Favorite Seventies Artists In The News

Posted by Administrator on October 26th, 2014

Jack Bruce, an acclaimed British bass musician best known as a member of Cream, died of liver disease on Oct. 25 at his home in Suffolk, England. He was 71. Born to musical parents in Glasgow, Scotland, on May 14, 1943, Bruce attended 14 different schools and finished his formal education at Bellahouston Academy and the Royal Scottish Academy of Music, to which he won a scholarship for cello and composition. He left Scotland at the age of 16 and in 1962 joined his first important band, the influential Alexis Korner's Blues Inc., which also included future Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts, in London. Cream, which also included guitarist Eric Clapton and drummer Ginger Baker, was the prototypical blues-rock power trio, and in a three-year period sold 15 million records, played to SRO crowds throughout the U.S. and Europe, and redefined the instrumentalist's role in rock. It was formed in 1966 when Baker left Graham Bond's Organisation, Bruce (who had also played in Bond's band) left Manfred Mann, and Clapton, already a famous guitarist in the U.K., left John Mayall's Bluesbreakers. Bruce wrote and sang most of Cream's songs, including "I Feel Free", "White Room," "Politician" and "Sunshine Of Your Love." But tension in the band led to a quick breakup, and the band gave its farewell concert, which was filmed as Goodbye Cream, on Nov. 26, 1968, at London's Royal Albert Hall. Clapton and Baker subsequently formed Blind Faith, and Bruce went solo. After a string of solo LP's, Bruce put together another power trio with Mountain's Leslie West and Corky Laing, and West, Bruce and Laing released albums in 1972, '73, and '74. He appeared on Frank Zappa's Apostrophe in 1974, and in 1975 he fronted the Jack Bruce Band, which mounted a tour of Europe, but did not record. Bruce continued to release solo albums through 1994, and he returned to the studio around 2000 to record his Shadows in the Air, which hit number five on the British jazz and blues chart. His most recent release in 2014, titled Silver Rails. In 1993, Cream was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, with the three members reuniting to perform three songs at the ceremonies. A statement released by Bruce's family on Oct. 25 said "the world of music will be a poorer place without him but he lives on in his music and forever in our hearts." "It is with great sadness that we, Jack's family, announce the passing of our beloved Jack: husband, father, granddad, and all round legend," the statement said. "He was a great musician and composer, and a tremendous inspiration to me," Eric Clapton said on his Facebook page. Clapton also shared a lengthy biographical piece about Bruce on his website. - AP/Billboard/Rolling Stone, 10/26/14.

The Hollywood Music in Media Awards, an event created in 2009 to highlight the best music in film, TV and video games, has announced it will honor singer Glen Campbell at its fifth annual gala on Nov. 4 at the Fonda Theater in Hollywood. Campbell, whose slew of accolades includes five Grammys, three Grammy Hall of Fame honors, seven Academy of Country Music Awards, three American Music Awards, and two CMA Awards, recently released his final recording, "I'm Not Gonna Miss You," for the documentary Glen Campbell: I'll Be Me, which chronicles the music legend's struggles with Alzheimer's. Campbell recently notched his highest rank on Billboard Hot Country Songs chart in 25 years with "I'm Not Gonna Miss You," which zoomed from No. 50 to No. 21. He last charted higher with "She's Gone, Gone, Gone," which reached No. 6 in late 1989. The Country Music Hall of Famer, 78, entered a long-term care facility earlier this year. "Sadly, Glen's condition has progressed enough that we were no longer able to keep him at home," Campbell's family said in a statement to Rolling Stone. "He is getting fantastic care and we get to see him every day. Our family wants to thank everyone for their continued prayers, love and support." - The Hollywood Reporter/Billboard, 10/24/14...... John Denver was honored with a posthumous star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Oct. 24, 17 years after his tragic death in a 1997 plane crash at age 53. The unveiling of the star, the 2,531st on the venerable sidewalk, coincided with the opening of a Hollywood exhibition of photos called "Sweet Sweet Life: The Photographic Works of John Denver." The photos will be on display at Hollywood's Substrate Gallery for the next month. On hand for the unveiling of the star were were Denver's son, Zak Deutschendorf, and daughter, Jesse Belle Denver. - AP, 10/25/14...... 