Brittany Howard and Ruby Amanfu Cover Rodriguez on 'I Wonder' - Song Premiere

Click to listen to Brittany Howard and Ruby Amanfu's 'I Wonder'

A breakthrough 2012 has given way to an even bigger year for both the Alabama Shakes and Rodriguez: the Shakes picked up three Grammy nominations for their debut album, Boys and Girls, and the documentary on Rodriguez, Searching for Sugar Man, won an Oscar. Now, Alabama Shakes' Brittany Howard has linked with singer-songwriter Ruby Amanfu and Jack White's Third Man Records for a rowdy cover of Rodriguez's "I Wonder." With cheerful piano tickles, rambling guitars and a beautiful back-and-forth between Howard and Amanfu, "I Wonder" rocks out with a toothy grin.

Alabama Shakes' Unlikely Triumph

The original version of "I Wonder" appeared on Rodriguez's 1970 debut album, Cold Fact. This version of "I Wonder" will be released by Third Man Records as a special seven-inch vinyl on March 12th and also features an acoustic version of "When My Man Comes Home," originally recorded by Memphis Minnie, on Side B.

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Brittany Howard and Ruby Amanfu Cover Rodriguez on 'I Wonder' - Song Premiere

Click to listen to Brittany Howard and Ruby Amanfu's 'I Wonder'

A breakthrough 2012 has given way to an even bigger year for both the Alabama Shakes and Rodriguez: the Shakes picked up three Grammy nominations for their debut album, Boys and Girls, and the documentary on Rodriguez, Searching for Sugar Man, won an Oscar. Now, Alabama Shakes' Brittany Howard has linked with singer-songwriter Ruby Amanfu and Jack White's Third Man Records for a rowdy cover of Rodriguez's "I Wonder." With cheerful piano tickles, rambling guitars and a beautiful back-and-forth between Howard and Amanfu, "I Wonder" rocks out with a toothy grin.

Alabama Shakes' Unlikely Triumph

The original version of "I Wonder" appeared on Rodriguez's 1970 debut album, Cold Fact. This version of "I Wonder" will be released by Third Man Records as a special seven-inch vinyl on March 12th and also features an acoustic version of "When My Man Comes Home," originally recorded by Memphis Minnie, on Side B.

To read the new issue of Rolling Stone online, plus the entire RS archive: Click Here

Electronics Review Center

Read more »

Howard Kaylan Storms the White House in 'Shell Shocked: My Life with the Turtles' - Exclusive Book Excerpt

Shell Shocked: My Life with the Turtles, Flo and Eddie, and Frank Zappa, etc.

The Turtles, a 1960s folk rock band, were only around for five years – but during that time, they landed a ton of hits on the charts, including "Happy Together," "She'd Rather Be With Me" and their Top 10 cover of Bob Dylan's "It Ain't Me, Babe." They also partied like maniacs and had enough wild adventures to fill many books.

Howard Kaylan, the group's frontman (and Eddie from Flo and Eddie) has a new memoir coming out in April – Shell Shocked: My Life with the Turtles, Flo and Eddie, and Frank Zappa. Here's an exclusive excerpt in which he describes their performance at the White House in 1969 at Tricia Nixon's coming-out party.

I was snorting coke on Abraham Lincoln's desk in the White House. Yes, that Abraham Lincoln and that White House. A bunch of hairy peacenik dopers from California though we were, it seems that Tricia Nixon, daughter of Tricky Dick himself, was a fan of the Turtles and had requested our presence. Our first instinct: you've got to be kidding! No way in hell!

Yet here we were, our noses vacuuming lines off the surface of Honest Abe's very own workspace.

We had gone through several managers during the past five years and been on the charts far more often than anyone would ever have guessed, considering that we were the only ones looking out for us, and that White Whale Records wasn't much of a label.

