LEGENDS OF THE FALL
It’s an autumn bonanza with Prince, Cher and Macca leading the way
THE music industry is gearing up for a busy autumn. Daily Mail music critic ADRIAN THRILLS picks the big releases that are already available to pre-order.
PAUL McCARTNEY: EGYPT STATION
PAUL has been hinting at an oldschool approach on his first album in five years. Egypt Station finds him hooking up with producer Greg Kurstin, who has worked with Adele, and Michael Jackson’s musical director Greg Phillinganes.
The early signs are promising: recent single I Don’t Know gently picks up pace; another taster track, the raucous Come On To Me, features Abbey Road’s famous Mrs Mills piano. Out September 7 on Capitol.
PAUL SIMON: IN THE BLUE LIGHT
FOLLOWING July’s emotional Irish farewell at the RDS, Simon revisits some of the less-celebrated gems from his back catalogue here.
Working with chamber sextet yMusic, who played with him in London, and trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, Simon has rewritten arrangements, harmonies and even lyrics to ten personal favourites, bringing a jazzy hue to 1973’s One Man’s Ceiling Is Another Man’s Floor and four songs from 2000’s You’re The One. Out September 7 on Sony.
TONY BENNETT & DIANA KRALL: LOVE IS HERE TO STAY
BENNETT’S last duets album, Cheek To Cheek, saw an improbable (but surprisingly successful) pairing with Lady Gaga. This forthcoming album takes a more obvious path in partnering the last of the great crooners with sultry Canadian diva Diana Krall.
The record, made with jazz pianist Bill Charlap’s formidable trio, pays tribute to the Gershwin brothers. Out September 14 on Verve.
NILE RODGERS & CHIC: IT’S ABOUT TIME
UNTOUCHABLE in the Seventies, Chic have enjoyed a renaissance since Nile Rodgers teamed up with Daft Punk on Get Lucky. Now, after a summer on the festival circuit, they are releasing their first album for 25 years.
Recent single Till The World Falls added a modern, digital gloss, but guitarist Rodgers’s riffs rekindled the funky spirit, though mercifully not the decadence, of the band’s Studio 54 heyday. Out September 14 on Virgin EMI.
PAUL WELLER: TRUE MEANINGS
THE former punk firebrand turned 60 this year and next month’s True Meanings, his 14th solo album, looks like being mellow and introspective. Weller’s respect for Brit-rock tradition is reflected in appearances by folk legend Martin Carthy and Rod Argent of the Zombies.
Despite the more predictable presence of his buddy Noel Gallagher, it looks like being a Weller record like no other, with delicate orchestrations and some lyrics penned by outsiders. Out September 14 on Parlophone.
JESS GLYNNE: ALWAYS IN BETWEEN
GLYNNE became the first British female to chalk up seven solo No. 1s when her single I’ll Be There topped the charts in June.
The former London hairdresser will be aiming to scale similar heights when her second album arrives three years after her first.
Despite being a break-up record, that debut was littered with breezy dance tunes.
Current hit All I Am suggests the new album, with Ed Sheeran among her co-writers, will follow suit. Out September 21 on Atlantic.
PRINCE: PIANO & A MICROPHONE 1983
LIKE Springsteen’s Nebraska, Prince’s Piano & A Microphone 1983 was made on a cassette recorder in a home studio. Rescued from the Paisley Park vaults, it’s an intimate, improvised reminder of his genius.
With a raw version of Purple Rain and an early take on his cover of Joni Mitchell’s A Case Of You, its nine tracks offer a taste of Prince’s creative process.
He shows the full scope of his vocal trickery on the bluesy spiritual Mary Don’t You Weep. Out September 21 on Warner Music.
SUEDE: THE BLUE HOUR
THE former dandies of Britpop haven’t lacked ambition since their re-union back in 2010.
This forthcoming CD is the final part of a trilogy that started with Bloodsports in 2013 and it looks set to be their most progressive release yet.
The City Of Prague Philharmonic, fresh from revamping the hits of Billy Fury, provide orchestration, while singer Brett Anderson is joined by actors, a choir and five-year-old son Lucian on a record sequenced as a continuous piece of music. Out September 21 on Warner Music.
