Music News

R.E.M. bassist Mike Mills and the Rolling Stones keyboardist/musical director Chuck Leavell will join violinist Robert McDuffie this fall for a tour honoring iconic musicians from Georgia. The trio will perform songs from artists like Ray Charles, the Allman Brothers Band, R.E.M., Outkast, Gram Parsons, James Brown, Gregg Allman, Gladys Knight and the Pips, the B-52s, Brook Benton and more, along with the Mills-composed Concerto for Violin, Rock Band and String Orchestra.

The four-date trek, dubbed “A Night of Georgia Music,” kicks off September 29th in Atlanta, Georgia. The tour continues October 2nd in Birmingham, Alabama and October 4th in Savannah, Georgia before concluding October 5th in Augusta, Georgia.

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Nicky Wonder, longtime guitarist for Brian Wilson and cofounder of power pop band the Wondermints, has died. He was 59.
“It is with my deepest regret to tell you that our beloved Nicky Wonder passed away last night in his sleep. We are in a state of shock as you can imagine,” Brian Wilson said in a statement on his official website. “But we are going to honor him with tonight’s show. Nicky was my favorite guitar player ever. I always loved the way he used his fingers.”

Born Nick Walusko on May 22, 1960, he formed the Wondermints with Darian Sahanaja in 1992. He and Sahanaja were both fans of Wilson’s work, long before they met him. “When I met Nick Walusko, who I formed the Wondermints with, one of the first things we bonded over was Smile bootlegs,” Sahanaja told Rolling Stone. “We got to know [music historian] Domenic Priore and a small group of us became the Smile intelligentsia of that period.”

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Meat Loaf joined the cast of the Bat Out of Hell musical on Tuesday evening for “You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth (Hot Summer Night).” The New York performance marked the singer’s first time onstage in over two years — he last appeared at the Bat Out of Hell‘s video in May 2017.
“OK, you guys have been wanting to do this long ago, so we’re going to do it now,” Meat Loaf told the crowd after seizing the mic from cast member Andrew Polec. “Give me a little, ‘You took the words right out of my mouth!'” The cast takes turns singing each verse, with Loaf joining in for the chorus.



The singer has been plagued by severe back problems and vocal damage, leaving him unable to tour, much less perform. Onstage in Canada in June 2016, he collapsed while singing his 1993 hit “I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That).” “I was sick and when you get older you get dehydrated,” he told Rolling Stone a month later. “I hit the high note on that song and I got really, really dizzy. I went, ‘Oh, my God, I’m gonna pass out.’ I didn’t want to fall forward and break my neck going off the stage, so I started to go down easily and halfway down I went out. I didn’t wake up until we got to the hospital.”

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Twenty years from now, releases by Tainy, J Balvin and Bad Bunny will be the most exemplary of 2019; but our rock en español playlist will have you raging like it’s 1999. In case you missed it, here are Rolling Stone‘s biggest highlights from the week in Latin music.



La Era Rockera: 10 Essential Rock en Español Albums From 1999

With urbano music dominating the pop charts today, it may seem like Latin pop has fully crossed over in the United States. Though we’d be remiss to forget the genre’s monumental year of 1999: it was the year Ricky Martin ushered in the so-called “Latin pop explosion” during his video and also when Santana swept the pop charts with his Spanglish hybrid masterpiece, Supernatural. The experimentations pioneered by Latin rockeros set a precedent for more daring music in Spanish; no longer as predictable, 1999 saw rock en español evolve beyond the trappings of the guitar-bass-drum formula, closing the 20th century by making room for cross-genre innovations with mainstream pop potential. Read up on 10 essential rock en español albums turning 20 this year, featuring Maná, Café Tacvba, Gustavo Cerati and more.

and also when Santana swept the pop charts with his Spanglish hybrid masterpiece, Supernatural. The experimentations pioneered by Latin rockeros set a precedent for more daring music in Spanish; no longer as predictable, 1999 saw rock en español evolve beyond the trappings of the guitar-bass-drum formula, closing the 20th century by making room for cross-genre innovations with mainstream pop potential. Read up on 10 essential rock en español albums turning 20 this year, featuring Maná, Café Tacvba, Gustavo Cerati and more.

