Even ‘Road’ a blast with Gales

Liverpool plans extravaganza for ‘Sgt Pepper’ at 50

EBy Pablo Gorondi

“Middle of the Road” (Provogue) There’s nothing bland about “Middle of the Road,” former teenage prodigy Eric Gales’ 15th studio album ripe with funky blues-rock and blazing guitars.

Lyrically rooted in Gales’ sobering up, the disc features guest spots by Gary Clark Jr. and older brother Eugene; a songwriting collaboration with Lauryn Hill; and a Freddie King cover.

Gales, whose playing of a righthanded guitar upside down and lefthanded has to be seen to be fully appreciated, also performs bass duties, joined by his wife, LaDonna Gales, on soulful backing vocals.

Opener “Good Time” is secular gospel with a magnetic guitar riff, pure energy and passion. His sobriety and new outlook on life are present already in track two, “Change In Me (The Rebirth),” where Gales makes his mea culpa clear — “I got tired of doin’ bad, now I’m doin’ good.”

Clark Jr. joins Gales on “Boogie Man,” a song recorded by King, and Gales said Hill’s help was crucial with “Been So Long,” another of the songs with a positive mindset.

Gales takes Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, a 16-year-old guitarist from Mississippi, under his wings on “Help Yourself,” while his own erstwhile mentor, older brother Eugene Gales, wrote and plays guitar on “Repetition.”

Instrumental “Swamp” ends the album, a wild guitar tour-de-force that Gales describes as a “jam band, church-oriented sort of song.” Even if taken as an expression of diversity in worship, it will sound just as formidable to non-believers.

It was 50 years ago today — almost — that Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play.

The English city of Liverpool is getting set to celebrate the half-centenary of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” one of the most influential albums by local heroes The Beatles.

The city announced Wednesday that it has commissioned 13 artists to create works based on the album’s 13 tracks. They include choreographer Mark Morris’ dance tribute to the title song, cabaret artist Meow Meow’s “outlandish procession” based on “Lovely Rita” and a mural by US artist Judy

officials for more than five decades.

Breslin, who died Sunday at age 88, was remembered as a peerless prose stylist whether he wrote about sports stars, gangsters or a bit player in a national tragedy.

Michael Daly, the Daily Beast correspondent who like Breslin was a longtime Chicago inspired by “Fixing a Hole.”

There will also be a singalong by 64 choirs of the jaunty “When I’m SixtyFour.”

Release

The works will have their world premieres at venues across Liverpool between May 25 and June 16. On June 1 — the anniversary of the album’s release — the city will host a fireworks extravaganza by French pyrotechnic artist Christophe Berthonneau.

By the second half of the 1960s, The Beatles had tired of touring. They played their last live concert in August 1966 and devoted their energies and creativity to the studio. “Sgt. Pepper” was recorded at London’s Abbey Road studios over five month in late 1966 and early 1967, and released on June 1, 1967.

Incorporating technological innovation and diverse musical influences — including Indian classical, English music hall and trippy psychedelia — it topped the charts in Britain and the US and was instantly hailed as a rock ‘n’ roll landmark.

“’Sgt. Pepper’ pushed creative boundaries and we want to do exactly the same,” said Liverpool Mayor Joe Anderson. “This is a festival which brings high-end art into the mainstream and gives it a Liverpool twist which is thought-provoking, sometimes cheeky and always entertaining.”

The Eurovision song contest, nominally an apolitical festival of pop music confections and cheerfully tacky costumes, erupted into a political dispute Wednesday after Ukraine banned Russia’s contestant from entering the country.

Yulia Samoylova, who was to represent Russia in the May 11-13 contest in the Ukrainian capital Kiev, was banned by Ukraine’s security service because she had toured in Crimea after Russia’s 2014 annexation of the peninsula from Ukraine.

Ukrainian law allows the banning of anyone who enters Crimea by routes other than over the de-facto border with the Ukrainian mainland. Most Russians go to Crimea by ferry or air.

Ukrainian Security Service spokeswoman Olena Gitlanska said on her Facebook page that the service has banned Samoylova from the country for three years “on the basis of information received about her violation of

columnist at the Daily News, held up a New York City press pass and said, “Nobody ever brought more honor to this pass than he did.”

Gov. Andrew Cuomo recalled Breslin’s long friendship with Cuomo’s late father, former gov Mario Cuomo, dating to 1969 Ukrainian law.”

The reaction from Moscow was swift and furious.

“This is yet another openly cynical and inhuman act by the authorities in Kiev,” Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin told the state news agency Tass.

“Kiev, apparently, was seriously frightened by a fragile girl,” a Foreign Ministry statement said, apparently referring to the 27-year-old being wheelchair-bound.

Tensions between Moscow and Kiev have been high since the 2014 annexation of Crimea and the beginning that year of a Russia-backed separatist insurgency in east Ukraine that has killed nearly 10,000 people.

The Samoylova ban adds fuel to the fire partly because of her disability; she has used a wheelchair since childhood.

“The UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities should discuss this as it is a violation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities,” Diana Gurtskaya, a blind singer who represented Georgia at Eurovision in 2008, was quoted as saying by Tass.

The European Broadcasting Union, which organizes Eurovision, said in a statement that it would negotiate with Ukraine on Samoylova’s entry. “We are deeply disappointed in this decision as we feel it goes against both the spirit of the contest, and the notion of inclusivity that lies at the heart of its values,” the statement said.

Eurovision rules proscribe political song lyrics, but the annual contest can carry a strong political message. In 2005, when the finals were held in Kiev, Ukraine’s entry performed a song that had become the unofficial anthem of the Orange Revolution protests that overturned a fraudulent 2004 presidential election.

Ukraine won the right to host this year’s final when Crimean Tatar singer Jamala won last year’s contest with a song about her ancestors’ suffering during the deportations of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin. Many Russians bristled at the song, which they saw as a tacit criticism of Crimea’s annexation.

In 2009, the EBU rejected Georgia’s entry, a disco-flavored song called “We Don’t Wanna Put In,” a barely veiled criticism of Russian leader Vladimir Putin in the wake of the previous year’s short war between Georgia and Russia. (AP)

in Queens. He said that if his father were still alive, “He would say Jimmy was an artist and his pen was to paper what Picasso’s brush was to canvas.”

Cuomo said that as an 11-year-old boy, he found Breslin “just plain scary,” echoing remarks by other speakers who described the gruff demeanor that belied Breslin’s deep love for his family. (AP)

CHICAGO:

Grammy-winning artist Chance the Rapper is planning a return to his hometown of Chicago this summer to headline the Lollapalooza music festival.

Other headliners announced Wednesday morning on Lollapalooza’s website include The Killers, Lorde, Arcade Fire, Muse and blink-182. The four-day festival will run Aug. 3-6 in Chicago’s lakefront Grant Park.

Lollapalooza called Chance the Rapper’s headlining act a “hero’s homecoming.” He’ll top the festival’s Saturday lineup. Muse and Lorde will play Thursday. The Killers will headline Friday and Arcade Fire will close the festival on Sunday. Lollapalooza celebrated its 25th anniversary last year when it expanded from three to four days. It’s been held in Chicago since 2005.

The more than 170-act lineup also includes main-stay artists like Spoon, Ryan Adams, Foster the People and Wiz Khalifa. (AP)