Random Notes: Hottest Rock Pictures

There had been the folk-rock years, and we had been lucky enough to score a few big hits; we were among the earliest children of Bob Dylan, putting our cover version of his tune "It Ain't Me, Babe" into the Top 10.

Then we had become the good-time music boys, influenced by the Lovin' Spoonful and determined not to protest anything. We'd made it to Number One with a song that's still recognized today as one of the classic rock & roll love songs of all time. "Happy Together," indeed.

And, now, finally, we had engineered our own success with "Elenore," our first self-penned Top 10 record, and "You Showed Me," which we had changed from a Beatlesque rocker into a lush ballad.

We were lucky and we knew it.

Of course, now we had the big-time management to prove it.

Gone were the friends of friends—we'd realized that we really weren't in any position to manage ourselves—and hello to the new Superstar Management Team.

We had been courted, successfully, by Ron DeBlasio and Jeff Wald, who were, at the time, top reps for the Campbell-Silver-Cosby Corporation.

That's right—Bill Cosby.

Mister Pudding Pops.

Fat Freaking Albert.

Bill, his own self, was a full partner in the firm that represented him.

And us.

And others.

And his sweaters.

And he was the number one comic in America.

Across the hall was the office of the appropriately named Artie Mogul, who ran the in-house record company, Tetragrammaton, home to Deep Purple and more.

Of course, he had nothing to do with us. Neither did Mr. Cosby, but his name promised to open a lot of doors in Hollywood and that was exactly what we needed.

But what, I asked, could these guys bring to the table for a band that had been around the block and, hypothetically, overstayed their welcome?

We didn't have to wait long.

 ••••

We had heard, through the grapevine, that the Turtles were Tricia's favorite band, and we'd all had a good chuckle over that.

Old Man Nixon was the creepiest Dick of his generation, the least popular president among the under-30 crowd that had ever been, and a killer of our young men and women, as far as we were concerned.

We were deeply anti-war and deeply self-conscious. We weren't Nixonites, that's for sure. We were everything he stood against.

So when the hand-engraved invitations to perform at Tricia's coming out party arrived at the Cosby office, we were none too thrilled. In fact, we flat out refused to play.

They started to freak out.

"What do you mean, you refuse to play?! Who the hell do you think you are?! This isn't a political thing. It's like a goddamned royal proclamation, you idiots! You play the White House because you're an American!"

Blah, blah, blah …

They shamed us into it.

Not only that, but to add insult to injury, management now was requesting that we each go out and buy a classy new suit. Can't play for the president looking like the sewer rats that you really are.

Perfect. There it was, again.

Too bad Johny Barbata wasn't the drummer in the band anymore. He'd have loved the sight of us clumsily trying on the very Brioni suits that he'd been trying to get us to wear for three-and-a-half years.

Now we had each bought one. Talk about fish out of water.

****

Came the big day, May 10, 1969, we flew into Washington, D.C. on the taxpayers' dollar. There, we were met by five separate cars, replete with drivers all flying the American flag, and taken directly to the White House. Once there we discovered that the Secret Service had dossiers on each of us. They kept us in a holding lounge while going through our intimate details individually.

After we had all been cleared, it was time to unload the equipment that we had brought with us all the way from L.A.

But we didn't do the unloading. Instead, the Secret Service guys did. And they didn't know the first thing about large equipment cases. So as they began to unload the trap case from the drum set, the large case that holds the snare drum, percussion goodies and miscellaneous items, they tipped it to one side and, unknowingly, triggered the tiny switch on the electric metronome/tuner that we always carried with us.

"…..tick….tick….tick."

Out came the guns.

"Up against the wall!"

Oh, we went there. Up against that wall it was as they carted off our little black box. We stood there, a rock group inside of enemy territory, the Nixon White House, looking down the crosshairs from the wrong direction. Guys in HAZMAT suits were brought in to deal with our little plastic tuner and their freak-out escalated yet another notch when someone hit the tuning switch and the 440 cycle "A" tone started shrieking from the metronome.