2015 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominee Joan Jett was honored as Rocker of the Year at the annual Little Kids Rock charity benefit on Oct. 23 at Manhattan's Hammerstein Ballroom. Among those performing her songs were Alice Cooper, Cheap Trick, Tommy James, Steven van Zandt and Billie Joe Armstrong. Cooper came out to trade verses on his slinkly "Be My Lover," a song Jett covered in 1990, while Cheap Trick tore through "I Hate Myself for Loving You," a Jett hit that the band says reminds them of their own material. The event ended up raising $1.5 million to provide free music education (and instruments) to more than 135,000 low-income public school children. - Billboard, 10/24/14...... Led Zeppelin has treated fans to an online preview of an alternate version of "Stairway to Heaven," which is featured on the upcoming deluxe version reissue of their fourth album, Led Zeppelin "IV." Recorded at LA's Sunset Sound in 1971, Led Zep bassist John Paul Jones spoke about the freshly unearthed mix to Rolling Stone, saying: "It's always interesting to hear stuff that you know really well and hear it differently, but the same. It does give a different perspective on it. You hear different things. I did read somewhere that the end of 'Stairway to Heaven' contained one of the best rock bass parts ever recorded. Unfortunately it comes underneath one of the greatest rock guitars so... But 'Stairway' is a favorite still. It's just got everything that we are about." Guitarist Jimmy Page added: "The Sunset Sound mix of 'Stairway To Heaven' was actually mixed at Sunset Sound in LA in advance of the version that everybody knows. I think it's a really good embodiment of everything that's on there. It's a guitar mix, really." Led Zeppelin "IV," along with a deluxe reissue of 1973's Houses of the Holy, drop on Oct. 27. The band has also released new animated video for 1971"s iconic hit "Rock and Roll" in conjunction with the releases. - New Musical Express, 10/25/14...... The Beatles' iconic song "All You Need Is Love" has returned to the Billboard Top 10 for the first time since 1967, this time as a remake by jazz musician Dave Koz. Dave Koz & Friends' version, which features an all-star lineup of contributors including Stevie Wonder, Richard Marx, Eric Benoit and Gloria Estefan, has risen to No. 10 on the Billboard Smooth Jazz Songs radio airplay chart. The Fab Four's original "All You Need Is Love" topped the Billboard Hot 100 on Aug. 19, 1967. Four weeks later (Sept. 16, 1967), it dipped to No. 8, marking the last time any recording of the song would claim a top 10 spot for 47 years..... In other Beatles-related news, Paul McCartney's Out There Tour is the No. 1 tour on Billboard's Hot Tours list for third week of October, grossing $165 million (and counting) in box office revenue from five of the final U.S. performances on his world tour. Now in its home stretch, Macca's tour will close its final trek through North America on Oct. 30 after concerts in 21 cities. - Billboard, 10/24/14...... Elsewhere on the Fab Four front, George Harrison's childhood home in Liverpool has sold for just over $250,000 at an auction held at the legendary Cavern Club in the English city. Harrison's former house, located at 25 Upton Green, in the Speke area of Liverpool went to a Beatles fan who had tried and failed to buy John Lennon's home last year. George lived there from the age of six, and along with Lennon and Paul McCartney, the trio held rehearsals at the three bedroom house years before they joined up with Ringo Starr and go on to worldwide success with the Beatles. The winning bidder was Beatles fanatic Jackie Holmes from London who reportedly held off competition from an American telephone bidder and a reserve bidder from Liechtenstein. "I'm absolutely thrilled. This was the house where the Beatles rehearsed and now I own it. I missed out on John Lennon's house last year, so this is just a dream come true," Holmes told the Liverpool Echo. Holmes added she may well move to Liverpool after buying the house and also said she intended to put one of the rooms back to the way it was in the 1960s. The sale of Harrison's childhood home comes after Lennon's former childhood home at 9 Newcastle Road, in Wavertree, sold at auction for $770,000 in October. Meanwhile, a letter handwritten by John Lennon to television host Joe Franklin has sold at auction via Boston-based RR Auction for more than $28,000. The letter was penned on Apple Records stationary in 1971, with Lennon encouraging talk show host Franklin to listen to his wife Yoko Ono's latest album Fly. "Of course Yoko can explain her music better in person, this is a kind of introduction. For something rather more 'straight,' a track called 'Mrs Lennon' on 'Fly' is an example of her more conservative side," Lennon writes. "She was trained as a classical musician, and took music composition in Sarah Lawrence College as her major. It's far