CLEVELAND, Jan. 19, 2012 /PRNewswire/ – The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum is proud to present a major exhibition devoted to a truly unique American rock and roll band, Grateful Dead: The Long, Strange Trip. The exhibit will open to the public on Thursday, April 12, as a part of the 2012 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Week events.  The Mickey Hart Band, featuring the Grateful Dead drummer, will perform on the Rock Hall’s Main Stage for an exhibit opening event on Wednesday, April 11.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. (PRNewsFoto/The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum)

“The Grateful Dead is a band that is identified with a remarkable era in American history, and, inasmuch as they embody that era, their work is timeless,” says Jim Henke, vice president of Exhibits and Curatorial Affairs. “They’ve inspired many performers and bands, but none has exhibited their musical depth and cultural resonance. In a 30-year career, this group wrote their own rules and created a community unlike any band before or since.”

Grateful Dead: The Long, Strange Trip explores the band from a non-linear point of view. Individual sections within the exhibit will be devoted to Grateful Dead as a recording group and a touring band, the fans who devotedly followed them, tapers and fellow travelers (people who were important to the band). It will include finished and working manuscripts for classic songs, handwritten notes from legendary taper Dick Latvala, artifacts from original sound designer Owsley “Bear” Stanley, and promoter Bill Graham’s Father Time robe and Grateful Dead Hotline answering machine.

Art and design have always been closely associated with Grateful Dead, and this exhibit will include an unprecedented collection of original artwork that is immediately recognizable from the band’s album covers and posters. It will feature numerous instruments used by the Grateful Dead over the years, including keyboards, drums, percussion, guitars and elements from the legendary Wall of Sound PA system. The Grateful Dead Archive at the University of California-Santa Cruz has loaned a significant number of items from their extraordinary collection, which will open to the public in spring 2012.

Additional highlights include:

• Five Jerry Garcia guitars, including his Travis Bean TB5
• Mickey Hart’s custom-painted drum kit
• Two Bob Weir guitars, including his first Ibanez “cowboy” custom guitar
• Several original lyric manuscripts, including “Truckin’,” “Box of Rain” and “Sugaree”
• Several original Grateful Dead-related artworks, including images from Workingman’s Dead, Without a Net and Fillmore Auditorium poster art
• Bill Graham’s “Father Time” robe

Formed in Palo Alto, California, in 1965 from a previous incarnation as a bar band called the Warlocks, the Grateful Dead were at the epicenter of the sweeping cultural event that was San Francisco in the Sixties. Their music was informed by a diverse set of influences – contemporary classical composition, bluegrass, rhythm & blues, free jazz, rock and roll and the blues. Fueled by a cultural underground of writers, poets and bohemians that stretched from Oakland and Berkeley in the East Bay to Palo Alto on the peninsula, the Grateful Dead developed an ethos that embraced true artistic pursuits over commercial concerns, improvisation over rote arrangements and mind expansion through the use of psychedelic drugs.

At the exhibit opening event on the 11th, Mickey Hart Band will perform new songs from his forthcoming album to be released this spring as well as Grateful Dead classics.  Hart will be touring this spring in support of his new album which he told Rolling Stone features samples of “light waves from the cosmos, starting 13.7 billion years ago with the Big Bang.”

This exhibit will be open through December 2012.

About the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, Inc. is the nonprofit organization that exists to educate visitors, fans and scholars from around the world about the history and continuing significance of rock and roll music. It carries out this mission through its operation of a world-class museum that collects, preserves, exhibits and interprets this art form and through its library and archives as well as its educational programs.

The Museum is open seven days a week from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. On Wednesdays (and Saturdays through Labor Day), the Museum is open until 9 p.m. Museum admission is $22 for adults, $18 for adult residents of Greater Cleveland, $17 for seniors (65+), $13 for youth (9-12). Children under eight (8) and museum members always free, for information or to join the membership program call 216. 515.8425. For general inquiries, please call 216.781.ROCK (7625) or visit www.rockhall.com.  The Museum is generously funded by Cuyahoga County residents through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture.

SOURCE The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum

Web Site: http://www.rockhall.com

NEW YORK, Jan. 9, 2012 /PRNewswire/ — Columbia Records is pleased to announce the arrival of “Drive By,” the much-anticipated new single from Train, the Grammy-winning multi-platinum group from San Francisco whose iconic hits include “Drops of Jupiter (Tell Me),” “Calling All Angels” and “Hey, Soul Sister.”

“Drive By,” the first new music from Train’s upcoming sixth studio album, will be available on iTunes beginning Tuesday, January 10, 2012.