The term "shitting a brick" comes to mind.

To read the new issue of Rolling Stone online, plus the entire RS archive: Click Here

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Read more »

Howard Kaylan Storms the White House in 'Shell Shocked: My Life with the Turtles' - Exclusive Book Excerpt

Shell Shocked: My Life with the Turtles, Flo and Eddie, and Frank Zappa, etc.

The Turtles, a 1960s folk rock band, were only around for five years – but during that time, they landed a ton of hits on the charts, including "Happy Together," "She'd Rather Be With Me" and their Top 10 cover of Bob Dylan's "It Ain't Me, Babe." They also partied like maniacs and had enough wild adventures to fill many books.

Howard Kaylan, the group's frontman (and Eddie from Flo and Eddie) has a new memoir coming out in April – Shell Shocked: My Life with the Turtles, Flo and Eddie, and Frank Zappa. Here's an exclusive excerpt in which he describes their performance at the White House in 1969 at Tricia Nixon's coming-out party.

I was snorting coke on Abraham Lincoln's desk in the White House. Yes, that Abraham Lincoln and that White House. A bunch of hairy peacenik dopers from California though we were, it seems that Tricia Nixon, daughter of Tricky Dick himself, was a fan of the Turtles and had requested our presence. Our first instinct: you've got to be kidding! No way in hell!

Yet here we were, our noses vacuuming lines off the surface of Honest Abe's very own workspace.

We had gone through several managers during the past five years and been on the charts far more often than anyone would ever have guessed, considering that we were the only ones looking out for us, and that White Whale Records wasn't much of a label.

Random Notes: Hottest Rock Pictures

There had been the folk-rock years, and we had been lucky enough to score a few big hits; we were among the earliest children of Bob Dylan, putting our cover version of his tune "It Ain't Me, Babe" into the Top 10.

Then we had become the good-time music boys, influenced by the Lovin' Spoonful and determined not to protest anything. We'd made it to Number One with a song that's still recognized today as one of the classic rock & roll love songs of all time. "Happy Together," indeed.

And, now, finally, we had engineered our own success with "Elenore," our first self-penned Top 10 record, and "You Showed Me," which we had changed from a Beatlesque rocker into a lush ballad.

We were lucky and we knew it.

Of course, now we had the big-time management to prove it.

Gone were the friends of friends—we'd realized that we really weren't in any position to manage ourselves—and hello to the new Superstar Management Team.

We had been courted, successfully, by Ron DeBlasio and Jeff Wald, who were, at the time, top reps for the Campbell-Silver-Cosby Corporation.

That's right—Bill Cosby.

Mister Pudding Pops.

Fat Freaking Albert.

Bill, his own self, was a full partner in the firm that represented him.

And us.

And others.

And his sweaters.

And he was the number one comic in America.

Across the hall was the office of the appropriately named Artie Mogul, who ran the in-house record company, Tetragrammaton, home to Deep Purple and more.

Of course, he had nothing to do with us. Neither did Mr. Cosby, but his name promised to open a lot of doors in Hollywood and that was exactly what we needed.

But what, I asked, could these guys bring to the table for a band that had been around the block and, hypothetically, overstayed their welcome?

We didn't have to wait long.

 ••••

We had heard, through the grapevine, that the Turtles were Tricia's favorite band, and we'd all had a good chuckle over that.

Old Man Nixon was the creepiest Dick of his generation, the least popular president among the under-30 crowd that had ever been, and a killer of our young men and women, as far as we were concerned.

We were deeply anti-war and deeply self-conscious. We weren't Nixonites, that's for sure. We were everything he stood against.

So when the hand-engraved invitations to perform at Tricia's coming out party arrived at the Cosby office, we were none too thrilled. In fact, we flat out refused to play.

They started to freak out.

"What do you mean, you refuse to play?! Who the hell do you think you are?! This isn't a political thing. It's like a goddamned royal proclamation, you idiots! You play the White House because you're an American!"

