News Ticker: Lady Gaga, Forecastle Festival, Steve Miller Band, Herb Ellis

• A pair of old songs featuring a pre-Fame Lady Gaga will appear on an upcoming childrens' audio book titled Portal in the Park. Idolator reports the tracks, recorded with Melle Mel, accompany Cricket Casey's story about a boy who has crazy adventures after falling through a portal in Central Park.

   

   

• The Flaming Lips, Spoon and Widespread Panic are all confirmed for Louisville, Kentucky's Forecastle Festival. The ninth annual fest goes down July 9th.

   

   

• The Steve Miller Band plan to release two new albums — both sets of covers — Billboard reports. Bingo!, due this year, includes tracks by B.B. King and Jimmie Reed that Miller calls "a party record."

   

   

• Jazz guitarist Herb Ellis has died at 88 of complications from Alzheimer's disease, the AP reports. Ellis performed with the Oscar Peterson Trio and contributed standard "Detour Ahead" to the jazz canon with his Soft Winds trio.

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Song Stories

“(We're Not) The Jet Set”

George Jones and Tammy Wynette | 1973

George Jones and Tammy Wynette were still married when they recorded the tongue-in-cheek "(We're Not) The Jet Set." The lyrics, written by Nashville songwriter Bobby Braddock, who also penned Wynette's "D-I-V-O-R-C-E" and Jones' "He Stopped Loving Her Today," make fun of the good life by declaring, "We're not the Jet Set/We're the old Chevrolet set." Braddock recalled that while writing the song, he needed the name of a city that evened out the rhyme he had with "Riviera" and "Missourah." “I got out a Rand McNally atlas," he said. "In the first part are the maps. The last part is an alphabetical listing of cities. I wanted a rustic, small-time sound. I went to the listing for Missouri. And I found 'Festus.' I loved the sound of it."

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