Bumblefoot—born Ron Thal 56 years ago—might have been only six years old when Rainbow launched in 1975 but recalls, “I heard the Rainbow Rising album as a kid and became a lifelong Rainbow fan! It’s a great honor to play on this song and to pay tribute to this historic band.” The song in question is “Long Live Rock’n’Roll,” Rainbow’s longtime battle cry (and can be heard here).

I guess it had to happen. The evil forces of the oxymoronic soft-rock agenda have kidnapped the great Bumblefoot, paired him with Graham Bonnet of Rainbow, and forced him—kicking and screaming—to record “Just The Two Of Us,” the Grammy-winning 1980 soul song by Bill Withers and Grover Washington, Jr. It’s on the new Yacht Metal from Cleopatra Records.

Femme Fatale was a band from New Mexico that hit it big in Los Angeles with its one and only self-titled studio album in 1988, opened for Cheap Trick all over the world in 1989 and broke up in 1990. Now they’re back again with Paramus guitarist-composer-producer Steve Brown who brought in New Brunswick guitarist Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal.