Sting working on musical, will release new album in September
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Sting is preparing an album of original material for release later this year, his first since “Sacred Love” in 2003.
The rocker’s publicist told the New York Times that the album, to be titled “The Last Ship,” will be out Sept. 24 and will consist in part of songs Sting wrote over the last three years for a musical of the same name. Producers of the musical, which Sting is developing with John Logan (who co-wrote “Skyfall”) and Brian Yorkey (“Next to Normal”), hope to bring “The Last Ship” to Broadway in 2014.
Set in the small English town where Sting grew up, the show depicts the “decline of the shipbuilding industry in Newcastle during the 1980s,” according to the report. Broadway veteran Joe Mantello is set to direct.
Though Sting has largely stayed away from songwriting over the last decade, he’s kept plenty busy, recording an album of 16th century lute music in 2006, a jazzy holiday album in 2009 and, in 2010, a set of orchestral interpretations of his hits that he also took on tour.
Among the songs reportedly slated for “The Last Ship” are the folky, waltz-time title track, the tense “Dead Man’s Boots” and the funky “And Yet,” delivered by a sailor arriving home from a journey.
Sting is currently on the road with his Back to Bass tour, which stopped Monday night at the Santa Barbara Bowl and moves on to Colorado’s Red Rocks Amphitheatre on Wednesday.
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Twitter: @mikaelwood
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