New music: Brenda Lee documentary, Young the Giant, The Turtles

In this column I feature new music releases featuring Rock and Roll Hall of Fame artist Brenda Lee, modern rock outfit Young the Giant and classic rock favorites The Turtles.

Artist: Brenda Lee
Title: Rockin' Around: The Story Behind The Iconic Singer (Mercury Studios)
You might like if you enjoy: Jackie DeShannon, Wanda Jackson, Brenda Lee
Tell me more: Brenda Lee is a groundbreaking American singer who has achieved fame in a number of musical genres including rockabilly, pop, country and Christmas music; the American artist scored her first Billboard hit in 1957 when she was only 12 and has sold more than 100 million records globally. The Atlanta, Georgia native's holiday favorite "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" (recorded in 1958) topped the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 in 2023, making Lee the oldest artist ever to top the chart. Now 80, Lee's incredible genre-defying career is celebrated via an insightful documentary titled "Rockin' Around: The Story Behind The Iconic Singer" that is available via a terrific Mercury Studios Blu-ray + DVD release. 

In addition to archival footage of the artist performing in the 1950s, '60s, '70s and '80s, there are modern-day interviews with Lee as well as Keith Urban, Tanya Tucker, Trisha Yearwood, Jackie DeShannon, Pat Benatar, Neil Giraldo and radio personality Shotgun Tom Kelly discussing Lee's amazing career. The documentary provides a look at the myriad of challenges she has faced throughout her life, as well as her successes (Lee was Billboard's Top Female Artist of the Decade in the 1960s). Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002, Lee's parade of classic hits includes "Sweet Nothin's," "I'm Sorry," "I Want to Be Wanted," "Speak to Me Pretty," "Losing You" and "All Alone Am I." There is also plenty of time dedicated to the success of "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" and that song's extraordinary road to iconic status. Information: mercurystudios.co.

Artist: Young the Giant
Title: In The Open Volume One (Jungle Youth Recordings)
You might like if you enjoy: TBA
Tell me more: Young the Giant has just released a new acoustic EP, In The Open Volume One, featuring stripped back versions of some of the band's most beloved material including the confessional "Mind Over Matter" and bewitching "Apartment." The EP kicks off with the previously-unreleased original track "Bitter Fruit," a new acoustic-flavored gem that looks at the painful end of a relationship and the hope for a better future. Other standouts on the EP include the heartfelt "Amerika" and the introspective "Heat of the Summer." In addition to top-tier singer Sameer Gadhia, Young the Giant features Jacob Tilley (guitar), Eric Cannata (guitar), Francois Comtois (drums) and Payam Doostzadeh (bass). Young the Giant will headline in Costa Mesa, CA tonight, Sept. 12 as part of their current In The Open Tour, an intimate concert experience performed in beautiful spaces and venues around the country; opening the show will be Cassandra Coleman (debut album produced by Jack Antonoff). Information: youngthegiant.com.

Artist: The Turtles
Title: All the Singles (Manifesto Records)
You might like if you enjoy: The Turtles, the Hollies, the Kinks
Tell me more: With the tragic passing of Turtles lead vocalist/guitarist Mark Volman widely reported on Sept. 5, now is the time to revisit the band's wonderful legacy. Spanning a shimmering cover of Bob Dylan's "It Ain't Me Babe" released in June 1965 to the sweeping baroque pop nugget "Me About You" released in late 1970, the Turtles' enduring parade of great songs is celebrated across the glorious All the Singles (released in 2016). The two-disc, 48-track collection allows plenty of time to explore the Los Angeles-spawned group's radio hits as well as more experimental material that draws comparisons with the Kinks and the Byrds. With Howard Kaylan and Volman's artful and wonderful harmony vocals leading the way, the material ranges from folk-rock (the Warren Zevon-penned "Like the Seasons"), garage rock ("Almost There," "Outside Chance"), power-pop ("She'd Rather Be With Me," "Elenore"), sunshine pop ("So Goes Love," "On a Summer's Day"), psychedelic ("Sound Asleep") and even country ("Who Would Ever Think That I Would Marry Margaret"). The Turtles' 1967 number 1 hit "Happy Together" remains one of that decade's most enticing songs and has never sounded better thanks to the remastering from Bill Inglot and Dave Schultz showcased across this must-have collection. Information: manifesto.com.

