Table of contents for January 12, 2017 in Rolling Stone

Stones Roll Back after so many issues containing tributes to artists we lost in 2016, what a joy to celebrate the end of the year with the Stones [“Back to the Blues,” RS 1275] and their tribute to the blues and their heroes.  Robert Ooms, Canton, MI i am a passionate fan of the Rolling Stones, but I admit the prospect of a tossed-off blues-covers album leaves me a whole lot less than salivating, even if Eric Clapton lends his talents to the project. Surprise me, Mick and Keith, like you always have in the past. Ron Jennings, via the Internet one thing that keith Richards has demonstrated over the years is a complete willingness to shoot his mouth off. While this highly intelligent man can be exceedingly charming, candid and…

In late november, 40 years to the month after their debut album was released, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers got together to jam at their rehearsal space in L.A. “We mainly did cover songs,” says keyboardist Benmont Tench. “When we get together, we tend to do a lot of Chicago-style blues songs, but Tom was also making up songs on the spot. We were shaking off the rust.” The rust had built after a three-year hiatus from touring, the band’s longest break in 25 years. But the Heartbreakers are making up for lost time in a big way, with a 40th-anniversary tour that begins in April and runs through August. Besides the anniversary, there’s another reason the tour could stand out: It might be, Petty says, “the last big one.…

Gary clark jr. is on a high the day after playing Carnegie Hall, with one regret: “I wanted to re-create Stevie Ray Vaughan’s Live at Carnegie Hall album cover!” he says in his New York hotel room. Clark has been getting deep into photography on the road, mostly taking photos of his two-year-old son, Zion, “because I’m obsessed.” Clark’s Fuji camera is one of his many must-have items on tour. He also brings plenty of John Varvatos clothing, prized watches, and a portable studio for use after he and his wife, Nicole Trunfio, put Zion to bed. “I’ll make a beat and send it to the band,” Clark says, “then I might play a game of NBA 2K.” He’s looking forward to downtime at his new 50-acre ranch outside his…

Sheryl crow moved to Nashville in 2012 and released a country album, Feels Like Home. But it didn’t take Crow long to realize the genre isn’t for her: “Country music is commerce at its most fully realized,” she says. “I want an experience completely detached from that.” For Be Myself, out in April, Crow reunited with 1990s collaborators like Jeff Trott, who co-wrote hits including “If It Makes You Happy.” She cut 17 songs in three weeks: “I wanted the feeling I had when I first made records – like a kid just playing with my friends.”…

After scoring his first-ever Number One song with his last album, John Legend was confident enough to take a huge risk on his new one, Darkness and Light: He sought out indie-leaning producer-guitarist Blake Mills, whom he admired for his work with Alabama Shakes. Mills is more of a critics’ fave than a hitmaker, so “there was skepticism from the label,” says Legend, who brought in an eclectic crew of guest vocalists (Shakes lead singer Brittany Howard, Chance the Rapper, Miguel), backing musicians (Kamasi Washington, Pino Palladino) and unlikely songwriting partners (Will Oldham, a.k.a. Bonnie “Prince” Billy; Tobias Jesso Jr.). “People in the industry get bound by genre more than artists,” says Legend, who also plays a bandleader in the film La La Land and exec-produces the Underground Railroad TV…

1. Young M.A. “Eat” Brooklyn’s Young M.A. is among the most exciting hip-hop voices to emerge in years – a thugged-out lesbian who chomps through beats like a classic New York rhyme-slayer. On “Eat,” she lashes out at rap homophobes and makes “I beat the pussy like Bam Bam” feel like a call to arms. 2. The Jesus and Mary Chain “Amputation” The noise-rock icons’ influence is still all over. Their first LP in 18 years is on the way, and if this dizzy slice of psycho-candy is any indication, it should be worth the wait. 3. Ryan Adams “Do You Still Love Me?” Adams crushes an over-the-top Eighties power ballad with vocal firepower that recalls Foreigner’s Lou Gramm. 4. At the Drive In “Governed by Contagions” The first new…

It's getting dark out but even in the dusk, Yoda’s silhouette is unmistakable. Cast in bronze, his ears spread wide as wings, Luke Skywalker’s life coach stands atop a burbling fountain within Lucasfilm’s sprawling San Francisco campus. In a building behind him, actors from the new Star Wars movie, Rogue One, navigate the lobby – Riz Ahmed one moment, Felicity Jones the next. In a lounge a few floors up, their co-star Mads Mikkelsen settles into a big leather armchair, gazing out at the Golden Gate Bridge and noshing on trail mix. Like his fellow actors, Mikkelsen is here to promote Rogue One, and he isn’t above geeking out about his surroundings. Gorgeous vintage movie posters for classics like The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance hang everywhere. Life-size replicas of…

