Favorite Seventies Artists In The News

Posted by Administrator on September 26th, 2014

AC/DC issued a statement on Sept. 24 announcing that guitarist Malcolm Young "will not be returning to the band" due to "the nature of his condition." No further details were provide, however Young is reportedly in full-time care in a nursing home facility in Sydney, Australia specializing in dementia. According to a report in the Sydney Morning Herald, a source connected to the Young family says the 61-year-old is receiving care in a residential home specializing in the treatment of dementia, believed to be Lulworth House in Sydney's Elizabeth Bay. In April, the band announced that Young, a co-founding member of AC/DC, was "taking a break to focus on his health." AC/DC, which includes lead guitarist Angus Young, vocalist Brian Johnson, drummer Phil Rudd and bassist Cliff Williams, will release their new album Rock or Bust on Dec. 2, and will launch a world tour behind the new LP in 2015. Stevie Young, nephew of founding members Malcolm and Angus Young and who played guitar on the band's new album, will join them on the tour. The 11-track Rock or Bust is the group's first new album in six years, following 2008's Black Ice. It was recorded in Spring 2014 at Warehouse Studio in Vancouver with producer Brendan O'Brien and mixed by Mike Fraser. "Play Ball," the first single from the album, will be heard as part of Turner Sports' Major League Baseball Postseason coverage from Sept. 27. - AP/New Musical Express, 9/24/14.

Bob Seger first full-length LP in eight years, Ride Out, drops on Oct. 14 and features rockers like "Detroit Made," about the auto industry. Ride Out's 10 tracks include covers of John Hiatt's "Detroit Made" and the Wilco/Billy Bragg/Woody Guthrie collaboration "California Stars," Steve Earle's "The Devil's Right Hand" and "Adam and Eve" by Australian singer/songwriters Kasey Chambers and Shane Nicholson. The 10-song standard edition will be filled out with the Seger originals "Hey Gypsy," "Ride Out," "It's Your World," "All of the Roads," "You Take Me In" and "Gates of Eden," while the deluxe edition will include "Listen" with guest Vince Gill, "The Fireman's Talkin'" and "Let the Rivers Run." Seger and his Silver Bullet Band have announced they'll kick off their Ride Out Tour 2014/2015 on Nov. 19 in Saginaw, Mich., also playing Bangor, Me. (11/22), Halifax, N.S. (11/24), St. John, N.B. (11/26) and Boston (11/29) in November. Future dates on the the 22-city North American leg include Cleveland, Oh. (12/4), Chicago (12/11), St. Louis (12/13), New York City (12/19), Toronto (1/24), Atlanta (1/31), Tampa (2/5), Dallas (2/12), Houston (2/14) and Phoenix (2/19) before wrapping in Los Angeles on Feb. 27. While on the road during 2013, Seger -- who turns 70 in May 2015 -- has said this may be his final album and tour. - Billboard, 9/25/14.

Barbra Streisand has become the only recording artist to release No. 1 albums in six consecutive decades as her latest album Partners debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 200 album chart in the third week of September. The Columbia Records effort sold 196,000 copies in the week ending Sept. 21 according to Nielsen SoundScan, and also marks Streisand's 10th No. 1 album. The larger-than-expected sales launch of Partners can be attributed to publicity Streisand generated during its first week of release (which included rare TV appearances by the diva on The Tonight Show, Good Morning America and The View) , an attractive $7.99 price for the set at iTunes and Amazon MP3, and the album's all-star guest list, which includes Josh Groban, Blake Shelton, Michael Buble and Billy Joel. With a 10th No. 1, she ties for the fourth-most No. 1's in history with Elvis Presley (who is also featured on Partners), behind the Beatles (19), Jay Z (13) and Bruce Springsteen (11). Streisand's first No. 1 album came almost exactly 50 years ago when People hit No. 1 on the chart dated Oct. 31, 1964. She last hit the top with 2009's Love Is the Answer. - Billboard, 9/24/14.

