Wednesday, August 12, 2009

NEW MAXWELL BLACKSUMMERS’NIGHT TOUR DATES ANNOUNCED

Maxwell will return to the road in late September for a series of select North American concert dates, his first since wrapping a sold-out summer tour in early August. Maxwell's highly anticipated autumn tour kicks off at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto on September 25. Tickets for Maxwell's North American Fall Tour go on sale beginning August 14. Moving his classic R&B production from theaters to arenas for the second leg of his BLACKsummers'night North American tour, Maxwell's autumn concerts will feature multiple Grammy winning, R&B/rap artist Common providing main support, and 2009 Best Urban/Alternative Performance Grammy winner Chrisette Michele as opening act. BLACKSummers'night, the artist's long-awaited fourth studio album, entered the Billboard Top 200 at #1 following its release on July 7 and has achieved RIAA Gold status, having sold more than 500,000 copies since its release.

Maxwell's BLACKsummers'night Fall Tour w/ Common and Chrisette Michele:
Sept 25 –Toronto @ Air Canada Centre
Sept 26 - Detroit @ Joe Louis Arena (w/o Common)
Sept 28 - New York @ Madison Square Garden
Sept 30 - Richmond @ Richmond Coliseum
Oct 2 - Washington DC @ Verizon Center
Oct 3 - Philadelphia @ Wachovia Spectrum (w/o Common)
Oct 5 - Atlanta @ Phillips Arena
Oct 6 - Charlotte @ Time Warner Cable Arena
Oct 8 - Chicago @ United Center
Oct 9 - St. Louis @ Scottrade Center
Oct 12 - Dallas @ TBAOct 13 - Houston @ Toyota Center
Oct 16 - Los Angeles @ Hollywood Bowl
Oct 17 - San Francisco @ TBA

BLACKsummers'night is the second consecutive Maxwell album to enter the Billboard 200 at #1, the long-awaited successor to 2001's similarly chart-topping Now. With first week's sales of 316,499, according to SoundScan, BLACKsummers'night generated the best overall sales week of Maxwell's career. BLACKsummers'night peaked at #1 on the SoundScan Album Retailer chart and the Current R&B chart. Released on Tuesday, July 7, on CD and in a Limited Edition Deluxe CD/DVD set, BLACKsummers'night is already generating hit singles. The first, "Pretty Wings," rocketed to the #1 slot on America's Urban Adult radio stations after completing an earlier run as the nation's #1 Greatest Gainer/Most-Added song at the Urban Mainstream format. "Pretty Wings" peaked at #1 on the Billboard Hot Singles Sales chart, and is currently #2 on the R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, where it's spent 13 weeks.

"Bad Habits," the lead track and second single from BLACKsummers'night, reached #1 Most-Added song at Urban Adult radio according to Mediabase, the music industry's first mass-airplay monitoring service. Both "Bad Habits" and "Pretty Wings" have made the Top 10 of America's Urban Adult Contemporary charts with "Bad Habits" peaking at #7 and "Pretty Wings" locking down the #1 slot. BLACKsummers'night reached #1 on the iTunes R&B Albums chart while "Pretty Wings" hit #1 on the iTunes R&B Singles chart. BLACKsummers'night is the sensuous opening installment of the artist's monumental BLACKSUMMERS'NIGHT trilogy. (The trilogy's subsequent chapters, blackSUMMERS'night and blacksummers'NIGHT, are slated for release in 2010 and 2011 respectively.)

BLACKsummers'night reunites Maxwell with long-time collaborator Hod David, who serves as co-producer and co-writer of the album. Striving for an emotional authenticity and real world sound for the album, Maxwell and Hod recorded the entire album live in the studio with an a-list ensemble of elegantly sympathetic musicians. Maxwell began redefining classic soul music for a new generation with the release of his critically-acclaimed debut album, Maxwell's Urban Hang Suite, in April 1996. Fueled in part by the RIAA gold single, "Ascension (Don't Ever Wonder)," the Grammy-nominated Maxwell's Urban Hang Suite was certified platinum in March 1997, less than a year after its release, and achieved double platinum status, in recognition of sales of more than 2 million copies in the US alone, in 2002. Maxwell followed up with his MTV Unplugged EP, released in July 1997 and certified gold in September 1999. His second full-length album, Embrya, was released in June 1998 and certified platinum in May 1999. Another Maxwell single, the hit "Fortunate," was certified gold in June 1999. His third studio album, Now, entered the Billboard 200 at #1 in August 2001. To date, Maxwell has achieved 10 gold and platinum certifications from the RIAA for his albums and singles.

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