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Country star Chris Young’s latest single, “Young Love & Saturday Nights,” is a vivid love letter to summertime weekends, old trucks, and dive bar bands

ByMARIA SHERMAN AP Music Writer

July 24, 2023, 9:26 PM

LOS ANGELES — Country star Chris Young’s latest single, “Young Love & Saturday Nights,” is a vivid love letter to summertime weekends, old trucks, dive bar bands, and crushes. And it might sound immediately familiar: The guitar lick that opens the track is lifted directly from David Bowie’s 1974 hit “Rebel Rebel.”

Bowie is credited posthumously as a songwriter on the track, making it one of the genre-melding icon’s few forays into country music — noteworthy, because Bowie himself was not quite a fan of the genre.

“I think the only music I didn’t listen to was country and western, and that holds to this day,” Bowie told NPR’s Terry Gross in 2002. “It’s much easier for me to say that, the kind of music I didn’t listen to was pretty much that.”

So how did Bowie, who died in 2016, end up on the track?

Warner Chappell Music became the custodian of Bowie’s musical legacy — acquiring the worldwide rights to over 400 of his songs, including “Rebel Rebel” — when the company purchased his extensive music catalog in 2022.

Ben Vaughn, president and chief executive officer of Warner Chappell Music Nashville, says his team asked songwriter Jesse Frasure to “get creative using elements from Bowie’s catalog to write a new country song. He ended up doing an interpolation of ‘Rebel Rebel’ and the demo he turned in was an instant smash.”

“Getting the call from Bowie’s estate and Warner Chappell to creatively explore his catalog was an exciting day,” Frasure said in a statement. “Interpolations to me are a way of tipping a hat to my heroes and maybe even introducing their music to a new audience.”

He added that it is an honor to have Bowie’s music “be heard in the country genre.”

WMC A&R executive Spencer Nohe then pitched the song to Young’s team while their legal counsel, Steve Butler, negotiated the deal.

Young writes many of his own songs, but when he first heard the demo written by Ashley Gorley, Josh Thompson and Frasure, he knew he wanted to record it.

“It tackles universal themes that a lot of people can related to. That’s the end goal of the song: to make you feel like you’re in it,” Young told The Associated Press. “And the fact that David Bowie’s catalog got picked up and they decided to do something special like this, and list him as a songwriter on the song, is a really cool thing.”

But how would Bowie himself feel about the posthumous collaboration?

“Hate is a strong word,” said Tiffany Naiman, UCLA’s director of music industry programs and an expert on Bowie, of the icon’s feelings toward the genre. “I think he had a very difficult relationship with certain parts of America including country music.”

It might have not been his thing, she said, but that didn’t mean he never listened to country music. She urges listeners to consider Bowie’s documented love of Elvis Presley, who began his career as a country star, and Bowie’s cover of the country track “It Ain’t Easy” by Ron Davis, recorded during his 1971 “Hunky Dory” sessions and released on 1972’s “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.”

Young himself told the AP that he doesn’t think his song is “introducing David Bowie to a new genre.”

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Making Time ∞ returns to Philly’s Fort Mifflin for the electronic music festival’s biggest lineup yet.

More than 100 artists and DJs will perform across five stages at the former Revolutionary War battlefield, with electro and house acts Jamie xx, Helena Hauff, Overmono, Octo Octa and Eris Drew, and DJ Koze headlining the summer festival from Sept. 22-24.

The first Making Time at Fort Mifflin debuted in 2021, with LCD Soundsystem frontman James Murphy headlining the one-day festival.

Underground DJs like Jersey Club legend UNIQU3, Japan’s DJ Nobu, Ben UFO, Optimo, and others will also take the stage to light up the crowd at the 42-acre site. But beyond the rave, Making Time ∞ will include “ant-festival” experiences for audiences to enjoy.

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According to a press release, there will be “ambient, downtempo and experimental pop tones” via performances from Carmen Villain, Colleen, Hailu Mergia, LARAAJI, and other artists. Brooklyn community music hub The Lot RADio will host a livestream stage, and one of the site’s “casemates” will be converted to “chill-out rooms” filled with records from local music collectors and DJs.

Making Time partner and Philly-based visual art shop Klip Collective will add to the enthralling music experience by casting light installations on Fort Mifflin’s moats, casemates, buildings and mounds.

“Fort Mifflin is such a special place,” founder and Philly DJ David Pianka, better known as Dave P, said. “It’s such a unique location for a futuristic musical experience like this. There’s so much space and freedom to be as creative as possible. I can’t do that at a club. I could only do that here and it has been so much fun.”

Tickets for the festival will go on sale Friday at 10 a.m. For pricing and pick-up information, go to dice.fm.

TIME Studios has been granted exclusive access to Universal Music Group’s unrivalled music archive for the series, which will feature stories about Bob Marley, Ella Fitzgerald, The Who, and more

TIME Studios will shine a light on some of music’s greatest untold stories in the upcoming Deep Dive documentary series, which will see it exploring the depths of the Universal Music Group vaults.

The label group owns history’s largest music archive, housed within the renowned Iron Mountain Entertainment Services’ archival facility.

A groundbreaking new behind-the-scenes, non-fiction series, Deep Dive will bring history to life as it unearths for the first time previously untold stories from original recordings, master tapes, never-before-seen photo negatives, filmed performances, album art, and music videos that had long been only rumored to exist.

The Deep Dive documentary series follows years of media speculation and unfounded rumors about what might have been lost in a 2008 fire at the Universal Studios backlot. Following the incident, UMG initiated a massive, multi-year effort to inventory the vast collection of musical recordings and artifacts.

Through awe-inspiring and emotional storytelling, Deep Dive not only celebrates the treasures discovered within Iron Mountain and UMG’s vaults around the world but also spotlights the incredible team of music archivists, curators, and producers who have dedicated their careers to preserving, protecting, and caring for these rare items. The series will uncover the archival proof of the moment an artist pivoted: when a hit was born, an emotional reality was faced, or a loss was recognized.

The series will feature stories about legendary artists, including Bob Marley, Ella Fitzgerald, Marvin Gaye, and The Who. In each episode, Deep Dive will lead viewers on a musical journey, exploring intimate stories and unexpected mysteries connected to the biggest untapped treasure trove of music ever known. The first season will be comprised of 10 episodes and will be directed by Doug Pray.

“Being able to unveil incredible findings through unfiltered and insightful storytelling is what we strive for with each and every TIME Studios project,” Ian Orefice, president and COO of TIME and TIME Studios, said. “Deep Dive does just that, and we are confident that both music fans and history lovers alike will revel in the mysteries uncovered in each episode.”

David Blackman, head of Film and Television Development and Production at UMG, added: “We are privileged to have the greatest collection of musical recordings, videos, and artwork in the world–millions of assets in total–dating back to 1897 and the founding of the world’s first record label. Deep Dive celebrates the iconic artists, the untold stories, and the passionate people who devote their lives to preserving and finding new audiences for those treasures.”