Favorite Seventies Artists In The News

Posted by Administrator on August 22nd, 2014

John Lennon's killer Mark David Chapman was denied parole for the eighth time on Aug. 22, New York corrections officials have announced. Chapman, 59, was denied parole by a three-member board after a hearing on Aug. 20. He shot Lennon, 40, outside the former Beatle's Manhattan apartment building in Dec. 1980. He pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in 1981 and was sentenced to 20 years to life in prison. - AP...... In other Beatles-related news, the third leg of Paul McCartney's Out There tour of North America, which began in May, has become the summer's hottest tour with ticket sales totaling $38.7 million from concerts at eight arenas and four stadiums. It bring's Macca's overall gross to $150 million from 40 reported shows during the tour's 15-month span. Coming in at No. 3, behind Motley Crue, is Billy Joel, with the last of four performances at major league ballparks during the Piano Man's summer tour through North American cities. He wrapped his stadium run on Aug. 2 at Citizens Bank Park, the home ballpark of Major League Baseball's Philadelphia Phillies. - Billboard...... Elsewhere on the Fab Four front, rare 50-year-old photos of the Beatles meeting youngsters from a children's home while filming A Hard Day's Night in 1964 have been discovered by a children's charity in the United Kingdom. Staff at The Children's Society discovered the photographs in an archive which contained a copy of the charity's supporters' magazine from 1964. It featured an article on children from the Society's now-defunct Roehampton home, Hambro House, meeting the band while they were filming at London's Scala Theatre. - New Musical Express

'70s artists Billy Joel, Stevie Wonder and Joan Baez will be among the musicians honored with an ASCAP Centennial Award during a gala at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York City on Nov. 17. It will be the first fundraiser for the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) Foundation, as well as celebrate ASCAP's 100th anniversary. The five honorees, which also include Garth Brooks and Stephen Sondheim, will attend the gala, where other artists will perform in tribute. - AP...... Phil Collins has announced his first gig in four years will take place on Dec. 6 when he headlines the Dreaming On The Beach Concert at the Fillmore Miami Beach in Florida. Earlier in 2014, Collins made a surprise appearance at his sons' Miami school, performing "In The Air Tonight" and "Land Of Confusion" for pupils. He reportedly told the crowd that he was nervous playing his first show since retiring in 2011. The Dreaming On The Beach gig will benefit the Little Dreams Foundation, the charity Collins co-founded with his ex-wife Orianne Collins-Mejjati. In January, Collins revealed that he is working on new music with Adele for her next album. He claimed to have not really heard of the singer but that he was writing new music with her having been impressed with her voice and level of success. - New Musical Express...... Tickets for an upcoming concert headlined by Wilie Nelson and Neil Young to protest the Keystone XL pipeline have been selling fast, with more than 6,500 of the 7,000 $50 tickets for the Sept. 27 gig already purchased the day after they were made available on Aug. 20. The controversial TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline would carry oil from Canada south to the Gulf Coast, and te concert will be held on a farm near Neligh, Nebraska, that's in the proposed path. Pipeline critics, including concert organizer Bold Nebraska, worry it could contribute to pollution and contaminate groundwater. Young and Nelson have said they agreed to perform to highlight concerns. - AP...... A new musical focusing on the mid-'70s years of reggae legend Bob Marley is set to open in Baltimore's Center Stage theater in 2015. "Marley" will include the assassination attempt and a self-imposed isolation in England when he recorded Exodus and Kaya. The musical will include crowd-pleasers for Marley's band The Wailers such as "I Shot the Sheriff" and "No Woman, No Cry" as well as the songs that appear on Exodus, Kaya and the other album he made in the show's time frame Rastaman Vibration. Members of Marley's family, including Cedella Marley, are involved in the development and writing of the show. - Billboard...... The executive producer of the beleaguered Gregg Allman biopic Midnight Rider waived his right for an arraignment on Aug. 19 and asked the court to enter a not guilty plea to criminal charges in the death of camera assistant Sarah Jones. Jay Sedrish, along with director Randall Miller and producer Jody Savin, were charged with involuntary manslaughter and criminal trespass in Jones' death. Sedrish's lawyer, John Ossick, confirmed that Sedrish waived his right for an arraignment and asked the court to enter a not guilty plea by mail. Miller and Savin pleaded not guilty last month, claiming Jones' death "was not a crime." Sedrish also turned himself in to the police in July. - The Hollywood Reporter...... Two out-of-print Jimi Hendrix albums -- The Cry of Love and Rainbow Bridge -- are set to be re-released on Sept. 15 o CD, vinyl and digital formats. The LPs were Hendrix's first and second posthumous releases, with both records originally released in 1971 after the legendary guitarist and singer passed away in 1970 at the age of 27. The songs that make up The Cry Of Love were recorded from December 1969 into the summer of 1970 at Electric Lady Studios in New York. They were set to be included on a double LP with the working title First Rays Of The New Rising Sun. Rainbow Bridge is made up of tracks from the same sessions. Meanwhile, a documentary of Henrix's early career Jimi: All Is By My Side, is set for release in the fall, with OutKast's André 3000 in the lead role. - New Musical Express...... Leonard Cohen will release his 13th studio album, Popular Problems, on Sept. 22, the day after he reaches his milestone 80th birthday. The album was co-written and produced by Patrick Leonard, who worked with Cohen on his last album, 2012's Old Ideas. Cohen, who returned to the stage in 2008 after a 15-year absence, is not expected to tour behind the new LP. - NME...... The creamated ashes of Robin Williams were reportedly scattered at sea near his home in San Francisco, Calif., the day after his death by apparent suicide on Aug. 11. On Aug. 17, a memorial for the beloved 63-year-old funnyman was conducted at Glide Memorial Church. Willams' death certificate does not list an official cause of death, as the results of toxicology tests will not be available for a few weeks. - WENN.com

