Chris Willman-Senior: Last News

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic On the eve of AmericanaFest in Nashville, Lucinda Williams was celebrated at BMI’s headquarters as the recipient of the performing rights organization’s annual Troubadour Award, where an invitation-only crowd heard Williams’ songs covered by Jason Isbell, Angel Olsen, ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons, Amos Lee and Madeline Edwards. Other artists saluted Williams via taped congratulations, like Robert Plant and Dwight Yoakam, who called giving Williams the lifetime achievement award “long overdue.” Maybe it wasn’t that long overdue: Williams is only the fourth artist to get the Troubadour honor since it was instituted in 2017, following in the footsteps of John Prine, John Hiatt and Robert Earl Keen.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Jann Wenner is not just “like” a rolling stone — he was Rolling Stone, for most of the magazine’s history, to the extent that it very closely followed his melange of sensibilities from its 1967 founding until he sold off his last stake in it three years ago. [It’s now owned wholly by Penske Media, the parent company of Variety.] If you’re a longtime subscriber, reading his new memoir, “Like a Rolling Stone,” may feel like having your life flash before your eyes… except for the parts where he is, say, yachting with Jackie Onassis. But Wenner’s publishing empire (which also grew to incorporate Us Weekly at its millennium-spanning peak) long represented an era in which rock ‘n’ roll and the counterculture could rub up against bith the seriousness of American politics and the ephemerality of celebrity infatuation, and none of these elements would come out too much worse for the wear of coexisting in one biweekly package.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Bad Bunny and Harry Styles are back in the spots it’s been hard to force them out of for the last few months: at No. 1 on Billboard’s album and song charts, respectively. But the real achievement of the week may belong to someone who’s hovering below them: country star Morgan Wallen, who has set a record for his longevity in the top 10 of the Billboard 200. Wallen’s “Dangerous: The Double Album” has just established a new mark for the album by a single artist that has spent the most weeks in the Billboard album chart’s top 10: 86. The previous record-holder (per Billboard) was the debut album by folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary, which spent 85 weeks in the top 10 in the early ’60s. He’s also recently passed longevity marks for Adele’s “21” and Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA,” each of which spent 84 weeks in the top 10.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic The lineup for the 2023 Stagecoach Festival includes one very familiar veteran of the festivities, Luke Bryan, who will be making his fourth headlining appearance in the California desert, along with two stars who have made regular appearances at the festival but have moved up into headliner slots for the first time, Kane Brown and Chris Stapleton. Goldenvoice announced the performers and dates for the ’23 gathering Monday morning, just a little more than four months after the 2022 festival took place. The next fest will take place April 28 – 30, 2023, with passes going on sale Friday at 10 a.m. PT. Prices for passes range from $389 for advance general admission to $1,499 for the GA standing pit and $1,999 for prime reserved seating.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Freddie Freeman was hitting homers down in San Diego, so it was up to visiting superstar Lady Gaga to keep the on-base percentage exceptionally high Saturday night at Dodger Stadium, site of one of the last stops on her “Chromatica Ball” outing. Surprises were few, this many weeks into a mega-tour whose production values were already known among the legions of Little Monsters who’d long since put curious paws to Googling Gaga’s setlists and setpieces. Anyway, knowing what’s coming doesn’t quash the overpowering effects of a savvy performer who’s determined to look as cold as inhumanly possible while also, conversely, sounding like the warmest superstar you’ve ever encountered. Does that count, in ballplaying terms, as a slider?

