BEN FOLDS and NICK HORNBY Travel the "Lonely Avenue"

MUSIC NEWS - Word this week of the release of Lonely Avenue, a collaboration between two eminent artists, the American singer-songwriter Ben Folds and English novelist Nick Hornby will be released September 28 on Nonesuch Records. The album features music and vocals by Folds and lyrics by Hornby, with string arrangements by one of the most influential pop string arrangers of all time, Paul Buckmaster (David Bowie, Elton John, Leonard Cohen).

The record, which Folds intentionally made to be listened to on vinyl, was recorded on 2-inch tape and will be available on audiophile-grade vinyl, cut with the Direct Metal Master process at Abbey Road Studios and pressed at Pallas Manufacturing in Diepholz, Germany. 

Lonely Avenue will also be available on CD, digitally, and in a special deluxe edition that will include four short stories by Hornby.  The idea to create an album of Folds’ unique pop music with Hornby’s insightful prose was conceived during a dinner conversation between the two friends one night in 2009. Later, Hornby began regularly emailing lyrics to Folds, who turned them into Lonely Avenue’s 12 musical short stories.  The songs touch on a range of subject matters from a mother with a child in the hospital over New Years Eve to the work of Doc Pomus, lyricist of countless `50s and `60s pop hits.

On composing the music Folds recently told Paste: “I kind of ran the gamut between being as simple as I’ve ever been, and sometimes having to go [Russian composer Dmitri] Shostakovich on some of them.” Hornby recently said of the pairing: “At this stage in my career, I want to collaborate with all the talented people I can find, and I’ve always been a big fan of Ben Folds’ music. It’s been a real privilege to watch and listen to Ben at work, and I’ve learned a lot about how proper songwriters like Ben think."

Nick Hornby often writes about music, musicians, and music lovers in his fiction and nonfiction work. His six novels, some of which have been turned into successful films, are High Fidelity, About a Boy, How To Be Good, A Long Way Down, Slam, and Juliet, Naked. He has also published three works of non-fiction, /Fever Pitch, Songbook (a collection of essays about songs that influenced his life), and The Complete Polysyllabic Spree, as well as a book of short stories, Otherwise Pandemonium. Hornby wrote the screenplay forAn Education for which he was nominated for anOscar and a BAFTA for Best Adapted Screenplay.

UPDATE 9/23/10 - new album, Lonely Avenue now streaming in its entirity @ MySpace.com/BenFolds.