Led Zeppelin fans continue to clamor for a reunion after the band's one-off show in London a few years ago, but it's easy to understand Robert Plant's resistance. Reinventing himself on his 2007 Alison Krauss collab, Raising Sand, and on projects with ex-girlfriend Patty Griffin, the singer made some of his best work ever. His latest, Lullaby and...The Ceaseless Roar, returns to the world-music fusion of 2005's Mighty Rearranger with his Strange Sensation band (now reconfigured as the Sensational Space Shifters). It lacks the focused grace of his country experiements, but it's Plant's hardest-rocking set in a decade, and as he comes home to something like progressive rock it's hard not to think of his other band. Keep hope alive, Zep fans. Lullaby dropped via Nonesuch Records on Sept. 9...... The title track on Standing in the Breach, Jackson Browne's first studio album in six years, started as a song about the devastating 2010 earthquake in Haiti -- but came to encompass much more than that. "It has to do with where our world is broken," Browne says. "It became a song about poverty everywhere. The entire album is about relationships in the light of what's happening in the world right now." Recorded in L.A. with his longtime touring band, the disc takes on everything from our moribund political system to the pollution of our oceans. But it kicks off with a new recording of "The Birds of St. Marks," a tune Jackson wrote in 1967. "I always thought it would work as a Byrds song," he says. "But I got sick of waiting for them to re-form, so I did it myself." Standing in the Breach drops via Inside Recordings on Oct. 7....... Stevie Nicks' new album 24 Karat Gold - Songs From the Vault, also hits stores Oct. 7 and is a labor of love: a journey through her past in tunes dating back to 1969. These are stray songs she wrote over the years bu tnever recorded until now. "I used to give my songs away," Nicks says. "I'd write a new one, put it on a cassettte, than someone would say, 'Hey, can I have a copy?'" Some of the tunes are so personal, not even the rest of Fleetwood Mac have ever heard them. "'Lady' was the first piano song I ever wrote," Nicks says. "It was a song I never played for anybody. Nobody but Lindsey [Buckingham] had ever heard it." She put the album together quickly, with a crew of session players in Nashville. "We had three five-day weeks to get the tracks," Nicks says. "These are union people -- they don't mess around. So I had to get up at 9:00 in the morning, which for me is just ridiculous....... Columbia Records will release Pink Floyd's first official release in two decades , The Endless River, on Nov. 10. It finds David Gilmour pulling together a disc of "mainly ambient and instrumental music" that draws from 20 hours of material recorded during sessions for 1994's The Division Bell. The 18-song double-album features band members Gilmour, Nick Mason and Richard Wright, who died in 2008. Roger Waters, who left the group in 1985, isn't involved. Gilmour says in the release that the band "added new parts, rerecorded others and generally harnessed studio technology to make a 21st-century Pink Floyd album," and Mason says it's "a tribute to Rick...it really brought home to me what a special player he was." The LP's lone non-instrumental track, "Louder Than Words," features lyrics written by Gilmour's wife, Polly Samson. - Rolling Stone/AP..... Just in time for Halloween (Oct. 27) comes The Killer's latest effort -- Jerry Lee Lewis's new album Rock & Roll Time is a covers album of such chestnuts as "Little Queenie" and "Folsom Prison Blues" with help from friends like Keith Richards. - Rolling Stone, 9/25/14...... Bob Dylan obsessives have clamored for the complete Basement Tapes ever since word of the sessoins leaked 46 years ago. They're finally getting their wish on Nov. 11 when Columbia releases The Basement Tapes Complete: Bootleg Series Vol. 11, easily the fall's most exciting archival release. It contains 138 songs Dylan and the Band cut in upstate New York in 1968 -- 30 of which have never surfaced, including the Dylan-penned "Wild Wolf." "They were experimenting, fooling around trying to find a new voice," says author Greil Marcus. "It wasn't just a session. This was a whole body of work." Meanwhile, Dylan has just been chosen as the 2015 MusiCares' Person of the Year by the Recording Academy, the sponsor of the Grammy Awards. Dylan will be honored at the 25th annual benefit gala dinner and concert, set to be held Friday, Feb. 6, two days before the 57th Grammy Awards ceremony, which will air live on CBS from L.A.'s Staples Center on Feb. 8. - Rolling Stone/The Hollywood Reporter

