New Keys Songs Due in Fall

Alicia Keys has been laying down tracks for the follow-up to 2001's multi-platinum Songs in A Minor. She wrote most of the album, due in November, on her recent European tour. "I would be down in my little bus," she says, "banging out beats, putting down thoughts on things that happened on the road."

And many of those beats and thoughts were inspired by Keys' international surroundings, including exposure to African singer Oumou Sungare and the traditional flamenco singers she saw in Madrid. "It's like hip-hop freestyle, real raw," she says. "Everybody's in a room, and they're banging on a guitar for a beat. And people just speak about the pain they feel in their life. I was really touched."

The five-time Grammy winner's album will also feature familiar sounds. "Some of the tracks are me on piano," she says, "where I belong."

Among the new songs are "Dragon Days" and "Nobody Not Really," inspired by a boy who sold Keys candy in an airport. "I just got off a plane and gave him the five dollars and went about my business," she explains. "Then I said, 'Wait. What's this for?' And he said, 'A community center. We're trying to do a music program and raise money.' So this song is about how nobody really cares about those simple little things that can make such a big difference, and how I realize I can slip into that thought process too."

• 
  MUSIC 100 Greatest Debut Albums
• 
  MOVIES 'Star Trek' Is Crazy Good
• 
  TV
• 
  POLITICS No Price Big Banks Can't Fix

Song Stories

“Is It True”

Brenda Lee | 1964

As the British Invasion reached its peak in 1964, Brenda Lee went from Nashville to London to record one of her hardest-rocking hits, her perky vocal backed by a stuttering, squalling guitar. That guitar was played by session musician Jimmy Page, yet to skyrocket to fame with first the Yardbirds and then Led Zeppelin. "She said to me, 'I've come here to make a record with the British sound,'" remembered producer Mickie Most. "She felt she wouldn't get the same sound in Nashville because they're only just catching up on the British beat group sound of about six months ago."

More Song Stories entries »

Twitter