Robert Kinsler

Walter Trout presents Lyric Video for Title Track "Sign Of The Times" / Expands U.S. Tour Itinerary

Check out the great new video for Walter Trout's fiery advance track "Sign Of The Times" and get news on his forthcoming album too...Robert Kinsler

Walter Trout at The Coach House on Feb. 28, 2020.
Photo: Bob Steshetz

 

Today, Walter Trout has presented a lyric video for the title track from his forthcoming album SIGN OF THE TIMES. To view, click here: https://youtu.be/aMXqQvgfxMc 

 

Additionally, Walter has expanded the U.S. itinerary of this year’s Fall tour. The updated itinerary is:

9/03     Phoenix, AZ                                                                MIM

9/05     Las Vegas, NV                                                            Big Blues Bender

9/06     Salt Lake City, UT                                                      The State Room

9/07     Boise, ID                                                                     Treefort Music Hall

9/09     Seattle, WA                                                                 Jazz Alley

9/10     Seattle, WA                                                                 Jazz Alley

9/11     Portland, OR                                                               Aladdin Theater

9/12     Victoria, CAN                                                             Wicket Hall

9/16     Duluth, MN                                                                The West Theatre

9/17     Minneapolis, MN                                                        Dakota

9/18     Evanston, IL                                                               SPACE

9/19     Westland, MI                                                              The Token Lounge

9/20     Cleveland, OH                                                                        Beachland Ballroom & Tavern

9/21     Cincinnati, OH                                                            The Ludlow Garage

9/22     Nashville, TN                                                             City Winery

9/24     New Orleans, LA                                                        The Jazz Market

9/25     New Orleans, LA                                                        The Jazz Market

9/27     Dallas, TX                                                                   The Kessler Theater

9/28     Austin, TX                                                                  The 04 Center

9/30     Fayetteville, AR                                                          George’s Majestic Lounge

10/01   Wichita, KS                                                                WAVE

10/02   Kansas City, MO                                                        Knuckleheads

 

 

ABOUT SIGN OF THE TIMES:

Great artists take the pulse of their times and Walter Trout holds a mirror up to society’s anger and angst on Sign Of The Times, which will be released on September 5 via Provogue. He has also revealed his blistering new single “Artificial.” You can watch the video HERE.

 

In his half-century as a street-level social observer and scaldingly honest songwriter, blues-rock’s resilient icon Walter Trout has never told his fans what to think, how to feel, or where to stand politically. But in an era when his home nation – and the wider world – is ripping at the seams over the battlelines of modern life, the iconic U.S. bluesman’s hard-rocking new album, Sign Of The Times, is a primal scream and pressure valve for all of us. “I wanted to reflect upon what’s going on in the world,” explains the 74-year-old. “For me, writing these songs is therapy. They’re not just about what’s happening out there, but how it affects you in your head. Sign Of The Times just became the obvious title…”

 

The album explodes to life with the first single and opening song, “Artificial”: a scornful, satirical, harmonica-spiced rebuke of the fake world we risk creating. “We got artificial photos, artificial music, you could go on and on,” considers the bluesman. “I’m freaked out by AI. I read articles about how it’s gonna do all these wonderful things in the medical world. Then I hear Bill Gates say that eighty percent of jobs are gonna disappear. What happens then?”

 

It feels like the amps have barely cooled from 2024’s Broken, which debuted in Billboard at #1. But the era-chronicling songs from Sign Of The Times wouldn’t wait, these urgent riffs flying off the guitarist’s fingers, assisted once again by Marie, Walter’s wife, manager and co-writer, who penned the lyrics for some of the tracks. “This album flowed pretty easily,” he reflects of the writing process. “I had so many song ideas and pages of lyrics from Marie. We could have kept going and made a triple album.”