ARETHA FRANKLIN: ATLANTIC SINGLES COLLECTION (1967-1970)
PLANNED as a sequel to last year’s symphonic A Brand New Me, Aretha’s 34-song Atlantic Singles Collection was on the release schedule long before her recent death, and is a timely reminder of her vast talent. Aretha signed to Atlantic in 1967, and the singles she made in the three years that followed, including Respect and I Say A Little Prayer, went a long way towards consolidating her Queen Of Soul status. Out September 28 on Rhino.
ROD STEWART: BLOOD RED ROSES
ROD rediscovered his storytelling muse on 2013’s Time, but he lapsed into sentimentality on 2015’s Another Country. This, his 30th solo album, is shaping up as a return to form.
New single Didn’t I finds the father of eight singing about the devastating impact of drugs from a parent’s perspective. ‘I make albums for a few friends, and this one has that intimacy,’ he says. Out September 28 on Decca.
CHER: DANCING QUEEN
THE season’s hammiest effort should be Cher’s tribute to Abba. The Goddess Of Pop, who stars in Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, says her interest in the Swedish super troupers was rekindled after she saw the original Mamma Mia! three times on Broadway.
Dancing Queen, her first album in five years, reunites her with long-term collaborator Mark Taylor, producer of 1998’s Believe. ‘The songs were harder to sing than I imagined, but I’m happy with how they came out,’ she says. Out September 28 on Warner Music.
ELVIS COSTELLO: LOOK NOW
HAVING worked with hip-hop act The Roots on his previous outing, Costello returns to old friends.
With two members of the Attractions on board, and three songs co-written with Burt Bacharach, Look Now promises to mix the lush melodies of 1982’s Imperial Bedroom with the emotional range of a previous Bacharach collaboration, Painted From Memory. Recent single Under Lime is a vivid sketch of a tryst between a fading country star and a younger woman. Out October 12 on Concord.
DAVID BOWIE: LOVING THE ALIEN (1983-1988)
THE career-spanning run of Bowie box sets has now reached the Eighties. A decade that began brightly with Let’s Dance and Modern Love saw the singer gradually lose momentum.
This lavishly packaged set reflects an uneven era. Amid lengthy live excerpts, interest will centre on a new version of 1987’s Never Let Me Down.
Bowie was unhappy with the original album and sanctioned a re-recording with less synthetic instrumentation before his death. Out October 12 on Parlophone.
ANDREA BOCELLI: Sì
THE Italian singer geared up for his first album of new songs in 14 years by bringing operatic gravitas to Perfect when he sang with Ed Sheeran at Wembley back in June.
In another surprising move, his new record, Sì, was produced by Bob Ezrin, best known for his work on Alice Cooper’s classic early rock albums. ‘I wanted to go back to my memories of being a young man playing in a piano bar,’ says Bocelli. Out October 26 on Decca.
pregnant a year later, I was excited at the prospect of having a baby sibling. That was until Dad called me after the 20-week scan to say they were having a daughter, and suddenly I felt unexpectedly sad
I’d always been his little girl and, upset at the news, I put the phone down on him. He called me straight back and reassured me that his feelings for me wouldn’t change when the baby arrived.
I moved in with him and Marie in 2016 because I didn’t get on with my mum’s partner, and although I was apprehensive, I needn’t have worried. Marie is absolutely lovely and she and Dad include me in every aspect of family life.
Living with them means they’ve got a built-in babysitter and I get to be a hands-on big sister to Thia and Molly.
Dad’s delighted that we’re all so close, but he told me recently that he’s also conscious he has to devote more attention to Thia and Molly because they’re so young. But I totally understand that. Thia is like me, a performer who’s always making up songs and dances. Meanwhile, Molly is a comedian. I didn’t realise a two-year-old could be so funny! They love to come into my bedroom and watch me putting on my make-up, and I can’t wait till they’re old enough for me to take them shopping. The only downside to the huge age gaps between the three of us is that after getting up early for work all week, I’d love to have a lie-in at weekends. But with two toddlers in the house it’s impossible!
