Florence Welch and director Vincent Haycock have debuted their short film 'The Odyssey'.

The film is made up of the music videos from Florence And The Machine's latest album, 'How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful', complete with new, connecting scenes. It includes visuals for 'What Kind Of Man,' 'How Big How Blue How Beautiful,' 'St. Jude,' 'Ship To Wreck', 'Delilah' and 'Queen Of Peace'.

The 47-minute film is rounded off by the new 'Third Eye' video, which can be seen below. The full film can be streamed on the Florence + The Machine website.

Source NME

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Soul singer Billy Paul has died at age 81.

Billy Paul was born Paul Williams on December 1, 1934. He was influenced by female jazz singers like Billie Holiday.

Paul started his singing career at age 11 while attending the West Philadelphia Music School. By age 16 he was on a bill with Charlie Parker.

Billy Paul worked with Nina Simone, Miles Davis, Sammy David Jr and Roberta Flack under his real name Paul Williams but changed to Billy Paul to avoid confusion with songwriter Paul Williams and sax player Paul ‘Hucklebuck’ Williams. His first performance as Billy Paul was for a six week residency at the famed Apollo Theatre.

Billy Paul started recording in 1952 but in 1957 was drafted into the Army and served with Elvis Presley.

In 1972 he recorded the album ‘360 Degrees of Billy Paul’. It featured his classic song ‘Me and Mrs Jones’. It sold over 2 million copies and earned Billy a Grammy Award. The song was covered by Michael Bublé in 2007.

Billy Paul died at his home in Blackwood, New Jersey from pancreatic cancer.

Source noise11

The Blues world is mourning the death of Lonnie Mack who has died in Nashville at age 74.

Mack influenced many of the great guitarists of the past 40 years including Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jeff Beck and Duane Allman.

He has recorded with The Doors, Dobie Gray and Stevie Ray.

Alligator Records has released the following obituary:

Groundbreaking guitarist and vocalist Lonnie Mack, known as one of rock’s first true guitar heroes, died on April 21, 2016 of natural causes at Centennial Medical Center near his home in Smithville, Tennessee. His early instrumental recordings – among them Wham! and Memphis — influenced many of rock’s greatest players, including Eric Clapton, Duane Allman, Keith Richards, Jimmy Page and especially Stevie Ray Vaughan. He was 74.

Rolling Stone called him “a pioneer in rock guitar soloing.” Guitar World said, “Mack attacked the strings with fast, aggressive single-string phrasing and a seamless rhythm style that significantly raised the guitar virtuoso bar and foreshadowed the arena-sized tones of guitar heroes to come.” The Chicago Tribune wrote, “With the wiggle of a whammy bar and a blinding run of notes up and down the neck of his classic Gibson Flying V, Lonnie Mack launched the modern guitar era.”

Drawing from influences as diverse as rhythm and blues, country, gospel and rockabilly, Mack’s guitar work continues to be revered by generation after generation of musicians. He recorded a number of singles and a total of 11 albums for labels including Fraternity, Elektra, Alligator, Epic and Capitol.

Mack was born Lonnie McIntosh on July 18, 1941 in Harrison, Indiana, twenty miles west of Cincinnati. Growing up in rural Indiana, Mack fell in love with music as a child. From family sing-alongs he developed a deep appreciation of country music, while he absorbed rhythm and blues from the late-night R&B radio stations and gospel from his local church. Starting off with a few chords that he learned from his mother, Lonnie gradually blended all the sounds he heard around him into his own individual style. He named Merle Travis and Robert Ward (of the Ohio Untouchables) as his main guitar influences, and George Jones and Bobby Bland as vocal inspirations.

He began playing professionally in his early teens (he quit school after a fight with his sixth-grade teacher), working clubs and roadhouses around the tri-state border area of Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio. In 1958, he bought the guitar he would become best known for, a Gibson Flying V, serial number 7, which he equipped with a Bigsby tremolo bar. (After the release of Wham!, the tremolo bar became known worldwide as a “whammy bar”.) In addition to his live gigs, Lonnie began playing sessions for the King and Fraternity labels in Cincinnati. He recorded with blues and R&B greats like Hank Ballard, Freddie King and James Brown.

