Favorite Seventies Artists In The News

Posted by Administrator on June 4th, 2015

Michael Jackson's son Prince Michael Jackson graduated from Buckley High School in Sherman Oaks, Calif., on May 30. Prince's aunt, La Toya Jackson, was at the ceremony and first shared the news on her Twitter account, with his grandmother Katherine Jackson, as well as his sister Paris Jackson and several other relatives, also attending the graduation. - Billboard, 5/30/15...... Meanwhile, one of Michael Jackson's early mentors, Diana Ross, posted her first messages to Twitter on June 3. The Motown legend, using the name "Ms. Ross," tweeted "I am on Twitter now and loving it." So far, Ross has only followed five people on the platform: her children Tracie, Evan, Rhonda, Chudney and Ross Naess. - Billboard, 6/30/15...... Earth, Wind & Fire, currently touring the US, will play shows right up to its Bonnaroo Music Festival appearance on June 12 in Manchester, Tenn., then starts another summer run with Chicago on July 15 in Concord, Calif. EWF bassist and co-founder Verdine White says his group is no stranger to playing large-scale festivals where it might stick out a bit from the rest of the bands. "It kind of goes back to our roots," White recently told Billboard about his upcoming Bonnaroo date. "(1974's) California Jam, you know, things like that we did way back in the day before any of these young people were born. We were playing a lot of those kind of festivals back in the early '70s and things like that. It's a cool festival to be part of, and we're really happy about that. It's kind of going to remind us of back in the day." White says the band's Bonnaroo setlist may involve the triple-platinum LP That's The Way of the World, the group's first No. 1 album that celebrates its 40th anniversary this year. "We're pulling out some songs from that particular era and this summer we're going to be doing quite a bit of content based on that, live," White affirmed. "That's The Way of the World was such a big breakthrough record for us, a very transitional record, and still holds up today." White added that the band is trying to "figure out a way to fit in" a new recording project, which would be the follow-up to 2013's Now, Then & Forever and a holiday collection in the fall of 2014. - Billboard, 6/3/15...... The Grateful Dead have announced a September release date for what will be their largest boxed set to date -- a whopping 80-disc collection dubbed 30 Trips Around the Sun featuring 30 unreleased live shows -- one for each year the band was together from 1966 to 1995. Packed with over 73 hours of music, the career-spanning set will include a 1967 show at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, a 1979 concert at Cape Cod Coliseum, a 1987 show at New York's Madison Square Garden and a 1994 show in Boston. The remaining shows will be revealed in the coming weeks on Dead.net. The box also comes with a 288-page book that features an extensive, career-spanning essay written by GD archivist Nick Meriwether. If the nearly $700 price tag for the release is too steep for some, a four-CD and digital version of the collection titled ternate version of "Brown Sugar" featuring Eric Clapton on slide guitar that will be included on the band's upcoming 30 Trips Around the Sun: The Definitive Live Story 1965-1995 will also be available on Sept. 18 for $44.98. The band will perform five "Fare Thee Well" concerts on June 27 and 28 in Santa Clara, California, and on July 3, 4 and 5 at Chicago's Soldier Field. All five shows will be simulcast on the Web. - Billboard, 6/3/15...... On May 31 Rhino Records announced that two albums recorded by the Doors following the death of frontman Jim Morrison, 1971's Other Voices and 1972's The Full Circle, will be reissued as a 2 CD-set on Sept. 4 featuring remastered audio by longtime Doors producer Bruce Botnick. Other Voices, the band's seventh LP, will include a rare bonus track called "Treetrunk," which was first released as a B-side to The Full Circle single "Get Up and Dance." The 180-gram vinyl editions will feature "historically accurate sleeves," including the expansive foldout zoetrope packaged with the original The Full Circle vinyl. Afdter Morrison died in Paris in July 1971 aged 27, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, guitarist Robby Krieger and drummer John Densmore continued on as the Doors, with Krieger and Manzarek sharing vocal duties. Manzarek died in 2013 at age 74, and Densmore has recently published The Doors Unhinged, an account of his legal feud with Krieger of the use of the band name. - New Musical Express, 5/31/15...... Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell has revealed to Rolling Stone magazine that Petty wants to make another Mudcrutch album, named after Petty's pre-fame band and who finally released a debut album in 2008. Campbell, who also started in Mudcrutch but transitioned to the Heartbreakers with Petty, added that "It probably won't take very long. It's a labor of love, really." Campbell says the album would have gotten underway in January, but medical issues with Mudcrutch guitarist Tom Leadon held up the process. Leadon was one of two of Mudcrutch's five members, along with drummer Randall Marsh, who did not go on to form Petty's backing band. "I hope we do some gigs again this time," Campbell said when asked of a potential Mudcrutch tour. "If we have the time and the guys are all up for it, then I'd love to go out and play. But we'll start with the record and see what comes up." Meanwhile, a previously unreleased Tom Petty song will be featured in the long-awaited big screen adaptation of the hit HBO series Entourage. The lovely, contemplative rock track "Somewhere Under Heaven," a previously unreleased gem from Petty's 1994 classic solo LP Wildflowers, is also currently streaming on Spotify, and will be available on the upcoming release Wildflowers: All the Rest, a collection rounding up the material that didn't make Petty's second solo album. - Billboard, 6/2/15...... The Rolling Stones have released an alternate version of "Brown Sugar" featuring Eric Clapton on slide guitar that will be included on the band's upcoming deluxe reissue of 1971's Sticky Fingers that is due out June 8. Long familiar to Rolling Stones fans as a bootleg version, the Clapton version of "Brown Sugar" was recorded on Dec. 18, 1970, at Olympic Studios in London at a birthday party for guitarist Keith Richards. It also features Al Kooper on piano. Meanwhile, the Stones performed a track they hadn't played live for almost 50 years, "Hang On Sloopy," at the Ohio Stadium in Columbus, Oh. on May 30. They dedicated it to Ohio State University, whose marching band play it at sports games. "Hang On Sloopy" was originally written by Wes Farrell and Bert Russell in 1964, and later popularized by The McCoys. The Stones last performed the track during their European tour in 1966. - Billboard/NME, 6/2/15...... 1976 Olympics decathlon gold medalist Bruce Jenner made her debut as a woman, Caitlyn Jenner, in Vanity Fair magazine on June 1. The cover of the magazine's July issue revealed the first look at Jenner after her transition from male to female. "I'm so happy after such a long struggle to be living my true self," Jenner wrote in her first tweet on June 1. "Welcome to the world Caitlyn. Can't wait for you to get to know her/me." Jenner first publicly revealed that she was transitioning into a woman in a 20/20 interview with Diane Sawyer. "For all intents and purposes, I am a woman," Jenner said in April. Jenner was reportedly considering spelling her name with the letter "k," like all the other women in the Kardashian-Jenner clan, but has opted for a more traditional spelling of Caitlyn. She is set to receive the Arthur Ashe Courage Award at ABC's EPSY Awards on July 15. Her yet to be titled docu-series is scheduled to debut in July. - Variety, 6/1/15...... CBS is partnering with the family of late The Brady Bunch creator Sherwood Schwartz on a new comedic musical stage show based on Schwartz's iconic '70s sitcom. The play will feature a new story, but will still focus on the original characters from the sitcom about a happy band of step-siblings and their newly married parents. Schwartz's children, Lloyd J. Schwartz and Hope Juber, wrote the book. Juper wrote the music with her husband, Wings guitarist Laurence Juber. Production dates are not yet available. - Variety, 6/2/15...... Although two factions of the late Robin Williams's family have settled their differences over dividing the actor's personal effects, they remain at odds over how much cash Williams's widow Susan should receive over her lifetime. A hearing has been scheduled for early June in San Francisco Superior Court to determine how much money she should receive from her late husband, who hanged himself in August in the Tiburon home they shared. The Mork & Mindy star left most of