News Archives: 2011
Chimes of Freedom 75 Newly Recorded Bob Dylan Songs by Over 80 Artists Scheduled for January 24 Release
November 24, 2011
Salutes Amnesty Internationals 50th Anniversary and Life-Saving Human Rights Work
The Collection Features Songs By
* Adele * The Airborne Toxic Event * Joan Baez * Natasha Bedingfield * Jackson Browne * Cage the Elephant * Elvis Costello * Darren Criss * Miley Cyrus * Dave Matthews Band * K’NAAN * Ke$ha * Mark Knopfler * Diana Krall * Lenny Kravitz * Kris Kristofferson * Ziggy Marley * Maroon 5 * Tom Morello * My Chemical Romance * Joe Perry * Queens Of The Stone Age * Raphael Saadiq * Seal & Jeff Beck * Silversun Pickups * Patti Smith * Sting * Sugarland * Pete Townshend * Lucinda Williams * Evan Rachel Wood
Two iconic forces that have impacted the past 50 years – the life-saving human rights activism of Nobel Peace Prize-winning Amnesty International and the incomparable artistry of Bob Dylan – are being saluted by 80 musicians who contributed new or previously unreleased recordings to Chimes of Freedom: The Songs of Bob Dylan Honoring 50 Years of Amnesty International.
Chimes of Freedom is Executive Produced by legendary music executive Jeff Ayeroff and Julie Yannatta, who spearheaded Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur – a 2007 collection of John Lennon solo compositions performed by major artists including U2, Green Day, and R.E.M.
The collection is scheduled for physical (4 discs) and digital release in North America on January 24, 2012 through Fontana Distribution. It will be distributed internationally through Fontana International, a Universal Music company, on January 30.
Chimes of Freedom features a stellar and diverse group of artists across the generational and musical spectrum. The performers, including many of Amnesty International’s longtime supporters, range in age from teenage pop star Miley Cyrus, 19, to folk music legend Pete Seeger, who, at 92, records Dylan’s poignant “Forever Young,” with a children’s chorus
The diversity of the musicians and musical genres – from rock, rap, hip-hop to pop, folk, country, jazz and blues — attests to Amnesty’s depth of support in the music community, the universal appeal of the core message of human rights, and the breadth of Dylan’s impact on culture. Almost every track on the album is being released for sale for the first time* – except for the title song, Dylan’s original 1964 recording of “Chimes of Freedom.” Seventy songs were recorded especially for this release – with the addition of a few previously unreleased recordings.
“This album is a powerful fusion of the music community’s respect for Amnesty’s life-affirming work and for Bob Dylan’s enduring brilliance,” said Ayeroff and Yannatta. “We are proud to have worked with Amnesty to produce this remarkable project.”
In 1962, Amnesty International evolved from a one-year campaign to free political prisoners into a worldwide movement fighting for justice, freedom and human dignity; today the organization has more than three million supporters in 150 countries. In March of that same year Bob Dylan’s debut album was released, launching an unparalleled recording career.
“Over the half century, Dylan’s art has explored and expressed the anguish and hope of the modern human condition,” observed Sean Wilentz, the noted historian, in the album liner notes.
“Bob Dylan’s music endures because he so brilliantly captures our heartbreak, our joy, our frailty, our confusion, our courage and our struggles,” said Karen Scott Amnesty International’s Manager of Music Relations. “His words convey a depth of meaning that few artists can equal, inspiring us and always moving ahead of our expectations. We at Amnesty International are deeply grateful to this legendary musician and to all of the artists who have contributed to this project.”
All of the artists, session musicians, arrangers, engineers, producers and recording studios worked pro-bono to support the human rights cause. Almost 30 tracks on the album were mixed gratis by famed engineer Bob Clearmountain. Bob Ludwig and Adam Ayan of Gateway Mastering donated their mastering services. The album cover illustration is by Grammy Award winning artist Mick Haggerty. Eight tracks were produced or executive produced by Martin Lewis, who as co-creator/producer in the 1970s of Amnesty’s ongoing “Secret Policeman’s Ball” benefit series, instigated Amnesty’s outreach to rock musicians by recruiting and producing Pete Townshend, Sting, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Bob Geldof and others. Executive Producers for Amnesty International are Helen Garrett, director of special projects, and Karen Scott, manager of music relations.
