Widespread Panic is:

• John Bell guitars, vocals
• John “JoJo” Hermann keyboards, vocals
• Jimmy Herring guitars
• Todd Nance drums, vocals
• Domingo S. Ortiz percussion, vocals
• Dave Schools bass, vocals

27 years ago this week, a singer everyone called J.B., a bass-playing future journalism school dropout and a guitarist nicknamed Panic for his bouts with anxiety went looking for a drummer for their next gig.

After striking out with the usual suspects around Athens, Georgia, the three friends made an eleventh-hour call to a high-school band mate of the guitar player living in Atlanta, thinking he might still have his kit handy.

A few days later, Todd Nance rolled up to the house at 320 King Avenue shared by John Bell, Michael Houser and David Schools in an old, beat-up white Maverick, his drums crammed into the back. After a night of rehearsing, the new quartet hopped onstage together for the first time the next day at the old Mad Hatter Ballroom to play a short set that opened with the Buffalo Springfield classic “For What It’s Worth.” Widespread Panic was born.

Peter Frampton- Hummingbird in a Box, the latest work from legendary musician Peter Frampton, will be released June 24 2014 via RED Distribution. The new music was inspired by the Cincinnati Ballet, featuring seven original guitar pieces in Frampton’s virtuosic stylings. Frampton composed all songs on the mini-album along with Gordon Kennedy, who also co-produced the recording. The two previously teamed up for Fingerprints, which garnered them both a Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Album.

The music debuted in April 2013 at Cincinnati’s Aronoff Center for the Arts. Two of the Cincinatti Ballet’s spring production’s segments were choreographed to existing Frampton music—with Frampton and his band performing live—while a third section featured the new composition by Frampton and Kennedy. Of the project Frampton notes, “Writing for dance was a wonderfully freeing experience. There were no boundaries. We were able to push the composing envelope,” and Kennedy furthers, “Songwriters and musicians create music to move people. This was beautiful, graceful, and instantly gratifying!”

Following a massive year of touring, including 2013’s inaugural Frampton’s Guitar Circus, Peter Frampton is back on the road. This time Frampton will set out on a three-part catch-all tour including select solo dates, a co-headlining run with Grammy-winning American rock legends The Doobie Brothers and the return of Frampton’s Guitar Circus Kicking off in August, Frampton’s Guitar Circus will feature special performances with friend and celebrated guitarist Buddy Guy as well as other surprise guests. Last year’s Guitar Circus’ company included B.B. King, Robert Cray, Sonny Landreth, Steve Cropper, Dean DeLeo (Stone Temple Pilots), Don Felder (formerly of The Eagles), Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Vince Gill, Roger McGuinn (founder/lead guitarist of the BYRDS) and many more.

Frampton has kept quite busy over the past year in addition to touring. He was recently inducted in the Musicians Hall of Fame, performed on-stage at the Grammy’s with Ringo Starr and also played an integral part in the 50th anniversary celebration of the Beatles’ arrival in the U.S. by performing on CBS’ “The Night That Changed America: A GRAMMY Salute to The Beatles.” Frampton also produced Humble Pie’s Rockin’ The Fillmore deluxe compilation with original member Jerry Shirley (available now via Omnivore Recordings). Moreover, he worked with the Cincinnati Ballet last spring providing and composing new music for their April production.

Grammy winner Peter Frampton remains one of the most celebrated artists and guitarists in rock history. At 16, he was lead singer and guitarist for British band the Herd. At 18, he co-founded one of the first super groups, seminal rock act Humble Pie. His session work includes collaborations with such legendary artists as George Harrison, Harry Nilsson, David Bowie, Jerry Lee Lewis, Ringo Starr, John Entwistle and many others. His fifth solo album, the electrifying Frampton Comes Alive!, is one of the top-selling live records of all time.

CHEAP TRICK may be one of the most covered bands of all time. Since the 70s they’ve been blending elements of pop, punk and even metal in a way that is instantly catchy and recognizable. With timeless classics such as “I Want You to Want Me,” “Surrender,” and “The Flame,” CHEAP TRICK are a musical institution. Anyone familiar with Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report will note that CHEAP TRICK wrote and performed the theme song.

With more than 5,000 performances, 20 million records sold, 29 movie soundtracks and 40 gold and platinum recording awards, the band was honored in October 2007 by the Chicago Chapter of NARAS (National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences) for their contributions to the music industry.  CHEAP TRICK were featured in the John Varvatos Spring 2008 ad campaign.