his estate to his three children, including the proceeds from the sale of a Napa County home and property. But Williams did leave the Tiburon home to Susan with instructions that she receive enough money to maintain it through her lifetime. - AP, 6/1/15...... Academy Award-winning costume designer Julie Harris, who outfitted such '60s icons as The Beatles and Sean Connery as James Bond, died on May 30 at a London hospital after suffering from a chest infection. She was 94. Ms. Harris played a major role in capturing the look of 1960s "Swinging London" on film, and dressed the Beatles for both A Hard Day's Night and Help! "I must be one of the few people who can claim they have seen John, Paul, George and Ringo naked," she later said. She won an Oscar for the 1965 film Darling, and a British film award, the BAFTA, for the 1966 Michael Caine comedy The Wrong Box. - AP, 6/1/15...... Betsy Palmer, the veteran character actress known for appearing as a regular panelist on the CBS game show I've Got a Secret for a decade starting in 1958, died on May 29 of natural causes at a hospice care center in Connecticut. She was 88. Ms. Palmer also achieved lasting, though not necessarily sought-after, fame as the murderous camp cook in the cheesy 1980 horror film Friday the 13th. Ms. Palmer had appeared in films, on Broadway and in TV shows for years before she took the role of Mrs. Voorhees in Friday the 13th in which young camp counselors suddenly begin meeting their bloody ends. The wholesome Indiana native also starred in numerous TV shows from the early 1950s, among them Kraft Theatre, Playhouse 90 and Studio One. Her film credits included three movies released in 1955 -- Mister Roberts with Henry Fonda (as nurse Lt. Ann Girard, she was one of the few women in the cast), The Long Gray Line with Tyrone Power and Queen Bee with Joan Crawford. Other credits include The Tin Star (1957), The True Story of Lynn Stuart and The Last Angry Man (1959). Other TV credits included Knot's Landing (as the aunt of Joan Van Ark), The Love Boat, Newhart, Just Shoot Me!, T.J. Hooker and Murder, She Wrote. - The Hollywood Reporter, 6/1/15.

As The Who's Pete Townshend was honored with the 2016 MusiCares Stevie Ray Vaughn Award for his work supporting the charity at the annual MusiCares benefit concert in New York's Best Buy Theater on May 28, Bruce Springsteen joined Townshend and Who singer Roger Daltrey onstage to perform "My Generation" and "Won't Get Fooled Again." Springsteen also made the presentation of the award to Townshend, and recalled the first time he saw The Who on their first American tour in 1967. "I was a young pimply-faced teenager who managed to scrap enough together to go see my first rock concert ever. Pete and The Who were young pimply-faced teenagers with a record contract, a tour and a rude aggressive magic," Springsteen said. He went on to say how the band played probably a little more than 30 minutes, and Pete, in a cloud of smoke, demolished his guitar bashing it over and over into the floor and his amplifier." "All I knew, for some reason, this music and the demolishing of all these perfectly fine instruments filled me with incredible joy and I never looked back," The Boss noted. The MusiCares MAP Fund is a charity to assist musicians with addiction recovery. - New Musical Express, 5/29/15...... Reports are circulating that a brain aneurysm was the reason for Joni Mitchell's recent admission to a hospital, where she has remained for nearly two months. Sources close to Mitchell have reported that she remains in "very serious" condition, and is expected to be moved to a rehab facility in the near future. Mitchell, 71, was hospitalised in Los Angeles on Mar. 31, after being found unconscious at her home. Representatives for the singer recently denied reports that she is in a coma and unresponsive. A statement on her official website, and approved by Leslie Morris, read: "Contrary to rumors circulating on the Internet today, Joni is not in a coma. Joni is still in the hospital -- but she comprehends, she's alert, and she has her full senses. A full recovery is expected." On May 4, Mitchell's lawyer Alan Watenmaker told a court that she could be released from hospital shortly during a court hearing concerning a request for conservatorship from her longtime friend Leslie Morris. Another report by Showbiz 411 claims "speech is difficult" for the Canadian singer/songwriter icon, "but she's communicating." - Billboard/NME, 