Leno's New Music Man an Idol- Eminem Won't Relapse Again- George Strait Sets Record- OutKast Return?- Whitney Premature Return?- Olivia Vs Drake and more

Buoyed by the Grammy Award-winning success of his 2009 album "The Crow: New Songs for the Five-String Banjo," Steve Martin ready to record another one. Martin tells Billboard.com that he and his touring group, the Steep Canyon Rangers, are planning to hit the studio in August more -

Game Fans To Hear R.E.D. in June

Rapper Game (Jayceon Taylor) is set to release his R.E.D. Album on June 15th. The album will be executive produced by Game and Pharrell Williams who jumped at the opportunity to collaborate.

"Game is good kid...and I'm excited for the world to hear the many facets of his character...what's even crazier is that as a fan, I cannot believe I am actually producing songs on the same album as Dr. Dre. Humbling, man...I owe Game for that one. His album is gonna be a problem," states Pharrell.

Leading off the R.E.D. Album will be the Pharrell produced street anthem It Must Be Me, a West Coast influenced trunk rattler that features Game spitting venomous lyrics reminiscent of an early, I got something to prove, Ice Cube. Following will be the Justin Timberlake assisted Ain't No Doubt About It where the two J.T.'s sing and rap over a radio hit that will be blasting out of car windows and club speakers this spring. "I never thought I would have the chance to work with Justin, but to come up with a smash like we did, it's only fitting," Game asserts. - more on this story

Phil Collins Goes Motown and Soul For New Album and Tour

Phil Collins has announced the September release of "Going Back," the 2010 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee's first new studio album in eight years. The effort is a deeply personal labor of love that finds the eight-time Grammy winner faithfully recreating the Motown and soul music that played such an influential role in his creative life.

To celebrate "Going Back," Collins will play a string of very special live concerts at New York City's Roseland Ballroom from June 22-25. Billed as Up Close & Personal: Phil Collins Plays 60's Motown & Soul, the shows will be exclusively devoted to the music from "Going Back" and other classic R&B/pop gems. The concerts will be presented as an "old school" style, standing-room-only dance concert.

Supporting Collins will be an extraordinary 18-piece ensemble of musicians and vocalists. Anchoring the group will be three of Motown's legendary session players, aka The Funk Brothers – bassist Bob Babbitt and guitarists Eddie Willis and Ray Monette – who are also featured on the "GOING BACK" album. The live band will also include long-time Collins cohorts Chester Thompson (drums), Daryl Stuermer (guitar), and Brad Cole (keyboards), plus Leslie Smith (percussion). Rounding out the ensemble will be a five-member horn section and six backing vocalists. - more on this story

American Idol's Jason Castro Gives Back

"American Idol" finalist Jason Castro, will tour the Children's Health Fund's Dallas program, a partnership with Parkland Health & Hospital System, in support of "Idol Gives Back," the Emmy Award-winning television event and musical celebration raising awareness and funds to benefit various U.S. and international charities, airing Wednesday, April 21 (8:00-10:00 PM ET/PT) on FOX. Children's Health Fund (CHF), one of the "Idol Gives Back" beneficiaries (for the third time), is the nation's leading pediatric provider of mobile-based health care of homeless and low-income children and their families -- regardless of their ability to pay. Each one of CHF's 24 programs across the country received support from "Idol Gives Back."

Castro will visit The Family Place, one of the Children's Health Fund's Dallas Program's service delivery sites for the mobile dental component of the program, the program also provides medical and mental health care to homeless children and families. He will see how "Idol Gives Back" funding is helping some of Dallas' neediest while visiting the clinic and performing for the families, many who benefit from these essential services.

Children's Health Fund's Dallas program, which is affiliated with Parkland Health & Hospital System, provides quality medical, mental health and dental care to homeless children and families. Last year the program provided care to over 8,400 homeless people in over 26,000 patient visits via its fleet of six mobile medical and dental clinics that roll through Dallas with teams of medial professionals visiting various homeless sites. - more on this story

The Essential Carole King

On April 27th The Essential Carole King will be available at both physical and digital retail outlets courtesy of Ode/Epic/Legacy Recordings.

The dual CD set profiles Carole's career as America's best know singer and songwriter, with disc one devoted to her own recordings and disc two highlighting Carole's best-known and most beloved 60's compositions recorded by major pop artists.

From her earliest forays into music at the age of four, it was Carole King's destiny to pursue a career as a composer, musician and vocalist. A decade before the mid-'60s folk boom put the term "singer and songwriter" into American and British pop music vernacular, Carole was, in fact, exactly that – a singer and songwriter. As a fledgling songsmith still in her teens in the late 1950s, her sophisti¬cated demo recordings startled music execs who, within five years, would fully appreciate the unerring Top 40 sensibility that Carole's demos possessed. - more on this story

Hacienda Brothers & Hollisters Spawned Stone River Boys Set Album Release

After tearing it up in the Lone Star State and across the country for nearly two years, Austin's Stone River Boys will issue their recording bow Love on the Dial on June 1 via Northampton, Mass.-based Cow Island Music.

The Texas-based quintet features the talents of two well-traveled roots music practitioners — guitarist Dave Gonzalez, formerly a driving force in the Hacienda Brothers and the Paladins, and vocalist Mike Barfield, "The Tyrant of Texas Funk" and onetime leader of the Hollisters. Together, Barfield and Gonzalez have fashioned a gutsy crossbreed of country and R&B they've labeled "country funk."

The Stone River Boys' sound extends the direction of Gonzalez' previous band, the Hacienda Brothers, who recorded three studio albums with producer and country-soul legend Dan Penn. Gonzalez was partnered in the Haciendas with Southern California-bred singer Chris Gaffney. - more on this story

Put Your Ear to the Ground in Memphis With A Free Download

LimeWire Store has released Ear to the Ground: Memphis. Curated by Memphis Flyer, this free 14-track sampler shines the spotlight on some of the most promising indie acts in Memphis' local scene, including John Paul Keith And The One Four Fives, The City Champs, Two-Way Radio, Amy LaVere, and Hill Country Revue. The sampler is available for free download exclusively at LimeWire Store here.

"We're always looking for ways to promote Memphis and its music scene," said Memphis Flyer's Music Editor Chris Herrington, who curated the compilation. "And the Ear to the Ground series, with its great track record in other cities, seemed like a terrific opportunity to do just that."

"Memphis is so storied and steeped in music history — Stax Records, Sun Records, Beale Street, Graceland — that it can be easy to forget that it's still birthing artists and has a strong music scene today," said Tom Monday, Director of Partner Relations at LimeWire Store. - more on this story

Mustock 2010 Outdoor Music Festival

The annual Mustock series returns with the Mustock 2010 Outdoor Music Festival, presented by Mustock LLC, in Lignum, VA on July 30, 2010 through August 1, 2010. Twenty-two artists will perform Friday evening, entire day on Saturday, with a tree planting ceremony ending the event on Sunday.

Visitors to the Festival will enjoy music styles from across the spectrum of funk, soul, hip-hop, dance, reggae and indie rock. Artists performing this year include roots and experimental dub reggae group, Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad, Tony Ozier and the Doo Doo Funk All-Stars along with the hip-hop artist known for the theme music for the TV series, The Boondocks, Asheru and his band The ELs.

Alexis Golden Lover, Beetnix, Breden Sound System, Fatso, GODISHEUS, Punk Rogers, Pure Light Seed, SEE-I, Tamika Love Jones and W. Ellington Felton complete the Mustock 2010 lineup. - more on this story

Olney Clark Gives You Visual Tea and Thunderstorms

"Tea and Thunderstorms" is the second video off Olney Clark's debut self-titled album, available today! The video was directed by Hanae Seida, an illustrator, musician and filmmaker and close friend of the duo. Seida showcased her hand drawn illustrations in Olney Clark's previous video for "Josefin the Writer".

The album is available from OlneyClark.com and comes with two bonus tracks when the digipack or vinyl format are purchased. The digital version comes with a PDF download of Digipak artwork by Gregg Bernstein and illustrations for each song by Eleni Kalorkoti embedded in each file.

Olney Clark is an orchestral pop group lead by duo Grant Olney and Barry DeBakey. Written during Olney's Ph.D. in algorithmic algebraic geometry in Edinburgh, Scotland and Clark's lost months of limbo and relocation from Los Angeles to Texas following the death of his father and grandfather, best friends Grant Olney and Barry DeBakey wrote the songs that would become the self-titled album as both a celebration of the gifts of solitude and a warning of their costs. - Watch the video here

Pretty Lights To Play Red Rocks

It's been an incredible year and half for Colorado-based producer and Pretty Lights mastermind Derek Vincent Smith. Starting out in 2008 performing in small clubs in his home state, Pretty Lights is now selling out 1000+ venues across the country, and was named one of NPR's recommended acts for last month's WMC.

Pretty Lights has now announced its biggest headline show to date, returning to his hometown on August 8, 2010, to headline the famed Red Rocks. Tickets on sale April 24th at 10am MST.

Wondering what all the fuss is about? Check out Pretty Lights at Coachella this weekend. Or catch a show at numerous soon to be sold out venues across the country. With soulful organic vinyl samples on top of bass heavy electro beats, Pretty Lights lands somewhere between DJ Shadow and Daft Punk. But what sets him apart is his ambitious live setup that includes the addition of Cory Eberhard on drums and stunning visuals, making his live performances the stuff of legend. - more on this story

Eli Paperboy Reed Sets Summer Release, Touring This Spring

Eli Paperboy Reed will make his major label debut with the August 10 release of Come And Get It on Capitol Records in the U.S.

The album, an irrepressible, largely self-penned, 12-song set produced by Mike Elizondo, will be released May 10 on EMI's Parlophone label in the U.K. where Reed is already generating enormous buzz.

"It's been a wild ride, that's for sure," says Reed, looking back at the incredible journey that took the soul belter from a Boston high school band room to a Mississippi Delta juke joint, from Sunday morning gigs behind the organ at a tiny South Side Chicago church to headlining the coolest clubs in Brooklyn with his red-hot band, and now, signed to Capitol Records, a historic label with a rich R&B legacy. - more on this story