out, but don't let it frighten you." - The Hollywood Reporter/Rolling Stone, 10/26/14...... Legendary jazz/rock keyboardist Herbie Hancock released his long-awaited memoir, Herbie Hancock: Possibilities on Oct. 23, and among its revelations are the night Hancock's wife and daughter staged an intervention for his crack cocaine abuse in the 1990's. "Ever since I'd first smoked crack cocaine, I had been trying without success to stop. I managed to keep it under control for several years, sometimes going months without smoking it," Hancock writes. "But then [my wife] Gigi would go out of town and I'd think, 'I have a few days, I'll just do it one more time.' Toward the end of 1999 things were getting out of control. I was smoking a lot now, and acting in ways I'd never acted before. One day in November Gigi had an asthma attack, but instead of taking care of her or taking her to the doctor, I left the house. I couldn't handle it.... She'd been calling my cellphone, but I was so high, and so paranoid, that of course I didn't answer. I didn't want to speak to her until I could come down enough to talk normally. Finally, I picked up. Gigi told me that she'd called the police -- so I'd better get out now. She hadn't, but I didn't know that." - Billboard, 10/24/14...... Bob Seger's latest LP Ride Out has hit No. 1 on Billboard's Top Rock Albums chart, the Detroit rocker's first No. 1 on that chart since its 2006 inception, and Seger's highest-ever debut (No. 3) on the Billboard Hot 200 album chart. Notably, Seger's 17th studio album is his only one available for sale in the iTunes Store. Seger is still shunning streaming services, such as Spotify, where none of his current or back catalog is available. Non-traditional retailers, like amazon.com, account for 29 percent of Ride Out's first-week sales. - Billboard, 10/24/14...... The Grateful Dead, who will be celebrating their 50th anniversary in 2015, have announced plans for a career-spanning retrospective documentary executive produced by Martin Scorsese and directed by Amir Bar-Lev. The currently untitled project will combine previously unreleased footage of the jam band, vintage interviews and various candid moments captured on film over the half century, as well as new conversations with surviving members Mickey Hart, Bill Kreutzmann, Phil Lesh and Bob Weir, and other Deadheads from around their unique universe. - Billboard, 10/23/14...... In a new interview with The New Yorker magazine, Billy Joel says that he has no plan to hit the "treadmill," that grind of a continuous album release cycle and its near-inescapable law of diminishing creative returns. "Over the years, Elton [John] would say, "Why don"t you make more albums?" And I'd say, "Why don"t you make less?" -- Some people think it's because I'm lazy or I'm just being contrary. But, no, I think it's just -- I've had my say." He goes on to add, "If I put out an album now, it would probably sell pretty well, because of who I am, but that's no reason to do it. I'd want it to be good. And I've seen artists on that treadmill, putting out albums year after year, and the albums get worse and worse, less and less interesting, and it"s, like, maybe you should stop." - The New Yorker/Billboard, 10/22/14...... Neil Young is set to stage his very first art exhibition when he debuts a selection of his watercolours at the Robert Berman Gallery in Santa Monica, Calif., on Nov. 3 until the end of the month. Young will be present at the opening event. The exhibition will include the cover art for Young's new solo album, Storytone, which is also released on Nov. 3. The LP is his second of the year following A Letter Home, which was recorded in the vintage vinyl booth at Jack White's Third Man Records store in Nashville. - NME, 10/23/14...... Ambient music legend Brian Eno has announced he will re-release a series of albums dating back to the early-to-mid 1990's. Eno will reissue Nerve Net (1992), The Shutov Assembly (1992), Neroli (1993) and The Drop (1997) via All Saint Records on Dec. 2. Each album will come with a bonus selection of unreleased material. - NME, 10/24/14...... Foreigner are set to release a new high-definition live recording from their most successful album of all time, Foreigner 4. The Best of Foreigner 4 & More will be released on Dec. 5 on CD and vinyl, accompanied by limited edition posters and remake t-shirts from their 1981-1982 tour. Foreigner recorded live high-definition versions of their most enduring anthems on Foreigner 4 at the Borgata Hotel's Music Box theatre in Atlantic City on Oct. 3 4, 2014. The album includes some of rock's best-known hits including "Feels Like The First Time," "Cold As Ice," "Hot Blooded" and Foreigner's iconic ballad, "I Want To Know What Love Is." Foreigner 4 spent more weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard