Alan Jackson, Beach Boys, Neil Young chart with top 10 debuts

Adele, country singer Alan Jackson, the reunited Beach Boys and veteran rocker Neil Young all have noteworthy entries on the new Billboard Top 200 Albums chart.

In reclaiming the No. 1 spot after selling an additional 75,000 copies of her blockbuster "21" album, Adele has logged her 24th nonconsecutive week at the top, the most since Prince’s “Purple Rain” in 1984.  It will be a while, however, before she catches up to the next-longest run as the nation’s bestseller. Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” stayed at the top for 37 weeks in 1983.

Meanwhile, Alan Jackson has proved that switching record companies after 20 years with the same label doesn’t have to slow a musician’s momentum: his new “Thirty Miles West,” the first for his Alan Country Records label, distributed by EMI Nashville, entered the chart at No. 2 with first-week sales of 73,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

That’s a smidge better than his final Arista album, “Freight Train,” did two years ago, selling 72,000 out of the gate for a No. 7 chart debut.

Right behind him are the Beach Boys and Young, both with their highest charting albums since the 1970s.

Coming in at No. 3 is the Beach Boys’ “That’s Why God Made the Radio,” the group’s first album of new music with creative leader Brian Wilson aboard in more than two decades. The new set sold 61,000 copies, giving the veteran Southern California band its highest chart debut ever and its best chart showing since the 1974 hits-compilation album “Endless Summer” went to No. 1, according to Billboard. The group is currently on a nationwide 50th anniversary reunion tour.

Another reunion -- this one between Young and his periodic collaborators in the band Crazy Horse -- has given him his highest charting album since “Harvest,” which went all the way to the top in 1972.  Young and Crazy Horse’s “Americana,” which digs into the treasure trove of traditional folk music with their versions of such songs as “Oh Susannah,” “Clementine” and Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land,” sold 44,000 copies and enters the Billboard chart at No. 4 this week.

In a recent interview with The Times, Young said the idea for the album was spurred by writing his first book, “Waging Heavy Peace,” which is scheduled for Oct. 1 publication.

“One of the things I remembered that I was writing about was that there was this musician Tim Rose, who was in a group [in Canada] called the Big Three, and after that he was in a group called the Thorns," he said. "I saw the Thorns in 1963 or ’64, and they were doing ‘Oh! Susanna.’ That arrangement blew my mind. That was Tim Rose’s arrangement of ‘Oh Susannah’ [used on ‘Americana’]. My band, the Squires, was playing folk-rock, which was kind of happening at that time. So I made a lot of songs that way in that time. That’s where we got to that.”

This week’s chart also includes two rap albums in the top 10: Big K.R.I.T.’s “Live From the Underground,” entering at No. 5 with sales of 41,000 copies, and Curren$y’s “The Stoned Immaculate,” bowing at No. 8 having sold 36,000 copies.

The final new top 10 entry is Brandi Carlile’s “Bear Creek,” at No. 10 with sales of 27,000.

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-- Randy Lewis

Photo: Alan Jackson performs in September at the Concert for Hope in Washington, D.C., marking the 10th anniversary of Sept. 11. Credit: Charles Dharapak / Associated Press.

Stevie Wonder, Neil Young, Jack White top Outside Lands SF lineup

It can be hard to remember that there are festivals besides the one going on in Indio this week, but a few hundred miles to the north, the Outside Lands festival in San Francisco has just announced that Stevie Wonder, Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Metallica and Jack White will top this year’s three-day lineup.

The Foo Fighters, Beck, Skrillex, Justice, Norah Jones, Grandaddy, Big Boi, fun. and Alabama Shakes also are among more than 60 acts confirmed for the fifth Outside Lands fest, which will run Aug. 10-12 in Golden Gate Park.

Others on the bill include Sigur Ros, Bloc Party, Die Antwoord, Fitz and the Tantrums, the Kills, Regina Spektor, Andrew Bird, Mstrkrft, Dr. Dog, Trampled by Turtles, the Be Good Tanyas and the Dirty Dozen Brass Band. The full lineup is available at www.sfoutsidelands.com.

