Seth McFarlane Returns to an Uptempo Take on Big-Band Jazz With New Album, ‘Blue Skies’ (EXCLUSIVE)

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music CriticThe Bob Dylan Center, which had its ribbon-cutting in Tulsa, Oklahoma’s arts district Tuesday morning, is very much a choose-your-own adventure place. The museum’s director, Steven Jenkins, says they tried to make its exhibition spaces equally interesting to “skimmers, swimmers and divers.” Another way to look at it would be that it’s for both big-picture-takers and squinters.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music CriticWho’s introspective? Pete Townshend is, in a new two-hour release from Audible that is effectively a casual audio sequel to his formal autobiography, 2012’s “Who I Am.” The part-talking, part-rocking project, “Somebody Saved Me,” which came out Friday, is an Audible Original that’s essential listening for anyone who cares about the Who, which is a demographic that has a pretty substantial overlap with people who care about rock ‘n’ roll generally.In the 27th installation of Audible’s laudable “Words + Music” series, the Who’s songwriter and guitarist goes deeper into what he calls the Who’s “middle age,” a period that’s bookended roughly by the death of drummer Keith Moon in 1978 on one end and the equally sudden passing of John Entwistle in 2002, a time frame he admits he didn’t deal with as much as he could have in his book. Townshend talks about the band’s on-again, off-again status in the wake of those tragedies and why he and singer Roger Daltrey ultimately carried on in both cases, even as the band’s main creative force has not been shy about sometimes preferring the less lucrative benefits of his solo career over dealing with the band legacy decades on.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music CriticConsider it a sign of the times, maybe: In the list of seven artists that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s select industry voters elected into the institution for the class of 2022, there is not a single rock band. That can be taken as a major signifier that the pendulum among the music intelligentsia really has swung all the way from what was coined some years back as “rockism” — the belief that rock ‘n’ roll is inherently superior to other forms of popular music — to the other side of the scale: poptimism.The MC5? No go, again, this year, despite this being the band’s sixth nomination, the first having come back in 2003.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music CriticMandolin, one of the most celebrated livestream platforms to have come to the forefront in the last two years, is looking to keep the concert streaming boom going with the launch of its Venue and Promoter Network. The newly announced initiative is aimed at providing artists’ camps access to a list of dozens of U.S.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music CriticWell, Dolly Parton didn’t get her wish, although she’s likely to be happy anyway. The country superstar will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in November — a possibility she said last week she’d come to terms with and would “graciously” accept, after initially trying to get herself nixed  — along with Duran Duran, Pat Benatar, Eminem, Lionel Richie, Eurythmics and Carly Simon.Those are the seven performers that the Hall’s thousand-plus voters chose.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music CriticHaim’s homecoming show Sunday at the Hollywood Bowl felt a little bit like a block party first, and a big rock ‘n’ roll coronation secondarily. “We are Valley girls through and through!” declared Alana Haim, one of the three sisters who make up the core group, explaining why “there’s gonna be a lot of emotion tonight.” When they’d headlined the Greek Theatre across the hills in 2017, that might’ve seemed like the prime hail-the-conquering-heroes moment of their lives, but, of course, there were bigger nearby ravines to conquer.Now that they were assuming the dominative position in the Bowl, with Danielle getting something in her eye as she announced they’d been told right before coming on stage that the group had sold it out, leading to quick discussions of whether there is crying in baseball.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music CriticThe Beach Boys got around to making their Stagecoach Festival debut Sunday, teaming up with the country duo LoCash on four songs to cap the latter act’s early-evening main stage fest. LoCash had a distinct advantage on any other Stagecoach artists who might ever have been tempted to ask the touring Beach Boys to charter a Palm Springs flight: They actually named their new single “Beach Boys.” Mike Love, Bruce Johnston and three members of their touring band first came out midway into LoCasg’s performance to add their harmonies to the new single — the recorded version of which they also harmonize on.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music CriticFor a headlining appearance at the Hollywood Bowl Sunday night, the group Haim does have two official support acts (Waxahatchee and Buzzy Lee). But for hometown fans who really want to make a full day of it, there’s an additional opening act: a screening just a couple of blocks down the hill of the complete tandem filmography of Haim and director Paul Thomas Anderson.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music CriticYou remember the old quote about how “Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did… backwards and in high heels”? Miranda Lambert has a variation on that. Talking about her first time prevailing at the Academy of Country Music Awards this year in the entertainer of the year category, and what a long-overdue triumph it has been for Carrie Underwood and then her to score in that eternally male-dominated division, the singer says that the two of them “we know what we put into it.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music CriticThe Stagecoach Festival in the southern California desert is officially asking attendees to secede from any love they might have for the Confederate flag or any other “divisive symbols.”The Desert Sun newspaper noticed an addition to Goldenvoice’s Stagecoach website this year, on the General Resort Rules page that provides guidelines for those in the overnight camping areas. It reads: “No divisive symbols, including, without limitation, Confederate flags and racially disparaging or other inappropriate imagery/public displays.”Confederate imagery among fans has been a point of contention at the festival in the past, with some seeing the flag as a harmless symbol of Southern pride — even this many thousand miles away from the South — while others see it as a dog whistle for racism or an emblem of insurrection against the government.