ALL THE BETTER FOR ARETHA
Aretha Franklin is planning to record an album of operatic arias. More soul to soul diva!
The first aria to be covered is Puccini’s “Nessum Dorma” that Aretha sang two years ago at the Grammy Awards instead of Luciano Pavarotti, who had fallen ill. Ms. Franklin now decided to justify all the rumours circulating all this time and will produce the album herself. 2001 should be busy year for Aretha as, except for opera project, she’s to come up with new soul album and a Christmas one.
BA – THE NEW DEGREE
There were BBA – BECK, BOGERT & APPICE, then CBA – CHAR, BOGERT & APPICE, and now the next letter appears before the names of ex-VANILLA FUDGE rhythm section of Tim Bogert and Carmine Appice. Yes, the letter is D and stands for Derringer. Rick Derringer and two vets gathered forces for DBA and the now completed album is titled “Doin’ Business As”. It will be out on April 23rd in European through SPV Records. All the vocals are split between the band’s members.
The album should be great as usual – with, as Bogert said, 44 tracks recorded – but now it’s everybody’s guess whether there will be EBA in a couple of years.
THE SNAKE TO GET SOME SKIN OFF
Neil Murray, a legendary bass player, who worked with WHITESNAKE, BLACK SABBATH, Peter Green and Brian May among others, will launch a WHITESNAKE auction, starting on April 15th on the COMPANY OF SNAKES web page.
Murray will be selling his collection of ‘SNAKE, SAB and May T-shirts and a couple of Bernie Marsden, Guns N’ Roses and Gary Moore items. All the shirts are likely to be signed not only by Neil but by Micky Moody and Bernie Marsden too. Probably around the same time, Neil Murray will do an auction of magazines on e-bay.
