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News on Gnomeo & Juliet and some new music

Finally a nugget on some new music included in the animated "Gnomeo & Juliet" which I thought had died some time ago....apparently not;

McAvoy and Blunt Join Elton John for Gnomeo and Juliet

by BuzzSugar


"Gnomeo!" It makes me giggle.

The big news in the animation world today has to do with Shakespeare, Elton John and a star-crossed garden gnome couple voiced by James McAvoy and Emily Blunt. It sounds so cute my teeth are starting to ache.

Apparently Gnomeo and Juliet has been in the works for several years, with various other talent involved (Kate Winslet, Tim Rice). Now, the CGI-animated movie will blend Elton John's well-known songs (and some new ones) with a story based on one of Shakespeare's most well-known works. The Hollywood Reporter has more details:

In the loose and edgy adaptation of Shakespeare's play, McAvoy (Atonement) and Blunt (The Devil Wears Prada) would play lovers from rival gardens. John, who is producing alongside his offscreen partner David Furnish, Baker Bloodworth and Steve Hamilton Shaw, is said to be pursuing big-name talent to voice supporting roles.

I'm not the biggest fan of Elton John, but this sounds like it could be just so adorable. I mean, the Romeo and Juliet story's been played. . .but not by garden gnomes!

Tumbleweed Connection - Review from Rolling Stone

An odd review of "Tumbleweed Connection" from Rolling Stone that spends more time slamming "Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy" than discussing the topic of the review.

Elton John was a lot of things — sideman, session man and flop, with a long tail of failed solo releases, including the 1969 LP Empty Sky — before 1970's Elton John made him an overnight star. He wasn't afraid to admit it. John packed a bonus scrapbook in the original lavish packaging of 1975's Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy with bad-hair photos, comic music-press ads ("You've been warned! Elton John is 1968's great new talent") and other ample proof of his time, with lifelong lyricist Bernie Taupin, in Sixties-pop boot camp. That book is miniaturized for this reissue. Everything else here has ballooned; each album now has a second CD of demos, stray singles and, in the case of Captain Fantastic, a complete 1975 live premiere of the record. On Elton John, the extras actually trump the baroque strings and hippie-gospel chorales that crowded "Sixty Years On" and "Take Me to the Pilot." Stripped-bare demos of nearly every song on the record highlight the '68 Beatles and '58 Jerry Lee Lewis in John's voice and piano. With its flinty guitars and the natural gunslinger's gait of "Country Comfort" and "Burn Down the Mission," 1971's Tumbleweed Connection needs no improvement; it is one of the best country-rock albums ever written by London cowboys. But an early epic take of "Madman Across the Water," cut at the sessions with glam-blues guitar by Mick Ronson, is reason enough to buy this edition. An instant Number One hit, Captain Fantastic was, ironically, a great concept — a look back at John and Taupin's pre-fame labors — short on songs as great as the ones that made them famous, except for the opulent ballad "Someone Saved My Life Tonight." The concert version is the same flawed album but with muted applause — until the encores.

A cover of "Talking Old Soldiers"

From the Detroit Free Press;

LaVette gets a rave

Bettye LaVette, the Detroit veteran of American soul music, has filmed a new video for her Grammy-nominated "The Scene of the Crime" album, a reinterpretation of Elton John's "Talking Old Soldiers." It was filmed by Lex Halaby in Detroit's the Locker Room bar in early June.

In his Pick of the Week at USA Today, critic Ken Barnes wrote: "The 61-year-old Detroit soul survivor transforms Elton John's 'Tumbleweed Connection' obscurity into a tour de force about outliving the people one loves the most. ... LaVette's chill-inducing performance is without question one of the finest you'll hear all year."

Her "The Old Soldiers Tour" has seen LaVette at the Telluride Jazz Celebration, the Monterey Bay Blues Festival and the inaugural Rothbury Festival. The tour continues up until the holiday season.

Elton on "Star Stories"

Television - News - Elton John to get 'Star Stories' treatment - Digital Spy

Star Stories actor Steve
Edge has revealed that Elton John and David Furnish will be among the
celebrities lampooned on the new series of the show.

Edge, who stars alongside Kevin Bishop on the Channel 4 programme, confirmed that the newest scripts are the funniest yet.

"I'm sure we're doing Elton John and David Furnish," Edge told The Mirror.
"We read a new Britpop sketch of Oasis and Blur going to see Blair,
which sounds good. Jarvis Cocker is the narrator, like an Austin Powers
figure.