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music CriticStagecoach has revealed the full lineup and schedule for the livestream that will go out this weekend on the country music festival’s YouTube channel, and it includes a number of artists that weren’t previously announced for the stream, offering couch sitters a nearly comprehensive view of what will be going down live in the California desert.The lineup includes the headliners — Thomas Rhett on Friday, Carrie Underwood on Saturday and Luke Combs on Sunday — as well as other marquee names that were named as part of the lineup earlier this week, like Maren Morris, Brothers Osborne, Margo Price, Cody Johnson, Yola, Lainey Wilson and the Black Crowes.It also now is revealed to have a substantial number of artists that weren’t previously included in the livestream announcement, including Tanya Tucker, Smokey Robinson, Jordan Davis, Lee Brice, Ingrid Andress, the Marcus King Band, Ryan Hurd, Charley Crockett, the Mavericks and Mitchell Tenpenny. Most of the lineup is now included, in fact, save for some of the artists who are appearing in the early part of the afternoon, including Americana artists such as Rhiannon Giddens, Amythyst Kiah, Molly Tuttle and Waylon Payne.Brandi Carlile is off the bill, having disclosed in a social media video late Wednesday night that she has contracted COVID and won’t be making it.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music CriticWith Wilco’s first couple of albums in the mid-1990s, the band got saddled with an “alt-country” tag that was perhaps inevitable, especially coming out of the ruins of Uncle Tupelo, a group that helped form that subgenre as a movement. And for the last quarter-century or so, Jeff Tweedy and company have endeavored to shake it off.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music CriticThe last time there were as many trombones in a movie as there are in “Take Me to the River: New Orleans,” Harold Hill was probably leading a parade. The ongoing vitalization of the Crescent City’s music culture really is like something out of a horn salesman’s fever dream, with younger generations readily taking up New Orleans’ traditional second-line culture in a way that can only make the aging elders of other regional music scenes green with envy.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music CriticPost Malone has posted a release date for his long-promised new album: “Twelve Carat Toothache” will be out June 3, he announced in a social media message that contained little else besides a blurry red image and a link to pre-save the album on streaming services.The album will mark the performer’s first on the Mercury Records label, the revival of which was announced by Republic Records earlier in April. Tyler Arnold, the newly installed president of Mercury, signed and developed Post Malone at Republic, where he had been executive VP of A&R.Twelve Carat Toothache.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music CriticProducer T Bone Burnett has long promised the development of a new analog format that he promised would improve on both vinyl and CDs, as well as digital streaming and any other existing recorded music medium. Now, he appears closer to reaching that goal with the news that he has been in the studio with Bob Dylan, re-recording some of the legendary singer-songwriter’s classic songs with the purpose of introducing the new ultra-high-fidelity medium.Details are scarce about when the Dylan recordings might come out — not to mention the new hardware that will be required to play them.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music CriticTyler, the Creator is back on top of the Billboard 200 album chart for the first time since premiering at No. 1 back in July of 2021, due to “Call Me If You Get Lost” very belatedly making its bow on vinyl 10 months after the digital release.The tally for “Call Me” in the LP format was 49,500 copies, which Luminate says is the most pieces of vinyl sold in a week for any hip-hop record since rolls began being kept in 1991.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music CriticDoja Cat’s single from Baz Luhrmann’s “Elvis” soundtrack, “Vegas,” has been given a release date — May 6 — after the singer-rapper debuted a live version of the tune at the Coachella festival over the last two weekends.The single precedes a full film companion album that has loosely been scheduled for summer by RCA, it was also announced Monday. That label news is not exactly unexpected, since RCA has been Elvis Presley’s label home since the late 1950s.Although “Vegas” is an original song, live snippets reveal the Doja Cat track does incorporate a Presley classic, “Hound Dog.” (Fans may have to wait till May 6 to find out whether “Viva Las Vegas” also appears in the final studio version, as might be expected from the title.) Luhrmann was out at Coachella for its second weekend, supporting three artists associated with “Elvis” as a film or soundtrack — including Yola, who plays Sister Rosetta Tharpe in the movie, and Shonka Dukureh, who portrays Big Mama Thornton, as well as Doja Cat.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music CriticWith its grand opening less than two weeks away, the Bob Dylan Center has announced Steven Jenkins as its director. He’s moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma to oversee the museum’s exhibitions, public programs and daily operations, following more than three decades of work with nonprofits in the San Francisco Bay areaThe hiring announcement comes as the BDC prepares for an opening weekend May 5-8 that will include a gala invitational dinner and celebratory concerts by Elvis Costello, Mavis Staples and Patti Smith.Said Jenkins in a statement, “As an avid listener and fascinated follower of Dylan’s every surprising and illuminating turn, his work has brought me a lifetime of aesthetic pleasures, confounding challenges and profound joy.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music CriticCountry music fans have come to accept that the Stagecoach Festival in the California desert each late April will not be livestreamed in the same way that Coachella is from the same location in the preceding weeks. But that changes with the 2022 edition.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music CriticFace the facts: you are never, ever getting that Taylor Swift exclusive Record Store Day release that is coming out today. Fifty million Swift fans can’t be wrong, and about a tenth of them seem bent on landing the 10,000 copies of a 7-inch single of “The Lakes” that is going on sale at indie retailers today as part of the annual holiday for music geeks.