In 1963, at the end of another artist’s session, Lonnie cut an instrumental version of Chuck Berry’s Memphis. He didn’t even know that Fraternity had issued the single until he heard it on the radio, and within a few weeks Memphis had hit the national Top Five. Lonnie Mack went from being a talented regional roadhouse player to a national star virtually overnight.

Suddenly, he was booked for hundreds of gigs a year, crisscrossing the country in his Cadillac and rushing back to Cincinnati or Nashville to cut new singles. Wham!, Where There’s A Will There’s A Way, Chicken Pickin’ and a dozen other records followed Memphis. None sold as well as his first hit (though Where There’s A Will earned extensive black radio airplay before the DJs found out Lonnie was white), but there was enough reaction to keep him on the road for another five years of grueling one-nighters.

Fraternity Records went bust, but Lonnie kept on gigging, and in 1968 a Rolling Stone article stimulated new interest in his music. He signed with Elektra Records and cut three albums. Elektra also reissued his original Fraternity LP, The Wham Of That Memphis Man!. He began playing all the major rock venues, from Fillmore East to Fillmore West. Lonnie also made a guest appearance on the Doors’ Morrison Hotel album. You can hear Lonnie’s guitar solo on Roadhouse Blues preceded by Jim Morrison’s urgent ‘Do it, Lonnie! Do it!’ He even worked in Elektra’s A&R department. When the label merged with giant Warner Brothers, Lonnie grew disgusted with the new bureaucracy and walked out of his job.

Mack headed back to rural Indiana, playing back-country bars, going fishing and laying low. After six years of relative obscurity, Lonnie signed with Capitol and cut two albums that featured his country influences. He played on the West Coast for a while and even flew to Japan for a “Save The Whales” benefit. Then he headed to New York to team up with an old friend named Ed Labunski. Labunski was a wealthy jingle writer that wrote “This Bud’s For You” who was tired of commercials and wanted to write and play for pleasure. He and Lonnie built a studio in rural Pennsylvania and spent three years organizing and recording a country-rock band called South, which included Buffalo-based keyboardist Stan Szelest, who later played on Lonnie’s Alligator debut. Ed and Lonnie had big plans for their partnership, including producing an album by a then-obscure Texas guitarist named Stevie Ray Vaughan. But the plans evaporated when Labunski died in an auto accident, and the South album was never commercially released. Lonnie next headed for Canada and joined the band of veteran rocker Ronnie Hawkins for a summer. After a brief stay in Florida, he returned to Indiana in 1982, playing clubs in Cincinnati and the surrounding area.

Mack began his re-emergence on the national scene in November of 1983. At Stevie Ray Vaughan’s urging, he relocated from southern Indiana to Texas, where he settled in Spicewood. He began jamming with Stevie Ray (who proudly named Wham! as the first single he owned) in local clubs and flying to New York for gigs at the Lone Star and the Ritz. When Alligator Records approached Lonnie to do an album, Vaughan immediately volunteered to help him out. The result was 1985’s Strike Like Lightning, co-produced by Lonnie and Stevie Ray and featuring Stevie’s guitar on several tracks.

Mack’s re-emergence was a major music industry event. Keith Richards, Ron Wood, Ry Cooder and Stevie Ray Vaughan all joined Lonnie on stage during his 1985 tour. The New York Times said, “Although Mr. Mack can play every finger-twisting blues guitar lick, he doesn’t show off; he comes up with sustained melodies and uses fast licks only at an emotional peak. Mr. Mack is also a thoroughly convincing singer.” Other celebrities — Bob Dylan, Mick Jagger, Paul Simon, Eddie Van Halen, Dwight Yoakam and actor Matt Dillon — attended shows during the Strike Like Lightning tour. The year was capped off with a stellar performance at New York’s prestigious Carnegie Hall with Albert Collins and the late Roy Buchanan. That show was released commercially on DVD as Further On Down The Road.

Mack recorded two more albums for Alligator, 1986’s Second Sight and 1990’s Live! Attack Of the Killer V. In between he signed with Epic Records and released Roadhouses And Dancehalls in 1988. Mack continued to tour into the 2000s. He relocated to Smithville, Tennessee where he continued writing songs but ceased active touring. In 2001 he was inducted into the International Guitar Hall Of Fame and in 2005 into the Rockabilly Hall Of Fame.

