Sir Elton John, U2 and Nick Cave have contributed covers of T Rex songs to a tribute album dedicated to glam rocker Marc Bolan.
AngelHeaded Hipster, out on September 4, will feature contributions from Joan Jett, Soft Cell’s Marc Almond, Peaches, Lucinda Williams and Father John Misty.
U2 will provide a cover of Bang A Gong (Get It On), accompanied on piano by Sir Elton, while Cave has re-recorded T Rex‘s Cosmic Dancer, which is available online now.
The album will mark the 50th anniversary of T Rex’s debut.
The selection was headed up by producer and Saturday Night Live music supervisor Hal Willner, who died earlier this month after showing coronavirus symptoms.
Willner previously said of the compilation: “I became immersed in this artist by listening to everything, talking to Bolan experts and fans, researching his reviews and interviews.
“And I found that Bolan was hardly ever talked about as a ‘composer’.
“It was all about what a great rocker he was, how innovative he was, how David Bowie took his essence and Bolan was in his shadow…
“But I put him in the same pantheon as other composers that I’ve explored before.
“So, the concept for the album became to show Bolan as a composer with our typical cast of artists from different worlds that one rarely sees in the same place.”
Cave said: “It is impossible to exaggerate the devastating effect Hal’s passing will have on the collective of people that circled around him, esoteric artists he would corral together to participate in his rambling, hare-brained schemes, that were always a combination of genius, wonder and near-chaos.”
Bolan died in 1977, aged 29, in a car crash in London.