Tori Amos and her ‘Sinful Attraction’ tour

Get ready for the haunting and eccentric voice of American talent, Tori Amos, coming to Phoenix on July 18th. Singer, songwriter and pianist, Amos came to international success in the 90s with her deeply emotional and social-minded lyrics coupled with her offbeat composing. Even her performances are unusual in the way she presents herself, nearly facing the audience as she plays the piano. Her style is a little Kate Bush, a little Fleetwood Mac, a bit of Joni Mitchell but somehow she is an original.

Classified as alternative rock performer, her singles include top hits such as ‘Crucify,’ ‘Silent All These Years,’ ‘Cornflake Girl,’ and ‘A Sorta Fairytale, her most successful US single.

Her latest and tenth album, Abnormally Attracted to Sin, will be released on May 19th through distributor, Universal Republic, and was recorded at her Cornwall, UK home studio, Martian Studios, by her British husband Mark Hawley and his partner Marcel van Limbeek. The album has some powerfully sad melodies.

Amos describes the album as "really handmade. I wanted to make a treasure, something people will value… I wanted to really investigate how we're controlled by the threat of despair…. I wanted to look at power, how we think and how you can reclaim the right to think for yourself, to uncover what you believe in as a spiritual, sexual creature. You don't need the approval of your family, or of their religion. You can think, 'Wait a minute, I'm a spiritual being. Just because I like gold handcuffs doesn't mean I'm not a spiritual being. These definitions are not for my mother to make about me.' What I am exploring with this record is power, and giving it away with your thinking. How do we become controlled?"

This six-time Grammy award winner began playing piano at the age of two and by five she was composing pieces on the piano. At nine years of age she started adding in lyrics. Highly talented she won a full scholarship to the Preparatory Division of the Peabody Conservatory of Music at the age of 5, but it was suddenly discontinued when she turned 11, perhaps because of her newfound interest in rock music.

At age 21, Amos moved to Los Angeles to pursue her music career, formed a band, Y Kant Tori Read, and quickly secured a six-record deal with Atlantic Records. Her first album was an embarrassment to her but her next album very much piano-focused, and the recording company’s executives decided to promote her as the next Joni Mitchell and relocate her to Britain, considered to be more open-minded musically. Her career then began its steady ascent.

Come hear this ethereal and thought provoking star perform at our very own Dodge Theater for one memorable night.

TicketForce Announces Marc Ross, Sales Executive (East)

Mesa, Arizona , May 15, 2009: TicketForce today announced the hiring of Marc Ross, Sales Executive (East). Mr. Ross will work from his Boston, MA office, commuting monthly to the corporate office in Mesa, AZ.

Mr. Ross brings experience from the music, sports and ticketing industry since 2000, excelling in software sales and customer service. His previous experience includes Regional Sales Director for ExtremeTix (Houston) and Senior Regional Account Manager for Vendini (Boston).

As Sales Executive for TicketForce, Mr. Ross will oversee sales in the Eastern States (east of Mississippi), and will represent the company at trade shows.

An accomplished bass guitar player, Marc holds his BA from Clark University in Psychology with a minor in jazz studies.

Marc Ross
Eastern Sales Executive
Office: 866-726-3581, ext. 238
Direct Line (Boston): 781-452-7201
Email: marc@ticketforce.com

About TicketForce

TicketForce utilizes a powerful web-based ticketing system to provide venues, promoters, festivals, arenas and civic centers with a fully-customizable solution for full-service ticketing and box office management. TicketForce serves as a technology partner for its customers, enabling sales through integration with Internet sales, box offices, and Call Centers. TicketForce provides a complete suite of scalable products and services, including print-at-home ticketing, electronic will-call, access control, payment processing, management tools, and real-time reporting. More information is available at http://www.ticketforce.com/ticketforce-news.html.