Blah, blah, blah …

They shamed us into it.

Not only that, but to add insult to injury, management now was requesting that we each go out and buy a classy new suit. Can't play for the president looking like the sewer rats that you really are.

Perfect. There it was, again.

Too bad Johny Barbata wasn't the drummer in the band anymore. He'd have loved the sight of us clumsily trying on the very Brioni suits that he'd been trying to get us to wear for three-and-a-half years.

Now we had each bought one. Talk about fish out of water.

****

Came the big day, May 10, 1969, we flew into Washington, D.C. on the taxpayers' dollar. There, we were met by five separate cars, replete with drivers all flying the American flag, and taken directly to the White House. Once there we discovered that the Secret Service had dossiers on each of us. They kept us in a holding lounge while going through our intimate details individually.

After we had all been cleared, it was time to unload the equipment that we had brought with us all the way from L.A.

But we didn't do the unloading. Instead, the Secret Service guys did. And they didn't know the first thing about large equipment cases. So as they began to unload the trap case from the drum set, the large case that holds the snare drum, percussion goodies and miscellaneous items, they tipped it to one side and, unknowingly, triggered the tiny switch on the electric metronome/tuner that we always carried with us.

"…..tick….tick….tick."

Out came the guns.

"Up against the wall!"

Oh, we went there. Up against that wall it was as they carted off our little black box. We stood there, a rock group inside of enemy territory, the Nixon White House, looking down the crosshairs from the wrong direction. Guys in HAZMAT suits were brought in to deal with our little plastic tuner and their freak-out escalated yet another notch when someone hit the tuning switch and the 440 cycle "A" tone started shrieking from the metronome.

The term "shitting a brick" comes to mind.

To read the new issue of Rolling Stone online, plus the entire RS archive: Click Here

Amazon MP3 Download Center

Read more »

Alabama Shakes' Brittany Howard Turned Down 'X Factor'

Brittany Howard of Alabama Shakes performs at The Coronet in London.Matt Kent/Redferns via Getty Images

Alabama Shakes frontwoman Brittany Howard was once invited to join the cast of The X-Factor, the singer revealed in an interview with The Independent.

"They heard of us through the internet and started sending me emails which kept going into my spam folder," Howard explained. "One day [the talent searcher] called me to ask and I told her, 'No, I'm not going to do that.' She was like, 'Are you sure about that?' and I said, 'Yeah, I'm sure. I have something going on now that I believe in and want to stick to.' She was shocked."

Howard said she had never considered auditioning for the show, even in the days before the band got a record deal and its various members were working day jobs for the postal service, nuclear power plants, house painters and vets. 

"It's not fair," she said. "You go out there, people gawk at you, they love you or hate you and it doesn't mean anything to them but it means the world to you. So it's kind of a fucked-up show. I would never do it."

To read the new issue of Rolling Stone online, plus the entire RS archive: Click Here

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Read more »

Alabama Shakes' Brittany Howard Turned Down 'X Factor'

Brittany Howard of Alabama Shakes performs at The Coronet in London.Matt Kent/Redferns via Getty Images

Alabama Shakes frontwoman Brittany Howard was once invited to join the cast of The X-Factor, the singer revealed in an interview with The Independent.

"They heard of us through the internet and started sending me emails which kept going into my spam folder," Howard explained. "One day [the talent searcher] called me to ask and I told her, 'No, I'm not going to do that.' She was like, 'Are you sure about that?' and I said, 'Yeah, I'm sure. I have something going on now that I believe in and want to stick to.' She was shocked."

Howard said she had never considered auditioning for the show, even in the days before the band got a record deal and its various members were working day jobs for the postal service, nuclear power plants, house painters and vets. 

"It's not fair," she said. "You go out there, people gawk at you, they love you or hate you and it doesn't mean anything to them but it means the world to you. So it's kind of a fucked-up show. I would never do it."