5/29/15...... Playing the Liverpool Echo Arena on May 28, Paul McCartney encouraged a nervous fan to go ahead and propose to his girlfriend before the audience. McCartney invited the young couple, named Fabrice Gueho and Diane McEvoy, on to the stage mid-set, where Gueho asked McEvoy to marry him. In response to Gueho's initial nerves, McCartney attempted to spur the man on. "Come on, get serious, do it, we're all watching," he said, somewhat abruptly. Gueho proceeded to get down on one knee to propose, with McEvoy saying "yes" to a loud cheer from the crowd. The future bride, McEvoy, also has a Beatles connection -- she is employed at the city's Beatles Story Museum. McCartney's Liverpool gig came after recent concerts in London and Birmingham. Meanwhile, Sir Paul revealed to London's Daily Mirror on May 29 that, as a grandfather, he's given up marijuana after many years of indulgence and now prefers wine or "a nice margarita." Paul, 72, said that he doesn't want to set a bad example for his children and grandchildren by smoking pot, and that his decision is "a parent thing" and that "the last time I smoked was a long time ago." In other Macca-related news, the casting director of the hit '90s NBC sitcom Friends said in a recent interview with HuffingtonPost.com that she once tried to get the famous former Beatle to appear on the long-running show, to play Ross Geller's father-in-law when he married Emily Waltham during the two-part season four finale back in 1998. "I went through his manager and gave him all the details," Litt recalled. "One day, someone in the office brought me a faxed letter written to me by Paul himself!" "He thanked me for my interest and said how flattered he was, but it was a very busy time for him," she added. - NME/AP/Billboard, 5/29/15...... In other Beatles-related news, Ringo Starr told the UK's Uncut magazine that working with John Lennon's Plastic Ono Band was one of the "best experiences" of his career. "It was incredible," Starr said of the 1970 John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band LP recording sessions. "John, [bassist] Klaus [Voorman] and I. One of the finest trios I ever heard. We did it like a jam. We knew John had the songs and we'd kick it in and felt where it should go." Starr added that their familiarity as a group worked to their advantage: "We knew Klaus anyway. John and I really knew each other, so we were psychic where the atmosphere was going to go." Despite his legacy of recording 12 albums with the Beatles earlier, Starr said that recording that album was one of the "best experiences on record I have ever had." "Just being in the room with John, being honest, the way he was, screaming, shouting and singing. It was an incredible moment," Ringo said. - New Musical Express, 5/29/15......Michael Jackson's former Neverland Ranch estate in Santa Ynez, Calif., has been put on the market, with an asking price of $100 million. The estate now features over 20 structures including the main house, guest houses, 50-seat movie theatre and a station that served as a stop-off point for Jackson's miniature railway. Jackson bought the 2,700-acre property in 1987 for $19.5 million and staged his marriage ceremony to Lisa Marie Presley there in 1995. He refused to return there after a 2004 police raid and investigation into child molestation charges against him. The estate's agent, Sotheby's Interternational Realtors, say the current owners, Colony Capital, are keen to keep fans away from the property and hope to sell the ranch quickly by planning an "extensive prequalification" of all potential buyers before showing the property. "We're not going to be giving tours," SIR's Suzanne Perkins said. - WENN.com, 5/29/15...... In other Michael Jackson news, on May 26 Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Mitchell Beckloff dismissed a choreographer's claim that the King of Pop once molested him as a child. The judge said that Wade Robson, who had previously denied that Jackson had molested him and even testified in Jackson's defense in a criminal trial in 2005, had waited too long to file the case in court. Robson, who is also a former dancer with Britney Spears, then sued Jackson's estate in May 2013 and sought to file a late claim against the singer's estate. Jackson's estate has denied Robson's allegations of abuse, and Robson's attorney has yet to respond to the judge's decision. - AP, 5/27/15...... Organizers of the