Friday, January 20, 2012
newsmakers
Springsteen album is due in March
LOS ANGELES
When Bruce Springsteen hits the concert trail on a world tour in May, he’ll have a new album’s worth of material to draw from in “Wrecking Ball,” a collection of 11 songs to be released March 6.
Springsteen’s website runs down the titles from the New Jersey rocker’s 17th studio album, which was produced by Springsteen and Ron Aniello.
The first single from the album is its lead-off track, “We Take Care of Our Own.” The announcement makes no mention of the E Street Band, but the single features the backing of a band, indicating “Wrecking Ball” is not a solo, acoustic Springsteen effort.
It will be Springsteen’s first recording, and tour, since the death last year of saxophonist Clarence “Big Man” Clemons, who died from complications from a stroke.
Springsteen’s tour with the E Street Band opens May 13 in Seville, Spain, and the first leg to be announced includes 31 shows in 26 European cities. More dates including the United States still are to be detailed.
‘Hand Jive’ writer Johnny Otis dies
LOS ANGELES
Johnny Otis, the “godfather of rhythm and blues” who wrote and recorded the R&B classic “Willie and the Hand Jive” and for decades evangelized black music to white audiences as a bandleader and radio host, has died. He was 90.
Otis, who had been in poor health for several years, died at his home in the Los Angeles foothill suburb of Altadena on Tuesday, said his manager, Terry Gould.
Otis, who was white, was born John Veliotes to Greek immigrants and grew up in a black section of Berkeley, where he said he identified far more with black culture than his own. As a teenager, he changed his name because he thought Johnny Otis sounded more black.
“As a kid, I decided that if our society dictated that one had to be black or white, I would be black,” he once explained.
His musical tastes clearly reflected that adopted culture, and even after he became famous, his dark skin and hair often led audiences and club promoters to assume he was black like his band mates.
Megadeth bassist becomes seminarian
CLAYTON, Mo.
Concordia Seminary in suburban St. Louis gets an eclectic mix of students in a program allowing them to train for the ministry online — electricians, farmers, entrepreneurs — and even a founder of one of the best-known thrash-metal bands.
David Ellefson plays bass for Megadeth. He also is an online student in the Specific Ministry Program at Concordia Seminary operated by the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.
Even in a nontraditional learning setting, Ellefson is a nontraditional student given his band has recorded albums with titles such as “Killing Is My Business ... And Business Is Good!”
Associated Press