 

With ten new songs written and arranged, Trout was ready to call up his studio band – longtime drummer Michael Leasure, bassist John Avila and keys man Teddy ‘Zig Zag’ Andreadis – for the recording sessions at Strawhorse Studios in Los Angeles. Immediately, the tinderbox subject matter sparked one of the toughest-sounding records in his catalogue. Self-producing, and having the material mixed by sonic genius, J.J. Blair, added yet another bit of edge to the sound. “Let me put it this way, I really felt like rocking on this album. We had heavy things to talk about, and we went for it musically too.”  

 

The recent death of British blues godfather John Mayall has naturally brought Trout’s mid-’80s tenure with the Bluesbreakers into sharp focus. “His influence on my life, I can’t overstate,” reflects the guitarist. As a man who has always been open about his past agonies, pain is never far away. “’Hurt No More’ is my recovery song, with cutting yourself representing killing yourself with drugs and booze,” he says of the dust-blown rocker. 

 

With its dancing guitar lick and undeniable chorus, “I Remember” is also a moment of respite from the album’s stormier subject matter. “That song is a longing for when life was simpler,” he explains. “Like, when I was 20 and starting out. Or when Marie and I had just got together, and we had no money and were pawning guitars, but we were madly in love and the future was ahead of us.”

 

The combustible title track is one of the most experimental cuts in Trout’s half-century studio output, “I wanted it to be dissonant. Dissonance is a sign of the times. Marie came to me with a set of lyrics, and I realized it fit the song perfectly,” he says. Whilst “No Strings Attached” skewers hypocrisy, bigotry, and hatred, the album is no one-note diatribe. 

 

For Trout – who survived an eleventh-hour liver transplant in 2014 – his second chance at life still holds joy, beauty and pain. “’Mona Lisa Smile’ came to me in a dream,” he says of the gorgeous, bucolic acoustic strum decorated by accordion, mandolin and violin from famed string arranger Stevie Blacke (Snoop Dog, Joe Cocker, Alice in Chains). “Y’know, Marie is strong and potent – but there’s another side to her which makes me love her even more. That song is about when I see her vulnerability, or her moments of self-doubt and sadness.”

 

Even by Trout’s standards, Sign Of The Times is a record that puts you through the emotional wringer. But as long as there’s poignant and relevant music, we have a fighting chance. The complete track listing features “Artificial,” “Blood On My Pillow,” “Sign Of The Times,” “Mona Lisa Smile,” “Hurt No More,” “No Strings Attached,” “I Remember,” “Hightech Woman,” “Too Bad,” “Struggle To Believe.”

 

As a lifelong road warrior, Trout will be taking the Sign Of The Times material to global audiences throughout 2025. And for those glorious two hours of playing to audiences, political divides and culture wars will crumble as a crowd with little else in common melts into a communion of souls. “I could be on social media, writing very explicit posts,” he considers. “But I don’t want to contribute to the division. When I’m up onstage playing a minor-key blues, and I look down at the front row and there’s a burly biker – and he’s crying – at that moment, I’m hitting him in our common humanity, and it doesn’t matter who he voted for. At that moment, we are all in this together…”

 

www.waltertrout.com/

facebook.com/waltertroutband

youtube.com/@TheWaltertrout

instagram.com/walter_trout/

x.com/waltertrout

Walter Trout To Release SIGN OF THE TIMES on September 5 - Official Music Video for "Artificial" Out Today

Walter Trout is back with a fantastic new song; love the vocals, blues harp and guitar work too...Robert Kinsler

 

BLUES ROCK RESILIENT ICON WALTER TROUT TO RELEASE HIS NEW STUDIO ALBUM TITLED "SIGN OF THE TIMES" ON SEPTEMBER 5, 2025

Watch The Video for “Artificial” HERE

 

Walter Trout at The Coach House in San Juan Capistrano, CA
on Feb. 28, 2020. / Photo: Bob Steshetz

Great artists take the pulse of their times and Walter Trout holds a mirror up to society’s anger and angst on Sign Of The Times, which will be released on September 5 via Provogue. He has also revealed his blistering new single “Artificial.” You can watch the video HERE.