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Brandi Carlile livestreamed some intimate performances to fans’ computer screens during the heart of the pandemic, but now that everyone is out and about again, she’s taking the livestream experience very big, with plans to simulcast a live concert, “Brandi Carlile: In the Canyon Haze — Live from Laurel Canyon,” to more than 100 IMAX screens on Sept. 28. The IMAX presentation will include a full performance of her “In the Canyon Daze” album, set to come out that same day. The forthcoming release is a full-on remake of her “In These Silent Days” album, which came out last October, this time arranged with more of an acoustic bent and the vintage Laurel Canyon sound in mind.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic When the deluxe edition and remix of the Beatles’ “Revolver” were officially announced Wednesday — with everything set to arrive in physical and digital formats Oct. 28 — many fans assumed that a plus-sized, boxed-set celebration of the group’s 1966 turning point was a given, as far as Beatles projects that would inevitably pass through the pipeline on this scale. But these things shouldn’t always be so taken for granted, as Giles Martin points out. “At the end of last year when I was finishing ‘Get Back,’ I went, ‘Oh, God, I better listen to these outtakes and start going through them to see whether we’ve got enough to do this’,” says Martin, who oversaw not just the remix but the two CDs’ worth of previously unheard recordings of early versions and alternate takes. “Because we always want to make sure that we’re not scraping the bottom of the barrel, and you want to make sure that there’s enough outtakes for a ‘Revolver’ boxed set. If not, do we think about doing ‘Revolver’ and ‘Rubber Soul’ all together and just have outtakes from both?”

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Here’s an awards trajectory you don’t see too often, at least in country music: Lainey Wilson has never even been nominated for the CMA Awards before, but as of Wednesday morning, she’s officially the leading nominee for 2022. Wilson came out ahead with six nominations when the Country Music Association announced the finalists Wednesday morning for its 56th annual awards show. Close behind with five nominations each was a quartet of contenders: Ashley McBryde, Carly Pearce, Chris Stapleton and songwriter/producer Shane McAnally. Racking up a four-pack of nods were Cody Johnson and writer-producer Josh Osbourne. Miranda Lambert, Carrie Underwood, Luke Combs, Hardy and Midland all came up as triple-nominees.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic When Mary McCartney was approached by producer John Battsek (“Searching for Sugar Man,” “One Day in September”) to make a film about the legendary Abbey Road Studios in London, she didn’t immediately leap at the chance, the way almost any other photographer interested in making the leap into documentary filmmaking might have. It’s not difficult to guess at the reason she might have balked at, and then succumbed to, the idea of making “If These Walls Could Sing,” which premiered at the Telluride Film Festival over the weekend and has been picked up for airing on Disney+. “I think because of my surname, I get a little bit oversensitive,” says the daughter of Paul McCartney, sitting at a sidewalk-adjacent table in Telluride. “I used to sort of shy away from anything to do with my family, wanting with my photography to be making a name for myself in my own area. I mean, I’ve always been really proud of my family, but then recently I’ve realized (I should) actually not shy away from it because I feel like I’m being judged. …. Before, I was like, my family’s my family and my career’s my career, and now I’m at the point where I’m confident enough to merge the two.”

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic When it comes to coffee-table books that survey the great album covers of the classic rock era, there are generally two kinds: those that include a lot of the work of the 1970s design team called Hipgnosis, and those that consist entirely of Hipgnosis’ work. Virtually any rock superstar who had the cachet to ask his record company to blow hundreds of thousands of dollars on a Hipgnosis cover went for the splurge of commissioning an original piece of art that might join classic LP jackets from Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin in a renaissance of 12’x12′ photographic surrealism. Only Hipgnosis could shoot a photo of a cow against a blue sky, put it on a Floyd cover (“Atom Heart Mother”), and make it look like an act of mysterious profundity on a level with the greatest works of Magritte.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic It’s fair to say that Abbey Road Studios is the most documented recording facility in the world, but only if you count the crosswalk outside. Otherwise, the nine-bedroom mansion turned studio hasn’t really had its day in the cinematic sun, the way that more modest studios like L.A.’s Sound City and Alabama’s Muscle Shoals have. Making up for that with an A-lister-filled movie treatment is “If These Walls Could Sing,” the first feature-length documentary from Mary McCartney, who has a hell of a shared Rolodex to draw upon in gathering the firsthand rock ‘n’ roll anecdotes you expect and want in a film like this. She’s also savvy enough to know that the guy working in the back gluing irreplaceable mid-century microphones back together deserves a few seconds of screen time, too.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Nick Lowe and Shakespeare were wrong, about having to be cruel to be kind. A tour stop Tuesday in Anaheim that had Lowe supporting headliner Elvis Costello as an opening act before eventually joining him for three climactic duets was kindly and 100% cruelty-free, reuniting the two former studio workmates in a fashion that made it seem as if no 40-year intervals had passed at all, except for the incidental actually-getting-better factors. (You’re not getting older, you’re getting Basher, etc.) Not that the show at the City National Grove of Anaheim — one of several SoCal appearances this week by Costello, with and without Lowe in tow — needed its crowning dream-teaminess to come up aces. Costello’s current sets with the Imposters represent the best example rock ‘n’ roll has at the moment of a vast catalog of classic material played with improvisational vigor by one of the great bands the medium has known, augmented by fresh material that can stand proudly alongside the vintage. “Indoor Fireworks” was one of the quieter songs performed Tuesday, but it’s an apt description of what’s occurring on this can’t-miss outing (with apologies to the shed stops where the group pyro happens outdoors).