IN EARLY 1967, a young law-firm employee named Angie Kucherenko came home to her apartment in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury neighborhood and found her roommate’s boyfriend, a 21-year-old Berkeley dropout named Jann Wenner, sprawled on the couch and strumming an acoustic guitar. He had a big idea he couldn’t wait to share. “He sat up, put the guitar aside and said, ‘I want to start a rock & roll magazine,’ ” Kucherenko remembers. “I said, ‘Rock & roll? Isn’t that a passing phase?’ ” Not to Wenner. For him, the Beatles, Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones and local bands like the Grateful Dead were hugely important cultural figures who deserved an outlet that took them seriously. “There was nothing called rock journalism as a profession,” Wenner says. “If you picked up Billboard, you…

BY JON DOLAN The xx I See You Young Turks HHH ½ For a band that often gets described as “minimal,” the xx pack a massive amount of drama and emotion into their subtle music. The U.K. trio specialize in Zen restraint, blurring the line between indie guitar pop, R&B and dance music in stripped-down songs that are as sleek and eerie as they are weirdly inviting. It’s the perfect stark backdrop for the way bassist-vocalist Oliver Sim and guitarist-vocalist Romy Madley Croft build thick tension out of minute intimacy, doing more with awkward eye contact, muttered confessions or mid-breakup negotiations than most bands do with a whole love affair. On the first two xx albums, 2009’s xx and 2012’s Coexist, every bit of music – be it a…

What’s the most important rule you live by? Don’t lose yourself. If you take enough dope, you lose your body, your mind or your life. Conversely, if you do everything everybody else tells you to do, you’ll be miserable and lose your self-identity. At some point you gotta figure out the balance. “Am I the guy who’s gonna relive the life of King Farouk, or am I more like a steelworker who got lucky?” Who are your heroes? Keith Richards and Bo Diddley. The primary thing is how they play. Each of them keeps it straight and plain, and they don’t gild the lily. It feels like the real thing to me. You and Keith have been called indestructible. He’s way more indestructible than me! I can’t keep up with…

The Dawes frontman is heading on a big U.S. tour this year with his band in support of its new LP, We’re All Gonna Die. Cass McCombs “It” He brought in opera singers for this one. It was a really bold move. He says things like, “It is not wealth to have more than others.” He’s fearless. Jim James “Here in Spirit” He wrote this as a protest song after the Orlando shootings. That’s a dicey move in these cynical times, but it’s beautiful. Okkervil River “Frontman in Heaven” This begins as a waltz, and by the end it’s the loudest thing on the LP. You feel like it’s flying out of them without them being able to control it. Leonard Cohen “Leaving the Table” There are lines like “You…

Last june, rae sremmurd had only two days left to hand in their second album, which the hip-hop duo hoped would build on the success of their exuberant 2015 debut, SremmLife. But they needed a hit – the two singles they released early in 2016 failed to catch fire. That’s when their producer Mike Will Made It called a last-minute meeting to play them some new beats. One stuck out: a mellow, mechanical bass stutter that inspired the duo’s main creative force, 23-year-old Swae Lee, to write about “living the rock-star lifestyle.” That night, he hit on a theme: “Black Beatles.” “It was a dope phrase,” says Lee. “I’ve always loved John Lennon’s swag – I like his glasses.” H It worked. At press time, “Black Beatles” had been a…

For the past few years, 22-year-old Chicago rapper Saba has been a fixture on his hometown’s vibrant hip-hop scene – as an artist, a producer and a recording engineer. But while he’s watched peers like Chance the Rapper and Vic Mensa become stars, his own career has been mired in false starts and personal tragedy. “My uncle died,” he says. “I’m trying to get some bread for shows, trying to figure it out. Meanwhile, I’m watching all my friends blow up. I was in the shit.” This year, Saba’s luck started turning around thanks to a guest spot on Chance the Rapper’s “Angels,” from his hit Coloring Book mixtape. Saba just released his own great album, Bucket List Project, in which he vividly explores life on Chicago’s West Side, rapping…

‘It’s a champagne shower of badass pop,” Charli XCX says of the follow-up to Sucker, her 2014 breakthrough with the Top 10 pop hit “Boom Clap.” The 24-year-old says she’s taking cues from the dark dance pop of Britney Spears’ Blackout for her next LP, due in May, a sound she started dabbling with on last February’s Vroom Vroom EP: “I never made an album I’d want to hear at a club. I wanted to make an album that I could get fucked up to.”…

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Childish Gambino Awaken, My Love Glassnote HHH ½ Over the course of two albums and a handful of mixtapes, Community and Atlanta star Donald Glover has made the actor-to-rapper transition with surprising ease. Yet the best moments on his records were when he dispensed with hip-hop convention; 2013’s Because the Internet featured his wistful harmonizing on the hit single “3005,” and on his 2014 EP, Kauai, he barely rapped at all, offering a suite of charming pop meditations on summer romance. His third LP often recalls the grungy explorations of Stankonia-era Outkast. The six-minute “Me and Your Mama” soars with a gospel chorus and a raggedly intense earnestness, and Gambino rocks a sterling George Clinton impression over the platform-boot stomp of “Boogieman.” The mood is playful, but there’s…