 

In his half-century as a street-level social observer and scaldingly honest songwriter, blues-rock’s resilient icon Walter Trout has never told his fans what to think, how to feel, or where to stand politically. But in an era when his home nation – and the wider world – is ripping at the seams over the battlelines of modern life, the iconic U.S. bluesman’s hard-rocking new album, Sign Of The Times, is a primal scream and pressure valve for all of us. “I wanted to reflect upon what’s going on in the world,” explains the 74-year-old. “For me, writing these songs is therapy. They’re not just about what’s happening out there, but how it affects you in your head. Sign Of The Times just became the obvious title…”

 

The album explodes to life with the first single and opening song, “Artificial”: a scornful, satirical, harmonica-spiced rebuke of the fake world we risk creating. “We got artificial photos, artificial music, you could go on and on,” considers the bluesman. “I’m freaked out by AI. I read articles about how it’s gonna do all these wonderful things in the medical world. Then I hear Bill Gates say that eighty percent of jobs are gonna disappear. What happens then?”

 

It feels like the amps have barely cooled from 2024’s Broken, which debuted in Billboard at #1. But the era-chronicling songs from Sign Of The Times wouldn’t wait, these urgent riffs flying off the guitarist’s fingers, assisted once again by Marie, Walter’s wife, manager and co-writer, who penned the lyrics for some of the tracks. “This album flowed pretty easily,” he reflects of the writing process. “I had so many song ideas and pages of lyrics from Marie. We could have kept going and made a triple album.”

 

With ten new songs written and arranged, Trout was ready to call up his studio band – longtime drummer Michael Leasure, bassist John Avila and keys man Teddy ‘Zig Zag’ Andreadis – for the recording sessions at Strawhorse Studios in Los Angeles. Immediately, the tinderbox subject matter sparked one of the toughest-sounding records in his catalogue. Self-producing, and having the material mixed by sonic genius, J.J. Blair, added yet another bit of edge to the sound. “Let me put it this way, I really felt like rocking on this album. We had heavy things to talk about, and we went for it musically too.”  

 

The recent death of British blues godfather John Mayall has naturally brought Trout’s mid-’80s tenure with the Bluesbreakers into sharp focus. “His influence on my life, I can’t overstate,” reflects the guitarist. As a man who has always been open about his past agonies, pain is never far away. “’Hurt No More’ is my recovery song, with cutting yourself representing killing yourself with drugs and booze,” he says of the dust-blown rocker. 

 

With its dancing guitar lick and undeniable chorus, “I Remember” is also a moment of respite from the album’s stormier subject matter. “That song is a longing for when life was simpler,” he explains. “Like, when I was 20 and starting out. Or when Marie and I had just got together, and we had no money and were pawning guitars, but we were madly in love and the future was ahead of us.”

 

The combustible title track is one of the most experimental cuts in Trout’s half-century studio output, “I wanted it to be dissonant. Dissonance is a sign of the times. Marie came to me with a set of lyrics, and I realized it fit the song perfectly,” he says. Whilst “No Strings Attached” skewers hypocrisy, bigotry, and hatred, the album is no one-note diatribe. 

 

For Trout – who survived an eleventh-hour liver transplant in 2014 – his second chance at life still holds joy, beauty and pain. “’Mona Lisa Smile’ came to me in a dream,” he says of the gorgeous, bucolic acoustic strum decorated by accordion, mandolin and violin from famed string arranger Stevie Blacke (Snoop Dog, Joe Cocker, Alice in Chains). “Y’know, Marie is strong and potent – but there’s another side to her which makes me love her even more. That song is about when I see her vulnerability, or her moments of self-doubt and sadness.”

 

Even by Trout’s standards, Sign Of The Times is a record that puts you through the emotional wringer. But as long as there’s poignant and relevant music, we have a fighting chance. The complete track listing features “Artificial,” “Blood On My Pillow,” “Sign Of The Times,” “Mona Lisa Smile,” “Hurt No More,” “No Strings Attached,” “I Remember,” “Hightech Woman,” “Too Bad,” “Struggle To Believe.”