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Taylor Swift is not the only one re-recording fairly recent albums. Now Brandi Carlile has done it, although with very different reasons than the ones that prompted Swift to revisit her catalog. Carlile has gone back into the studio to redo last year’s “In These Silent Days” in its entirety, in a new, acoustic-focused version that’s been titled “In the Canyon Haze.” The newly recorded album will be out Sept. 28 and is preceded today by “You and Me on the Rock (In the Canyon Haze),” a remake that features her wife, Catherine Carlile, on harmony vocals. Carlile said that the project came about when she was looking at putting out a deluxe edition of “Silent Days” for the album’s upcoming anniversary, with bonus tracks, but settled on a way to make the entire album a bonus. The “canyon” part alludes to how the artist thinks the re-do aims for a vintage Laurel Canyon spirit in the reconfigured arrangements.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Comic actor Will Sasso is stepping in to play the title role in Audio Up’s new animated musical-comedy podcast, “The Ballad of Uncle Drank,” replacing Gary Busey, who is out of the project after being charged with criminal sexual contact in New Jersey. The 11-episode series also has a new premiere date, as it’s retooled with Sasso in the lead. Formerly set to bow Aug. 30, “Uncle Drank” is now due Sept. 13 through major podcast hosts, including all of SiriusXM’s audio entertainment platforms (including the SXM App, Pandora and Stitcher). Sasso, known for TV roles on “MadTV,” “How I Met Your Mother” and “Less Than Perfect,” joins a voice cast that includes Luke Wilson, Florida Georgia Line’s Brian Kelley, Chelcie Lynn, Billy Zane, Scarlett Burke and Audio Up CEO Jared Gutstadt.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Maybe she meant to call her new album “1979.” Taylor Swift has unveiled three additional album covers for her October release “Midnights,” each of which is being promised as only being available for the next seven days, as a pre-sale in both vinyl and CD formats. Even more than the more permanent cover that was revealed Sunday night, these album jackets very much look designed to evoke the 1970s, sometimes subtly, sometimes more blatantly. There’s the touch-tone phone. There’s the LP jacket on the floor. (Well, that one evokes the 2020s, too, but the reckless disregard for the treatment of a piece of vinyl is very retro.) And most of all, as a backdrop for not just all the cover images but the Swift webstore landing page, there is wood paneling. (It’s not just for vintage VHS porn anymore.)

