Britney Spears Back in the Studio, Says Producer

Britney Spears is working on a new album, according to Jim Beanz, a vocal producer who's a frequent Timbaland collaborator and worked on several of Spears' Blackout tracks. "Everyone has personal stuff, but a true professional doesn't bring it into the studio," Beanz, who says he's working with Britney again, tells Us, adding, "Britney is amazing." Since the release of Blackout last year, Spears has reunited with Larry Rudolph, her longtime manager who guided her through her golden years (and who Spears promptly fired after emerging from rehab in 2007). Spears is currently taking a break from recording, however, as she's in Louisiana to be with her sister Jamie Lynn, who just gave birth. Spears was recently in London starring in (and co-directing) the video for "Radar," which will be the next single from Blackout, in which she searches the city for a boy she met in a club. As for Spears' conservatorship — her father, Jamie, remains in control of her legal affairs — the matter will be reviewed in a Los Angeles court on July 31.

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Song Stories

“All Along the Watchtower”

The Jimi Hendrix Experience | 1968

Jimi Hendrix got hold of Bob Dylan's early John Wesley Harding tapes and in late 1967 recorded a version of "All Along the Watchtower" with the Experience in London. Dissatisfied with that first development, Hendrix brought those tapes with him to New York in early 1968 when he began work on Electric Ladyland. Eddie Kramer, Hendrix's engineer at the time, told Rolling Stone that Hendrix "was still looked upon by his basically white audience as the mammoth black guitar hero. There was a constant fight within him to expand himself." Hendrix's successful take on Dylan's work has long been recognized by the songwriter. "I liked Jimi Hendrix's record of this and ever since he died I've been doing it that way," Dylan wrote in the liner notes to his Biograph box set. "Strange how when I sing it, I always feel it's a tribute to him in some kind of way."

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