Favorite Seventies Artists In The News

Posted by Administrator on June 20th, 2014

Lyricist Gerry Goffin, who cowrote such famous pop hits as "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow," "The Loco-Motion" and "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman" with his ex-wife Carole King, died in his home in Los Angeles on June 18 of natural causes. He was 75. Born in Brooklyn in 1939, Goffin married King in 1959 as the pair were attending Queens College. Over the course of his career, he cowrote seven songs that reached Number One on the charts and over 50 Top 40 hits, including the Monkees' "Pleasant Valley Sunday," the Everly Brothers' "Crying in the Rain," Bobby Vee's "Take Good Care of My Baby" and James Taylor's "You've Got a Friend." Writing in Brill Building cubicles, the King-Goffin team composed over 100 hits in countless styles, including "Wasn't Born to Follow" (the Byrds), "Chains" (The Cookies, also covered by the Beatles), "Don't Bring Me Down" (the Animals) and "I'm Into Something Good" (Herman's Hermits). In 1962, they wrote, arranged, conducted, and produced the song "The Loco-Motion" for their 17-year-old baby-sitter, Little Eva, and it went to No. 1 that summer, and a remake by Grand Funk Railroad hit the top of the charts again in 1974. In 1990, Goffin was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame along with King. After his separation from King, Goffin went on to cowrite several Top 10 hits, including Gladys Knight and the Pips' "I've Got to Use My Imagination," Diana Ross' No. 1 hit "Theme From Mahogany (Do You Know Where You're Going To)" and Whitney Houston's "Saving All My Love for You." Goffin released his final album, Back Room Blood, in 1996. Goffin and King, who are the parents of two children including singer-songwriter Louise Goffin, divorced in 1968. Their story served as the basis for the musical "Beautiful: The Carole King Story," which garnered seven Tony nominations this year and won two, including Best Actress for Jessie Mueller's portrayal of King. "Gerry Goffin was my first love," Carole King said in a statement. "He had a profound impact on my life and the rest of the world. Gerry was a good man and a dynamic force, whose words and creative influence will resonate for generations to come. His legacy to me is our two daughters, four grandchildren, and our songs that have touched millions and millions of people, as well as a lifelong friendship. He will be missed by his wonderful wife Michele, his devoted manager, Christine Russell, his five children, and six grandchildren." - Rolling Stone, 6/19/14.

Chicago singer/keyboardist Robert Lamm says that sticking "Now" at the front of the venerable brass-fueled group's next album Now: Chicago XXXVI is no insignificant detail. "I think that there are many people who, whether they like Chicago or don't like Chicago, assume that what Chicago does is all what you hear on classic rock radio, or that Chicago is some dinosaur-like presence on the tour circuit. And we just wanted to kind of change that perception if we could by suggesting 'Now,'" Lamm told Billboard. Lamm says the band recorded the new LP in a mobile recording unit while touring in 2013, often in hotels and backstage dressing rooms. "Because nobody lives in the same town anymore, we decided to try to record on the road," Lamm says. Lamm co-wrote seven of Now's" tracks -- including "Something's Coming, I Know" with Gerry Beckley of America -- while Chicago singer-bassist Jason Scheff collaborated on four. Lamm adds that he's confident Now's sophisticated musicianship will appeal to longtime Chicago fans, despite its cutting edge method of recording. Chicago beings a European tour on June 26 in Paris, then returns to North America for a run of dates with REO Speedwagon that begins July 31 in Concord, Calif., with the two groups planning to join each other on stage for about a half-dozen songs each night. Now: Chicago XXXVI is due out July 8 via Frontiers Records. - Billboard, 6/17/14.