charts than any artist in the history of Atlantic Records, including AC/DC, The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin, and went on to sell more than 9 million albums worldwide. "Our music has touched a lot of people worldwide" says Foreigner founder, lead guitarist, Mick Jones, who also serves serves as executive producer of the new album. - Noble PR, 10/22/14...... In other live release news, the Rolling Stones have announced details of their upcoming concert DVD L.A. Forum Live in 1975. Hitting stores on Nov. 17, the release is the second from the band's "From the Vaults" series of archive footage. The band's trip to America in 1975 was their first with then new recruit Ronnie Wood. The footage on the DVD was captured during their five night stint at the Los Angeles venue in July of that year. - New Musical Express, 10/25/14...... In a recent interview with Esquire magazine, Ozzy Osbourne said that he wants his fellow cofounding Black Sabbath member Bill Ward to rejoin Sabbath for the band's next, and supposedly final, album. "I hope Bill Ward can get his stuff together to do this," Osbourne said. "One of the biggest things I"m proud of in my life was that Black Sabbath wasn't a band that was created by some business mogul in London or New York. We were four guys who had a great idea." Earlier in 2014, before the band's headline set in London's Hyde Park, Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi had stated that the gig could be the band's last outing due to his ongoing health problems. However, the band will now reunite for what is expected to be their last ever record. Black Sabbath have released 13 studio albums since forming in 1968. The current line up of the band sees Iommi and Osbourne joined by third original member Geezer Butler on bass. - NME, 10/24/14...... Speaking to Mojo magazine, Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason compared his former bandmate Roger Waters to Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, and claimed that the singer's departure from the band was like when the USSR lost their notorious autocratic leader. "It must have been the same when Stalin died. It took quite a while [to recover], it was a three or four year period," he said. "Roger thought we were all going to call it day, and David [Gilmour] and I thought Roger was going to call it a day and we were going to carry on," he added. "[But] the thing is, these slightly unbalanced people make great musicians. If we hadn't had the mad Syd [Barrett] and the mad Roger, we might have been doing 'Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep'." Waters, who left the prog-rock band in 1985, recently issued an angry statement about his lack of involvement in the upcoming Pink Floyd release The Endless River, which the band says will be their final LP. The album is on course to become Amazon's most pre-ordered album of all-time. - NME, 10/24/14...... British glam rocker Alvin Stardust, one of the biggest pop stars of his era in his native UK, died on Oct. 23 after battling metastatic prostate cancer. He was 72. Stardust, born Bernard Jewry on Sept. 27, 1942 in London, enjoyed a long line of top 10 hits in the '70s and early '80s, and topped the chart in his homeland with "Jealous Mind." He was once described by Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards as "the Godfather of British Rock 'n' Roll," and will be remembered for his tough-guy persona and rockabilly quiff. Stardust also helmed shows on BBC Radio 2 and Radio 5, and at one stage hosted a Sunday morning children's TV series It's Stardust on Britain's free-to-air ITV. He appeared in various U.K. TV series, including Hollyoaks. Before his death, Alvin completed his first studio album in 30 years, which is scheduled for release on Nov. 3 through Conehead Records. - Billboard, 10/24/14...... Alfred Wertheimer, the photographer whose portraits of Elvis Presley documented the birth of a music legend, died of natural causes on Oct. 19 at his New York apartment. He was 85. Mr. Wertheimer was 26 when he was assigned to photograph the then unknown 21-year-old singer Presley. He traveled with Elvis from New York to Memphis by train and produced a series of now famous black and white portraits that were the subject of exhibits at the Smithsonian Institution and the Grammy Museum. Among the most famous shots: "The Kiss," a photo of Elvis nuzzling a woman fan backstage. "There has been no other photographer that Elvis ever allowed to get as up close and personal in his life through photos as he did with Alfred," Presley's ex-wife Priscilla Presley said on Oct. 21. "I'm deeply saddened by the death of Alfred Wertheimer. He was a dear friend and special soul. I feel he was a gift for all who knew him especially, Elvis Presley." - AP, 10/22/14.