He is survived by five children and multitudes of grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Funeral arrangements are pending.

Source noise11

Gib Guilbeau, a pioneer of country rock with Sweetwater and the Flying Burrito Brothers, died on Tuesday at the age of 78.

Guilbeau first started playing at the age of 14 in local Opelousas, LA bars, performing on fiddle and singing. During a stint in the U.S. Air Force, he started The Sons of the South with other servicemen, later joining The Hinkley Valley Boys after his discharge.

Gib played in a succession of bands including The Hi-Flyers and Four Young Men with which he recorded a number of singles in 1960. Next was the Castaways, playing around Nevada and the Pacific northwest. When of the members of the group quit, Guilbeau called a friend, Gene Parsons, to join.

Around 1966, Guilbeau and Parsons formed their own duo called Cajun Gib and Gene, playing at the Jack of Diamonds in Palmdale, CA. While mainly a two-man group, they occasionally brought in Clarence White to perform with them and the three recorded two singles and an album for the new Bakersfield International label.

Gib, Gene and Clarence next formed Nashville West with Wayne Moore. The band played everything from Merle Haggard to Chuck Berry and was one of the earliest groups to put a heavy country sound with pop stylings. The band worked extensively with Gary Paxton, backing many artists on his label including the Gosdin Brothers and Paxton himself.

In 1969, Guibeau joined Sweetwater, a band that was originally supposed to replace the Stone Poneys backing Linda Ronstadt and, later, Arlo Guthrie. Sweetwater recorded a self-titled debut album and released two singles before moving to RCA Records where they put out another self-titled album.

By 1973, Gib was working on demo recordings in Nashville but his heart was in L.A. and he regularly played with Sneaky Pete Kleinow in bands like Cold Steel, Lone Star and The Docker Hill Boys before he and Kleinow were asked to join a revamped Flying Burrito Brothers with Gene Parsons, Chris Ethridge, Joel Scott Hill and, later, Skip Batten. They recorded two studio albums for Columbia, Flying Again (1975) and Airborne (1976).

While the Burrito Brothers have gone through numerous personnel changes over the years, Guilbeau was pretty much a constant until he left in 1997. In the years since, Gib worked as a producer, studio musician and recorded a number of solo albums.

Guilbeau was also a prolific songwriter with his music recorded by most of his bands along with the likes of David Alan Coe, Bobby Womack, Jimmy C. Newman, Ricky Nelson and Rod Stewart.

Source VVN

Prince (1958 - 2016)

The musical world has been shocked and is in deep mourning after the announcement that Prince has died at the age of 57.

Authorities were called to the singer's home, Paisley Park, in Chanhassen, MN this morning about 9:30 AM with a report that a male was not breathing at the residence. Ambulance and fire crews arrived and began CPR but to no avail.

Prince had been ill recently with "flu like" symptoms, cancelling two shows and, last weekend, having his airplane do an emergency landing so he could be taken to the hospital. He later told his fans "Wait a few days before you waste any prayers."

Born Prince Rogers Nelson in Minneapolis on June 7, 1958, his father was a pianist and songwriter and his mother a jazz singer. Both he and his sister, Tika, were interested in music from an early age with Prince writing his first song, Funk Machine, at the age of 7.

Prince, his cousin Charles Smith and his friend Andre Cymone formed the group Grand Central while still in High School. After Smith left and Morris Day joined, they changed their name to Champagne and became popular in local clubs.

In 1976, Prince recorded a demo tape that was shopped around by Minneapolis businessman Owen Husney, resulting in his signing with Warner Brothers at the age of 17. His first album, For You, on which he reportedly played all 27 instruments, was released in 1978 and, although it only made it 163, the album established him in the scene.

His second album, Prince, did much better, peaking at 22 on the strength of the hit I Wanna Be Your Lover (1979 / #11 Pop / #1 R&B / #2 Dance). He followed with Dirty Mind (1980) and Controversy (1981).

It was also at that time that he formed the group The Time, using a clause in his record company contract that allowed him to write and produce for others. Bringing in Morris Day, Jerome Bennett and Jesse Johnson along with the remnants of the group Flyte Time which included Terry Lewis and Jimmy Jam. Prince played most of the instruments on their debut album and kept his hands in the group throughout their career which produced such classics as Jungle Love, The Bird and Jerk Out.