Tickets go on sale April 19 at noon. A portion of ticket proceeds benefit San Francisco’s Recreation and Parks Department.

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-- Randy Lewis

Photo: Jack White performs in Tulsa, Okla., in March on his solo tour. Credit: Jo McCaughey.

Neil Young and Crazy Horse reunite for 'Americana' due June 5

Neil Young has reunited with Crazy Horse for their first album together in nearly nine years, “Americana,” in which the band offers its take on 11 songs drawn from the American folk music tradition.

The new collection, slated for release June 5, includes Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land,” Stephen Foster’s “Oh Susannah,” the British national anthem “God Save the Queen,” and folk songs from the 19^th century and earlier including “Tom Dooley,” “Clementine,” “She’ll Be Comin’ Round the Mountain” (under the title "Jesus Chariot") and “Wayfarin’ Stranger.”

In his notes with the album, Young says he and longtime collaborators Ralph Molina, Billy Talbot and Poncho Sampedro have tapped the notion of “the folk process” in which traditional songs were sometimes modified to make them more digestible by rock music fans in the early days of what came to be known as folk-rock.

The Young-Crazy Horse version of “This Land Is Your Land,” for instance, omits the widely known verses popularized through grade-school renditions of the song and opts instead for the lyrics omitted from Guthrie’s own recording.

“This folk song was written by Woody Guthrie in the 1940s,” Young writes, “to a preexisting melody as a response to ‘God Bless America,’ which Guthrie was tired of hearing. The lyrics Guthrie sang varied over time, but the lyrics sung in Americana version were in the original manuscript of the song."

Young’s definition of folk music is broad enough to encompass the Silhouettes’ 1958 doo-wop hit “Get A Job”—“It is a genuine folk song with all the true characteristics,” Young states—and a couple of the arrangements, “High Flyin’ Bird” and “Tom Dooley” (under the title of its older incarnation, "Tom Dula"), are credited to the Squires, the rock band Young played in while he was still in high school in Winnipeg.

Update on March 27 at 8:45 a.m.: For the Record: An earlier version of this posted identified the Squires as Neil Young's high school rock band in Toronto. The band was in Winnipeg.

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--Randy Lewis

Top photo of Neil Young. Credit: Pegi Young.

Cover image from Neil Young and Crazy Horse's 'Americana.' Credit: Warner Bros. Records.

Grammys 2012: Paul McCartney feted as MusiCares Person of the Year

This post has been updated. See the note at the bottom for details.

Is anyone surprised that Friday night’s MusiCares Person of the Year gala honoring Paul McCartney shattered the record for the fund-raising event, generating more than $6.5 million for the Recording Academy’s division that provides medical care and other support for musicians in need?

For the price of a ticket (2,800 people paid a minimum of $1,500 to attend), audience members got to hear McCartney perform a handful of numbers as well as a cadre of peers sing his songs, from 25-year-old pop princess Katy Perry to 85-year-old pop music institution Tony Bennett, with the Foo Fighters, Coldplay, Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Alison Krauss, Duane Eddy, Alicia Keys, Norah Jones, James Taylor, Diana Krall and Sergio Mendes joining them.

PHOTOS: MusiCares Person of the Year gala | Show

The entertainment started with a presentation by what appeared to be the full Cirque du Soleil cast of the Beatles “Love” show in Las Vegas, after which McCartney and his regular touring band appeared and started the live music with his Wings-era single “Junior’s Farm.”

The Foo Fighters took on “Jet,” Keys sang “Blackbird,” Krauss handled “No More Lonely Nights,” Bennett and his combo turned “Here, There and Everywhere” into a swinging jazz tune, Eddy brought his deep twang guitar to “And I Love Her,” Jones took “Oh! Darling,” Perry sang “Hey Jude,” Young bashed through “I Saw Her Standing There,” Mendes emphasized the Latin groove in “The Fool on the Hill,” Coldplay did “We Can Work It Out,” Krall sang “For No One” and Taylor crooned “Yesterday.”