Don Pardo, the announcer whose velvety baritone voice introduced NBC's Saturday Night Live hosts for decades, died on Aug. 19. He was 96. Mr. Pardo, who was the SNL announcer for all but one season during the program's 39-year-run, was born in Westfield, Mass., on Feb. 22, 1918, and began his career in theater in his native New England, but switched to announcing after being offered a job by a Providence, R.I., radio station. While visiting NBC in New York in 1944, Mr. Pardo was offered a job with NBC and became a familiar voice to generations of radio listeners and, later, TV watchers. He was among the first to tell the nation about the news of Pres. John F. Kennedy's assassination on Nov. 22, 1963, and the following year he became the announcer for the long-running Art Fleming-hosted game show Jeopardy!, which ran from 1964 to 1975. He could regularly be heard telling viewers that the show's questions came from the Grolier encyclopedia and promising contestants some nice parting gifts, including a supply of Rice-a-Roni, "the San Francisco treat." He also handled the announcing duties on such programs as the old Price Is Right, and appeared in the movie Radio Days and on an episode of 30 Rock, among other credits. "RIP Don Pardo. A voice that meant so much," tweeted former SNL cast member Seth Meyers. - CNN...... Rock journalist Charles M. Young, a former contributor to Rolling Stone magazine who championed New York's CBGB punk scene at its inception, died on Aug. 18 in a Bronx, N.Y., hospice after an 18-month battle with a stage four brain tumor. He was 63. At Rolling Stone, Young wrote its first major pieces on The Ramones, Patti Smith and Television, among others, bringing an individual sense of humor to its pages. Writing under the byline "The Rev. Charles M. Young," a reference to his Wisconsin Presbyterian-minister father, Young contributed memorable cover stories on the likes of Carly Simon, Kiss, Ted Nugent, Emerson Lake and Palmer and, for Rolling Stone's first punk rock cover story, the Sex Pistols. Young left Rolling Stone in 1980, later joining the staff of Musician magazine in the early 1990s and writing regular record reviews for Playboy. Later on, he contributed stories on Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky to Rolling Stone, as well as profiles on Beavis and Butt-head and Jerry Lee Lewis. In 2010, he co-founded the website This Can't Be Happening!, where he excitedly covered the Occupy Wall Street movement. - Rolling Stone...... Michael A. Hoey, who wrote the screenplays for the Elvis Presley movies Stay Away, Joe and Live a Little, Love a Little, died of cancer on Aug. 17 at his home in San Clemente, Calif. He was 79. He also produced, wrote, directed and edited several episodes of the 1980s music drama series Fame, based on the Alan Parker box-office hit, and was the architect behind the 1966 cult science-fiction move The Navy vs. the Night Monsters. Hoey later directed episodes of Dallas, Falcon Crest, and Murder, She Wrote, and wrote for the shows The Rat Patrol, Get Christie Love! and McCloud. He earned two Emmy Award nominations for his work on Fame and wrote a behind-the-scenes book about the series that was published in 2010. He also served two four-year terms as a governor on the board of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, and the WGA honored him with its prestigious Morgan Cox Award in 1997, and taught editing as an adjunct professor at the USC School of Cinematic Arts. - The Hollywood Reporter

