Joey Molland’s Lead Vocal Connects A Long-Running Tribute With A Lasting Friendship
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Joey Molland’s lead vocal on “Johnny B. Goode” gives a long-planned Chuck Berry tribute an unexpected poignancy. Released under the name Molland, Solem & Miller, the single features one of the final recordings by the Badfinger musician, who died in 2025. It is the first glimpse of a 12-song project developed over roughly 15 years, carrying the history of a friendship alongside its salute to rock & roll.
The trio brings together Molland, Phil Solem of The Rembrandts, and singer-songwriter and guitarist Jeff Miller. Their connection began around a Minneapolis benefit facilitated by Willie’s American Guitars, where a shared stage became the starting point for something more lasting. “It was great, the two talents together”, Miller recalls of that initial collaboration. The remark is modest, but it captures the pleasure of finding that musicians with separate histories could make something together.
Acoustic touring followed, giving the collaboration a life beyond that first performance. It is an important part of the story: the group’s shared experience was built through playing together, before the tribute acquired the significance it now carries. Molland’s Badfinger history and Solem’s work with The Rembrandts bring familiar names to the release, while Miller’s role connects those individual careers within a continuing project.
“Johnny B. Goode”
is a natural point of entry to a Chuck Berry tribute. Its story of a young guitarist becoming known through his playing has long been part of rock & roll’s imagination. Here, that familiar idea meets musicians looking back across careers of their own. The choice links an early image of musical possibility with the experience of people who spent much of their lives pursuing it. Berry’s song offers a shared language for that meeting.
Molland’s death gives the release another emotional dimension. A vocal recorded within a long-running collaboration now belongs to the closing part of his recorded work. That knowledge changes the context without needing to cast the performance as a farewell. For listeners who followed Badfinger, the single offers another encounter with Molland’s voice, held within a project rooted in music he shared with friends.
Issued on October 16, 2026, through Hygh Tension Records and distributed by Virgin Music Group, “Johnny B. Goode”
introduces an album due on May 14, 2027. The single places Molland’s contribution at the front of a project his collaborators will carry into its next chapter. Its significance rests in that continuity: songs passed between generations, and a friendship preserved in the act of playing them.
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