The band has most recently performed their Dream Police album in its entirety along with an orchestra in select cities across the US. This innovative show also includes many other songs from the band’s extensive catalog, garnering them critical acclaim after performances in venues such as the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles.

Their most current release, The Latest, (released on CD, vinyl and 8-track) has garnered glowing reviews worldwide and continues Cheap Trick’s reign as power-pop progenitors as they continue their legacy of over 35 years in the music industry.

Call him the Gangster of Love. Call him Maurice. You can even call him the The Joker or Space Cowboy. Everybody knows that Steve Miller speaks the pompatus of love.

The first ever co-headlining summer tour with Journey and special guest Tower Of Power kicked off in San Diego last May touting its now legendary “San Francisco Fest” theme. USA Today called it “a journey back to the future” and “for proof that playing rock and roll will keep you young look no farther than Steve Miller and Neal Schon”.

Moving into 2015, with the success of last years tour, more co-headlining shows with Journey and Tower of Power are scheduled to expand on the celebration of their 60’s 70’s and 80’s heritage.

The 2015 Summer Steve Miller Band solo tour kicks off on May 15th.

Miller released a live version of “The Joker” album in 2014 to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the original number one studio album.

A year earlier, the announcement of the 2013 touring season by the Steve Miller Band followed four of the most busy, productive years in the long, illustrious career of Steve Miller, an artist at the peak of his powers, in demand around the world, whether returning for his second tour of Europe in two years last year or headed off on his New Zealand Australia tour in spring 2013.

Miller’s broad appeal crosses boundaries, from headlining the 2011 opening of the new $2.5 million TV home of “Austin City Limits” to collaborating with country superstar Kenny Chesney on the Country Music Television special, “Crossroads.”

Melissa Etheridge – Academy Award and GRAMMY winning artist, Melissa Etheridge, will take the stage to perform songs from her new album, This is M.E., as well as some of her greatest hits like “Come to My Window”, “I’m The Only One” and “I Want To Come Over”.  Known for her iconic voice, profound lyrics and riveting stage presence; Melissa will share personal stories about her remarkable journey through life and the inspiration behind some of her most beloved songs.

Blondie – For the last four decades, Blondie has become and still remains a true national treasure; a punk band from New York City whose influence both shaped and continues to inform the worlds of music, fashion and art. Debbie Harry and Chris Stein have kept their ears to the ground, creating trends, never following them. They helped push punk onto the dance floor at the dawn of the new wave era and introduced a wider audience to hip-hop sounds, all the while building a catalog of enduring pop hits along the way.

Among the tracks they revisit on their greatest hits disc, Blondie 4(0) Ever are the groundbreaking rock-disco hybrid “Heart of Glass,” the equally influential hip-hop fantasia “Rapture,” the stalker-love song “One Way Or Another” and the lilting calypso “The Tide Is High,” all part of a catalog that has generated sales of more than 40 million records worldwide and led to the group’s 2006 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame.

Purple Prose
Deep Purple has surrendered to the ‘Rapture’; now it’s your turn
By Jeff Miers

The first time I heard Deep Purple – or perhaps felt Deep Purple is a better way to describe the experience – it was the mid-70s. I was 8, and Ritchie Blackmore’s sinewy, sinister riffing on the “Made In Japan” version of “Child In Time,” coupled with Ian Gillan’s dramatic, gorgeous howling, Jon Lord’s ominous neo-classical Hammond organ, and the dynamic interplay of the Roger Glover-Ian Paice rhythm section, tore the top of my head off.

It was unlike anything else I’d ever heard. And it quite literally changed my life. 30 years later, I’m still hearing Deep Purple for the first time.

“Rapture of the Deep” is the spot-on moniker for the disc you hold in your hands, and I’ll stand on any classic rock radio programmer’s desk in my cowboy boots and scream it loud, proud and Gillan-esque; “This is the best Deep Purple album there is, dammit! Forget ‘Machine Head’ – that was then; this is most decidedly now!”

This is the fourth record created by the revamped and rejuvenated Purple following the umpteenth departure of the mercurial Mr. Blackmore. The guitarist – one of the most significant in British rock history – had ceased to be a contributing force and was in fact draining Purple of its collective spirit when his ship finally set sail for good, a bit over a decade back.