AGE GAP: 13 YEARS
JASMINE CARNEY, 24, is a nurse who lives with her parents Jacquie, 48, a national sales manager, and John, 50, a company MD. She has three siblings — two brothers aged 22 and 18, and little sister Jana, 11. JASMINE SAYS: Mum was buttering toast in the kitchen one day when she announced to my brother, John, and me that she was pregnant. I was 13 and he was 11 and we just laughed and said: ‘Good joke Mum!’ But I was over the moon for Mum and Dad, even more so when they found out the baby was a girl as I already had two brothers. She went into labour with Jana one night and when Dad returned home to get the rest of us ready for school the next morning, he held up a picture of Jana on his phone and I started crying with happiness. Poor Jana, I used to take her everywhere in her pram and dress her up in princess clothes, and people have often thought that she’s my daughter. One summer a few years ago, I took her to regular ballet classes while my parents were working, and when her tutor assumed I was her mum I didn’t have the heart to correct her. It’s also happened when we’ve been at horse shows and even once when the two of us were in the local Chinese takeaway and the lady behind the counter commented: ‘Aren’t you gorgeous, you look just like your mummy!’ When I moved away to go to university in Liverpool three years ago, Jana was absolutely gutted and would be glued to my side when I came home at weekends, including when I went to the loo sometimes! Now she’s getting older I feel a huge responsibility to be a good role model for her. She already confides in me about any playground dramas at school, which doesn’t cause any awkwardness with Mum and me at the moment. But maybe that will be different when she’s a teenager if she starts talking to me about boys or any attempts to go out drinking or
partying.
JANA SAYS: When I was smaller I used to wish I had brothers and sisters my own age to play with.
But now I’m 11, I quite like the fact that it’s mostly Mum, Dad and me because I get all the attention!
It’s great having a much older sister, though. Jasmine teaches me so many things I can’t do yet. We love hanging out on our horses together, playing board games and having girls’ nights in, where we put face masks on and she lets me try on make-up and plait her hair.
It’s been strange while she’s been living away at university, but now she’s graduated I’m so excited to have her back home to play with.
I’ve already told her that when she gets a house, I’d like my own room so that I can stay with her all the time.
AGE GAP: 14 YEARS
Lynn Schwentke, 35, is a fulltime carer for her mother, and lives with her two sons, aged 14 and three. Lynn’s sister Jaimie, 21, a chef, lives nearby.
LYNN SAYS: My sister’s birth was one of the best days of my life. My parents allowed me to go to the hospital where I watched Jaimie being born and even cut the cord.
The following day, Mum and I went shopping with her in the pram and when a lady stopped to look at the baby I told her all about the birth. She looked puzzled and said: ‘Aren’t you a bit young to be a mummy?’
But I’ve always looked older than I am and a few weeks later we were on holiday in Germany when a steward on a boat we were on mistook me for Jaimie’s mother.
After having my brother, who’s 31, and me, Mum had set her heart on having another baby when we hit our teens so that there’d be a little one at home to mother as we became more independent.
Even though I was a typical teen and into boys, clothes and pop music, I adored having a baby sister and often insisted on having her cot in my room at night.
But after Mum, who’s now 56, broke her back falling down the stairs 11 years ago, I had to take on a surrogate mother role for Jaimie, who was only ten at the time.
While Dad, a project manager, was busy working, I did the school runs, attended parents’ evenings and ferried Jaimie around to various activities.
Jaimie still lives at home with our parents and is only six years older than my elder son. They’ve grown up more as siblings than auntie and nephew.
But there have been downsides to our close relationship, not least that Jaimie has always turned to me first for advice, which upsets Mum and still puts me in an awkward position at times. JAIMIE SAYS: I’ve always looked upon Lynn as a mother figure, partly because she’s so much older and wiser, but also because Mum was either working or ill when I was growing up.
Dad was rarely around because his work took him all over the place, so Lynn was very much my ‘parent’.
She’s a tomboy who adores the countryside and staying at home with her family, whereas I’m gregarious and love clothes, makeup and going out for cocktails. But we’re incredibly close.
I remember feeling jealous after she had her first son, because suddenly all of her attention wasn’t solely on me.
But she’s my best friend, sister and mother combined, and the one I turn to with a problem, such as an argument with a boyfriend. She knows me better than anyone.