 

As a lifelong road warrior, Trout will be taking the Sign Of The Times material to global audiences throughout 2025. And for those glorious two hours of playing to audiences, political divides and culture wars will crumble as a crowd with little else in common melts into a communion of souls. “I could be on social media, writing very explicit posts,” he considers. “But I don’t want to contribute to the division. When I’m up onstage playing a minor-key blues, and I look down at the front row and there’s a burly biker – and he’s crying – at that moment, I’m hitting him in our common humanity, and it doesn’t matter who he voted for. At that moment, we are all in this together…”

 

Confirmed appearances include:

NORTH AMERICAN ACTIVITY:

6/12     San Luis Obispo, CA                                                  Fremont Theatre

6/13     Monterey, CA                                                             Golden State Theatre

6/14     Napa, CA                                                                    Uptown Theatre

6/15     San Jose, CA                                                               Fountain Blues and Brews Festival

 

EUROPEAN APPEARANCES:

7/17     Tuttlingen, DE                                                                        Honberg Sommer

7/18     München, DE                                                              Backstage

7/19     Hanover, DE                                                               Bluesgarage

7/20     Leer (Ostfriesland), DE                                              Zollhaus Gastro

7/22     Aakirkeby, DK                                                           Ekkodalshuset & Café Genlyd

7/25     Narcao, IT                                                                   Narcao Blues Festival 2025

7/27     Piacenza, IT                                                                Dal Mississippi Al Po

8/01     Notodden, NO                                                             Notodden Bluesfestival 2025

8/15     Leipzig, DE                                                                Parkbühne (Clara Zetkin Park)

8/17     Struer, DK                                                                  Gimsinghoved Festival 2025

 

NORTH AMERICAN ACTIVITY:

9/03     Phoenix, AZ                                                                MIM

9/05     Las Vegas, NV                                                            Big Blues Bender

9/06     Salt Lake City, UT                                                      The State Room

9/07     Boise, ID                                                                     Treefort Music Hall

9/09     Seattle, WA                                                                Jazz Alley

9/10     Seattle, WA                                                                Jazz Alley

9/11     Portland, OR                                                               Aladdin Theater

9/12     Victoria, CAN                                                            Wicket Hall

9/18     Evanston, IL                                                               SPACE

9/20     Cleveland, OH                                                                        Beachland Ballroom & Tavern

9/21     Cincinnati, OH                                                            The Ludlow Garage

9/24     New Orleans, LA                                                        The Jazz Market

9/25     New Orleans, LA                                                        The Jazz Market

 

EUROPEAN APPEARANCES:

10/25   Svalbard, NO                                                              Dark Season Blues Festival

10/28   Odense, DK                                                                Musikhuset

10/29   Aarhus, DK                                                                 Train

10/30   Fredericia, DK                                                                        Eksercerhuset

10/31   Viborg, DK                                                                 Vesterbrogade 10

11/01   Copenhagen, DK                                                        Amager Bio

11/04   Gothenburg, SE                                                          Pustervik

11/06   Uppsala, SE                                                                Katalin And All That Jazz

11/09   Helsinki, FI                                                                 House of Culture

11/12   Hamburg, DE                                                              Markthalle

11/13   Dresden, DE                                                               Tante Ju

11/14   Berlin, DE                                                                   Kesselhaus

11/18   Zurich, CH                                                                  Kaufleuten

11/19   Stuttgart, DE                                                               Im Wizemann

11/20   Heidelberg, DE                                                           Halle02

11/22   Herenthout, BE                                                           Lux Herenthout

11/25   Utrecht, NL                                                                 TivoliVredenburg

11/26   Köln, DE                                                                     Kantine

11/27   Alkmaar, NL                                                               Victoriepark

11/28   Zoetermeer, NL                                                          Poppodium Boerderij

11/29   Hengelo, NL                                                               Metropool Hengelo

11/30   Bochum, DE                                                               Zeche Bochum

 

 

www.waltertrout.com/

facebook.com/waltertroutband

youtube.com/@TheWaltertrout

instagram.com/walter_trout/

x.com/waltertrout