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“We gotta change around here,” Mavis Staples sang toward the very end of Wednesday night’s 18th annual Americana Honors & Awards Ceremony at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium. Having been presented the evening’s Inspiration Award by pioneering Civil Rights activist and Freedom Rider Ernest Patton earlier in the evening, Staples’ song was a powerful reminder that change-inspiring music-makers are, like Staples put it herself during her acceptance speech, “still carrying on.”

But during a show that at once gestured at the future of the Americana genre while still firmly upholding its rigid past, Staples’ “Change” also served as a commentary on the state of Americana music in 2019. The Americana Honors, hosted by Joey Ryan and Kenneth Pattengale of the Milk Carton Kids, celebrated big names like Elvis Costello and John Prine while highlighting a multiplicity of new voices and sounds from the genre’s wide cast of up-and-comers.

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The sister LP to Workingman’s Dead, released just over four months later, rode the songwriting bonanza, with new influences digested. The result is a slightly fuller sound, a brighter vibe, and maybe, song-for-song, their strongest set ever. “Ripple” and Lesh’s breakout “Box of Rain” are the Dead at their deepest, and “Sugar Magnolia” and “Truckin’,” both delivered by band young’un Bob Weir, nailed the noodle-dance boogie style that took them from collegiate cult band to stadium-filling phenomenon.

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Bruce Springsteen made a surprise live appearance Saturday at the opening of a new exhibit honoring the rocker in his New Jersey hometown.

The career-spanning “Springsteen: His Hometown” exhibit in Freehold, New Jersey held its opening night gala, featuring performances by Bobby Bandiera and Joe Grushecky and the Houserockers. During the latter band’s set, Springsteen – who attended the gala hosted by Monmouth County Historical Association – came onstage to perform his 1988 song “Light of Day.”

“I can’t stay long,” Springsteen told the attendees. “I’ve got my family in the city, but I wanted to just come down and thank everybody for supporting the Historical Association… It’s nice to be honored in my hometown.”

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Kim Shattuck, the singer and guitarist who co-founded and led the SoCal punk band the Muffs alongside contributions to the Pixies and NOFX, died Wednesday at the age of 56. A rep for Shattuck’s band the Coolies confirmed her death to Rolling Stone. The cause was amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

“We are very sorry to announce the passing of our bandmate and dear friend Kim Shattuck,” the Muffs’ Ronnie Barnett and Roy McDonald wrote on Facebook. “Besides being a brilliant songwriter, rocking guitarist and singer/screamer extraordinaire, Kim was a true force of nature. While battling ALS, Kim produced our last album, overseeing every part of the record from tracking to artwork. She was our best friend and playing her songs was an honor. Goodbye Kimba. We love you more than we could ever say.”

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In a time when música urbana is queen, the most successful pop singer-songwriters are the most adaptable. This summer the Latin Grammy-nominated songwriter Camilo Echeverry teamed up with his fellow nominee, Puerto Rican hitmaker Pedro Capó, in “Tutu”: an alluring love song, fashioned with a dembow bounce. Now, after amassing over 175 million YouTube views, “Tutu” is further expanding its reach with a surprise A-list remix — starring none other than Colombian pop icon, Shakira.

“It’s like a dream come true,” Echeverry tells Rolling Stone of working with Shakira. “I tried to be the most professional that I could, but I was like fangirling all the time. The first cassette that I had in my life was Shakira’s ¿Donde Están Los Ladrones?.”

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Little Feat’s Paul Barrere, who served as guitarist and vocalist in the boogie rock band for nearly 50 years, died Saturday at the age of 71.

The band confirmed Barrere’s death in a statement. While no cause of death was provided, the guitarist was undergoing treatment in his long battle with liver disease; in 1994, Barrere contracted hepatitis C, and in 2015 was diagnosed with liver cancer.

“It is with great sorrow that Little Feat must announce the passing of our brother guitarist, Paul Barrere, this morning at UCLA Hospital,” Little Feat said in a statement.

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