To read the new issue of Rolling Stone online, plus the entire RS archive: Click Here

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Q&A: Ron Howard on Hanging With Jay-Z, 'Arrested Development' Revamp

Ron Howard films backstage during the Budweiser Made In America Festival.

Ron Howard is one of Hollywood's biggest directors, but lately he's been delving outside of studio blockbusters to take on other kinds of projects. "My kids are grown, and I feel that I can afford the time to just be a little, you know, a little more experimental," he tells Rolling Stone. The 58-year-old recently trailed Jay-Z for an upcoming documentary he's directing about the rapper's role in the Budweiser Made in America Festival due out in 2013; he's mentoring James Murphy on his first directorial project; and he'll soon return as the narrator of the upcoming season of Arrested Development. Says Howard of the comedy series' new season, "It's hilarious and it's also really bold in terms of the approach to catching the audience up on the characters, and simultaneously sort of weaving their stories in and around a new set of predicaments."

So did you have fun hanging out with Jay-Z?
I really did. The whole thing was interesting for me. I've never interviewed anybody, first of all. I'm pretty good at the initial instincts, and the very first time that I met [Jay-Z] some months back, we met with him in his office and there was just something that I really respected about him. I think he's pretty true to himself and pretty clear about what he thinks. Kind of the opposite of mercurial, I'd say. I don't know what the opposite of mercurial is, but he's I think tremendously focused. I've been around a lot of artists who are also good at business and . . . one minute they'll sound like an artist and the next minute they'll sound like the characters in Mad Men. Jay-Z's a very good businessman and he talks about it and enjoys it, but he doesn't shift. He has a sense of what he thinks people might appreciate, because he sort of trusts that if he appreciates it, there are people out there who will as well. And that's what's interesting to me: that he's accomplished in those areas but I don't hear that sort of cynical, world-weary quality. 

And when he's onstage, the confidence he has with the microphone is pretty amazing.
I got to watch in the pit, right on the edge on the stage. I understood something that I never even really had thought about before. He really communicates, whereas I think some of the other hip hop artists – they were great performers and they were dynamic and charismatic – but on a consistent basis, every idea seemed to be a communication. I always thought that about Sinatra.  It's a connection. It's a story they're telling you. And I was kind of knocked out by that. I've never seen Eminem live, but in our movie, 8 Mile, I felt like that was happening.

You interviewed Odd Future. What was that like?
I like their videos.  I'm laughing one minute, then my jaw drops the next.  But I think they're so wild and great and I really like them. [Tyler, the Creator] and I just started talking and he just kept looking at me kind of like squinting and saying, "You're sick.  You're sick." [Laughs] I kind of knew it was a compliment, but I was joking later and said, "I thought I looked fine!"

I was trying to describe them to somebody.  It's kind of like there's the Marx Brothers and National Lampoon . . . this group chaos thing. It's pretty exciting to see that brand of anarchy and self expression adding up to so much. Jay Z, actually, was really interested in them. He said to me that he, you know, Roc Nation, wanted to sign them and they went down the road discussing it, but ultimately Odd Future didn't want to be signed. They wanted to be self-reliant, self -contained. 

Were there any highlights from the festival?
I think getting to talk to D'Angelo.

That's a very rare interview.
Yeah, and I don't think he's done very many. I wouldn't characterize it as probing, but, because it was on the subject of the event, I was glad to be able to share with him what I was hearing from everybody – which is that everyone was so impressed with his reemergence and a kind of new level of musicianship.  I heard that from several people. And I passed that along to him, so more than sort of the interview I was glad to be able to communicate that to him, and he was, I think, flattered to hear that. But you know, he's really focused and hard at it, and I think he's really glad to be out there.

