Favorite Seventies Artists In The News

Posted by Administrator on Aug. 29th, 2015

AC/DC appears to be strangely involved in the infamous AshleyMadison.com hack, as it was revealed in a recent press conference that when employees of the dating-by-way-of-infidelity website logged into their computers July 12, they were greeted to a message from the hackers accompanied by AC/DC's 1990 song "Thunderstruck." The band itself had nothing to do with the hacks, which became national news after compromising the privacy of over 33 million accounts and allegedly leading to two suicides. Avid Life Media offered a $500,000 reward to anyone providing information leading to the prosecution of the hackers behind the invasion, known as the Impact Team. "Thunderstruck," from AC/DC's 1990 album The Razors Edge, is one of the Aussie rockers' most iconic songs. - Billboard, 8/25/15...... A cover of The Who's "My Generation" will be featured on the new Alice Cooper and Johnny Depp-fronted band Hollywood Vampires, which will release its new self-titled album on Sept. 11. Devised by Cooper and Depp as a way to cover songs by "their dead friends and heroes," Hollywood Vampires also features Slash, Brian Johnson, Dave Grohl, Paul McCartney and Perry Farrell and includes renditions of songs by John Lennon, The Doors, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, T Rex and Small Faces. - Billboard, 8/26/15...... Eagles guitarist Joe Walsh has told Billboard that he's been working on a memoir "for about a year" and that "some of it's really funny, some... is what happened [and] some of it is other people telling me what I did." Walsh, who would become the second Eagles member, after former guitarist Don Felder, to publish his experiences with the Grammy-winning band, added that "when it's done it will come out... it's kind of a big undertaking." In the meantime, Walsh will kick off a solo tour of North America on Oct. 17 in Boston with longtime collaborator Joe Vitale among his band members. He's promising to treat fans not only with such favorites as "Funk #49," "Rocky Mountain Way" and "Life's Been Good," but also deep cuts from his solo catalog. "I went back and went through my catalog, and there's a bunch of songs that a lot of people know but they weren't hits and didn't have radio presence," he said. "Everybody will hear what they're coming to hear, but in addition to that there'll be some stuff off Joe Walsh albums that people will go, 'Oh yeah, that one!'" He also says that the next Eagles tour will be different from the recently completed History of the Eagles tour: "We have to reinvent a new set and a new show and we've got to take some time off before we start doing that." - Billboard, 8/28/15...... Cable TV's Showtime network will premiere a new Jimi Hendrix special, Electric Church, on Sept. 4. The documentary will feature previously unreleased footage of Hendrix's appearance at 1970's Atlanta Pop Music Festival just weeks before his death, along with reminiscences by such superstars as Paul McCartney and Steve Winwood. Meanwhile, Netflix will begin streaming a new Keith Richards doc, Under the Influence, on Sept. 18. Directed by Oscar-winning documentarian Morgan Neville (20 Feet from Stardom), the show follows the Rolling Stones guitarist as he lovingly explores his blues and country influences. - Billboard, 8/27/15...... A-list actresses Jennifer Lawrence and Amy Schumer helped Billy Joel make his Aug. 27 tour stop at Chicago's Wrigley Field unforgettable when the two divas shimmied barefoot on top of his grand piano during a rendition of his 1983 hit "Uptown Girl." Both Oscar-winning actress Lawrence and red hot comedian Schumer rehearsed their routine with the Piano Man in an empty Wrigley Field in the leadup to the big show. The two have jointly written a comedic screenplay for a new film in which they plan to co-star as siblings. "Uptown Girl" also features prominently in Schumer's latest film, Trainwreck. Joel's record-busting 2015 tour included a recent performance at Madison Square Garden in which he broke Elton John's record of 64 shows at the venue, and the final concert at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Long Island on Aug. 4. - Billboard, 8/28/15...... Patti Smith performed her seminal 1975 album Horses in its entirety on Aug. 26 at Electric Lady Studios in New York, in honor of the landmark recording facility's 45th anniversary. Smith injected humor into the event, which could have been sober considering the nature of the album, by joking about "flipping the record from side A to B" after wrapping a fiery "Free Money," and after mangling a word at the top of "Birdland" (which starts with, "His father died and left him a little farm in New England"), she told the band to start over and deadpanned, "His dad is gonna