upcoming Grateful Dead "Fare Thee Well" concerts have announced they will release over 300 tickets to the shows on eBay with proceeds going to benefit a number of charities. Bidding for these tickets will reportedly begin at face value. From there, net proceeds from the sales will be split between the charities chosen by the Grateful Dead, which include The Rainforest Action Network, NORML, SEVA, Conscious Alliance, and the Rex Foundation. At the shows, the charities will have a presence in an area billed as "Participation Row." The Dead's Fare Thee Well shows will mark the band's 50th anniversary. The band will play Santa Clara, Calif., on June 27 and 28 and then head to Chicago July 3-5. - Billboard, 5/28/15...... As Fleetwood Mac kicked off a UK reunion tour at London's O2 Arena on May 27, singer Stevie Nicks told the UK's Mojo magazine that "every band should have a girl in it." "I think every band should have a girl in it, because it's always going to make for more cooler stuff going on than if it's just a bunch of guys," Nicks said. "It's ultimately more romantic, no matter what. Even if nobody is getting together, it still casts a romantic spell." Fleetwood Mac will kick off their European tour with a series of UK and Ireland dates, playing 6 concerts at London's O2, three dates in Birmingham, two dates in Manchester, three dates in Glagow, a date in Dublin, and two dates in Leeds including the closer on July 5. - NME, 5/27/15...... Influential '70s disco producer/composer Giorgio Moroder is premiering a megamix video featuring a group of dancers bringing the tracks of his upcoming album, Deja Vu, to life ahead of the LP's June 16 release date. The video includes 10 of the songs from the album, which features A-list cameos from the likes of Sia, Britney Spears, Kylie Minogue, Charli XCX and more. Deja Vu is Moroder's first solo album in over 30 years. - Billboard, 5/28/15...... "Motown the Musical," a stage production that tells the story of the founding of the iconic Detroit record label by Berry Gordy in 1958 and traces its legacy through a series of flashbacks, will end its two-year run on Broadway on June 7. A national tour of the show will then travel across North American through early 2016 on a 37-date run. "Motown the Musical" has grossed over $115 million since its premiere in March 2013. - Billboard, 5/28/15...... Baltimore, Maryland, a city recently ravaged by racial strife, has debuted a musical about reggae icon and civil rights activist Bob Marley in hopes to help heal the city. The city's flagship theater, Center Stage, began previews of "Marley" this spring, but they were lost amid protests following the death of Freddie Gray in police custody, and the actors had to rush to finish rehearsals early on several evenings to accommodate a city-wide curfew. "Marley" focuses on the years 1975 to 1978, when the musician survived an attempted assassination in Jamaica and went into exile in London. It's the first time a stage musical has used both Marley's songs and his life story. The musical, with Mitchell Brunings portraying the title character, features such mid-'70s Marley albums as Exodus, Kaya and Rastaman Vibration, which include the songs "Jamming," "'Three Little Birds" and "Roots, Rock, Reggae." - AP, 5/27/15...... Organizers of the 2015 Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island have announced they will pay tribute to the moment when Bob Dylan made rock history by announcing he was "going electric" 50 years ago. Festival producer Jay Sweet said on May 26 that an "all-star lineup" of nearly a dozen contemporary artists will celebrate Dylan's 1965 performance. It will close out the three-day festival, which runs July 24-26. Dylan is not playing at the festival, but Sweet says he's invited to play every year. He last played Newport in 2002. Other headliners include Roger Waters and The Decemberists. - AP, 5/26/15...... Founding Pink Floyd members Roger Waters and Nick Mason unveiled a plaque commemorating the 50th anniversary of the group's formation at London's University Of Westminister on May 28. The iconic prog-rock band was formed at the university (formerly known as Regent Street Polytechnic) in 1965, and initially going by the name Sigma 6, with keyboardist Richard Wright joining the group soon after. Wright died in 2008. David Gilmour did not attend the event because he didn't join the band until 1967. "Put it like this: if we'd gone up for Britain's Got