Spain's film academy has selected the movie Vivir es Facil con los Ojos Cerrados [Living Is Easy (With Eyes Closed)], about a Spanish man's quest to meet John Lennon, as its entry for best foreign language film at the 2015 Oscars. Directed by David Trueba, the film tells the true story of an English-language teacher from Spain who traveled to the southern province of Almeria in 1966 to try to meet the late Beatles star, who was staying there. The movie takes its name from the lyrics of the Beatles song "Strawberry Fields Forever," which Lennon began writing in Almeria. The U.S. film academy will select finalists for the Oscars in January, with the awards announced a month later. Spain has won four Oscars for best foreign language film. In other Beatles-related news, Paul Simon performed the George Harrison-penned Beatles tune "Here Comes the Sun" on Sept. 23 as part of "George Harrison Week" on the TBS late night talk show Conan. Simon is no stranger to performing the hit, having sung the 1969 classic at various festivals and concerts over the years, most notably on Saturday Night Live in 1976, joined by Harrison himself. Meanwhile, a portion of the famous Ed Sullivan Show set displayed during the Beatles' US television debut is expected to command as much as $337,000 when it goes up for auction during the The Fest for Beatles Fans, which takes place in Los Angeles from Oct. 10-12. The set is signed by all four Beatles and is currently owned by Wayne Johnson, owner of Rockaway Records. Among the other items up for purchase includes a copy of the band's 11th US release Yesterday and Today featuring the rare "Butcher" cover, which is priced at $4,500, and the band's first US contract with Vee Jay Records, on sale for $100,000. The Fest for Beatles Fans was started in 1974 to mark the 10th anniversary of the band's first visit to the US. In its history, the event has accepted donated musical instruments from all four Beatles, which have been auctioned for charity. Earlier in September, a sculpture of Eleanor Rigby made of 1 million pounds' worth of used UK bank notes went on display in Liverpool. Created by Leonard Brown, the five foot two inch statue is made of thousands of shredded 5, 10 and 20 pound notes, which were supplied by the Bank Of England in the form of pellets. - AP/Billboard/New Musical Express, 9/24/14...... The Who have just revealed "Be Lucky," their first new song in eight years. "Be Lucky" references such bands as AC/DC and Daft Punk in its lyrics, with a robot style auto-tune effect used after the line about the French duo. The song appears on the forthcoming compilation album Who Hits 50 and is their first new material since 2006 album Endless Wire. The track was recorded with bassist Pino Pallodino, drummer Zak Starkey and keyboardist Mick Talbot. The Who has announced they'll launch a 9-date UK "Who Hits 50" anniversary tour in Glasgow on Nov. 30, also visiting Leeds (12/2), Nottingham (12/5), Birmingham (12/7), Newcastle (12/9), Liverpool (12/11), Manchester (12/13), Cardiff (12/15) and London (12/17). Pete Townshend says the band will play "hits, picks, mixes and misses" on the tour that date back to the band's early years when they were known as The High Numbers. - New Musical Express, 9/26/14...... Gospel legend Mavis Staples of the Staple Singers will celebrate her recent 75th birthday with a once-in-a-lifetime concert in her hometown of Chicago on Nov. 19. Staples will take the stage at the Chicago Auditorium Theatre for a star-studded concert featuring such diverse acts as Gregg Allman, Ryan Bingham, Eric Church, Patty Griffin, Glen Hansard, Taj Mahal, Michael McDonald, Buddy Miller, Aaron Neville, Widespread Panic, Grace Potter and Mary Stuart. Staples will come on stage to collaborate with a number of the guests throughout the evening. The Staple