Ben Bradlee, the charismatic former Washington Post editor who oversaw the paper during the Watergate scandal and Pentagon Papers controversy and was immortalized in the 1976 film All the President's Men, died on Oct. 21 at his home in Washington, D.C., of natural causes. He was 93. Born Benjamin Crowninshield Bradlee in Boston, Mass., on Aug. 26, 1921, Mr. Bradlee survived a childhood battle with polio. He served on a destroyer in the Navy during World War II and was a veteran of more than a dozen battles, including the Battle of Leyte Gulf in the Philippines. After the war, he helped start the New Hampshire Sunday News, a small paper in Manchester, which folded after two years. He was hired as a reporter for the Washinton Post in 1948 but left after three years to become assistant press attache at the U.S. Embassy in Paris. In 1954, he became a European correspondent for Newsweek magazine and returned to Washington with it in 1957, becoming bureau chief after the Post bought the magazine in 1961. As a reporter in the 1950s, Mr. Bradlee became friends with John F. Kennedy, who had moved into a house on the same block after winning his first election to Congress. Mr. Bradlee later wrote two books about his onetime neighbor and future president, the first in 1964, just after Kennedy's assassination. In 1965 he became managing editor of the Post and, three years later, executive editor as the paper joined with the New York Times in the Pentagon Papers case. Pres. Richard Nixon's administration had issued a temporary restraining order against publication of the leaked report, a history of the Vietnam War commissioned by former secretary of defense Robert McNamara, and both papers were vindicated when the Supreme Court ruled, 6-3, to lift the ban against publishing. Later in the decade, the Post won a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for its investigation of the 1974 Watergate scandal which brought down Pres. Nixon, and All the President's Men, Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein's book about breaking the story, was made into a movie starring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman as the two reporters and Jason Robards memorably portraying Mr. Bradlee. He met his third wife, reporter Sally Quinn, during his tenure the paper, and the two married in 1978 and had a son, Quinn. He also has three other children by his first two marriages, including son Ben Bradlee, Jr., a longtime Boston Globe reporter and editor. His memoir, A Good Life, was published in 1995, and in November 2013 he was given the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Pres. Barack Obama. Mr. Bradlee began end-of-life hospice care at his home in September after suffering from Alzheimer's disease and dementia for several years. "Ben was a true friend and genius leader in journalism," Woodward and Bernstein said in a statement. "He forever altered our business. His one unbending principle was the quest for the truth and the necessity of that pursuit." - CNN, 10/22/14.

Led Zeppelin has lost the first round of a "Stairway to Heaven" plagarism lawsuit brought by the heirs of co-founding Spirit member Randy Craig Wolf. The heirs sued Led Zep's Jimmy Page, Robert Plant and their music companies in June 2014, claiming that the story Page has told over the years about holing himself up in a remote cottage in Wales in 1970 and creating the iconic Classic Rock staple is false. The plaintiffs allege hat the music really came from Spirit, which once toured with Led Zeppelin in the late 1960s. On Oct. 19, U.S. District Court Judge Juan Snchez denied a motion to dismiss or transfer without prejudice after the defendants challenged the jurisdiction of the suit, saying "the individual defendants are British citizens residing in England, own no property in Pennsylvania and have no contacts with Pennsylvania, let alone ties sufficient to render them essentially at home here." The judge's ruling means that the plaintiffs can still try to sue Page and Plant again. Meanwhile, Jimmy Page said in a recent interview that "My master plan is to be playing live next year." "I haven't got another 20-30 years left in me, so I really need to get out there and present myself the way that I like to present myself and to be seen and be heard," he said, adding that he "will definitely play Led Zeppelin music because I'm really proud of the music that I did and the instrumental side of it -- things like "Black Mountain Side," "White Summer" and "Dazed and Confused," which only has two verses when you play as an instrumental -- you can take into another sort of feel. So I would do all that stuff, but I would do it well. I wouldn't go out and make it look like a tribute band." - The Hollywood Reporter/Billboard, 10/20/14.