Blackmore’s exit is, in a sense, where our story begins, for the surviving band members left to pick up the pieces in his violent wake – Gillan, Glover, Lord, Paice – agreed unanimously on only one six-stringer, the soon to be knighted Steve Morse. Hardly scraping the dregs from the bottom of the barrel with that choice, boys.-

Morse accepted, writing commenced for what would become “Purpendicular,” on-stage work-outs were seized upon with relish, and the band breathed the heady air of rebirth. When “Purpendicular” was delivered, it astonished. Rather than going softly into the long goodnight of “classic rock” middle-age, Deep Purple had reinvented itself. It took no more than a cursory listen to the likes of “Ted the Mechanic,” “Loosen My Strings” and “Sometimes I Feel Like Screaming” to drive this point straight into the skull.

Morse brought a funkiness, a depth as guitarist and writer, an unparalleled fluidity as a soloist, a startling aptitude as foil to Lord, and an arsenal of influences – country, folk, jazz, what they’ve sadly labeled “fusion,” and an inherent understanding of blues-based riffs – that meshed effortlessly with the immaculate Glover-Paice sense of swing and Gillan’s seeming capacity to go anywhere at any time, full-throated and eyes ablaze.

“Purpendicular” was a celebration of both remembrance and reinvention. It at once acknowledged Purple’s estimable history and tradition, and a musical wanderlust not content to repeat the past. As such, it laid the template for a new Purple. And it all, it seems, was paving the way for the mighty metamorphosis that is “Rapture of the Deep.”

With Morse, Purple toured the world to accolades from the cognoscente. “Abandon” cemented the band’s on-stage prowess on record, and reminded us that Purple was, yes indeed, the heaviest of heavy rock bands. “Bananas,” the first record following Lord’s retirement from touring and his replacement by exquisite ivory-tinkler Don Airey, brought elements of pop to the table, grafted on some of “Purpendicular’s” ambition, and encapsulated the ensemble-riff power of “Abandon.” Tours behind both of these albums revealed this still-young band’s continued growth as a performing unit. By the end of the “Bananas” marathon, Airey had marked his apotheosis, from “replacement” to fully-integrated band-member.

“Rapture of the Deep” marks yet another new beginning, however. And it, more than any other record this side of “Perfect Strangers” and “Purpendicular,” offers a snapshot of the band transitioning into bold, uncharted territory. It’s as if all the pieces fit, not for the first time, of course, but in a manner that reveals a more pure portrait of just what this band is capable of. The whole transcends the sum of its parts, which is fitting for a record that seems to be, in a very real sense, about transcendence.

“As we all know, it’s hard to breathe/When something spiritual has taken place/We don’t know how, we don’t know why/We’ve been transported to a state of grace,” sings Gillan during the album’s title track, and this verse can be seen as indicative of the over-arching ethos behind “Rapture of the Deep.” Lyrically, it speaks of a spirit not content with the status quo in terms of interpersonal, social and political relationships, and this irreverent yearning is matched by the searching nature of the music itself, which also refuses to be ordinary.

The album opens with “Money Talks,” a hook-heavy rocker with several twists in its tale, most notably Gillan’s harmony vocals during the chorus, his uber-hip sing-speak during the verses – recalling both “Fireball’s” “No One Came” and his own “No Laughing In Heaven” – and the manner in which the tune flirts with an Eastern modality before erupting into a searing Morse solo. “Wrong Man” slaps the listener in the face straight out of the gate with a strutting riff that can’t miss, as Glover and Paice exploit the pocket for all it’s worth, and Gillan kicks against the pricks in the voice of a character whose greatest crime seems to be having been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Both of these – like their siblings on “Rapture,” elegant and refined rockers steeped in blues and chomping at the bit, with names like “Back To Back,” “Girls Like That” and the hit single in waiting “Don’t Let Go” – are brilliant Purple tunes, estuaries from a river that never seems to run too dry. Ah, but the surprises… they’re many and varied here, and they elevate “Rapture” toward the rapturous upper echelons of the Purple canon.

“Before Time Began” takes the form of a threatening march, an abscess dying to burst. Paice offers a dark subterranean shuffle, as the band lays down a series of melancholic chords, and Gillan, in a voice drenched in pathos, bemoans a world in which “Every day of my life I discover/Someone murdering my sisters and brothers/In the name of some god or another.” No mere political polemic, this, however; Gillan’s touch is too light, and he’s a master of “leaving things out,” so that his lyric is suggestive, rather than mere vitriol. “All of those bad ideas became the law/And we’ve forgotten what we’re looking for.” Indeed.

And again, the Purple engine room is in full overdrive mode here, as an expansive call-and-response between Morse and Airey – who has made replacing Lord look easy, when we all know it is in fact far from it; Airey has made his mark on Purple, to be sure, by respecting what came before him and having the fortitude and chops to take it all somewhere new and exciting – leaves one feeling breathless and vulnerable. This is “progressive rock” in the most positive sense of that much-maligned term.