The group’s fifth (and most recent ) studio album, 2009′s Save Me, San Francisco, has sold more than one million copies worldwide while generating online sales of more than eight million tracks.  The album debuted, as its lead single, the studio version of “Hey, Soul Sister,” which hit #3 on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming Train’s highest charting track yet.  2010′s top-selling song on iTunes, the digital single was certified 5x Platinum by the RIAA while a live version of “Hey, Soul Sister” took home a Grammy Award (the group’s third overall) in February 2011 for Best Pop Performance for a Duo or Group with Vocals.

Train, whose “Brand New Book” served as the theme song for NBC’s “The Biggest Loser,” performed the track during the show’s network finale in December.  In addition, the band turned in an electrifying set during the half-time show at this year’s Orange Bowl in Miami Gardens, Florida.  Train spent the Summer of 2011 on the road co-headlining a sold-out tour with Maroon 5.

Train invites the group’s fans to enjoy “Drive By” at Trainline.com or click here to listen.

SOURCE Columbia Records

Web Site: http://trainline.com

“The best arena show ever. Period.” – New York Post (2010)

“The Wall Live is flawless. Everyone should see it once before they die.”- Philadelphia Inquirer (2010)

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 2, 2011 /PRNewswire/ —  Roger Waters, the co-founder and principal songwriter of the archetypal progressive band Pink Floyd, has announced the return of the historic production of “The Wall” to North America in 2012. His aural and visual masterpiece of alienation and transformation will be performed in-its-entirety featuring a full band and state-of-the-art production. “The Wall” live has played more than 120 shows around the world for more than 1.6 million fans making it one of the most successful tours of 2010 and 2011.  Tickets for “The Wall” 2012 go on sale beginning on Monday, November 7th at LiveNation.com.

The 2012 tour will begin on May 1st in Houston, Texas at the Toyota Center making a 36 show trek throughout North America, including several outdoor stadium performances with state of the art modifications transforming the arena production into magnificent outdoor events.  The tour, promoted by Live Nation, includes stadium stops in San Francisco at AT&T Park on May 11th, Vancouver at BC Place on May 26th, Chicago’s Wrigley Field on June 8th, Toronto at Rogers Centre on June 23rd andPhiladelphia at the Citizens Bank Park on July 14th.

“Thirty years ago when I wrote ‘The Wall,’ I was a frightened young man,” Waters recalls. “In the intervening years it occurred to me that maybe the story of my fear and loss with its concomitant inevitable residue of ridicule, shame and punishment, provides an allegory for broader concerns: Nationalism, racism, sexism, religion, whatever! All these issues and ‘isms are driven by the same fears that drove my young life.”

Waters’ first reinvented his iconic stage production of “The Wall” in 2010 utilizing modern day   technological advances and special effects which have been embraced by audiences around the globe with countless sold out performances and multiple-night stands including a record-breaking 9 sold out shows at the River Plate Stadium in Buenos Aires, Argentina.  ”The Wall” remains one of the most influential albums in the history of recorded music with a profound effect on pop culture, resonating with multiple generations of music fans.

Prior to 2010, “The Wall” show was simply too large to contemplate a tour, but new arenas and advances in touring technology have solved that dilemma. Waters has updated the look and feel of the show to ensure it matches the astonishing theatrical extravaganza that The Wall’s live incarnation became so legendary for – thus allowing yet another generation to be inspired by the grandeur of the breathtaking visual and aural spectacle.  The 1980 original production of the “The Wall” had been performed live-in-its-entirety just 29 times during Pink Floyd’s 1980 tour in support of the album and once in Berlin in celebration of the fall of the Berlin wall.

“Roger Waters tore down the house Wednesday night in Toronto…He walked out to thunderous applause beginning with the first track of the seminal concept album, ‘In the Flesh’, and the adulation never stopped.” – Associated Press (opening night 2010)

In addition to Roger Waters (lead vocals, bass), “The Wall” live touring ensemble includes: Snowy White (Guitar), Dave Kilminster (Guitar), GE Smith (Guitar & Bass), Jon Carin (Keyboards), Harry Waters(Hammond Organ), Graham Broad (Drums), Robbie Wyckoff (Vocals), Jon Joyce, Pat Lennon, Mark Lennon and Kipp Lennon (Backing Vocals).

Roger Waters “The Wall” North American Tour Itinerary:

For complete ticket and tour information, please visit RogerWaters.com, Ticketmaster.com andLiveNation.com.

SOURCE Columbia Records