Through Chimes of Freedom, Amnesty International seeks to enlist support for its fight against censorship and attacks on free speech – whether involving artists, writers, musicians, political activists or bloggers. In this campaign, Amnesty is fighting for people such as the imprisoned Nobel Prize winner Liu Xiaobo in China, a scholar and human rights defender imprisoned since 2009 for writing about corruption and criticizing China’s political system. In addition to purchasing the album at www.amnestyusa.org/chimes, supporters will find actions they can take to help individuals whose freedom of expression is under threat.
The tracklisting for Chimes of Freedom: The Songs of Bob Dylan Honoring 50 Years of Amnesty International is as follows:
DISC 1
Raphael Saadiq – Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat
Patti Smith – Drifter’s Escape
Rise Against – Ballad of Hollis Brown
Tom Morello The Nightwatchman – Blind Willie McTell
Pete Townshend – Corrina, Corrina
Bettye LaVette – Most of the Time
Charlie Winston – This Wheel’s On Fire
Diana Krall – Simple Twist of Fate
Brett Dennen – You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere
Mariachi El Bronx – Love Sick
Ziggy Marley – Blowin’ in the Wind
The Gaslight Anthem – Changing of the Guards
Silversun Pickups – Not Dark Yet
My Morning Jacket – You’re A Big Girl Now
The Airborne Toxic Event – Boots of Spanish Leather
Sting – Girl from the North Country
Mark Knopfler – Restless Farewell
DISC 2
Queens Of The Stone Age – Outlaw Blues
Lenny Kravitz – Rainy Day Woman # 12 & 35
Steve Earle & Lucia Micarelli – One More Cup of Coffee (Valley Below)
Blake Mills – Heart Of Mine
Miley Cyrus – You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go
Billy Bragg – Lay Down Your Weary Tune
Elvis Costello – License to Kill
Angelique Kidjo – Lay, Lady, Lay
Natasha Bedingfield – Ring Them Bells
Jackson Browne – Love Minus Zero/No Limit
Joan Baez – Seven Curses (Live)
The Belle Brigade – No Time To Think
Sugarland – Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You (Live)
Jack’s Mannequin – Mr. Tambourine Man
Oren Lavie – 4th Time Around
Sussan Deyhim – All I Really Want To Do
Adele – Make You Feel My Love (Recorded Live at WXPN)
DISC 3
K’NAAN – With God On Our Side
Ximena Sariana – I Want You
Neil Finn with Pajama Club – She Belongs to Me
Bryan Ferry – Bob Dylan’s Dream
Zee Avi – Tomorrow Is A Long Time
Carly Simon – Just Like a Woman
Flogging Molly – The Times They Are A-Changin’
Fistful Of Mercy – Buckets Of Rain
Joe Perry – Man Of Peace
Bad Religion – It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue
My Chemical Romance – Desolation Row (Live)
RedOne featuring Nabil Khayat – Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door
Paul Rodgers & Nils Lofgren – Abandoned Love
Darren Criss featuring Chuck Criss and Freelance Whales – New Morning
Cage the Elephant – The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
Band of Skulls – It Ain’t Me, Babe
Sinad O’Connor – Property of Jesus
Ed Roland and The Sweet Tea Project – Shelter From The Storm
Ke$ha – Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right
Kronos Quartet – Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right
DISC 4
Maroon 5 – I Shall Be Released
Carolina Chocolate Drops – Political World
Seal & Jeff Beck – Like A Rolling Stone
Taj Mahal – Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream
Dierks Bentley – Senor (Tales of Yankee Power) (Live)
Mick Hucknall – One Of Us Must Know (Sooner Or Later)
Thea Gilmore – I’ll Remember You
State Radio – John Brown
Dave Matthews Band – All Along the Watchtower (Live)
Michael Franti – Subterranean Homesick Blues
We Are Augustines – Mama, You Been On My Mind
Lucinda Williams – Tryin’ To Get To Heaven
Kris Kristofferson – Quinn The Eskimo (The Mighty Quinn)
Eric Burdon – Gotta Serve Somebody
Evan Rachel Wood – I’d Have You Anytime
Marianne Faithfull – Baby Let Me Follow You Down (Live)
Pete Seeger – Forever Young
Bob Dylan – Chimes Of Freedom
DIGITAL ONLY
Outernational – When The Ship Comes In
Silverstein – Song To Woody
Daniel Bedingfield – Man In The Long Black Coat
For More Information: Digital contact:
Bobbie Gale/Big Hassle Media Cory Llewellyn/Transmission
323-456-3490 310 295 0187
Bobbie@bighassle.com cory@transmissionmedia.com
For Amnesty International:
Contact: Suzanne Trimel,
212-633-4150, 917-815-5964
strimel@aiusa.org
