Florida swamp soul.”

2010 sees the Alligator Records release of Grey’s latest labor of love, Georgia Warhorse, named after the resilient Southern lubber grasshopper. “Yellow and black, and tough like an old-school Tonka toy,” says JJ. “They seem so at ease with the world. Nothing seems to rile them. They’re in no hurry but they have a kind of resilience because they just keep coming back and I’ve always felt there was a lesson in there for me to learn.” Grey could be described in such words; his own career has grown over the course of a decade of winning over fans night after night

As with the previous releases, Grey meticulously demoed the entire Georgia Warhorse album himself on the various instruments in his own home studio he calls the Egg Room. “It’s named after the old refrigerator room we used to keep eggs in when my grandparents were in the egg business,” says Grey. “Once I’m done with the demos then I start thinking about hitting the real studio.” Armed with eleven new original songs including one co-written with songwriting icons Chuck Prophet and Angelo Petraglia (Kings of Leon), Grey and long-time friend and producer Dan Prothero hit the “real” studio, Jim Devito’s Retrophonics in St. Augustine, Florida, to begin tracking Georgia Warhorse. There, Grey would again track the majority of the instruments himself, playing guitars, keys, harmonica and delivering all the vocals with his gritty, straight-from-the-soul voice. Prothero’s approach as producer and Retrophonics’ unvarnished, natural sound mirrors Grey’s vision of musical tones and his love of the rustic Florida backwoods, where his family has lived for generations.

Joining him for a track on this album is Grey’s long-time musical hero and reggae icon Toots Hibbert, who sings with Grey on The Sweetest Thing. “Toots is the greatest soul singer I’ve ever heard and one of my biggest influences,” says Grey. Georgia Warhorse also provided the opportunity for Grey to work with another friend and hero, fellow Jacksonvillian Derek Trucks. In true neighborly fashion, Trucks stopped by JJ’s house to record slide guitar for the song Lullaby. “Derek Trucks is the greatest guitarist I’ve ever seen and I’m honored to have Derek and Toots on my record,” says Grey.

Debuting in 2001 with the CD Blackwater, following up in 2004 with Lochloosa, Grey steadily built his following one live performance at a time. Both albums (reissued by Alligator in 2007) were released under the name Mofro, a name the young Grey chose to describe his music and sound while still working his day job at a lumberyard. He has since used the word to name his band of ever-changing world-class players. The albums were met with critical acclaim, including “one of the 10 best R&B records of the year and one of the best of the decade” at Amazon.com for Blackwater and “one of the 10 best releases of the year” in Rolling Stone for Lochloosa.

In 2007, with his first Alligator release, Country Ghetto, Grey reached an even larger audience, doubling both his album sales and his concert attendance. Relix said, “Country Ghetto is a tribute to JJ Grey’s rich comprehension of the South’s learned musical roots and knack to make age-old ideas sound fresh. Grey and Mofro fuse rock with plenty of soul, groove-heavy blues, and dirty, infectious funk. The deep and introspective lyrics are a breath of fresh air.” 2008’s Orange Blossoms built on that energy, with even more fans, radio stations and critics coming on board. A 2009 best-of LP, The Choice Cuts, has kept the momentum going.

Grey, an avid outdoorsman, is a dedicated fisherman and surfer and holds an honorary position on the board of the Snook Foundation, dedicated to the protection of coastal fish and fish habitat. He has written passionately and articulately about his love for the untrammeled environment of his north Florida home.

JJ has brought his music to countless festivals, including Austin City Limits Festival, Byron Bay Blues Festival (Australia), Bonnaroo, Montreal Jazz Festival and Fuji Rock (Japan). Over the course of his 15-plus year career, Grey has shared stages with the likes of the B.B. King, The Allman Brothers Band, The Black Crowes, Los Lobos, Jeff Beck, Ben Harper, Lenny Kravitz, Booker T. Jones, Mavis Staples and many others. In the spring of 2010 Grey was awarded the opportunity of a lifetime as a solo acoustic opener with soul legends Mavis Staples and Booker T. Jones on the What It Is! tour. JJ reminisces, “Getting to open up for such legends, it’s just something I’ll never forget.”

His songs have also appeared in film and on network and cable television programs including House, Flashpoint, Crash, Friday Night Lights, The Deadliest Catch, and the film The Hoot. In November 2009, JJ wrote his first film score for the critically acclaimed documentary The Good Soldier that appeared in theatres and on Bill Moyers’ Journal on PBS. Recently, Grey played piano, sang and contributed a song (The Wrong Side) to Buckwheat Zydeco’s Grammy-winning Alligator album, Lay Your Burden Down.

