Image Entertainment has set a Feb. 26, 2002, release date for the 100-minute DVD/VHS home video “Pete Townshend: Music From Lifehouse.” The video features 16 songs drawn from Townshend’s Feb. 25-26, 2000, performances of his unfinished “Lifehouse” rock opera, including such Who classics as “Behind Blue Eyes,” “Baba O’Riley,” “Bargain,” and “Won’t Get Fooled Again.”
“Lifehouse” centers on music’s power to help inhabitants of a post-apocalyptic world transcend their dire existences. Townshend originally conceived it in 1971 as a multi-media music experience, but the stress of completing the project drove him to shelve it for many years.
The video will serve as a companion piece to the six-CD “Lifehouse Chronicles” set, which Townshend self-released on his Eelpie.com Web site. The collection includes the radio play broadcast on BBC Radio in December 1999, two CDs of music originally written for the project, new music composed for the piece, and orchestral material. Redline Entertainment issued a single-disc version of the set in May 2000.
— Jonathan Cohen, N.Y.
Country artist Terri Clark is at work with producer Bryan Gallimore (Tim McGraw, Faith Hill) on a new album for Mercury. “Our first three songs turned out great, and I can’t wait to hear what the rest of the songs will sound like,” Clark said in a statement. “We are going back into the studio in late February to cut more songs after we’ve had time to find additional material, and I’ve had time to write more songs.”Clark says she expects the album to be completed in time for a fall 2002 release, with a single potentially due as early as June. The new set will be the follow-up to 2000’s “Fearless,” which debuted at No. 8 on Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart and at No. 85 on The Billboard 200. That album spawned three singles on Billboard’s Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart, including “A Little Gasoline,” which peaked at No. 13 on the tally.
Clark won top video for “No Fear” and the Fans’ Choice Award at the Canadian Country Music Awards in September.
— Jonathan Cohen, N.Y.
The final five albums recorded by brooding ’60s singer/songwriter Phil Ochs will be celebrated on “The Best of Phil Ochs,” the next release in Universal’s 20th Century Masters/The Millennium Collection series. Due Jan. 29, the album features 12 digitally remastered recordings spanning 1967-70, the years Ochs recorded for A&M Records. Among the selections are studio recordings of “Outside of a Small Circle of Friends” and “The War is Over,” as well as a live solo rendition of “I Ain’t Marchin’ Anymore,” recorded after his arrest at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
Ochs committed suicide in 1976 at age 35. Since his death, several archival live albums have been released, including 1990’s “There and Now: Live in Vancouver” (Rhino) and 1996’s “Live at Newport” (Vanguard).
— Barry A. Jeckell, N.Y.