Paul McCartney played the last-ever concert in San Francisco's Candlestick Park on Aug. 14, some 48 years after his former band the Beatles played their last-ever concert anywhere at the same venue. Home for decades to the baseball Giants and the football 49ers, the open-air venue now faces imminent demolition, and Sir Paul -- dressed like a dandyish undertaker in a maroon topcoat with floral kimono-print trim at the cuffs -- promised the audience that he and his band were going to "close it down in style." Before McCartney emerged, around 9:00 p.m., a nostalgia-steeped photo collage -- Paul working a mixing console with Ringo, Paul horsing around on his Scottish farm, portraits of other rock stars like John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix and Mick Jagger -- scrolled upward on enormous screens as the speakers pumped out unlikely covers and remixes of Beatles tunes. During his set, the 72-year-old McCartney prefaced "Blackbird" with a few words about the "civil rights troubles, particularly in the South," that inspired the song and attended the Beatles' 1966 tour (in September of 1966, just one month after the Beatles played Candlestick, police shot and killed an unarmed black teenager in Bayview-Hunters Point). McCartney is touring, nominally, in support of his strong 2013 solo album, New, but his Candlestick set went heavy on Beatles and Wings cuts, from "I Saw Her Standing There" and "Maybe I'm Amazed" to "Lovely Rita" and "Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five." - Rolling Stone, 8/15/14.

Fans of Elvis Presley marked the 37th anniversary of his 1977 death on Aug. 16 by strolling quietly through the Mediation Garden at Graceland, Presley's longtime Memphis, Tenn., home. People began arriving early in the day to get a spot in line outside Graceland's gates. Tourists also watched Elvis tribute artists sing and dance, and visited gift shops and Elvis-related exhibits across the street from the home. Presley's grave is in the garden, and his mother, father and grandmother are buried there. The home is now a museum and a centerpiece of the Graceland tourist attraction that draws about 500,000 fans each year from around the world. The vigil is a highlight of Elvis Week, an annual celebration of Presley's career and his life. This year, other Elvis Week events have included an auction of authenticated Presley artifacts -- which included a 1977 Cadillac Seville used by Presley -- and the groundbreaking of a planned 450-room hotel at the Graceland tourist attraction. In other Presley-related news, the granddaughter of the King of Rock & Roll is engaged to be married. Riley Keough, the actress daughter of Lisa Marie Presley and musician Danny Keough, will tie the knot with Ben Smith-Petersen, an Australian stuntman who worked on the upcoming franchise reboot Mad Max: Road Fury, a film starring Riley Keough. It has been speculated the two met on the set. Riley Keough was previously engaged to Alex Pettyfer, whom she worked with in Magic Mike. In 2013, she had a steamy make-out session with Justin Timberlake for his "TKO" music video. - AP/Billboard, 8/16/14.

Following the success of his first-ever all Spanish-language album Corazon, Carlos Santana will release a live CD/DVD package titled Corazon, Live From Mexico: Live It to Believe It on Sept. 9 that includes a live CD and DVD plus a documentary film shot in different Mexican locales. While the track listing of Corazon Live From Mexico includes many of the artists featured in the original Corazon, including such famous hispanic singers as Gloria Estefan, Miguel, Romeo Santos and Lila Downs, it has expanded considerably to include new versions of Santana standards like "Black Magic Woman" and "Smooth" and collaborations like "Corazon Espinado," featuring Fher Olvera (lead singer of Mana) and Santana's wife, Cindy Blackman Santana. With sponsorship from Mexico's Tourism Board, the live show was taped in Dec. 2013 in Santana's home state of Gaudalajara, a documentary was filmed in different locales and a special aired on HBO Latino both in the U.S. and Latin America in the spring. Meanwhile, Santana is reflecting on his band's participation in the 1969 Woodstock festival, as the legendary event celebrates its 45th anniversary in August. "It was very memorable and monumental," Santana told Billboard. "We didn't know that there were so many people in the '60s that wanted to stop the war. People got involved in the '60s, with the Black Panthers and the students. We wanted to change the world, like Jim Morrison, from The Doors, said: 'We want the world and we want it now.'" - Billboard, 8/14/14.

