Restless Heart actually touring in US for their Christmas Tour and celebrating their 35 years Anniversary will finalize a brand new album with artist & producer Joe Pasquale. Stay Tuned...

For his new album Bringing It Back Home (February 19 on Provogue Records / Mascot Label Group), guitar kingpin Robben Ford revisits the blues canon and reshapes the roots of his first musical love. The songs Robben selected range from early Delta pioneer Charley Patton’s “Bird’s Nest Bound” to Bob Dylan’s “Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I’ll Go Mine)”, and wed the blues’ oldest rural roots with the more urban sounds of classic Stax soul. His band is a hand-picked team of A-list players that include Larry Goldings (organ), Harvey Mason (drums), David Piltch (bass) and Steve Baxter (trombone).

“Bringing It Back Home is the album I really wanted to make right now,” relates Ford, who was once a sideman for Miles Davis and Joni Mitchell. “My concept was to put great players together with songs that have deep roots and rich emotional terrain, and to just let something beautiful happen. As it turns out, that’s exactly what occurred. The results are really pure, and the most fun I’ve had making an album in years.”

Ford says that Miles Davis’ majestic Kind of Blue — a perfect study in how open spaces within the sounds on a recording can establish emotional timbre — was his guidepost for the record. “What I love best about blues and jazz is how great players — like Miles Davis or Jim Hall or Paul Desmond — allow a lot of space in their music. That’s where the beauty happens.”

Robben’s search yielded nuggets by both the revered (New Orleans composer Allen Toussaint’s “Everything I Do Gonna Be Funky”) and the obscure (“lost” R&B singer Willie West’s) “Fair Child”. To give every track a common, unifying sound and to streamline the recording process, he used only one guitar: a 1963 Epiphone Riviera which he kept exclusively on the “rhythm” pickup throughout the sessions.

Five-time Grammy nominee Robben Ford developed his reputation in the jazz and pop world of the 1970s and ’80s as a solo artist, a member of the ground-breaking fusion group L.A. Express and a sideman with musical mentors Joni Mitchell, Miles Davis. But he emerged from northern California in the ’60s as part of the Charles Ford Blues Band, where he supported blues legends Jimmy Witherspoon and Charlie Musselwhite, getting a hands-on education in the style. In subsequent years Ford performed with Bonnie Raitt, Bob Dylan, Phil Lesh and a host of others. By the time he joined Miles Davis’ group a decade later, he’d developed a signature approach based on an axis of blues and jazz mastery. When Ford left Davis’ employ after six months of touring, Davis acknowledged the guitarist’s skills by offering him an open door. Robben has recorded eight solo albums, four live recordings, three discs with his group the Blue Line, nine albums with the Ford Brothers.

Thanks to O. Garnier

Frontiers Records is proud to announce the return of classic pop rockers, Player. The band will release its first new album in nearly 20 years with "Too Many Reasons" due out in Europe on February 22 and in North America on February 26. Too Many Reasons features twelve brand new tracks, as well as a new acoustic version of the band's chart-topping smash hit, “Baby Come Back.”

Founding member/bassist Ronn Moss commented, “It's wonderful to have our new music out in the world again. Our sound, our vocals, are stronger than they've ever been. I also believe there's a huge market waiting for this kind of music, a market in which lyric and strong melody are still valued.” Founding member Peter Beckett added, "I am very happy that Player is on the Frontiers Records label, it feels like we have found a home again. I am also thrilled with the way the CD turned out. There's a little bit of everything on there...rock, R&B, pop ballads...something for everyone."

Player was formed in 1977 when Englishman Peter Beckett met J.C. Crowley at a Hollywood party. Beckett had come to the United States after the demise of his popular English band Paladin. The band was completed by Ronn and John Friesen and the four became the founding members. After many rehearsals and songwriting sessions, Player was born. In 1978, the band had an international number one hit with first single "Baby Come Back", which was co-written by Beckett and J.C. Crowley and sung by Beckett.

The first album entitled simply Player went platinum and the band toured extensively, including support stints with Boz Scaggs, Eric Clapton, Heart and Kenny Loggins, consistently playing to sold out arena audiences. Four albums followed spawning four more hit singles, including "This Time I'm In It For Love", which reached number eleven on Billboard's chart. Player “redux” consists of founding members Peter Beckett (guitars/lead vocals/keyboards) and Ronn Moss (bass/lead vocals).

Since the mid '80s, Player's Ronn Moss has also gained worldwide stardom with his other career: 25 years as Ridge Forrester, the male lead in the CBS television series "The Bold And The Beautiful,” a role from which Moss recently elected to depart to allow him time to devote to Player and other film and TV roles. “B&B” consistently ranked as the most watched television series in the world, averaging more than 26 million viewers per day, and garnered more than 500,000 Twitter followers for Moss.

