Paul McCartney to perform in Detroit at Joe Louis Arena on Oct. 21

The concert will be McCartney's first appearance at Joe Louis Arena and his first visit to the Motor City since 2011, during his On The Run tour.
McCartney has performed 22 shows this year, including stops in Japan, South Korea, Europe, the UK and the US. The Out There tour features popular music from McCartney's entire career, as a solo artist and a member of Wings and the Beatles. The set list also includes material from his most recent studio album, NEW, which was released in 2013.
Some of the most iconic moments from the last 50 years of music will be relived during the concert. McCartney and his band have performed in many impressive venues, including the Coliseum in Rome, Moscow's Red Square, Buckingham Palace, the White House, Mexico and the last ever show at San Francisco's Candlestick Park, where The Beatles played their final concert.
The band of the last 10 or more years includes Paul "Wix" Wickens (keyboards), Brian Ray (bass/guitar), Rusty Anderson (guitar) and Abe Laboriel Jr (drums).
The tour also uses technology and production like massive screens, lasers, fireworks, unique video content and, of course, the music.
McCartney kicked off the year at the 57th Annual GRAMMY Awards with Rihanna and Kanye West, performing "FourFiveSeconds," played a Valentine's Day concert in New York City and appeared on the Saturday Night Live 40th Anniversary special.

Tickets

Tickets ($29.50, $69.50, $99.50, $168 and $253) go on sale Monday at 10 a.m. and can be purchased online at OlympiaEntertainment.com or LiveNation.com. They can also be bought at the Fox Theatre and Joe Louis Arena box offices, all Ticketmaster locations and Ticketmaster.com. To charge tickets by phone, call 800-745-3000.
American Express Card Members can buy tickets before the general public, beginning Thursday at 10 a.m. through Sunday at 10 p.m.

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Joe Louis Walker plays it his way

Joe Louis Walker, the mighty modern electric and acoustic blues guitarist and singer, appears this weekend at Warmdaddy's in South Philly.

"You know, I like to think of myself as a chameleon," Walker says. "When I picked up the guitar as a kid, I picked it up to be a guitar player - not a blues guitar player."

Walker, born in San Francisco, started playing in churches starting at age 8. "Church was where me and my cousins gigged, where we had to play everything from Junior Walker and the All-Stars to sacred songs to the blues," he says. "The hippies came to my neighborhood, so I got a little of that, too. It was the whole combination of things there."

In 1968, he met up with Chicago guitarist Mike Bloomfield and became his roommate, confidant, and drinking partner. "His sound was one worth emulating," Walker says. Of Bloomfield's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, he says, "It was long overdue, that honor."

Bloomfield's death in 1981 shook Walker, who "got off the treadmill," leaving the music scene. In the following years, he freed himself from drugs and drinking. He attended San Francisco State University and got a degree in music and English. "Education was a wonderful thing," he says. "Still is, as I'm never without a book."

He performed holy songs with the Spiritual Corinthians Gospel Quartet in the Bay Area. "There are a lot of negative forces out there," says Walker. "I watched it happen to so many good ones. I played gospel music exclusively for a time, and that became part of my diet. I love jazz, soul, and R&B and play jazz, soul, and R&B. Then there's rock. I do it all."

By 1985, Walker decided to return to the music life. He began to make records that prove him adept, fluid, and fierce on both acoustic guitar and electric. He's an emotional player and vocalist who reinvents the blues with each record. That includes 1986's Cold is the Night, the 1998 sociopolitical classic Preacher and the President, and the soon-to-drop Everybody Wants a Piece.

That new album has raw, righteous songs such as "Black & Blue," a mix of roadhouse blues, deep funk, and raging, ringing, harmonious rock.

"Hey, man, I put on John Lennon records in the morning and Muddy Waters records at night," Walker says with a laugh. "That's who I am and what my music is."

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Joe Louis Biography

The world heavyweight boxing champion from June 22, 1937, until March 1, 1949, Joe Louis held the title longer than anyone else in history.

Synopsis

Born on May 13, 1914 in Lafayette, Alabama, Joe Louis went on to become the heavyweight champion of the world. Known as the Brown Bomber, Louis held the belt for nearly 12 years, a boxing record, and posted 25 successful title defenses.

Early Years

Boxer. Widely considered one of the greatest and most beloved boxers in the sport's history, Joseph Louis Barrow was born May 13, 1914 in the cotton-field country near Lafayette, Alabama. The son of a sharecropper, and the great-grandson of a slave, he was eighth child of Munn and Lilly Barrow.
Louis's family life was shaped by financial struggle. The Louis kids slept three to a bed and Louis' father was committed to a state hospital when he was just two years old.
Louis had little schooling and as a teen took on odd jobs in order to help out his mother and siblings. The family eventually relocated to Detroit where Louis found work as a laborer at the River Rouge plant of the Ford Motor Company.
For a time Louis set his sights on a career in cabinet making. He briefly attended the Bronson Vocational School for training and in his off-time took violin lessons.  But it was while at school that a friend recommended he try boxing.
While not an immediate success—he debuted as a lightweight and was knocked down three times in his first fight—he showed promise. By 1934 he held the national Amateur Athletic Union light-heavyweight title and finished his amateur career with an astonishing 43 knockout victories in 54 matches.

Pro Career

Louis bruised his opponents with a crushing left jab and hook. By the end of 1935 the young fighter was showing that his amateur success was no fluke. He fought 14 bouts that year, earning nearly $370,000 in prize money.
On June 19, 1936 Louis suffered his first professional defeat, a 12th round knockout to Max Schmeling, a German fighter and former heavyweight champion who'd earned the adoring praise of Adolph Hitler.
The defeat stung Louis, but it was offset by the chance to fight Jim Braddock on June 22, 1937 for the heavyweight crown. The Brown Bomber, as he came to be known, knocked out the defending champ in the eighth round setting the stage for a 12-year-run as the heavyweight king all the while becoming a sports icon for blacks and white across America.
Part of it could be chalked up to the sheer fact that fans loved a winner. Of Louis' 25 title defenses, only three went the full 15 rounds. But in winning, Louis also showed himself to be a gracious, even generous victor. Louis, who enlisted with the army in 1942, threw his support behind the country's war effort, and went so far as to twice donate his purse money to military relief funds.
He officially retired on March 1, 1949. A short-lived comeback, owed more in part because he was broke, soon followed. But Louis failed to capture his earlier magic. On October 26, 1951 he called it quits for good after Rocky Marciano knocked him out in the eighth round at Madison Square Garden.

Post-Boxing Life

The years after his retirement from the ring proved uneven for Louis. He was still a revered American figure, but money was a constant issue for him. In an effort to find some footing he tried out a number of careers. He wrestled and partnered with a rival in setting up a chain of interracial food shops.
In 1970 his wife Martha committed Louis to a psychiatric hospital in Colorado because of his cocaine addiction and paranoia. He was later confined to a wheelchair following surgery to correct an aortic aneurism.
When he passed away from a heart attack on April 12, 1981, Louis, who married four times in his life and had two children, was working as an "official greeter" at Caesars Palace.
Louis was inducted to the Ring Magazine Boxing Hall of Fame in 1954 and the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1990. In 1982 he was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.

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