The centerpiece of “Rapture” also happens to be one of the finest tunes in the band’s history – no small claim, that. “Clearly Quite Absurd” is clearly quite sublime; a piece with a melody that simply hurts to listen to, in the way that first love is painful because it’s ephemeral and fleeting. Thankfully, your disc player has a “repeat” button, so this is a love that will never abandon you.

Gillan sings of escaping the snares of the mundane and commonplace, the accepted reality which deadens us to the potential one above and beyond it. Again, harmony vocals – Beatle-esque ones, in this instance – help set the mood, and an ascending chord progression led by Morse spreads its arms heavenward, eventually settling into a circular pattern that becomes one of the more moving codas not just in Purple history, but, yep, in the history of heavy rock itself.

This is Deep Purple, 2005 version. Intense, fearless, full of fire, and wit, and passion. Marked by serious virtuosity, but never a slave to it. Still finding new meaning in a medium they all but single-handedly created. Grab ahold of this, and don’t let go.

Having sold over four million tickets in concerts that have taken place in 35 countries, The Australian Pink Floyd Show is rightfully hailed as one of the most in demand touring entities currently operating; The Times described them as “The Gold Standard”.  This act is so good they were even engaged by David Gilmour to perform at his 50th birthday celebration!

Creedence Clearwater Revisited – Stu Cook and Doug “Cosmo” may not have intended it, but their band Creedence Clearwater Revisited has taken on a startling life of its own. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame rhythm section (bass and drums respectively) from the legendary group Creedence Clearwater Revival launched the Creedence Clearwater Revisited project in 1995 to once again perform live Creedence Clearwater Revival hits – touchstones of a generation. Though the pair initially only planned to play private parties, Creedence Clearwater Revisited now performs up to 100 shows a year and released the album “Recollection.”

“We never really had any intention of playing for the public,” says Stu. “But a friend wanted to promote a couple of concerts. We got talked into it, but didn’t know how it would go over.”

Since then, the reaction to Creedence Clearwater Revisited’s concerts has been astounding, and driven in part by a generation of kids who, as Cosmo says, “weren’t even born when the music came out.” Likewise, the release of a double-live CD on Universal’s Hip-O Records label, which features passionate, authoritative version of 22 classic hits – was the result of public demand. “It was generated by requests of the people who came to the shows,” Stu acknowledges. “Over and over they would ask, ‘do you guys have a CD?'” Creedence Clearwater Revisited’s “Recollection” has proven so popular that in 2008 the RIAA certified it Platinum.

America – The year 2014 marks the 44th Anniversary of perennial classic-rock favorite, America. Founding members, Gerry Beckley and Dewey Bunnell (along with former band mate Dan Peek) met in high school in London in the late 1960s and quickly harmonized their way to the top of the charts on the strength of their signature song “A Horse With No Name”. America became a global household name and paved the way with an impressive string of hits following the success of their first #1 single.  Forty plus years later, these friends are still making music together, touring the world and thrilling audiences with their timeless sound.

America’s journey has found them exploring a wide variety of musical terrain.  Their best-known tunes, which also include “I Need You,” “Ventura Highway,” “Don’t Cross The River,” “Tin Man,” “Lonely People,” and “Sister Golden Hair” were cornerstones of 1970’s Top 40 and FM rock radio. Yet beyond their impressive catalog of hits, listeners would discover there was always much more to America than surface perceptions. The combination of Gerry Beckley’s melodic pop rock and Dewey Bunnell’s use of folk-jazz elements, slinky Latin-leaning rhythms and impressionistic lyric imagery contrasted well with Dan Peek’s more traditional country-rock leanings and highly personal lyrics.

The legacy began some 41 years ago in Jacksonville, Florida, and halted for a decade by the 1977 plane crash that killed three band members, including Ronnie Van Zant and Steve Gaines. Since then, the band tragically lost Allen Collins, Leon Wilkeson and Huey Thomasson, yet Lynyrd Skynyrd rocks on with original member Gary Rossington joined by Johnny Van Zant, Rickey Medlock, Mark “Sparky” Matejka, Michael Cartellone, Johnny Colt, Peter Keys, Dale Krantz Rossington and Carol Chase.

With a catalog of over 60 albums, sales beyond 30 million worldwide and their beloved classic American rock anthem “Sweet Home Alabama” having over two million downloaded ringtones, Rock & Roll Hall of Famers Lynyrd Skynyrd remains a cultural icon that appeals to all generations.