More details: http://www.ticketforce.com/ticket-solutions.html
Contact the Sales Team: sales@ticketforce.com
Toll-Free: 866-726-3581

Pat Benatar and Debra Harry, ‘Call Me Invincible’ tour

These two female rock icons, who have never shared a stage before, are hitting the road together this summer on their ‘Call Me Invincible’ tour. It will feature songs from their combined ten platinum albums and eight number one hits, including favorites such as ‘Heart of Glass,’ and ‘Love is a Battlefield.’ They arrive in Phoenix on July 28th at the Dodge Theatre.

If there are two cooler rock-chicks on the proverbial road tour today, one would be hard pressed to name them. Tickets for this unique event will go quickly. According the joint press release, Deborah Harry, a.k.a. Blondie, says of her new stage mate, "Pat Benatar is not only a friend, but a fearless female rocker who has entertained me and her wealth of fans for so many years. This will be a reunion for us both and being able to bring our two shows to fans across the country is very exciting!" Pat Benatar returns the compliment, "Deborah and I have been friends forever. I'm thrilled that we're finally getting an opportunity to tour together, it should be a blast."

If you think these dames of rock have been in quiet retirement until now, think again.

The sixty-three year old Deborah Harry, a former Playboy Bunny and best known as the lead singer for the band Blondie, has been working steadily all these years and has achieved success as a solo artist, as well as an actress; she has over 30 film roles and several television appearances to her credit.

Major international success came in 1978 with the album, Parallel Lines, that included the hit single ‘Heart of Glass,’ and continued steadily through 1981 when Harry released her first solo album. The band then regrouped but their tour was cut short by a band member’s illness. This and declining sales forced them to split up. But the Blondie machine kept going with successful remixes through the late 80s to the mid-90s, and in 1997, Blondie began working together once more to renewed applause. In fact Harry had the great distinction of winning a place in the Guinness World Book of Records in 1999 as the "Oldest Female Singer to Reach No. 1 in the UK Chart" with her hit, ‘Maria.’ She was 53.

According to Wikipedia, Blondie began recording further tracks in 2001 but the master tapes were lost after 9/11. The band regrouped in 2002 with a UK tour that preceded the successful release of a new single, ‘Good Boys,’ as well as their eighth studio album, The Curse of Blondie. The band continued touring for four years, and in 2006, they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

In the summer of 2007, Blondie toured the UK again and did a world tour starting in October of 2008.


And what about Benatar? She hasn’t rested on her laurels, either.

Fifty-three year old Brooklyn born Benatar is a four-time Grammy Award-winner best known for hit songs ‘Love Is a Battlefield,’ ‘Hit Me with Your Best Shot,’ and ‘Heartbreaker.’ Billboard Magazine ranked Benatar as the most successful female rock vocalist of all-time with 19 Top 40 singles to her credit, as well as many Platimum albums.

Benatar’s mother was an opera singer and subsequently, classical music ruled in Pat’s household. This mezzo-soprano was classically trained all the way, even studying at Julliard. Nevertheless, she was always a rocker at heart. "I was singing Puccini and 'West Side Story' but I spent every afternoon after school with my little transistor radio listening to the Rolling Stones..."

Catch Benatar and Harry this summer at the Dodge Theater and be prepared to be blown away by two of rock’s best female legends.

Joe Cocker at the Dodge Theatre on June 7th

Arguably one of the grittiest and most soulful rock voices of the past five decades is none other than British singer and composer Joe Cocker. Who can forget throaty numbers like ‘You can leave your hat on;’ ‘Unchain my heart;’ ‘Up where we belong;’ and ‘Summer in the City?’ If you’re looking to put a notch in your belt for seeing all time greats, go see this tireless performer live on tour in Phoenix at the Dodge Theatre on June 7th.

Cocker was born in Sheffield, England on May 20, 1944. To support his musical ambitions, he worked as an apprentice gas fitter, but at night he was Vance Arnold of The Avengers, singing in dingy bars. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t good. On the contrary, he caught the attention of the Rolling Stones, and in 1963 Cocker and his band acted as their warm up at Sheffield City Hall. They were a huge success, and fortune built steadily from there.