Paul McCartney gets his star on Hollywood Walk of Fame

There's no shortage of stars, real and imagined, visible along Hollywood's Walk of Fame, but even by Tinseltown standards, Paul McCartney ramped up the quotient Thursday in getting his own belated star.

The former Beatle drew several hundred fans who packed a cordoned-off section of Vine Street outside Capitol Records for the ceremony.

He brought several Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member pals along for the ride, including Neil Young, who gave McCartney a cheery introduction, Eagles guitarist Joe Walsh and pop music power couple Elvis Costello and Diana Krall. Jazz great Herbie Hancock was there as well as musician-producer Don Was and former Electric Light Orchestra leader/Traveling Wilburys member Jeff Lynne. McCartney's wife, Nancy, and son, James, also attended the ceremony.

PANORAMIC PHOTO: Paul McCartney star ceremony

"Let me tell you a little bit about our friend Paul here just as a musician," said Young, wearing a black leather Buffalo Springfield tour jacket. "When I was in high school and the Beatles came out, I loved the Beatles and I tried to learn how to play like them, and no one could figure out what  Paul was doing on the bass. Not only was he playing differently because he plays left-handed, he played notes that no one had put together before -- in a way that made us stand in awe of this great musician."

"I'm so proud to be doing this," he added. "As a musician, as a songwriter, Paul's craft and his art are truly at the top of his game, the way Charlie Chaplin was an actor. He has an ability to put melodies and feelings and chords together, but it's the soul that he puts into everything he does that makes me feel so good and so happy to be here."

McCartney then stepped to the microphone and first acknowledged his debt to "three other guys -- so thanks,  John, George and Ringo."

PHOTOS: Paul McCartney star ceremony

Although Starr, the only other surviving Beatle, lives in Southern California, McCartney said, "Ringo's a little under the weather, so he's not here." The comment drew sighs of disappointment from onlookers.

"When I was growing up in Liverpool and listening to Buddy Holly and the other rock 'n' roll greats, I never thought I'd ever come to get a star on the Walk of Fame," said McCartney, 69 -- a sentiment probably shared by members of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, who had been after him to accept the award ever since it was approved for him in 1993. "But here we are today," he said.

"Today," not coincidentally, was the 48th anniversary of the Beatles' game-changing U.S. television debut on "The Ed Sullivan Show." The ceremony also came synergistically just two days after the release of McCartney's latest album,  "Kisses on the Bottom," a collection of mostly pre-rock pop songs he loved as a child, supplemented by two originals.

INTERACTIVE: Hollywood Star Walk

Always the Beatle most attuned to business matters, he closed his succinct speech by telling fans and others "around the world that I send you all hugs and kisses on the bottom."

It's a particularly busy week for McCartney: After the star ceremony, he was slated to do a live performance in one of Capitol's recording studios to be streamed live at 7 tonight on iTunes and Apple TV. On Friday, he's the guest of honor at the Recording Academy's annual MusiCares Person of the Year all-star tribute gala and fundraiser. And Sunday, he's on tap to perform during the Grammy Awards telecast. 

Many fans who showed up in Hollywood brought various bits of memorabilia in hopes of snagging an autograph: One teenage girl had a worn LP copy of his first solo album, 1970's "McCartney." Others leaned across metal police barricades with copies of "A Hard Day's Night," "Beatles for Sale," "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," books, photos and a plethora of other items.

Only one succeeded: On his way back into the Capitol building, McCartney spotted Fullerton 18-year-old Paul Madariaga holding up a Hofner bass guitar like the one McCartney first popularized nearly half a century ago when he was just out of his teens. McCartney gave a nod and the instrument was handed to him. The world’s most famous bassist hoisted it aloft, as he often does at the end of his concerts, scribbled his name across the front with a hastily supplied Sharpie and passed it back to Madariaga.

Score one for the kid.

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-- Randy Lewis

Top photo: Paul McCartney showing off the plaque he received at his Hollywood Walk of Fame star ceremony Thursday. Credit: Randy Lewis / Los Angeles Times.