Peter Frampton's new mini-album, Hummingbird In A Box, will be released in the UK and US on June 24 via RED Distribution/Sony Music. Frampton says the new music was inspired by the Cincinnati Ballet, featuring seven original guitar pieces in Frampton's virtuosic stylings. The music debuted in April 2013 at Cincinnati's Aronoff Center for the Arts. Two of the Cincinnati Ballet's spring production's segments were choreographed to existing Frampton music -- with Frampton and his band performing live -- while a third section featured the new composition by Frampton and Gordon Kennedy, who also co-produced the recording. "Writing for dance was a wonderfully freeing experience. There were no boundaries," Frampton says. "We were able to push the composing envelope." Following a massive year of touring, including 2013's inaugural Frampton's Guitar Circus, Frampton returns to the road this summer with a tour of select solo dates, a co-headlining run with the Doobie Brothers and the return of Frampton's Guitar Circus. Frampton was recently inducted in the Musicians Hall of Fame, performed on-stage at the Grammy's with Ringo Starr and also played an integral part in the 50th anniversary celebration of the Beatles' arrival in the United States. Frampton also produced Humble Pie's Rockin' The Fillmore deluxe reissue with original member Jerry Shirley. - Noble PR, 5/15/14.

A Connecticut prosecutor announced on June 17 that his office is dropping a disorderly conduct case against Paul Simon and his wife, Edie Brickell. Simon, 72, and Brickell, 48, had been scheduled to be in court on that day, but they did not appear. Police say the couple fought during an April 26 argument inside a cottage on their property in New Canaan. Prosecutors told a judge they were declining to pursue the case, meaning the charges will be dropped and eventually erased after 13 months. Brickell told police Simon shoved her and she slapped him. The report says Simon suffered a superficial cut to his ear and Brickell, who smelled of alcohol, had a bruise on her wrist. Simon and Brickell were married in 1992 and have three children. In other litigation news, the producers of the beleaguered Gregg Allman biopic Midnight Rider are facing yet another lawsuit resulting from the deadly train incident which occurred during its filming on Feb. 20. Makeup artist Antonyia Verna has filed suit against the Midnight Rider production team, Gregg Allman, and the freight company, following similar lawsuits filed against them by the family of camera assistant Sarah Jones, who was killed in the accident, and other crewmembers. Verna claims that, following the incident, she sustained "serious physical injuries, medical and other necessary expenses, post-traumatic stress, mental anguish, lost income, and mental and physical pain and suffering." While Gregg Allman is listed as plaintiff in all of these lawsuits because he's an executive producer, he argues that he shouldn't be held accountable because he is not involved in the actual shooting of the film. Allman has asked producers to cease production on the film, which is based on his memoir My Cross to Bear, out of respect to Jones. While Allman at one point filed a lawsuit to stop the production, he later dropped the suit. - AP/Rolling Stone, 6/17/14.

A spokesman for Paul McCartney has announced the Beatles legend will resume his Out There tour in July after illness forced him to cancel a spate of shows. Although it was recently announced a series of shows in Lubbock, Dallas, New Orleans, Atlanta, Jacksonville, Nashville and Louisville were to be performed in mid-October, the spokesperson insists that Paul, who contracted a virus which saw him hospitalized in Tokyo, Japan, in May, is now "fine" and that "the tour resumes in July." McCartney is scheduled to play Albany, N.Y. on July 5. In other Beatles-related news, the quartet's revered catalog of nine U.K. albums, the American-compiled Magical Mystery Tour, and the Mono Masters collection of non-album tracks will be released in a The Beatles in Mono vinyl box set on Sept. 9 in the U.S. (and Sept. 8 everywhere else) in mono on 180-gram vinyl LPs with faithfully replicated artwork. The Beatles' mono albums have been newly mastered for vinyl from quarter-inch master tapes at Abbey Road Studios by Grammy-winning engineer Sean Magee and Grammy-winning mastering supervisor Steve Berkowitz. While The Beatles In Mono CD boxed set released in 2009 was created from digital re-masters, for this new vinyl project, Magee and Berkowitz cut the records without using any digital technology. Instead, they employed the same procedures used in the 1960s, guided by the original albums and by detailed transfer notes made by the original cutting engineers. Newly mastered from the analog master tapes, each album will be available both individually and within a lavish, limited 14-LP boxed edition, The Beatles in Mono, which also includes a 108-page hardbound book. Up until 1968, each Beatles album was given a unique mono and stereo mix, but the group always regarded the mono as the primary one. The new Beatles mono albums will be presented exactly as they were back then, both sonically and in their packaging. The collection will also be released on compact disc. Elsewhere on the Fab Four front, it has been revealed that NBC is in the early stages of development of an eight-episode event television series about the Beatles that would tell the story of the greatest band of all time. According to Deadline.com, the series will be written by The Tudors creator/executive producer Michael Hirst who will executive produce with The Tudors executive producers Ben Silverman and Teri Weinberg. The Beatles limited series is part of NBC's push in event programming area that includes live productions like The Sound of Music, miniseries like Rosemary's Baby and limited series like the 12-part The Bible. - New Musical Express/The Hollywood Reporter/Deadline.com, 6/13/14.