It was also fun to see Run-DMC. I talked to them both and they barely rehearsed. I remembered that when Henry Winkler and I, four years ago, did this Funny or Die sketch for Obama. It was so funny, because I was wearing this hair piece, Henry was wearing kind of Fonzie wig and we fell into it and I swear to God, I honestly déja vû'ed and thought I was back in the Arnold's parking lot doing a scene. It was so easy. So when I saw those guys, they just nailed it. I just thought, "Well, yeah, you know, sometimes when a thing becomes a part of a fabric of your life, your history, that doesn't get so rusty."

When you were younger, because of Happy Days and American Graffiti, people associated you with music of the Fifties and early Sixties. What do you listen to?
I've never been much of a consumer and we didn't listen to much music in the home except kind of at Christmas time, so it was all Bing [Crosby] and Nat King Cole and the Everly Brothers. But it never became a passion. I didn't really listen to music when I was doing homework or when I when I work on a script. I tend to drift to NPR and news.

It's interesting that you're working with James Murphy, too.
Oh, yeah. My kids are grown, and I feel that I can afford the time to just be a little, you know, a little more experimental about what I do with my time away from the movies and the TV shows, which are still my main drive. James Murphy just came through this project, Canon's Imagination. This is year two of that, and last year we did it and my daughter Bryce directed the film, and people send in pictures targeting their own photographs for certain narrative categories. And then the public votes and they narrow it down to 10, and last year I chose one from each category and handed it over to Bryce and she had to direct a movie. And it was successful. It was a great creative experiment. With James Murphy, we wanted somebody from the music world, and of course he's so creative and visual and a really talented and intelligent guy. So I'm actually dying to see what he does with this exercise. I think I'm going to be inspired by him. Theoretically, I'm supposed to be offering some guidance and support, but I think he's one of the ones I'm sort of most curious about seeing work with this whole program.

Would you ever work with Jay-Z again?
I would do a documentary about Jay-Z. Yes, I would. I mean, that's not what this is particularly, but he's central to it. But if I had a chance and I thought I could do it justice, you know, I think he's a great subject. He's a great subject. Definitely.

How is it going with Arrested Development?
It's going great. There's a really good article that somebody did, an interview with Mitch Hurwitz. It's pretty funny. It's hilarious, and it's also really bold in terms of the approach to catching the audience up on the characters and simultaneously sort of weaving their stories in and around a new set of predicaments that are, you know, a brand new sort of five-alarm fires or however many alarms, whatever the maximum number of alarms is. I should remember that from Backdraft, but I don't.

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James Murphy Working on Film With Ron Howard

Rachel Murray/Getty Images For Canon

James Murphy, frontman of the now-defunct LCD Soundsystem, recently told Rolling Stone about his directorial debut, a short film that he will make with oversight from Ron Howard. "I don't know what I'm doing, but that's what I'm excited about," he said. The film, which Murphy will start working on this fall, is part of a series of shorts that will be inspired by the winning photography submissions in a contest sponsored by Canon.

Howard will serve as a mentor to Murphy throughout the filmmaking process. "Now I'll be able to call Ron Howard, which is super weird," Murphy said. "This is the beauty of having been in a band that did well enough, I guess. You have access to something as crazy as this."

Murphy has been on an exploratory bent ever since the planned breakup of his band, dipping his toes in the pools of film, literature, even cuisine. "I'm in this absurdly privileged spot by being in a band but not so famous that it makes me feel weird," he said. "It's amazing. I love to complain because it's part of my nature, but right now it's amazing."

LCD Soundsystem may be "kaput," as he puts it, but Murphy continues to make music through other avenues. His current situation – "for all intents and purposes, I quit my job" – has afforded him the opportunity to try new things musically. "I'm not going to curl up and die. I'm doing things that I would never have time to do, like go work on a couple of songs with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs," he said.

At some point, this period of exploration may come to an end, but for now, Murphy is happy to continue experimenting. He said, "After those 10 years with the band, I wanted to go back to that state of trying things and just seeing what happens. It's exciting."

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