Amnesty International is a Nobel Peace Prize-winning grassroots activist organization with more than three million supporters, activists and volunteers in more than 150 countries campaigning for human rights worldwide. The organization investigates and exposes abuses, educates and mobilizes the public, and works to protect people wherever justice, freedom, truth and dignity are denied. For more information, please visit: www.amnestyusa.org
Read MoreListen: Jackson Browne Creates Epic Love Song from Woody Guthrie’s Diary
August 31, 2011
Stream the radio edit and full-length versions of ‘You Know the Night’ by: Rolling Stone
Click to listen to Jackson Browne’s ‘You Know the Night (Edit)‘
Click to listen to Jackson Browne’s ‘You Know the Night (Album Version)‘
Jackson Browne and Rob Wasserman are celebrating the 100th anniversary of Woody Guthrie‘s birth by releasing “You Know the Night,” a new piece of music based on a 30-page notebook entry penned by the revered songwriter just after meeting the woman who would become his second wife. “There’s a great photo of me with like 12 sheets of music taped to two stands and trying to sing this stuff and figure out when to sing, so in a way it was a real editing job,” Browne told Rolling Stone. “There wasn’t too much you could take out because it’s his story.”
“You Know the Night” has been edited down to four minutes for radio, but the full performance – and the version that will appear on Notes of Hope, a collection of other musical interpretations of his writing – clocks in at just under 15 minutes. “The four-minute version came out really good but the 15-minute version is, like, impossible to cut down,” says Browne. “We took out all the biographical stuff, really. They should be providing everybody with both.”
“[Guthrie] used to bully people’s spirits,” Browne says. “The people he sang for needed that. People he sang for needed to hear that one, they were not alone and two, there’s better times possible down the road. So, this song, the 15-minute version, is infused with that. There is something about him sitting on a park bench and playing with the curls of this beautiful girl’s hair and talking about what kind of life they wanted. I think it’s so universal. It’s what people do when they fall in love. It’s gigantic. It’s a love song but at the same time a kind of an idealist trek.”
Reporting by Patrick Doyle
Read MoreOn The Music Path Ipad App Offers Users In-Depth, One-On-One Lessons Taught By Master Musician Jackson Browne And Others
April 28, 2011
Imagine taking in-depth, one-on-one guitar lessons from Jackson Browne or Richard Thompson. These are among the rarefied experiences offered by On The Music Path, a new iPad app designed to teach users to play real instruments with instruction from world-class musicians. Lessons are shot in high-definition video by award-winning cinematographer Alan Kozlowski, who developed the app with business partner Derek Penn. On The Music Path offers insight and inspiration to students from beginners to advanced players, building an archive of wisdom from master practitioners passing down their art to future generations.
In addition to Browne and Thompson, world-renowned artists teaching On The Music Path master classes include: Marcia Ball, Roscoe Beck, Michael Chapdelaine, Luis Conte, Steve Ferrone, Steve Postell, Lee Ritenour, Vonda Shepard, Leland Sklar, Kenny Sultan, Scott Tennant, and even the legendary Ravi Shankar. The range of lessons will continue to grow as the app’s repertoire evolves.
“In an age when more people are learning to play virtual guitars than real guitars, On The Music Path is unabashedly old school and proud of it,'” says Penn. “There are no machine-generated jam tracks, game leaderboards, or polyphonic note-detection algorithms-just lessons from extraordinary players, and technological teaching tools used in service of appreciating great music and understanding how to play it.”
Jackson Browne breaks down some of the essential elements of his distinctive style on “Fingerpicking
and Alternate Tunings,” for intermediate to advanced players. Richard Thompson, a guitarist Rolling Stone has cited as one of the Top 20 of all time, teaches “Folk Rock Guitar.” Each of these two lessons features four of the artist’s signature songs. Also among the initial slate of lessons are “Fundamentals of the Guitar” from singer-songwriter Steve Postell; “Intro to the Blues” from blues guitarist Kenny Sultan; and “Intro to the Classical Guitar” from Scott Tennant, member of the Grammy-winning L.A. Guitar Quartet.