The BBC announced on June 16 that they intend on reuniting the original members of Genesis for the first time since 1975 for a new documentary. A feature-length documentary under the working title Genesis: Together And Apart for BBC Two will reportedly reunite all original members of the band -- Peter Gabriel, Tony Banks, Mike Rutherford, Phil Collins and Steve Hackett -- for the first time since 1975. The new Genesis production is part of an ambitious music strategy planned by the BBC, including new shows, partnerships and other initiatives, such as a music awards show. The U.K. public broadcaster is also working on a series with the working title The Soundtrack of the Twentieth Century for 2016. It will explore popular music's rise and transformations across the 20th century. "From Caruso to Taylor Swift via Frank Sinatra, The Beatles, Michael Jackson, Eminem and many more, this is the story of 100 years of music as only the BBC can," the broadcaster said. Meanwhile in other prog-rock news, the final concert of Queen's first headlining tour will be released as the live album Queen: Live at the Rainbow '74 on Sept. 9. The group recorded the 17-song set on Mar. 31, 1974 at a sold-out gig at the 3,000-capacity London venue the Rainbow, where they were playing songs from their first two albums and supporting Mott the Hoople. The new live album also contains a second disc with a concert supporting 1974's Sheer Heart Attack that the group recorded and filmed at the same venue in November of that year. - The Hollywood Reporter/Rolling Stone, 6/16/14.

Ozzy Osbourne is set to guest star on cable TV's Nickelodeon channel's popular preschool series Bubble Guppies as Sid Fishy, a "rock and roll fish who loves being rotten." Unlike the more wholesome residents of underwater city Bubbletucky, Sid Fishy sports a red mohawk, eyebrow and fin rings, gold tooth and slime spray to wreak havoc on unsuspecting guppies. The Prince of Darkness told Rolling Stone taht he was drawn to the character because "I've always smelled a bit fishy." Osbourne added he was attracted to the role because of his 2-year-old granddaughter Pearl. "The whole reason I did the show was for Pearl," said the man who was once arrested for urinating on an Alamo memorial while wearing his wife's dress. "She has Nick Jr. on 24/7. I can't wait to see her reaction when she hears my voice come from Sid Fishy's mouth." Meanwhile, Ozzy has revealed that there is a possibility for a new Black Sabbath album during a press conference at this year's Sweden Rock Festival in Slvesborg on June 6. "We haven't really discussed it. It is possible there's gonna be another album," said Osbourne. "But we haven't really sat down and decided what we're gonna do yet. We just wanna finish this tour and then we'll see." Black Sabbath are currently touring in support of their latest album, 13. The LP went on to debut at Number One on the Official UK Album Chart to become their first chart-topper in nearly 43 years. - Rolling Stone, 6/17/14.

Mick Jagger has become a grandfather for the fifth time after his designer daughter Jade gave birth to a baby boy on June 12. It's Jade's first child with husband Adrian Fillary, her third overall, and the Rolling Stones frontman's fifth grandkid. The birth comes just weeks after 42-year-old Jagger's 21-year-old daughter gave birth to her first child at the end of April, making Mick a first-time great-grandfather. Jade, who is one of Mick Jagger's seven kids, also has a 17-year-old, called Amba. She and Fillary wed in 2012. Meanwhile, Jagger has been blasted by the sister of his late girlfriend L'Wren Scott after he was photographed with a mystery woman earlier in June and just eleven weeks after the suicide death of Scott. Jagger was photographed with an unknown brunette on a hotel balcony in Zurich, Switzerland while the band were in town for a concert on June 1. In one picture, the unidentified woman appears to lean forward and kiss a seated Jagger on the head. Jan Shane, sister of the tragic fashion designer who took her own life in March, told the UK's Sunday Mirror paper that "These pictures make me wonder what Mick is really thinking and feeling. His daughter says that he is still heartbroken and devastated about losing my sister, and then you see these these photos -- he will never change." - WENN.com, 6/13/14.