The Fruit Tree Foundation (founded by Emma Pollock and Idlewild guitarist Rod Jones) have unveiled a new collaborative cover album, Whole Lotta Roadies, which aims to shed light on the devastating effects of the coronavirus pandemic, especially on those who make a living working on live events. With this mission in mind, the benefit album will include Scottish artists Belle & Sebastian, Twin Atlantic, The Proclaimers, KT Tunstall, Fatherson, Emma Pollock, Honeyblood, The Rezillos, The Xcerts, and Idlewild. They'll be covering songs that fans vote on, and you can cast your vote here.
"The devastating impact COVID-19 has had on the music industry is well documented and few are far more affected than Live Crew," Ron Jones writes. "On speaking to members of our touring crew I realised how they were falling through the cracks in government funding and with no gigs and tours upcoming the outlook for them was bleak. I wanted to try and find a way to support them and the wider Scottish Live Crew industry. Knowing how many crew members are also very talented musicians in their own right I thought it would be fitting for them to showcase this by covering songs of the bands they have been working with over the years, and releasing an album of this to create a hardship fund and also awareness of their situation. The support from bands and for this project has been amazing and with singers from each one singing on the cover versions we hope to create a really special album to celebrate and support the people behind the shows that we all love to play and go to, without them the music industry and artists would be lost."