Player's Peter Beckett has written hit songs for such artists as Heart, Olivia Newton-John, Kenny Rogers, The Temptations, Poco, Janet Jackson, The Commodores, Cliff Richards, Survivor, Grace Slick, and most recently Vanessa Hudgens. He has numerous movie credits as artist, producer and/or writer, including “The Karate Kid”, “Two of a Kind”, “Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure”, “Major League”, “St Elmo's Fire” (Grammy nomination), “Frankie and Johnny”, “Rock Star”, “Terminator 3”, “Basic Instinct”, “Beyond Borders”, “Life or Something Like It”, “Dirty Dancing 2”, and “Transformers”. From 1989-1997, Peter was a featured member of Little River Band and has written several singles for them.

Swedish/American supergroup W.E.T. to release their anticipated sophomore album “Rise Up” in February on 

Frontiers Records.

The W.E.T. debut album in 2009 was one of the rare occasions when a band, created by the vision of a record label president, managed to create such a wave of enthusiasm and interest from fans and the media alike. Not only did it go beyond the band’s own expectations, but it pushed the musicians themselves to raise their own game, when in the beginning they thought "no one would care except maybe the die-hard fans from the three bands the name W.E.T. came from".

The key element to the success of “W.E.T" was to create a modern Melodic Hard Rock sound and drive it into the future with powerhouse rhythm and production, making it an equally classic and contemporary release.



Robert Säll (the “W” from Work of Art), Erik Mårtensson (the “E” from Eclipse) and Jeff Scott Soto (the “T” from Talisman), along with returning Eclipse members Magnus Henriksson and Robban Bäck, accepted the daunting task to create a follow-up, that could live up to the expectation of thousands of fans across the globe.



The album’s release will be anticipated by the release of the single “Learn to Live Again” on December 17th – an unbelievably radio-friendly song, which features for the first time a vocal duet between Mårtensson and Soto. 

“Rise Up” presents again a massive production and equally impressive songwriting, which updates the term “classic rock” into the new century.

“The songs were written between December 2011 to February 2012 and were recorded between March through May. We then wrote/added three more songs in September, recorded them in October and the whole album was finally mixed and mastered”, says Erik Mårtensson. “To me this album sounds more like a ‘band’ verses the 1st album”, adds Jeff Scott Soto

"The first album was great as it had a lot of great songs but this one has great songs and a band personality which shows growth as far as I’m concerned".

Hook after hook, “Rise Up” is another one of these albums where you can enjoy the dynamics of a brilliant partnership bringing out a unique result. Melodic bullet rockers are followed by haunting ballads and fabulous arena rockers in an album that will leave listeners in awe from start to finish.

“We took what we all loved about the first album and built the songwriting and sound from that. We wanted to give the band more of an identity and tried to find ‘our’ own sound. I really think we achieved it with this album. Heavier and darker than the first album which we all in the band love. It's melodic rock for a new century!", tells Mårtensson. Soto adds: “Strangely my faves are the more uptempo songs and ballads on this album, W.E.T do great AOR stuff naturally but to have more strength on some tracks and then get emotionally charged in others made those songs the more interesting for me”. 



W.E.T. plan to launch the new album through a special live show in Stockholm at the Debaser Club on January 17th 2013. The band so far has made only one live appearance at the annual Firefest event in the UK in October 2011, but in this new and special concert appearance, they will be showcasing for the first time new songs as well as digging some tracks from the now classic debut, plus some cool surprises.

Big Machine Records released the soundtrack to ABC's new hit drama "Nashville" on December 11th, 2012. The album will feature 11 performances from the cast members Connie Britton, Hayden Panettiere, Charles Esten, Jonathan Jackson, Clare Bowen and Sam Palladio.

Songs are written by a vast array of talent including Elvis Costello, John Paul White of the Civil Wars and the team of Cary Barlowe and Hillary Lindsay. T Bone Burnett, Dann Huff and Michael Knox have produced the tracks for the album.

T&N reunites George Lynch, Jeff Pilson and Wild Mick Brown aka The Big Three from Dokken for this brand new 12 song disk that will surely be referred to as a classic in years to come!

Returning to their roots, "Slave to the Empire" offers seven new original songs and five re recorded classic Dokken songs that feature sensational vocal performances by Tim Ripper Owens, Doug Pinnick (Kings X), Sebastian Bach, and Robert Mason (Warrant). Add to the mix the hard hitting, multi-talented drumming of Brian Tichy and you ve got yourself a major dose of awesome!

This 12 song release is progressive, it's heavy, it s dark, it s bluesy, and each player s performance is absolutely stellar. "Slave to the Empire" captures the spirit and magic from the classic metal genre!

Thanks to O. Garnier

 

Bob Bennett's brand-new release with eleven newly recorded songs. Once again collaborating in the studio with Roy Salmond, some say these may be his very best yet.

Tracklist: Joy Deep as Sorrow, Birth of a Song (Steve Bell), Faithfu, Playing the Part of Me, Two or More, Strange Joy, Broken Beauty (John Buller/Bob Bennett), You Went Ahead, Panhandled at the Western Wall, God My Shepherd, A Moveable Feast.