Report: Dolan planning concept album based on Rangers playoff run

New York Rangers CEO and touring musician James Dolan is planning a concept album based on his hockey team's playoff run, according to an upcoming interview in Rolling Stone.

Dolan's band, JD & the Straight Shot, is currently writing "at least 12 songs, maybe more" for an album that tells the story of the Rangers' march through the NHL post season as seen through the eyes of its owner. Dolan describes the main character as a "simple man-of-the-people rebel who discovers his true self while watching the hockey team he owns in the arena that he owns on the cable system he owns."

Dolan said a few songs have already been completed and are awaiting final mixing in the studio. The tracks include "Funky Flower Blues," "Shot to the Jaw," "You Made Me Cry (Living in Connecticut)" and an 17-minute instrumental version of The Eagles "I Can't Tell You Why" featuring a collaboration with longtime Eagles bassist Timothy B. Schmit.

"This will be the first blues-rock-sports concept album ever made," Dolan said. "I expect many imitators to follow, but they'll probably pale in comparison. This will be like the Hotel California of sports, but instead of one song, it'll be an entire record of Hotel Californias. Of sports."

JD & the Straight Shot is a jazz, blues and rock outfit formed in 2005 with Dolan on lead guitar and vocals. They have produced three full albums and an EP, the latest of which, Can't Make Tears was released in 2011. Although they have never undertaken a concept album before, Dolan feels the time is right for the band to branch out creatively and has been inspired by his team's exciting Spring.

The Rangers finished second in the Metropolitan Division and defeated the Philadelphia Flyers and Pittsburgh Penguins in two seven-game series. They reached their first Stanley Cup final in 20 years by beating the Montreal Canadiens in six games, and will face the Los Angeles Kings for the championship.

"The team has been like, wow, man. Just so awesome," Dolan tells Rolling Stone in a wide-ranging interview covering his business, sports and musical interests. "All the emotions, the pressure, the danger. I can feel them all the way up in my luxury box and the songs are just coming to me, man. Just popping out of my head fully formed.

"The concept is like a combination of Tommy, Ziggy Stardust and Yes's Tales From Topographic Oceans, but with hockey. It's like a messiah thing and a mystical sci-fi thing wrapped in a sweet denim Rangers jacket."

Dolan, who is also the CEO of Cablevision, the New York Knicks and Madison Square Garden, has toured extensively and has opened for The Eagles, The Allman Brothers Band and blues guitarist Robert Randolph. He hopes the currently untitled concept album will help separate his public capitalist persona from the true artist within him.

"As the (fictional) team progresses through the playoffs, the owner takes this amazing personal journey of awakening," Dolan said. "And this loaded cat realizes that there's more to life than just having money, power, famous friends, talented athletes on your payroll and being able to do whatever you want.

"You know what? Another song just came to me. Maybe it'll be a double album."

The Rolling Stone interview will be published in June. Dolan says the concept album will be released as soon as he can raise Cablevision subscription rates.

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This is fake. There is no album. You'll have to bootleg your JD & The Straight Shot albums like everyone else.