Cocker had his first appearance on American television in 1969 on the iconic Ed Sullivan. The press adored him, and so did America. He performed that summer in Woodstock in front of an incredible half a million people. Twenty-five years later, he was the opening act and one of the few originals who later performed in Woodstock ‘94.

While Cocker had hits internationally in the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s, his first American number one was his duet with Jennifer Warnes in ‘Up where we belong,’ the theme song to An Officer and a Gentleman. In fact he has sung several theme songs for movies such 9 1/2 Weeks – featuring ‘You can leave your hat on’ from his Platinum album, Cocker; Harry and The Hendersons, Bull Durham, and An Innocent Man.

While he has toured most of his career, Cocker’s notable performances include playing at Royal Albert Hall and on The Tonight Show in 1988, as well as singing at an inauguration concert for President George H. W. Bush in 1989. Success still continued and in 1992, his version of ‘Feels Like Forever’ by Bryan Adams hit the UK Top 40. In 2007 the Queen awarded him an OBE for services to music.

His last album, Hymn for My Soul, released in 2007, was produced by Ethan Johns and includes several noteworthy musicians such as Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, as well as Cocker’s versions of songs such as Stevie Wonder's ‘You Haven't Done Nothin’.’ Each is well worth downloading to your iPod.

Cocker has no plans to retire as he still enjoys ‘the buzz of performing.’ He currently lives in Jane Fonda’s old house, Mad Dog Ranch, in Crawford, Colorado. A bit of a mad old dog himself, this pit-bull rock legend is still giving it his all and is more than worth it to hear live.

KENNY G On Tour

The biggest-selling instrumental musician, with global sales exceeding 75 million albums (over 45 million albums sold in the U.S. alone), touches down in Phoenix on June 13th at the Celebrity Theatre. A qualified pilot, Kenny G (short for Gorelick) might even be flying his own plane to get here. Who knows when he had the time to learn to fly – and oh, to become a highly respectable golfer, too, with a handicap of +0.6.

Kenny G was first inspired to play the soprano saxophone after watching a performance on the Ed Sullivan Show. He took lessons from local trumpeter Gerald Pfister and practiced along to records to try to copy what he heard. Born in Seattle, Kenny - who unequivocally plays as romantically as Cyrano courted Roxanne - had the good fortune to perform for years with greats such as Barry White’s Love Unlimited Orchestra and Jeff Lorber Fusion. Although Arista Records signed him in 1982, his truly pivotal moment came six years later on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Always someone to take risks, at the last minute he overturned the producer’s decision that he perform a piece of music with a singer. Since his goal was to establish himself as an instrumentalist, he felt he needed to perform alone. He played ‘Songbird,’ and his star was finally ablaze.

Kenny has collaborated with many great artists such as Aretha Franklin, Natalie Cole and Frank Sinatra, and his sixth album Breathless became the biggest selling instrumental record in the U.S. with over 12 million records sold in the America alone (15 million in total). ‘Forever in Love,’ became a GrammyÆ award winning single from that album. He then topped his own record with his 1994 holiday compilation, Miracles, which hit number #1 on the Billboard Top 200 chart, and which became the best selling holiday album of all time. According to Wikipedia, the album still holds that record today.

He continues to add his own personal touch to the greatest of love ballads such as ‘The Way You Look Tonight,’ Alicia Keys’ ‘I Ain’t Got You,’ and James Blunt’s ‘You’re Beautiful.’ Of his music he says, “I think my music gives people the opportunity to listen to their own thoughts. Tap into their imaginations. Create their own stories to songs without the limitation of words...”

Kenny G’s last album, Rhythm & Romance, was his first Latin Jazz compilation. Recorded live in the studio, he used some of the world’s finest Latin musicians. He calls it a rich, one-of-a-kind tapestry of samba and salsa, ballads and bossa nova. “Musically, this is nothing like I have ever done before,” he says.

He has performed all over the world for millions of people and is a great favorite internationally, especially China, where the government uses some of his music for closing time at public places or at the end of school classes. Even mass transit systems in Tianjin and Shanghai play his songs when trains arrive at stations.