With the release of Georgia Warhorse and a relentless world tour to follow, Grey is set for a breakout year. Commenting on his musical future, he says, “Life just makes itself up right in front of me and I just roll with it. All I know is to have the family I have, see the places I’ve been, meet the people I’ve met and to get to play music with some of the most talented folks around has got to make me the luckiest man alive.”

10 is McGuffey Lane’s 10th album, contains 10 tracks and is being released in 2010. The album represents their renewed energy and commitment to their music. Standout tracks include “It’s A Good Day”, “I Am Who I Am”, “Bartender” and “Song For The Road”. All the original band members came together to record the album and the results are sure to satisfy old and new fans alike.

Too often overlooked and underappreciated among the mega-metropolitan elite, the Wilson sisters have nevertheless been a hugely influential force on rock and this disc could offer a blueprint to a lot of new acts looking to get their feet off the ground.

Heart sparkles on cuts that include the scorching “WTF,” the acoustic-based beauty “Hey You,” and the sizzling “Wheels,” all of which fit neatly alongside their earlier classics like “Barracuda” and “Magic Man.”

Ann’s voice can still rip a roof off a house and Nancy’s work with producer Ben Mink on instruments such as autoharp, guitar, mandolin, dobro, banjo and more, offer a mesmerizing soundscape throughout the 10-song disc.

“A Sideman’s Journey is a limited edition release, containing a CD, a DVD with the documentary “Making Of A Sideman’s Journey”, a hardcover book with 60 pages and a handsigned Lithography.

The song he recorded with Paul and Ringo for this project has an interesting story. It’s the old Fats Domino song ”I’m In Love Again” (previously covered by Paul on the CHOBA B CCCP album). The reason for this choice was that this was the first ever song where Klaus tried his hand at playing the bass guitar. Klaus made his debut as a bass guitarist sitting next to the stage at the Top Ten Club in Hamburg, borrowing Stu Sutcliffe’s Höfner 333 while The Beatles performed the song.
This new version was recorded at Paul’s studio in Sussex on June 19th 2008, with Paul handling all the other instruments: the piano, organ, harmonica, guitars etc, Klaus played on a Höfner 333 bass guitar. Ringo’s drums were recorded in Los Angeles later.

Among the other songs Dolenz and his producer — Beach Boys and Brian Wilson collaborator Jeff Foskett — chose for  King For a Day are “Sweet Seasons,” “Point of No Return,” “Go Away Little Girl,” “It Might as Well Rain Until September,” the Righteous Brothers’ “Just Once in My Life” as a duet with Bill Medley and “I Feel the Earth Move” with “Hannah Montana” co-star Emily Osment. “We did want to mix it up a bit,” Dolenz explains. “Every single cut is not necessarily one of the big, Top 10 hits.”

Dolenz also opted to include a new version of “Sometime in the Morning,” another of the songs King wrote for the Monkees. “I’ve done it on stage a million times in the classic Monkees version,” he says, “but sitting at home just doodling around on the guitar, I came up with this kind of bluegrass, Cajun version, quite a different rhythm and a little bit faster.”

Dolenz says that, depending on time, he might including some of the King For a Day songs in his sets on this summer’s Happy Together Tour, though he says most of his performances will be dedicated to “all the Monkees greatest hits, in their entirety, the way people remember them.” As for a another Monkees reunion — the group has been dormant since about 2001 — Dolenz, who will be part of a U.K. tour in the musical “Hairspray” later this year, says “I’ve learned to never say never.”

“Every year, at least two or three times, somebody’ll bring it up or somebody will call and ask if I’m interested,” he explains. “You see, in the case of the Monkees, unlike the Beatles with Apple or the (Rolling) Stones with their management company, since the TV show went off the air there’s never been a Monkee management or a Monkee office or a Monkee business. Every once in awhile someone will come along and track us all down individually and say, ‘Do you want to go back and get together?’

“So my stock answer is, ‘You never know.’ It could happen tomorrow. It could never happen again. It’s just one of thos

British company And Vinyly charges £2,000 ($3,100) for the pleasure of pressing cremated ashes into a piece of vinyl, sprinkling them in like one would sprinkle cinnamon in a carrot cake, producing up to 30 records.

Not only can the records themselves be composed of ashes, but for another £3,500 artist James Hague will paint from a photo, mixing ashes in with the acrylic paint.

Should you have always dreamed of being a famous rockstar, the company can even arrange for the record to be stocked around the world in record stores for another £1,000 extra.

So, what to choose for your record? The options are plentiful. Either a recording of your voice, your favorite tunes—or for another £500, a “bespook” track can be written and recorded for you.

Vinyl lovers everywhere unite!