Gene Simmons of Kiss is apologizing for some comments he made about depression as well as drug and alcohol addiction in a recent interview. "I don't get along with anybody who's a drug addict and has a dark cloud over their head and sees themselves as a victim," Simmons said in an interview with SongFacts.com. "Drug addicts and alcoholics are always: 'The world is a harsh place.' My mother was in a concentration camp in Nazi Germany. I don't want to hear f--- all about 'the world as a harsh place.' She gets up every day, smells the roses and loves life. And for a putz, 20-year-old kid to say, 'I'm depressed, I live in Seattle.' F--- you, then kill yourself." Simmons went on to suggest people threatening to jump from high rise buildings "should just have some dignity and jump." On Aug. 15, the fire-breathing rock star issued an apology on Facebook: "To the extent my comments reported by the media speak of depression, I was wrong and in the spur of the moment made remarks that in hindsight were made without regard for those who truly suffer the struggles of depression. I sincerely apologize to those who were offended by my comments. I recognize that depression is very serious and very sad when it happens to anyone, especially loved ones. I deeply support and am empathetic to anyone suffering from any disease, especially depression. I have never sugarcoated my feelings regarding drug use and alcoholics. Somewhere along the line, my intention of speaking in very directly and perhaps politically incorrectly about drug use and alcoholics has been misconstrued as vile commentary on depression. Unkind statements about depression was certainly never my intention. Fully, you will know that and I do not intend to defend myself here and now, by listing the myriad charities and self-help organizations I am involved with. Rather, I simply want to be clear that my heart goes out to anyone suffering from depression and I deeply regret any offhand remarks in the heat of an interview that might have suggested otherwise." - Billboard, 8/15/14.

English pop music legend Cliff Richard is denying allegations of a historical sex offense against him as "completely false." Earlier in August, a house belonging to the 73-year-old singer in Berkshire had been searched by police in relation to claims involving a boy under 16, dating back to the 1980s in the South Yorkshire area. Eight plain-clothed police officers arrived in five unmarked cars to conduct the search and a number of items were removed from the property in the Sunningdale area for further investigation, according to the BBC. But now Richard, who is out of the country, has issued a statement: "For many months I have been aware of allegations against me of historic impropriety which have been circulating online. The allegations are completely false. Up until now I have chosen not to dignify the false allegations with a response, as it would just give them more oxygen. However, the police attended my apartment in Berkshire today without notice, except it would appear to the press. I am not presently in the UK, but it goes without saying that I will cooperate fully should the police wish to speak to me. Beyond stating that today's allegation is completely false it would not be appropriate to say anything further until the police investigation has concluded." With more than 22 million singles sold in Britain, Richard is "the most successful British male singles artist of all-time and second only to Elvis Presley overall," according to the Official Charts Company, which tracks U.K. music sales. His worldwide record sales are estimated to amount to around 250 million. Richard plans to expand his catalog with the release this November of his 100th album. - New Musical Express/Billboard, 8/14/14.

