Joe Bonamassa has posted the first of 10 behind-the-scenes videos from session for his new album.
The first episode in the series, called Countdown to Daylight, features clips from the forthcoming album – Driving Towards the Daylight – and interviews with Joe, producer Kevin Shirley and Aerosmith’s Brad Whitford, who plays on the record.
In addition to Whitford, the album includes guest spots from Blondie Chaplan (guitar), Anton Fig (drums and percussion), Arlan Schierbaum (keyboard), Michael Rhodes (bass), Carmine Rojas (bass), Jeff Bova and The Bovaland Brass, Pat Thrall (guitar) and Brad’s son Harrison Whitford (guitar).
Whitford, speaking from the studio in Vegas, recently said, “This is definitely more influenced by the stuff that the guys and musicians in this room love, early ’60s English and American rock and blues. I guess we’ll never get that out of our system and it’s fun to come in here and find our own path down that highway.”
An official music video and free download for title track “Driving Towards the Daylight” will be unveiled on May 1.
Producer Kevin Shirley says: “We’ve taken some really traditional old blues songs – the Howlin’ Wolf song ‘Who’s Been Talkin’?’ and the Robert Johnson song ‘Stones in My Passway,’ and we’ve tried to imagine how they would do them in a rock context. It’s a very exciting return to the blues in a very visceral way. It’s vibrant and it’s gutsy and it’s really, really rugged.”
The album also features four Bonamassa-penned originals, including “Dislocated Boy,” the title track, “Heavenly Soul” and “Somewhere Trouble Don’t Go.”
Bonamassa plays a double-neck Gibson, like Jimmy Page, in video, which you can see here.
Slash, along with Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators, will celebrate the release of their new album, Apocalyptic Love, with a May 22 concert in New York City. The Tuesday night show falls on the same day the record becomes available in the U.S., according to 
limited, numbered collector’s edition recorded live on the 1981 Blizzard of Ozz tour. “Believer,” a live seven-inch single, also will be issued. It is a limited and numbered collector’s edition on polka-dot vinyl featuring “Believer” (live) and “Goodbye to Romance.”
this fall) will include collaborations with Foo Fighters, My Morning Jacket, Bob Seger and country stars such as Miranda Lambert, Brad Paisley and Keith Urban.
“Looking forward to laying down some guitars on a song for Steven Adler’s new record tomorrow night,” Slash tweeted on Wednesday.
“I’m sure these will all be Blink songs at the moment,” Hoppus told Kerrang! “I don’t have any plans to write songs with anybody else right now. If I do, it’ll be a collaboration or a one-off thing, but everything I’m writing right now is for Blink-182.”
Sometimes you don’t know what you have until it slips away. That seems to be the case with the late Etta James’ soulful songs. As reported by Billboard, James scored her highest-charting album ever on the Billboard 200 chart this past week with The Best of Etta James – 20th Century Masters: The Millennium Collection, which rose from #162 to #46 with 8,000 copies sold, as reported by Nielsen SoundScan. That’s up 149% over the preceding week. Until now, the R&B/blues crooner had never surpassed #68 on the pop album charts, when At Last hit that spot in 1961.
Joe Walsh is done with his new solo album, Analog Man. It is set for a release in May or June and will be his first solo set since 1992’s Songs for a Dying Planet.
The band quietly unveiled Japanese dates over the weekend on their official website. 
The album features Tremonti – an accomplished shredder, especially after hitting the woodshed with Rusty Cooley – on lead vocals as well as guitar, while Eric Friedman provides backing vocals, bass and guitar. Garret Whitlock handles the drums. 
The album’s name comes from a song that Bruce and the E Streeters debuted in 2009 when they played some of the last shows at Giants Stadium. The record also features “Land of Hope and Dreams,” a song Springsteen and the gang have been playing live since 1999.
Metal veterans Iron Maiden will release a new live album and DVD, En Vivo, in March.
The new album was produced by Ron Aniello, who has also helmed records by Jars of Clay, Candlebox and Springsteen’s wife and E Street Band member Patti Scialfa. Landau said that various E Streeters contributed to the album, as did Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello.
Rock legend and reality TV star Steven Tyler has been talking to the press to promote the upcoming season of American Idol. The talent competition’s new season (the second to feature the singer) begins next Wednesday, January 18.
Van Halen have announced more details about their much-anticipated new album, A Different Kind of Truth.
In the January 19 edition of Rolling Stone, guitarist Kirk Hammett says the album will be the logical successor to “the black album” in the same way that Death Magnetic carried on the progressive song structures of 1988’s …And Justice For All.
It’s hardly a shock, but Adele’s blockbuster 21 is now officially the best-selling album of 2011. The British soul vocalist pushed 5.82 million copies of her album last year, and the singer’s hit single, “Rolling in the Deep,” was also the year’s top-selling song, selling a whopping 5.81 million copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan’s year-end sales report.
One song looking certain to appear on the album is called “Battle Born,” with Flowers describing it as a “killer.”
Since the band's formation in 2010, they have released the acclaimed Black Country (2010) and 2 (2011) albums.