During a recent podcast, Aerosmith drummer Joey Kramer said he's feeling great after a health scare that forced Aerosmith to cancel a California concert in August. As TMZ.com reported at the time that Kramer was facing "heart complications," the drummer clarified the gossip website's report that he "had heart issues in the past." "The likes of TMZ and some other [media outlets] out there said that I had previous problems, that I had existing heart problems from the past and it was something that I always had, which was just completely not true," Kramer said. "I've never had any problems in the past. It's just strictly a hereditary thing. There's a family history, and I was the victim. But no more." Kramer said he had gone to see his doctor after experiencing what he had thought was acid reflux but turned out to be more serious. He said he wound up needing an angioplasty with two stents inserted to fix the blockage. "It wasn't my time. It wasn't time for my ticket to be punched." he said on the Eddie Trunk Podcast. "And so I got fixed, and I'm back 150 percent, and everything is as good as it can possibly be." Meanwhile, Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler addressed eleven Maui Drug Court graduates and their families in Hawaii on Oct. 16 in 2nd Circuit Court. "I'm nervous here because I'm telling you all my truth," Tyler said. "I am also a drug addict and alcoholic and fighting it every day." As a guest speaker at the 49th Maui/Moloka'i Drug Court program graduation, Tyler encouraged graduates to continue in their recovery, in part by attending Alcoholics Anonymous and other support group meetings, as he does. "If you stop going to AA meetings, you're going to wind up using again," he said. "They're all over the island and they're all over the world. I express my joy all because of AA." - Billboard/Associated Press, 10/19/14.

During a Q&A session on Twitter on Oct. 20 to promote the reissue of the Wings albums Venus and Mars and Wings at the Speed of Sound which come out in November, Paul McCartney shared a rare track which will appear on the Speed of Sound reissue -- a previously unreleased take of "Beware My Love" featuring late Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham on drums. "...here's the world premiere of it featuring John Bonham on drums," Sir Paul said, as he shared it via Twitter's new audio card. "Beware My Love" wasn't the only time McCartney and Bonham's paths crossed -- the LedZep drummer played on two tracks from Wings' final album, 1979's Back to the Egg. During the Twitter chat, fans also learned that Macca has no tattoos ("Not even on my ass"), he sings in the shower ("Singing in the Rain," "It's Raining Men" or "Waterfalls!") and he's loving the new Foo Fighters track "Something From Nothing" and Sia's "Chandelier." - Billboard, 10/21/14...... In other Beatles-related news, Ringo Starr is set to star in a new global marketing campaign for Skechers footwear starting in spring 2015. Starr will appear in comedic new television spots for Skechers' "Relaxed Fit" line that will be part of a campaign that has previously included such sports celebrities as Joe Montana, Mark Cuban, Joe Namath and Pete Rose. "As we move from the sports world to the music world with this campaign, Ringo is the perfect ambassador to illustrate how our comfortable footwear helps keep you relaxed in any situation," said Skechers president Michael Greenberg. - Billboard, 10/21/14...... Appearing on NBC's The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Oct. 20, Neil Diamond said he once considered changing his name to "Ice Charry" or possibly "Noah Kaminsky" before the release of his debut album, The Feel of Neil Diamond, in 1966. "The names were brilliant and perfect," Diamond told host Jimmy Fallon. Kaminsky "was Biblical. It had depth, it had character." Diamond was unable to say why he though Ice Charry would have been a good option, only saying "something from Elvis or something?" Diamond, who also revealed he always wanted to play the accordion in a recent chat on Reddit, is promoting his latest album, Melody Road, which hit stores on Oct. 21. - Billboard, 10/21/14...... As Bob Seger's latest LP Ride Out hit stores on Oct. 14, the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer says that the album's title isn't meant to suggest a farewell. "People have said, 'Ride Out; that sounds a little final there,' and I'm like, 'No, that's not really what I meant,'" the 69-year-old musician tells Billboard. "It's to ride out, clear your head from all the stuff that's making you crazy. But it could serve as a final title. So if I decide, when I turn 70 in May, that enough's enough, it is kind of like summing up. The deciding factor for whether I leave or not is my voice, whether it holds up. I want to be graceful about it. I don't want to overstay my welcome." Seger