Federal safety officials have cited the production company formed to make a film about Gregg Allman for exposing its workers to grave risk. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has cited Film Allman LLC, the film's production company, for two safety violations in connection with the February 2014 accident, in which camera assistant Sarah Jones, 27, was killed and eight other crew members were injured when an oncoming train tore through the set of Midnight Rider during the filming of a scene on a Georgia railroad trestle. "It is unacceptable that Film Allman LLC knowingly exposed their crew to moving trains while filming on a live track and railroad trestle," Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health David Michaels said in a statement. In July, Midnight Rider director Randall Miller and others were indicted on charges of involuntary manslaughter. They've pleaded not guilty. - Billboard, 8/15/14...... Aerosmith drummer Joey Kramer is denying he has heart problems after an unspecified illness forced the band to cancel a concert in Concord, Calif., on Aug. 13. That same day, it was reported he had to "undergo a minor medical procedure," and another report said he had to undergo heart surgery. But Kramer released a statement on Aug. 16 saying that he "has no history of a heart condition" and that he is "feeling better than ever and I'll be back sitting in the best seat in the house, hitting it harder than ever for our amazing fans," referring to the band's show that evening at the Gorge in George, Wash., which went on as scheduled. There are 10 more dates slated on the band's Let Rock Rule tour, which wraps up on Sept. 12 in Canada. - Billboard, 8/16/14....... Eric Clapton will release a new tour documentary, Planes, Trains and Eric, on DVD, Blu-Ray and other digital formats on Nov. 4. The new concert film chronicles the Far and Middle Eastern leg of Clapton's2014 tour and includes 13 live performances, including renditions of classic songslike "Layla," I Shot the Sheriff," "Crossroads" and "Wonderful Tonight." Along with the live footage, the documentary also features interviews with Clapton and his band, and offers a "fly on the wall" look at life on the road, from soundchecks and rehearsals to lengthy train rides from show to show. Clapton recently released his latest studio effort, The Breeze: An Appreciation of JJ Cale, which paid tribute to the late blues legend and his close friend, JJ Cale. - Rolling Stone, 8/7/14...... Stevie Nicks has launched a competition for her fans to design a new shawl, one of the singer's trademark garments. The competition winner will receive $2,000 to produce a shawl for Nicks, and also receive a professional photograph of the singer modelling the piece and will also be featured on her website and social media outlets. The competition ends on Sept. 29 with the winner announced on Oct.14. It will coincide with the release of Nick's new double album 24 Karat Gold: Songs From The Vault, which is set for an Oct. 7 release. The album primarily consists of songs written between 1969 and 1987 but recorded recently in Nashville and Los Angeles. - Rolling Stone, 8/16/14...... Bob Seger released a new song, "Detroit Made," on Aug. 14, taking a step closer to releasing a new album, which has been rumoured for fall 2014. "Detroit Made," a cover of a song originally written and performed by John Hiatt, was the opening song of Seger's spring 2013 tour, and its release was specifically timed to the Woodward Dream Cruise, an annual car event held in the Detroit suburbs. Besides "Detroit Made," Seger also debuted his own "All of the Roads" and another cover, the Wilco/Billy Bragg/Woody Guthrie song "California Stars," during the 2013 tour -- both of which he's also recorded. No details about a new album, or a release date, have yet been announced. - Billboard, 8/14/14...... "David Bowie Is" -- the David Bowie retrospective exhibition detailing the singer's 50-year career first shown at London's V&A in 2013 -- is to head to Australia. The exhibition was originally shown in London from March 2013 and received a sell-out run during which time more than 300,000 people attended the show. Since then, it has moved around the world, being shown in Toronto, Chicago Sao Paulo and Berlin. The newest stop to be added to the tour will be the Australian Centre for the Moving Image in Melbourne, where the exhibition will show from July 2015. Between now and then, David Bowie Is will call at Paris and the Netherlands. - New Musical Express, 8/13/14....... Famed actress Lauren Bacall, a husky-voiced Hollywood icon known for her sultry sensuality, died of an apparent stroke on Aug. 12. She was 89. Ms. Bacall's international fame began before the backdrop of World War II, in 1944 with her first film, To Have and Have Not, which she made with future husband Humphrey Bogart. They married in 1945, had two children and went on to make more films together, including The Big Sleep (1946), Dark Passage (1947) and Key Largo (1948). Bogart died in 1957. A marriage to Jason Robards, which produced another child, actor Sam Robards, ended in divorce. Ms. Bacall was engaged to Frank Sinatra, briefly, between marriages. She won two Tony Awards and an honorary Oscar; she was nominated for three Emmy Awards. Her first autobiography, Lauren Bacall: By Myself, won the National Book Award in 1980. By Myself and Then Some, her updated autobiography, was published in 2005. Ms. Bacall was anointed a legend during her lifetime by the American Film Institute, but she wasn't fond of that, she told CNN's Larry King in an interview in 2005. "I don't like the category. And to begin with, to me, a legend is something that is not on the Earth, that is dead," she said. - CNN, 8/13/14...... The body of DJ Casey Kasem, who died June 15 in Gig Harbor, Washington, is apparently headed to Oslo, Norway, for burial. Santa Monica Police are investigating allegations by Kasem's daughter, Kerri Kasem, that her stepmother Jean Kasem abused the late Kasem, and the family is speculating that the reason Jean Kasem wants her late husband buried in Norway is due to that country's strict laws concerning exhumation. "There is no connection my dad has with Norway," says Kerri Kasem's brother, Mike Kasem, who bitterly criticizes his stepmother. "I don't know if Jean has any ties to Oslo. She certainly has never mentioned it in the last 35 years. Check the exhumation laws there; sounds like a possibility that is the reason she will bury him there. My dad deserves to be buried where he specifically asked to be buried: Forest Lawn. Everyone keeps asking for motives as to why Jean acts how she acts. I don't have an answer." - The Hollywood Reporter, 8/14/14.