Talent, I don't think we would have made it past the audition stage," Mason told the BBC. "We weren't terribly good," he added, to which Waters replied: "We were effing awful." While Waters was eager to participate in the 50th anniversary ceremony, he has insisted he'll never rejoin the band and recently told fans hoping for him to rejoin to "get a grip" via Facebook. - New Musical Express, 5/29/15...... Neil Young announced the tracklisting for his forthcoming concept album The Monsanto Years. In addition to the title track, which is the penultimate song on the 9-track CD, the album also features such tracks as "A New Day for Love," "Wolf Moon," "Big Box," "A Rock Star Bucks a Coffee Shop," "Workin' Man," and "Rules of Change. An accompanying DVD will also feature live performances of the 9 songs, in a different order. The Monsanto Years is due June 29 via Reprise Records. - Billboard, 5/27/15...... The first eight Black Sabbath albums will be re-released this summer on heavyweight 180g vinyl, as well as CD format, beginning on June 22 with 1970's Paranoid, and 1971's Master of Reality. On June 29, 1972's Vol. 4, 1973's Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, and 1975's Sabotage will follow, while 'Technical Ecstacy' (1976) and 'Never Say Die' (1978) conclude the schedule on July 13. - NME, 5/28/15...... The family of late blues guitarist B.B. King, who died on May 14 at age 89 from complications due to type 2 diabetes, are set to challenge the musician's former manager LaVerne Toney over King's will and what they allege to be "unfair influence" exerted by him. A lawyer for the heirs issued a statement on May 23 accusing Toney, who is the executor of the will, of having "misappropriated millions of dollars," "untruthful" conduction, as well as being "unqualified to serve as executor of the estate." Attorney Larissa Drohobyczer stated that she met with five of King's daughters -- Patty King, Michelle King, Karen Williams, Barbara King Winfree and Claudette King Robinson -- before issuing the statement. King's body was viewed by thousands on at the B.B. King Museum on May 29 in his hometown of Indianola, Miss., the eve of his burial there. More than 3,000 people filed past King's open casket, including 78-year-old blues guitarist Buddy Guy. King's burial on May 30 was attended by the governor of the state, and a letter from Pres. Barack Obama was read at the funeral. - AP, 5/25/15...... Todd Rundgren's latest effort, Runddans, is a "utopian" mixture of electronic dance music with exploratory dynamics and a cosmic-R&B glow. Rundgren was already making records like this at the height of glam -- his 1973 astro-suite A Wizard, A True Star; the 1975 spiritual-prog epic Initiation -- so he sounds at home with his Norweigan collaborators Emil Nikolaisen and Hans-Peter Linstrøm in this space-soul trip, a 40-minute piece in 12 parts. The programming is intermittently suitable for boogaloo, but the breaking sunshine in the melodies and Rundgren's singing deliver on the promise in titles like "Liquid Joy in the Womb of Infinity" and "Wave of Heavy Red (Disko-Nektar)." - Rolling Stone, 6/4/15...... Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard coined the modern country-bromance with their 1983 hit Pancho & Lefty; their latest, Django and Jimmie, looks back. The title -- referring to Django Reinhardt and Jimmie Rodgers, major influences on both men -- suggests a rich dig into country archeology á la Haggard's 1970 Bob Wills tribute. Instead, we get a grab bag of new songs and rerecorded signatures fixed on the duo's own mythology, largely sans blue yodels or gypsy jazz. Highlights are Haggard's "Missing 'Ol Johnny Cash," a story-swap with guest Bobby Bare, and "It's All Going to Pot," the "420 Day" single that shows two masters nailing the right song at the right time. - Rolling Stone, 6/4/15...... Classic rockers Whitesnake released their latest LP, The Purple Album, on May 19 via Fronteirs Music SRL. They will tour the US behind the new release beginning on May 28 at the Quest Casino in Airway Heights, Wash., playing 18 additional American dates before wrapping on July 18 at the Star Plaza in Merrillville, Indiana. The Purple Album is currently No. 6 on the UK's Hard Rock Music Album chart, and No. 15 on the Top Current Rock chart, and in the U.S., it sits at No. 43 on Billboard's Hot 200 album chart. A 10-date UK tour will get underway on Dec. 6 at the Dublin 3 Arena. - Noble PR, 5/27/15.