For the start-up company On The Path (LLC), Kozlowski is On The Music Path’s co-founder, creative director, and director of photography; Derek Penn is co-founder, chief software architect, and chief operating officer. “On The Music Path embodies our passion for great musicianship,” says Kozlowski, “and for the tradition of apprenticeship between a student and teacher that goes back thousands of years, and that I have
personally experienced through my mentor and teacher Ravi Shankar, who is the embodiment of this path.”
On The Music Path’s simple, elegant user interface leverages the intuitive nature of the iPad’s touch-based operating system. Features include a built-in metronome, the ability for users to record themselves, and the functionality for users to slow the video down to of its original speed to practice at their own pace. At each lesson’s end, users have the opportunity to play along with the teacher. Lessons range from 45 to 85 minutes, and are accompanied by complete musical notation and tablature synchronized to the teacher’s playing. The application can be downloaded for free from the App Store beginning April 28, with lessons available from $2.99 to $19.99. Students can try out the first chapters of any lesson at no charge before purchasing.
“Learning your instrument doesn’t get any better than this,” says Jac Holzman, founder of Elektra Records, a company whose artist-friendly model inspired Kozlowski and Penn in establishing On The Music Path.
On The Music Path – Love the Music You MakeTM
For more information: www.onthepath.com
Jackson Browne Signature Model Handmade Acoustic Guitar By Gibson To Be Unveiled At Namm
January 12, 2011
AVAILABLE IN STORES NATIONWIDE ON JANUARY 12, 2011
On Wednesday, January 12, singer-songwriter JacksonBrowne will join Gibson Guitar in introducing Gibson Acoustic’s Jackson Browne Signature acoustic guitar during a press event at the 2011 winter NAMM Show (National Association ofMusic Merchants) in Anaheim, CA. Five years in the making-through a series of evolving prototypes-the handmade instrument was designed and is being produced at the Gibson Montana Acoustic MasterShop in Bozeman, MT. Browne collaborated with master luthier Ren Ferguson and Robi Johns at Gibson Montana throughout the process. It is the first guitar to bear Browne’s name.
“The Gibson team has thoroughly enjoyed creating this outstanding musical instrument with Jackson,” says HenryJuszkiewicz, CEO, Gibson Guitar Corporation. “We are confident that players seeking the very best in tone, whether in the living room, in the studio, or on the stage, will find this a must-have guitar.”
Distinguished by a red spruce top and sustainably-farmed English walnut back and sides, the Jackson Browne Signature model was inspired by Gibson’s legendary 1930s-era Roy Smeck model-several of which are among Browne’s own prized collection of vintage Gibsons-known for its big tone, pure traditional acoustic sound, and flawless projection during concert performance. Responsive and powerful, the “Jackson Browne” has a wide neck, deep round shoulders, and the scale of a classical guitar, with 12 frets to the body. It is as much a fully modern instrument as a vital link to Gibson’s heritage, with innovations including a sophisticated pickup offering unparalleled sound reproduction when amplified, and exceptional gain before feedback capability.
“It has been an extraordinary back and forth process with Gibson creating this guitar,” says Jackson Browne. “As a performer, I’ve learned over the last 20 years what I like, and what works for my music. To use the iconic Roy Smeck model as a starting point-as well as Gibson’s 1994 reissue-and build something that helps me bring my songs to life is really exciting.”
The Jackson Browne Signature Model A (msrp$7,738) comes factory installed with the Trance Audio Amulet true-stereo acoustic guitar pickup, Browne’s system of choice. Model 1, without pick-up-but with the capability for being retrofit-is also available (msrp $5,799).
Renowned worldwide for his acoustic performances, JacksonBrowne launches his 2011 Solo Acoustic Tour with a February23 concert in Santa Cruz, CA. The North American itinerary runs through April, with additional dates and regions to be added. For special benefitseating, visit www.guacfund.org.
Jackson Browne has written and performed some of the most literate and moving songs in popular music, and has defined a genre of songwriting charged with honesty, emotion and personal politics. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004, and the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame in 2007.
Press and media are invited to attend the official unveiling and product launch of Gibson Acoustic’s Jackson Browne Signature acoustic guitar at 12 noon on Wed., January 12, 2011 at the NAMM Show. The press event takes place in the private Gibson suite-Room303 AB-on the third floor of the Anaheim Convention Center.
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