Center photo: Neil and Pegi Young at Paul McCartney's star ceremony in Hollywood. Credit: Randy Lewis / Los Angeles Times.

Bottom photo: Paul McCartney's new star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, on Vine Street immediately outside Capitol Records. Credit: Randy Lewis / Los Angeles Times.

Neil Young, Jonathan Demme chat on 'Journeys' doc at Slamdance

Neil Young and filmmaker Jonathan Demme will hold court Sunday at the Slamdance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, where they’ll conduct a master class session about their latest collaborative music documentary, “Neil Young Journeys,” following its U.S. premiere screening Saturday at the festival.

The film follows Young on the trek from his hometown of Omemee, Canada,  to Massey Hall in Toronto for the final two shows of  his 2011 solo world tour. The Rock and Roll Hall of Famer reminisces about childhood friends and talks about how the surroundings  have changed over the decades while rolling toward Toronto in a 1956 Ford Crown Victoria.

It’s the third film the two have worked on together, following 2006’s “Neil Young: Heart of Gold” and 2010’s “Neil Young Trunk Show."

"I have had the high pleasure and honor of sitting down with Neil two times before: [last fall] at the Toronto Fest and a couple of years back at Sundance, when we showed up with 'Neil Young: Heart of Gold'," Demme told Pop & Hiss. "Neil is extremely spontaneous and original in his thinking on all things musical and cinematic, so it's really a blast for me to get to do something like this with him. We're very, very excited that Slamdance has invited us to have our USA premiere with them this weekend."

The "Journeys" program will be preceded by the first screening of a 13-minute mini-documentary Demme shot in October of an Occupy Wall Street drum circle gathering.   

A preview clip from the new film is available here:

 

The 2012 Slamdance Festival, highlighting works from independent filmmakers, runs Friday through Jan. 26. Special events also include a screening Tuesday of “With Great Power: The Stan Lee Story,” about the pioneering comic book artist from directors Will Hess, Nikki Frakes and Terry Dougas. The film screening will be preceeded by a morning master class session with Lee and Hess.

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-- Randy Lewis

Photo of Neil Young at the wheel of a 1956 Ford Crown Victoria en route to Toronto in 'Neil Young Journeys.' Credit: Declan Quinn, courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics and Slamdance.

Scottish singer-guitarist Bert Jansch dies at 67

 
Influential Scottish guitarist, singer and songwriter Bert Jansch, who has been lauded as a Jimi Hendrix of the acoustic guitar, died of lung cancer Wednesday at a London hospital. He was 67.

Jansch was a member of the folk group Pentangle, which in the 1960s, along with the likes of Fairport Convention, helped revive public interest in traditional British folk music the way many British rockers had done for American blues.

His guitar work had a strong impact on a broad swath of musicians, from Jimmy Page, Paul Simon, Pete Townshend, Donovan and the Smiths' Johnny Marr on through successive generations of players such as Devendra Banhart, Pete Doherty and Beth Orton. 

He had toured the States in recent years with Neil Young and in tandem with solo performances by Young’s wife, Pegi.

“That first record of his is epic,” Neil Young said in 1992 of Jansch’s 1965 debut album, “Bert Jansch.”  “I was especially taken by ‘Needle of Death,’ such a beautiful and angry song.”

Fellow British guitarist-songwriter Richard Thompson said of his peer, “He could take the blues and jazz and traditional British folk music and blend those together into a style. I think that was the main influence of his playing. He was also a great songwriter.”

A full obituary appears online here, and will be in Thursday’s paper in the LATextra section.

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-- Randy Lewis

Photo of Bert Jansch at a 2006 performance in Los Angeles. Credit: Los Angeles Times.

Neil Young on the back story to 'A Treasure' country album from the 1980s

 
Even by Neil Young’s mercurial standards, the '80s were a particularly turbulent time for him musically.