Prince hit the mainstream big with the 1982 release of his album 1999, which became his first top ten album and produced three huge hits, the title track (1982 / #12 Pop / #4 R&B), Little Red Corvette (1983 / #6 Pop / #15 R&B) and Delirious (1983 / #8 Pop / #18 R&B).

With his music being played on Top Forty radio and in constant rotation on MTV, he decided to strike out in a new direction by starring in the 1984 motion picture Purple Rain. Critics hailed him in the semi-autobiographical role and fans paid $80 million dollars for tickets. It went on to win the Academy Award for Best Original Song Score, including the hits When Doves Cry (1984 / #1 Pop / #1 R&B), Let's Go Crazy (1984 / #1 Pop / #1 R&B), Purple Rain (1984 / #2 Pop / #4 R&B) and I Would Die 4 U (1984 / #8 Pop / #11 R&B).

While always a bit quirky, Prince surprised fans in 1985 when he said he would stop touring and doing music videos after his next album, Around the World in a Day (of course, he didn't keep either plan). The album became the second of his three chart toppers and included the hits Raspberry Beret (1985 / #2 Pop / #3 R&B) and Pop Life (1985 / #7 Pop / #8 R&B). He followed with Parade (1986) with the hit Kiss (1986 / #1 Pop / #1 R&B) and Sign O' the Times (1987) with the title track (1987 / #3 Pop / #1 R&B), U Got the Look with Sheena Easton (1987 / #2 Pop / #11 R&B) and I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man (1987 / #10 Pop / #14 R&B).

In early 1988, Prince had completed and Warner Brothers had pressed 500,000 copies of The Black Album but the singer suddenly decided to withdraw the set from release and, instead, went back in the studio to record Lovesexy.  While popular, it was his first album to not make the top ten in seven years. The associated tour also lost money due to it's costly production values.

In 1989, he recorded nine songs for Tim Burton's film Batman, including the number one single Batdance, one of his biggest selling tracks but, today, mostly forgotten.

The 1990's were nowhere near as successful for Prince as the previous decade. He formed his new band The New Power Generation and recorded such albums as Graffiti Bridge (1990), Diamonds and Pearls (1991) and the album with a strange hieroglyph on the cover that Prince took as his name in 1993. Now known as "The Artist Formerly Known as Prince", he recorded three more albums for Warner Brothers, along with seeing the long delayed release of The Black Album, before his much publicized break from the label.

His first independent release, Emancipation (1996) continued to show the changes that he was going through as an artist. For the first time, there were covers on the album and, on the quirky side, each of the three-CD was exactly sixty minutes long.

Next was 1998's Crystal Ball, this one a 5-CD set and, although he was being extremely prolific, his sales had significantly decreased with Crystal Ball/The Truth only going to 62.

He returned to a major label in 1999, signing with Arista, and went on a publicity binge to promote his new set Rave Un2 the Joy Formidable. It went to 18 but was his last major album for five years. In 2000, he changed his name back to Prince and experimented with jazz infused soul on The Rainbow Children (2001 / #109) and the instrumental album N.E.W.S. (2003).

Finally, in 2004, he returned to the heights of the charts with a one-off album for Columbia, Musicology. The album reached number 3 on the Billboard 200 with much of the "sales" being attributed to one of the first cases of an album being given away when tickets were purchased for one of his shows.

Two more independently release non-charting albums followed until 2006 with the release of his fourth and final number 1 album, 3121. It was the start to a resurgence in the singer's career that would last until his death.

Over the last few years, Prince has constantly surprised fans with new modes of performing. While he always was one to go late into the night in some of his late night parties, he began doing series of shows in one city, announcing concert at the last minute to try and avoid scalping and, in his final tour, taking the stage with only himself and a piano.

Along with his regular fights with labels and publishers, Prince was also very protective of his intellectual property. He sued YouTube and eBay in 2007 for not filtering out copyrighted material and, later, went after his own fan sites for what he deemed illegal use of his image.

Prince was married twice, to Mayte Garcia from 1996 to 1999 and to Manuela Testolini from 2001 to 2006. He and Garcia had a son in 1996 that died within a week of birth.

He was elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility (2004).

Source VVN