added that he "probably cut 25 songs for the new album...and then there were another five or six that I came real close to cutting because maybe were a little too esoteric -- or a little too one way or another." "I just try to keep the quality up as high as I can. It's an ongoing thing and I play them for everyone who's close to me and figure out which ones work the best together," he said. - Billboard, 10/20/14...... Yusuf, the artist formerly known as Cat Stevens, is streaming his first album in five years in its entirety now on the NPR website. The album, Tell 'Em I'm Gone, will drop via Sony Legacy on Oct. 27 and was co-produced by Rick Rubin and recorded in L.A., London, Dubai and Brussels. Stevens will mount a 6-date tour behind the new LP beginning in December, his first string of North American dates in 35 years. He'll also play a small handful of European shows. - Billboard, 10/20/14...... In other streaming news, a previously-unreleased Bob Dylan track entitled "Dress It Up, Better Have It All" is now available to listen online. The track is part of Dylan's upcoming six-disc The Basement Tapes Complete: Bootleg Series Vol. 11 release, which hits on Nov. 11. "Dress It Up, Better Have It All" is one of 30 tracks previously thought to have been lost from the 138-track collection. The set includes all known recordings from the songwriter's sessions for his Basement Tapes album, which was initially released in 1975. - New Musical Express, 10/16/14...... Jackson Browne's new album Standing in the Breach debuted on the Billboard Hot 200 album chart at No. 15 for the second week of October, giving the California folk-rocker his second-highest debut ever on the chart. Browne's best-ever launch came in 1980 with Hold Out, which debuted at No. 10 (later climbing to No. 1). A new John Lennon collection, Power to the People: The Hits, bowed at No. 133 on the Hot 200. The set was sale priced and promoted by various digital retailers, including Amazon MP3 and the iTunes Store. On the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, Glen Campbell made his first appearance in 21 years, as his song "I'm Not Gonna Miss You" debuted at No. 50. As Campbell enters the final stages of Alzheimer's disease, the track is his final recording. "I'm Not Gonna Miss You" is from a soundtrack EP accompanying the documentary Glen Campbell - I'll Be Me, which includes The Band Perry's cover of Campbell's 1967 hit "Gentle on My Mind." - Billboard, 10/17/14...... Singer Paul Rodgers of Free and Bad Company fame played a sold-out performance and participated in a Q&A session at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles on Oct. 15. Rodgers told the Foundation that he's always been a soul singer at heart -- particularly on his new album covering R&B classics, The Royal Sessions. Recorded at the iconic Memphis Royal Studios with some of the original session musicians, The Royal Sessions was produced by Perry Margoulef, who appeared with Rodgers for the event. Following the Q&A, the night ended with Rodgers performing three songs from the new album, starting with a stellar "That's How Strong My Love Is," followed by "I Can't Stand The Rain" and "Born Under A Bad Sign." - The Hollywood Reporter, 10/16/14...... Queen guitarist Brian May is currently exhibiting his collection of Victorian-era 3D photographs at London's Tate Britain. May has been collecting stereoscopic images since his band's early years and his collection includes over 100,000 pictures. The most expensive item in the collection -- an image of Queen Victoria -- cost the musician £36,000. 3D pictures were popular during the 19th century, with two images displayed through a special viewer to create the illusion of depth. May has even devised his very own apparatus to use in examining the pieces. "This is a very big thrill, being able to share my own excitement in these photographs," May told The Guardian newspaper. "In the 19th century somebody called them 'the poor man's art gallery' " but that was a derogatory term " they usually haven't been taken seriously as art or photography." "A Poor Man's Picture Gallery" will run at Tate Britain until Apr. 12, 2015, after opening there in mid-October. - New Musical Express, 10/21/14...... Barbra Streisand reportedly sent out an email on Oct. 18 asking her fellow Democrats to donate money immediately to candidates facing stiff opposition in the November midterm elections. "Have you seen Congress lately? It's a mess," the diva wrote. "And it's only going to get worse if people like Karl Rove and the Koch Brothers continue to treat corporations better than people." Streisand, who teamed up with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in sending out the email, urged donors to contributed at least $5 immediately. "We have to act now," Streisand wrote. "We're running out of time and money." The