WNMC Music

Album's guest spots, international tour dates to be announced later. 

Veteran gospel act The Blind Boys of Alabama has signed with Sony Masterworks, Paste has learned. The band is now set to release a new album this fall, taking production notes from other than Justin Vernon of Bon Iver. An album title has not yet been released.

The album will feature a few unexpected guest spots, which will be announced later. Its release will be followed by an international tour.

Slowly but surely, Brooklyn quintet The National have developed over a decade from modest alt.country beginnings to the point where they can draw 10,000 fans to an Obama rally.

It’s near perfect irony that the highly crafted cocktail came of age during the time when our country tried its hardest to get people not to drink. During the era of Prohibition, spanning the years 1920 through 1933, cocktails came into the height of fashion in the underground speakeasies and at private parties, when strong flavors were imparted to cover the harsh tinge of bootleggers’ bathtub booze. And, of course, these very kind of parties were the centerpiece of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. With a new film treatment of the iconic jazz age novel just out from director Baz Luhrmann, Gatsby and cocktails are once again in the public consciousness.

In Gatsby Cocktails: Classic Cocktails from The Jazz Age (Ryland Peters & Small, $9.95) we find sixty-some pages of beautiful illustrations, succinct history lessons, terrific quotes from The Great Gatsby, as well as a solid list of timeless recipes for truly delightful drinks.

At first you may be skeptical of Isaiah Richardson Jr. He doesn’t look like somebody who would be playing Hava Nagila for passengers waiting for their train in the subway. Firstly, he seems too young,  and secondly, he’s a black kid from the Bronx, dressed sharply, derby hat and all. But when upon meeting Isaiah, the 32-year-old ticked off “Hevenu Shalom Aleichem,” “Bashana Haba’ah,” and “Zum Gali Gali” as some of his favorite songs to play passing crowds, I knew he was serious about his Jewish music.

June 30, 1969: JB doin' one of his best songs ever, Mother Popcorn! ("And since it's so beautiful, I dedicated her by saying, 'Mother Popcorn'".

The 1960s gave us the Beatles and the Stones, Joni Mitchell and Janis Joplin. They also gave us Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. Indeed, among the era’s American hitmakers, few came close to matching the popularity of the TJB (none of whom were Mexican, including Alpert, who used to jokingly refer to the septet as “four lasagnas, two bagels and an American cheese”). Sure, it was fizzy, high-caloric pop, and Alpert was a solid though hardly exceptional trumpeter. But as suburbs sprawled, Alpert exhibited absolute genius at steering the hi-fi tastes of the bourgeois—not just with the TJB but with several of the acts under his A&M banner, including Sergio Mendes and the Carpenters.

In the late '30s, Herman never rivaled band-leading clarinetists Benny Goodman andArtie Shaw. But then came that late blooming. In 1944, not long before the swing era collapsed, Herman put together a stupendous band known as his First Herd. It was popping with talent, starting with hotdog bassist Chubby Jackson, whose added fifth string made him sound sped-up. The brass included young trumpeter Sonny Berman with his antic bebop solos, as well as the lyrical but shouting trombonist Bill Harris.Igor Stravinsky wrote his "Ebony Concerto" for them. Herman famously said later, "We had no more right to play it than the man in the moon had."

Ever since he and his wife and Sonic Youth bandmate Kim Gordon announced their split in late 2011 Thurston Moore has kept his mouth largely shut "I wasn't doing any press whatsoever – I kind of embargoed that" says Moore "Personal issues are not...

Their music predated the revolution that ousted President Hosni Mubarak, but the turmoil since has left Egypt’s huge youth population searching for voices that address issues they care about.    

Reports of participants contracting anthrax bacteria have emerged    

TIME LINE

1963: PROTO-PUNK

Punk's progenitors were DIY garage rock bands – like The Kingsmen, whose "Louie Louie" was an early hint of the punk sound

1974: NEW YORK PUNK

The Ramones play first CBGB's gig. Television's Richard Hell pioneers spiky hair and safety-pinned clothes

1974: PUNK ON THE KING'S ROAD

Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood rename their boutique SEX – it is the shop that defines punk fashion

1975: JOHNNY ROTTEN

Regular SEX customer, the young John Lydon, is drafted in to front a McLaren-managed band – the Sex Pistols

1976: ANARCHY IN THE UK

The Sex Pistols play Manchester in June, The Clash debut in Sheffield in July and punk explodes across Britain . . .

The 'Searching For Sugar Man' star was praised for his 'musical genius'. Rodriguez, star of the Oscar winning film Searching For Sugar Man, has received an honorary degree from Detroit's Wayne State University.

The protest singer was honoured as a Doctor of Humane Letters yesterday (May 9) in his hometown. Sixto Rodriguez was praised for his "musical genius and commitment to social justice" at the university's commencement ceremony. He earned a philosophy degree from the same university in 1981, reports the Associated Press.

Rodriguez recently said that he is preparing to release his long awaited third album, his first since 'Coming From Reality' in 1971.