Rock News: Music's high and low notes

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN

A New York-based performing arts group has turned songs from Bruce Springsteen into a rock opera titled "Drive All Night."

E! Online reports The Culture Project is expected to preview a rough demo of the two-hour production for The Boss himself in March. If Springsteen gives the thumbs-up, "Drive All Night" could be stage-bound.

"We just thought this would work well," said artistic director Darrell Larson, who thought up the idea about four years ago with partner Stephanie Kerley-Schwartz. "It would be a real addition to music in theater, and his work would particularly lend itself to this treatment."

The "demo version" of the rock opera features snippets from some 29 Springsteen songs in each act, as it tells the story of a working-class guy named Eddie. The show includes well-known Springsteen favorites like "Thunder Road" and "Atlantic City," as well as obscure tunes like "Protection," a Springsteen-penned song that Donna Summer recorded.

Larson -- who directed a 1995 concert version of "The Wizard of Oz," starring Jewel, Jackson Browne, Natalie Cole, Nathan Lane and Roger Daltrey -- first began talking with Springsteen's camp when longtime Bruce producer-engineer Chuck Plotkin worked on Larson's "Wizard of Oz" CD.

"What we're doing here is a demo version, and we're hoping it will be clear enough in how good it is that it will move forward," Larson said. "Then we'll do a fully staged version, try it out in Springsteen country and bring it into New York."

OASIS

Oasis will perform in concert one day before the band's London show for the Teenage Cancer Trust.

Music Goes On News reports the concert is scheduled for Feb. 5 at the Coliseum in Watford, England. It's the first time the brothers Gallagher have played Watford. Tickets go on sale this Thursday.

The benefit show follows on Feb. 6 at the Royal Albert Hall in the British capital.

BARRY MANILOW

Barry Manilow has been added to the line-up of entertainers at Super Bowl XXXVI in New Orleans on Feb. 3. He's scheduled to perform his song "Let Freedom Ring" as part of the Pregame

Show at the Louisiana Superdome, which will be broadcast on the Fox television network.

(Thanks to UPI's Mike Cooper in Atlanta)

DIDO

Dido has begun work on the follow-up to her 1999 album "No Angel." But she says she probably won't devote her full attention to the project until April.

"I'm still promoting ('No Angel'), unbelievably," the British singer told Billboard.com by phone last Friday. "I'm in France today. But I went back into the studio last week. And I've started writing the next album, because I really do just want to, ya know, get on with it. I've got so many songs and ideas, I want to get them down now."

Since rapper Eminem included a sample of the "No Angel" track "Thank You" on his "The Marshall Mathers LP," Dido -- whose real name is Florian Cloud De Bounevialle Armstrong -- has toured the United States extensively, during which she has previewed such new songs as "Do You a Little Time," "See the Sun," and "Don't Leave Home."

"It's been really good for me to actually sort of try out songs on the spot," she said, adding, with a laugh, that she will not be "sampling Eminem on my record."

'SOLDIERS' SOUNDTRACK DUE OUT SOON

A bunch of country stars contributed to the soundtrack of the movie "We Were Soldiers." Now, according to producers, the CD from the movie is set for release on Feb. 26, just days before the planned March 1 release of the movie in theaters across the country.

The movie stars Mel Gibson. Among the Nashville stars who teamed to provide the backgrounds: Johnny Cash, who appeared with Dave Matthews; Brooks & Dunn; Lee Ann Womack; Jamie O'Neal with Michael McDonald. The news provider country.com reports that additionally, Jars of Clay and Steven Curtis Chapman and Train appear on the movie soundtrack.

The album will be released by RCA. The record company says that most of the material was recorded specifically for the movie, some of it is brand new.

(Thanks to UPI Feature Reporter Dennis Daily)

HELMUT KOHL BESTS BRITNEY SPEARS

Faced with a choice last week of a rare live interview with former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, 71, on the ZDF channel, or an even more rare live show by Britney Spears, 20, on the ARD channel's Boulevard Bio show, Germans went for Kohl by a two-to-one ratio. The disgraced ex-Chancellor got 3.13 million viewers. But only 1.44 millions heard Britney confess her bedtime cravings -- for ice cream.

(From UPI Hears)