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic The lineup of performers for the 2023 Americana Honors and Awards has been revealed, with Brandi Carlile, Lucinda Williams, Allison Russell, the Indigo Girls, Chris Isaak and Lukas Nelson among those set to take the stage Sept. 14 at Nashville’s storied Ryman Auditorium. The roster includes mostly artists who are either up for the annual awards or achieving lifetime achievement honors. Other set to perform include Adia Victoria, the McCrary Sisters, James McMurtry, Sierra Farrell, the War and Treaty, Morgan Wade, Neal Francis and Phosphorescent. The longtime band leader for the annual awards show, Buddy Miller, will be back with a crew of musicians that includes the aforementioned McCrary Sisters, Don Was, Larry Campbell, Brady Blade, Jen Gunderman, Jim Hoke, Rob Burger and Lorenzo Molina.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic In a commentary published in the New York Times, Ashley Judd explains why she has filed a petition attempting to block the release of a report on the death of her mother, Naomi Judd — saying that “the horror” of the experience “will only worsen if the details surrounding her death are disclosed by the Tennessee law that generally allows police reports, including family interviews, from closed investigations to be made public.” In the essay, Judd reveals that her mother — who died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound at her home on April 30 — was still alive at the time police arrived, and contends that the barrage of questioning kept her from attending to her mother in some of her final moments. Most relevant to her objection to the report, though, is that she says family members revealed many personal things in the heat of interrogation without any thought as to how those details would forever become part of the public record.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Ingrid Andress is, by most measures, one of the most successful upstarts in mainstream country music over the past few years. After her debut album, “Lady Like,” came out in 2020, the Michigan native was nominated for best new artist at the Grammys as well as by the CMAs and ACMs. She’s a thoughtful live-wire and a media darling — those media including the press, late-night shows and, yes, country radio. Her first single, “More Hearts Than Mine,” was a double-platinum breakout hit that went top 5 at country radio, and a recent duet with Sam Hunt, “Wishful Drinking,” went top 10. She lands coveted tour spots, like her current one opening arena shows for Keith Urban all the way into November.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic The 2022 MTV Video Music Awards were all about that bass Sunday night, and Flea didn’t have a lot to do with it. “VMAs, did you think I wasn’t gonna shake my ass tonight?” asked Anitta, very rhetorically, in the middle of her routine — and while most viewers were probably grateful for her concern for our concern, there was no need to fear she’d be the show’s outlier. Even the rock bands that were booked seemed to want to go into the show ass-forwards; hello, Måneskin cheek skin. (The cameras seemed to want to cut away from that singer’s pasty bottom; as you could almost hear the editors channeling Lisa Kudrow’s Aunt Sassy.) The only thing surprising in this regard, really, was the amount of robot ass in the show. Digital effects were sometimes used to bolster the supply of background dancers, or to provide giant setpieces, like the Attack of the 50-Foot Twerker that all but literally overshadowed J Balvin and Ryan Castro. When MTV is having to outsource butts to Silicon Valley, maybe it’s a sign we need to better allocate our natural supply.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Taylor Swift surprised fans Sunday night with the announcement of an all-new album set to come out Oct. 26. The reveal came during her climactic speech at the MTV Video Music Awards, as she accepted an award for video of the year. “You guys, I’m just so proud of what we made, and I now that every second of this moment that we wouldn’t have been able to make this short film if it weren’t for you, the fans,” she said, accepting for “All Too Well (10-Minute Version).” “Because I wouldn’t be able to re-record my album [‘Red (Taylor’s Version),’ which included the winning song] if it weren’t for you. You emboldened me to do that. And I had sort of made up my mind that if you were going to be this generous and give us this, I thought it might be a fun moment to tell you that my brand-new album comes out October 21st. And I will tell you more at midnight.”

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic If you live in Los Angeles and you sometimes feel the heat, congestion or cost of living making you wonder about greener pastures, you may keep a running checklist in the back of your mind of Reasons Never to Move Away. If you live in L.A. and you’re a fan of roots or Americana music, you may keep the monthly Watkins Family Hour shows at Largo on that checklist of reasons not to check out— because in what other city are you going to find such a reliable monthly gathering of the contemporary folk-rock tribe? For 20 years now (maybe 21 — no one thought to start a count in the early 2000s), Sean Watkins and Sara Watkins have been convening some of the top musicians in Southern California, especially those with an acoustic bent, to join them at Largo for (mostly) monthly shows that bring a sense of community to a town where that’s not always easy to find. The extent to which the small, clubby theater enforces its no-phones policy means that potential fans definitely hear about the shows through word-of-mouth, not word-of-video.