A final curiosity… he holds a place in the Guinness Book of World Records for playing the longest note ever recorded on a saxophone. He held an E-flat for 45 minutes and 47 seconds. How is that possible? Perhaps you will get a glimpse of how he performs such magical feats when he arrives here at the Celebrity Theatre.

Jimmy Buffett – The Summerzcool Tour

If summer holidays weren’t enough to be excited about, we have Mr. Margaritaville himself coming to town. That’s right, Jimmy Buffett and his Coral Reefer Band arrive in Phoenix on 5/14 at the Cricket Wireless Pavillion for the Summerzcool Tour 2009 – Buffett’s 34th music tour of his career.

At 62, Buffett might not be getting any younger but he’s still a heck of a lot of fun, and his guitar strumming is pure nostalgia. His songs are the main staple of summer parties, beach or otherwise. Margaritaville, for instance, is an American classic and rates number 234 on the Songs of the Century list (an educational project organized by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the National Endowment for the Arts, and Scholastic Inc.)

With Margaritaville and Cheeseburger in a Paradise alone, he is practically the symbol of island life, but he is also a powerful institution. Author of three bestselling fiction and non-fiction books, writer of children’s books, songwriter, musician, cameo-actor, businessman, philanthropist and pilot, Buffett may sing about the laid back island life – like the balmy Key West where he lives - but he is a busy entrepreneur wearing many hats, earning an estimated total of $100 million a year.

Born in Mississippi, Buffett’s music career took off in 1977 with the album release of Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes, featuring his breakthrough single, Margaritaville. Amazingly, with all his success and popularity over the last 30 years, it wasn’t until 2003 that he had another top hit – It’s Five O’clock Somewhere, a duet with Alan Jackson. It went to the top of the country charts and won the 2003 Country Music Association Award for Vocal Event of the Year. Also incredibly, this was his first award. Granted, a lot of his music has some dubious language that might have been a holdback for awards and honors.

Still, this legend still looks great and keeps up with the times, and his fans, aka Parrotheads, will be in for a treat as he promises to introduce several more songs on his tour, including: We’ve Got a lot to Drink About - a song meant to lift spirits despite stock market and unemployment blues. His music is pure entertainment guaranteed to make you smile, a valuable commodity in these troubled times. Be quick. Most of his tickets sell out in minutes.

Buy Jimmy Buffett Tickets Here

Jennifer Hudson @ Dodge Theatre in Phoenix

It isn’t everyday that one gets to hear one of America’s most powerful singing voices up close and personal. Often compared to a young Aretha Franklin, Jennifer Hudson will perform in Phoenix on 5/05 at the Dodge Theatre with Robin Thicke as part of her 2009 tour.

The 27-year old Chicagoan has had both a remarkable and tragic few years. After finding fame on American Idol in 2004 as one of twelve finalists, Hudson won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 2006 for the movie musical, Dreamgirls. She then went on to release her debut 2008 album, self-titled, that contains rich and emotional songs such as If This Isn’t Love, Giving Myself, and Spotlight, along with sassier numbers like Pocketbook, featuring Ludacris. But in October of that year, the unthinkable happened when her mother, her brother Jason and her nephew were murdered. Her fans wondered if she could ever recover from such a devastating and public loss.

But Hudson did come back, and she did so on one of the biggest platforms there is in the US. She reemerged at Superbowl XLIII, performing the Star Spangled Banner. Although the song was rumored to be prerecorded, the sadness in her voice was there for all to feel. It was a nerve-wracking performance but beautifully done. She went on to perform on Oprah among other big-name shows, as well as the Grammy Awards, where she sang a particularly poignant single off her new album – You Pulled Me Through. She proceeded to win Best R&B album of the year.

There is still so much to come for this young and powerful singer as she moves forward from her family’s tragedy. Be part of her history and see her this May. In the meantime, keep up with her on http://www.JenniferHudsonOnline.com

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