Singers topped the U.S. charts in June 1972 with their inspirational number "I'll Take You There." - Billboard, 9/25/14...... Cat Stevens, who is now known as Yusuf, is canceling his New York performance just weeks after announcing a six-city tour, blaming it on the Big Apple's ticket scalpers. Yusuf posted on his Facebook page on Sept. 24 that he would not keep the NYC engagement because its requirement for paper tickets has led to exorbitant resale prices. Yusuf says he is a longtime supporter of paperless tickets "and avoiding scalpers," and hopes to return to NYC in the future. Yusuf announced earlier in September that he planned a concert tour behind the blues album he's releasing on Oct. 27. The concerts are his first series of shows in North America since 1976. - AP, 9/24/14...... An audience member who suffered a broken nose as a result of being hit in the face by a soccer ball kicked by Rod Stewart during an Oct. 2012 concert at Ceasars Palace in Las Vegas filed a lawsuit against Stewart on Sept. 24 in Nevada's Clark County District Court. Mostafa Kashe's civil negligence complaint alleges that he didn't expect to be hit in the face by a ball kicked by the raspy-voiced rocker from the stage, and as a result of lingering injuries the 53-year-old electrical engineer from Diamond Bar, Calif., is seeking unspecified damages of at least $10,000 plus attorney fees. His attorney, Larry Weinsteen, said Kashe and his wife were big Stewart fans who traveled to Las Vegas primarily for the concert. The lawyer said his client was treated by a hotel medic and filed an injury report with Caesars before being left with "substantial" injuries including an impaired sense of smell. Representatives of Stewart, promoter AEG Live and Caesars Entertainment Corp. have yet to respond to the suit. Stewart, 69, is a longtime soccer fan and club league player and frequently kicks autographed balls into the audience at his shows. - AP, 9/24/14...... Bruce Springsteen's first seven albums are being remastered and reissued for a new deluxe box set that's set to drop Nov. 17. Bruce Springsteen: The Album Collection Vol. 1 1973-1984 starts with Greetings From Asbury Park and continues through Born in the U.S.A. Only Born to Run and Darkness on the Edge of Town have already gotten the remaster treatment, which occurred on CD only. Engineer Bob Ludwig worked with Springsteen and longtime engineer Toby Scott to remaster the albums, which were transferred from the original analogue masters using the Plangent Process playback system. None of the seven albums have been remastered on vinyl before. The set will be available in both CD and vinyl. - Billboard, 9/24/14...... Phil Collins released a statement on Sept. 23 clarifying that he has no plans to return to the concert stage at this time, despite the fact that he will perform three to four songs at a charity event for the Little Dreams Foundation in Miami in December. Collins hasn't performed a show in four years, and the Dec. 6 event, he clarified, will not be a full-on Phil Collins show either. "I will be performing three or four songs semi-acoustically, and maybe one more with my 13 year old son Nicolas on drums, but that's all as I am not ready to return to the full concert stage at this time," Collins said in the statement. - Billboard, 9/23/14...... Whitesnake, featuring former Deep Purple vocalist David Coverdale, will release Live In '84 - Back To The Bone, a complete celebration of the group's classic line-up, on Nov. 7 in the UK and on Nov. 11 in North America. Culled from audio and video recordings and unheard demos from the private collection of Whitesnake leader and vocalist Coverdale, the release offers an ultra-rare collection of material, performed by the band's acclaimed 83-84 line-ups. Bonus content features legendary keyboardist Jon Lord performing his last show ever with Whitesnake on video and also the bonus CD. - Noble PR, 9/25/14...... Blondie members Debbie Harry and Chris Stein are celebrating the 40th anniversary of Blondie with "A Blondie Exhibition." Running though Sept. 29 at the Chelsea Hotel Storefront Gallery (222 West 23rd Street), the exhibit is free and open to the public, from 1-8 p.m. daily. - The Hollywood Reporter, 9/24/14.