Tribbett sends positive vibes with a new song
‘Robe Recitals’
NEW YORK, April 27, (AP): Grammy-winning gospel singer Tye Tribbett has fused Kendrick Lamar’s hit song “Alright” into a new tune to send a message to people during the coronavirus pandemic: We are going to be all right.
Tribbett released the new song “We Gon’ Be Alright” on Friday. The new track interpolates part of Lamar’s anthemic 2015 song, which was co-produced by Pharrell and won two Grammy Awards.
Tribbett, 44, said he’s hoping to offer some light to the world during a time of darkness. “We Gon’ Be Alright,” which fuses elements of trap music, includes lyrics like, “Troubles come and go, even on the mountain high or valley low/Never let your faith go, never let your faith go.”
“Every time I play the song in my house, my family rushes to dance together and celebrate, even during this pandemic! My prayer is that this song does the same for your house or wherever this song is heard as we hope in the promises of a God who has never failed,” Tribbett said in a statement.
Tribbett won the best gospel album and best gospel song Grammys at the 2014 show.
Despite canceled tour dates and a delayed album release, Rufus Wainwright is still working hard in lockdown.
Every morning, he takes to his piano at home in Los Angeles for what he has coined his “Robe Recitals,” or “Quarantunes,” where he performs a track from his extensive back catalogue – in a bathrobe – on Instagram.
Practice
“Even before this pandemic, I would practice every morning in my bathrobe,” smiled Wainwright, speaking before a session earlier this month, adding that the robe was a necessary addition. “Before I was married and had a child, I would practice naked back in the good old days, hungover and naked at the piano.”
Wainwright’s husband Jorn Weisbrodt films the musician’s daily performances and posts them to Instagram. The videos include dedications to friends like Marianne Faithfull, who was recently released from the hospital after a coronavirus diagnosis. They also feature stories about Wainwright’s older songs or the meanings behind the lyrics of unreleased tracks.
The singer says he’s relishing the opportunity to practice and “work out some of the kinks in certain songs” and to invite audiences into an intimate space.
“One of the great joys of being a musician is being alone and playing songs and losing touch with reality and time and so forth,” he said. “I get to now go through that experience with an audience of man.”
Wainwright’s ninth album, “Unfollow the Rules,” has had its release date pushed back to July 10, and the singer says he’s very grateful that his fans understand the delay.
“I haven’t made a pop record for over seven years, so we want to do this right,” he said.
In the meantime, the “Robe Recitals” will continue. On April 24, Wainwright plans Friday to release “Alone Time,” a single from the forthcoming album which he says is “a perfect title for this day and age.”
Colin Poulton moved to Nashville in 2008 to study commercial guitar. He dropped out of college but stuck with the city and the guitar, first playing in a series of original bands and more recently making his living in the honky-tonks of Lower Broadway along with “a few wedding bands and some other bands.”
All those gigs ended abruptly when the coronavirus hit. The clubs shut down on March 16 to slow the spread, and Nashville’s normally packed downtown streets are all but deserted. Poulton applied for unemployment as soon as Congress passed the federal relief bill extending benefits to nontraditional workers. He’s been without steady work for five weeks now but so far has received nothing.
“A lot of us went from having anywhere from four to seven gigs a week to nothing,” Poulton said.
With its vibrant music industry, Nashville is a magnet for people like Poulton. Music City is known as the home of country music in the US, but tens of thousands of professional musicians of all kinds live there, drawn to the plentiful job opportunities and the camaraderie of a community of artists. Now they’re caught up in an unemployment system that’s not geared toward them.
Fear
“There’s a lot of confusion and, frankly, fear rampant in the community because they don’t know if they’re going to get something and, if so, how much,” said Dave Pomeroy, president of the Nashville Musicians Association, the local union. Pomeroy said probably 100,000 people in Nashville play music professionally, although they may not all be full-time musicians.
The state isn’t sure how many nontraditional workers have applied for unemployment, but it has received about 75,000 claims that were initially deemed ineligible. The majority of those are assumed to be from nontraditional workers, Department of Labor and Workforce Development spokesman Chris Cannon said.
For many of Nashville’s musicians, there’s an additional hitch. Their income is from a mix of sources, some treating them as employees and others treating them as independent contractors or self-employed.
Cannon said workers who have any money coming in on a W-2 and are eligible for traditional state unemployment can’t claim the new federal unemployment benefits from their contract work, even if that makes up the majority of their income. But many musicians don’t know that.
“It’s created a real black hole for these people,” said Pomeroy, who’s been trying to act as a liaison with the state to provide musicians with answers about unemployment.
Session bassist Eli Beaird said his W-2 work makes up only about 10% of his income, but it allowed him to apply for unemployment through the state system. He hasn’t received anything yet, but the system shows him as eligible for $50 per week in unemployment benefits. That’s far short of the state’s $275 weekly maximum, which is what he would likely receive if he could base his benefits off his contractor work.
Fortunately, anyone receiving unemployment from either traditional or nontraditional work is also eligible for a $600 per week coronavirus supplement, although Beaird hasn’t received that either.