Woodland Hills, CA - Veteran rockers Stuart Smith and Richie Onori have joined forces to form a new label—Black Star Records—bringing new life to the Classic Rock scene.  Both are well known and respected musicians, having played with a long list of rock icons, a veritable “Who’s Who” in Classic Rock—Keith Emerson (ELP), Richie Blackmore (Deep Purple), Bobby Kimball (Toto), Joe Lynn Turner (Rainbow), Rick Derringer, just to name a few. 

Burnside Distribution has begun shipment to some stores of  Black Star’s first CD of their own group, Heaven & Earth.  The CD will be fully released in January.  “Stuart Smith’s Heaven Earth” was released in Europe and Asia and was hailed by reviewers to be the best blues/hard rock album that has come out in the past 10 years.  The new CD, “Heaven & Earth featuring Stuart Smith” which includes performances by a host of rock’s heavy hitters such as Richie Sambora of Bon Jovi, Howard Leese of Heart, Glenn Hughes of Deep Purple, Carmine Appice of Vanilla Fudge, among others, has been re-mastered and features two brand new bonus tracks, one featuring Bobby Kimball of Toto on vocals and the other with Joe Lynn Turner singing an amazing version of Gary Moore's "Still Got The Blues."

“It’s quite obvious that the Classic Rock audience will never go away,” says co-owner/musician Richie Onori. “Our focus is to create a new genre in this format.  We call it ‘New Classic Rock’”.

Stuart Smith adds, “Fans out there are dying to hear fresh, new music in this vein.  We intend to fill that demand.  We are signing Classic Rock artists and pointing them in the direction with their sound and their songs that made them into legends in the first place. In keeping with this we have signed Howard Leese for a solo album.  Howard was the long standing guitarist of Heart and for the last four years has been the guitarist/band leader for Free/Bad Company singer, Paul Rodgers.  Along with Paul, the CD will feature performances by some of the biggest names in Classic Rock and will be released mid 2005.” 

The Heaven & Earth CD—“Heaven & Earth featuring Stuart Smith”—is available in stores all over America as well as on the band's website at www.heavenandearthband.com.