Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen releasing major label debut album

Here’s an aspiring musician whose major label debut won’t have to struggle with the budget constraints most first-timers are faced with.

“Everywhere at Once” is the introductory effort from Paul Allen and the Underthinkers. Allen, in case you’re wondering, is the same Paul Allen who back in 1975 created a little venture called Microsoft with his pal Bill Gates.

Allen, who also owns the Portland Trailblazers basketball team, has always been a music aficionado and an accomplished amateur guitarist who used a chunk of his Microsoft fortune to start the Experience Music Project museum in Seatte.

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Now he’s assembled a debut album with his band, with a lot of help from other friends, including Heart’s Ann and Nancy Wilson, the Pretenders’ Chrissie Hynde, Joe Walsh, Los Lobos’ David Hidalgo, Derek Trucks, Doyle Bramhall II and Neville Brothers scion Ivan Neville.

It’s no mere vanity project for the 60-year-old billionaire -- all proceeds will go to support educational programs at the nonprofit EMP.

“I’ve rarely gone a week without picking up a guitar,” Allen wrote in his bestselling 2011 memoir, “Idea Man. “It’s more than a hobby; it gives me balance and keeps me in the moment, which can be a challenge with all the projects I’m pursuing at any one time… I take music with me wherever I go.”

“Everywhere at Once” is being released Aug. 6 by the Sony Music-owned Legacy Recordings label.

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