singer, whose latest album Great Diva Classics, arrives in stores on Oct. 21, also blasted a recent Supreme Court decision allowing Texas to use its strict voter identification law in the November election. "Just this week in Texas, voting rights were dismantled, essentially blocking minorities and many students and seniors from voting," she wrote. "There is still so much more we can do," she added in closing. "And that can only be achieved with an active Congress, not an obstructive one. That is why it is so important to support Democratic candidates." - The Hollywood Reporter, 10/19/14...... More artists have been added to the upcoming star-studded tribute to Lynyrd Skynyrd, which is set for Atlanta's Fox Theatre on Nov. 12. Randy Houser, O.A.R. and Al Kooper, who discovered Skynyrd and produced many of their hits, are the newest additions to "One More For the Fans! - Celebrating the Songs & Music of Lynyrd Skynyrd," organizers announced on Oct. 17. They join a previously set lineup of rock and country acts that includes Lynyrd Skynyrd, Trace Adkins, Alabama, Gregg Allman, Charlie Daniels, Peter Frampton, Warren Haynes, John Hiatt, Jason Isbell, Jamey Johnson, Aaron Lewis, moe., Gov't Mule, Robert Randolph, Blackberry Smoke, Cheap Trick and Donnie Van Zant. Lynyrd Skynyrd recorded a live album, One More From the Road, at the Fox Theatre in 1976 as part of a campaign to save the historic venue from the wrecking ball. For the Nov. 12 concert, producer Don Was will serve as the music director and house band leader. - Billboard, 10/17/14...... Legendary fashion designer Oscar de la Renta, who had designed dresses for every first lady since Jacqueline Kennedy died on Oct. 20. He was 82. The cause of his death, announced by close family friends and industry colleagues, was not immediately clear. He was diagnosed with cancer in 2006, but said last year he was "totally clean." Often described as the "sultan of suave," Mr. de la Renta also dressed such female musicians as Beyonce, Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga and Lee Ann Womack, while movie stars Jessica Chastain, Penelope Cruz and Kristen Stewart were among the Dominican Republic-born designer's great fans. "He was a true, true gentlemen, in the truest sense of the word -- a real bright light -- and this is just a terrible, terrible loss for the fashion world," said Alina Cho, fashion journalist and editor at large at Random House. - The Hollywood Reporter, 10/20/14...... Saxophone player Raphael Ravenscroft, the man behind the sax hook on Gerry Rafferty's 1978 smash "Baker Street" which is considered the most recognizable sax riff in pop music history, passed away due to an apparent heart attack on Oct. 20. He was 60. Ravenscroft was reportedly paid for his "Baker Street" sessions work with a check that bounced, while Rafferty earned thousands in royalties on the song over the years. "Baker Street" peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1978 and the riff continues to be one of the most celebrated sax hooks in history. Some music historians claim Ravenscroft's "Baker Street" sax solo is strongly inspired by a similar solo in jazz-rock fusion player Steve Marcus' 1968 track "Half a Heart." Ravenscroft also played tenor sax on Pink Floyd's The Final Cut and worked with a diverse roster of artists that included Robert Plant, America, Bonnie Tyler, Daft Punk and more. - Billboard, 10/21/14...... Tim Hauser, the founder and singer of the Grammy-winning vocal troupe The Manhattan Transfer, died on Oct. 16 from cardiac arrest. He was 72. Hauser founded Manhattan Transfer, who released their debut album in the early 1970s and released hits such as "Operator" and "The Boy from New York City." They went on to win multiple pop and jazz Grammy Awards. Their critically acclaimed album, 1985's Vocalese, earned a whopping 12 Grammy nominations. "Tim was the visionary behind The Manhattan Transfer," members of the group said in a statement. "It's incomprehensible to think of this world without him." Manhattan Transfer will continue their upcoming tour despite Hauser's death. Their next show is Oct. 23 in Manchester, N.H. - AP, 10/18/14...... Songwriter Paul Craft, who penned hits for such artists as the Eagles, Linda Ronstadt, Ray Stevens, Mark Chesnutt and Alison Krauss, died in a hospital in Nashville, Tenn., after years of deteriorating health. He was 76. Earlier in October, Craft was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame after being nominated numerous times over the years. Craft was also a member of American Mensa, a group for people whose IQ is in the top 2 percent of the population. Among his most well-known songs were "Hank Williams, You Wrote My Life," '"Dropkick Me, Jesus (Through the Goalposts of Life)," "Brother Jukebox," and "It's Me Again, Margaret," one of Ray Stevens' signature songs. - AP, 10/19/14.