Boss is back
Bruce Springsteen isn’t just releasing a new rock album later this month — he’ll also offer a documentary on the making of the music.
Bruce Springsteen isn’t just releasing a new rock album later this month — he’ll also offer a documentary on the making of the music.
“Bruce Springsteen’s Letter to You” will offer performances by The E Street Band, in-studio footage and never-beforeseen archival material, featuring “a behind-thescenes look at the iconic artist’s creative process,” according to a statement.
It is written by Springsteen and directed by his frequent collaborator Thom Zimny. It will be released on Apple TV+ on Oct. 23, the same day the album “Letter To You” drops.
“Letter To You,” recorded in just five days, will have nine new songs and include new recordings of three unreleased songs that predate Springsteen’s 1973 debut album, “Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J.” The songs are: “Janey Needs a Shooter,” “If I Was the Priest” and “Song for Orphans.”
Springsteen is joined on “Letter To You” by Roy Bittan, Nils Lofgren, Patti Scialfa, Garry Tallent, Stevie Van Zandt, Max Weinberg, Charlie Giordano and Jake Clemons. The album was produced by Ron Aniello and Springsteen.
CMA Awards co-hosts plan to yuk it up
Country stars Reba Mcentire and Darius Rucker are promising laughs and good music when they co-host this year’s CMA Awards in November.
Mcentire, a Country Music Hall of Famer and veteran host of country music awards shows, returns after hosting last year with Carrie Underwood and Dolly Parton. It will mark her fifth year as a host. Rucker, who crossed over from the rock world about 15 years ago and is a Grand Ole Opry member, will be a first-time host of the CMAS when the show airs on Nov. 11 on ABC from Nashville, Tennessee.
“We both love to giggle and laugh and cut up. Whatever they give us to say, I have a feeling that we’re going to be adding a little bit of our own kind of sense of humor,” said Mcentire, during an interview with Rucker with The Associated Press.
“One of the cool things about getting to do this with Reba is we can both be the straight man, or we can be the person who delivers the joke,” said Rucker.
One of the first people that Rucker said he was planning on telling about his new co-hosting gig was country icon Charley Pride. Pride was the first Black country artist to co-host the awards show, in 1975 with Glen Campbell. Pride had won the CMA’S top prize, entertainer of the year, in 1971 and paved the way for artists like Rucker decades later.
“When I started in this business, I was at my very first CMAS when I won the best new artist,” said Rucker, of his 2009 win. “I said to my manager, ‘I want to host this someday.’ I was joking. And to be here 14 years later hosting with Reba freaking Mcentire? Wow!”
While COVID -19 restrictions would make the show’s production different this year, the pair said they were aiming to deliver an uplifting night of music and entertainment.
“We’re trying to keep it upbeat and light. We as a country, we as a nation, we as a world, we need entertainment,” said Mcentire. “I think people sitting at home in front of their TV screens or their computers, I think they want to see what we can deliver.”