He launched 1980 with “Hawks and Doves” and the thrashing 1981 outing with Crazy Horse, “Re-Ac-Tor,” before jumping headlong into electronic music with 1982’s “Trans.” He hit the rewind button with the '50s rockabilly-laced “Everybody’s Rockin’” the following year, then went country for 1985’s “Old Ways.” In 1986, it was back to more conventional Neil Young territory in “Landing on Water” and a year later, “Life,” once again teaming with Crazy Horse. The decade closed out with his big-band blues effort, “This Note’s for You,” and 1989’s rock-focused “Freedom.”

That’s part of the reason he’s just now gotten around to releasing “A Treasure,” a 12-song collection featuring the country-leaning band that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member toured with in 1984 and 1985 under the name the International Harvesters.

“This is a finished project,” Young told me recently for a story in Wednesday's Calendar. “It just took a long time to finish. I didn’t realize it until I had time to go through everything and see what I had [from that tour].  Things were going so fast. I was doing a lot of different things at the same time, and I didn’t always stop to finish things.

“Now I have time to stop. I have researchers looking at things [in his archive]. They’ll come up with a bunch of takes people agree are great, then I listen and pick the ones I like. There’s a method we have.”

Young has posted some video on his website in which performance clips are mixed with interview footage in which he discusses his fondness for the International Harvesters and the lawsuit that ensued when his label felt he was delivering music that executives considered “uncharacteristic of Neil Young.”

-- Randy Lewis  

Photo: Neil Young, second from right, with the International Harvesters in 1984. Credit: Joel Bernstein

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"I usually have something clever to say," Neil Young told the audience between songs Saturday night at the Wiltern theater. "But not tonight -- we're too close to home."

The occasion was the first L.A. concert in more than 40 years by Buffalo Springfield, the short-lived yet highly influential late-'60s outfit that launched Young, Stephen Stills and Richie Furay into the country-rock cosmos. And close to home these lifers certainly were: Blazing a trail for future West Coast superstars such as the Eagles and Jackson Browne, Buffalo Springfield made its name in cozy West Hollywood clubs such as the Troubadour and the Whisky a Go Go, less than 10 miles from the Wiltern, where the band arrived Saturday after a pair of gigs in Oakland.

The reunion tour stops at the Santa Barbara Bowl on Tuesday and Wednesday, then travels to Tennessee for this weekend's Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival.

Yet if Saturday's sold-out homecoming had all the makings of a trapped-in-amber nostalgia-thon, Buffalo Springfield could scarcely have seemed less concerned with upholding its legacy. Filled out by bassist Rick Rosas and drummer Joe Vitale (stand-ins for the late Bruce Palmer and Dewey Martin, respectively), the band tore through material from its three studio albums -- enduring numbers such as Young's "I Am a Child" and Furay's "Kind Woman" but also lesser-known selections such as Stills' "Everybody's Wrong" -- with the kind of abandon not often seen on the back-from-the-dead circuit.

Cameron Crowe's Elton John-Leon Russell doc, 'The Union,' to premiere tonight at Tribeca Film Festival

New York's Tribeca Film Festival kicks off tonight with the world premiere of "The Union," Cameron Crowe's documentary in which the director immerses himself in his first love: rock music.

It's a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the album of the same name that brought Elton John back together after nearly four decades with his own musical hero, Leon Russell. It yielded the duo a Grammy nomination and helped usher Russell into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last month.

Music producer T Bone Burnett let Crowe bring cameras into the recording sessions early last year at The Village recording studio in West Los Angeles while they came up with the new songs for the album and recorded them under Burnett's guidance, everything transpiring as Russell was recuperating from brain surgery he’d undergone shortly before the sessions got underway.

Rock music has played a central role in Crowe's feature films, including "Almost Famous" and "Jerry Maguire," a reflection of his background as a rock journalist long before he became a film director. In addition to capturing the main participants, the film also includes segments with the album's guest artists, including Neil Young and Brian Wilson. John will follow tonight's free outdoor screening with a performance.

-- Randy Lewis

Photos: Elton John and Leon Russell at the Hollywood Palladium in November during their tour for "The Union." Credit: Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times