have to die again." Celebrities in attendance in the concert room included Liv Tyler, Dakota Johnson and Win Butler of Arcade Fire. - Billboard, 8/27/15...... Nile Rodgers of Chic was honored with the 2015 BMI Icon Award on Aug. 28. In attendance was Bernard Edwards Jr., the son of Rodgers' late Chic partner, which Rodgers says was "one of the proudest times for me." "Most people don't realize that Bernard's son is an incredible producer who goes by the name Focus and is doing so many great records," Rodgers said. Rodgers' career will be saluted again later in the year during BMI's annual R&B/Hip-Hop Awards, taking place at the Saban Theatre in Los Angeles. Rodgers, who's also crafted hits for Diana Ross and Madonnai n addition to collaborating with Daft Punk, Disclosure and Sam Smith, will begin a four-date tour with Duran Duran on Oct. 1 at the Hollywood Bowl. Rodgers says that a new Chic album, dubbed About Time, is "in the fourth quarter" and the LP is on course to be released in 2015. "We're down to recording the last three songs. I've been somewhat protective of it, like a child. But I've got to let it grow up," he said. - Billboard, 8/27/15...... German electronic rock pioneers Kraftwerk recently told Rolling Stone that they're translating their visual shows into an album with "3D sound" that will be released in late autumn on Blue-ray. "We've put a lot of work into all the images, transforming from our Kling Klang archives into 3D format and arranging it synchronised with the music, so it's quite a lot of production," says founding member Ralf Hutter. The performances will include those from the band's recent 3D tour, which travelled to venues including the Sydney Opera House, London's Tate Modern and the Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. Kraftwerk will kick off a fall tour of North America on Sept. 16 in Edmonton, and then visit cities they haven't played since 1975, including Portland, Austin and Kansas City. - New Musical Express, 8/27/15...... Former Faces drummer Kenney Jones says there's even more in store for fans from the group's vaults after the Aug. 28 release of the band's new five-disc box set, 1970-1975: You Can Make Me Dance, Sing or Anything. "There's lots of stuff that we all have individually, especially live stuff," Jones says. "Ronnie Wood's got a lot, I've got a lot, I think Rod (Stewart) has got some. We also have some old backing tracks that would take awhile to dig out." In the meantime, You Can Make Me Dance... will give Faces fans plenty to digest with its treasure trove of outtakes, alternate and rehearsal versions, and live tracks from both concerts and BBC sessions. The surviving Faces recently announced they'll play a one-off charity gig for Prostate Cancer UK in Surrey on Sept. 5. - Billboard, 8/27/15...... In 1972, Leon Russell went into a Nashville studio to record Hank Wilson's Back. Documentary filmmaker Les Blank chronicled the sessions for the album and spent two years at Russell's lakeside compound in Oklahoma, taking a job at a place called Pappy Reeve's Floating Motel and Fish Camp while there. But the resulting film, A Poem Is a Naked Person, was rarely screened due to tensions between Russell and Blank, who died in 2013. ("I might have killed him," says Russell on why they didn't speak for decades.) Now, 43 years later, the movie is finally being released in selected American cinemas. With cameos from George Jones and Willie Nelson, and plenty of live footage of Russell, it's a fascinating portrait of one of the Seventies' great eccentrics. "He was a collector of the unusual," Russell says of Blank. "Me being the prime unusual beast." - Rolling Stone, 8/13/15...... Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi, who was diagnosed with lymphoma in early 2012, recently took part in a cancer awareness campaign in his hometown of Birmingham, UK, by standing in a glass box with a two-way mirror to "highlight the loneliness felt by people diagnosed with cancer." Onlookers could see into the box but Iommi could not see out, instead hearing audio of personal stories from cancer sufferers. Iommi said the presentation reminded him of his own battle with the disease: "I was in a bubble for a while -- just like the isolation box." In April, Iommi responded to rumors that he was suffering from a cancer relapse after he pulled out of Black Sabbath's "farewell" tour. "Once you've had something like lymphoma the fear that it will return never leaves, all I can say is that right now I'm fine and have regular blood tests," he posted on Facebook. - New Musical Express, 8/27/15...... A grand piano used on many of Abba's biggest hits, including "Waterloo," "Dancing Queen" and "Money, Money, Money," is expected to fetch as much as $1.2 million when it is auctioned by Sotheby's in September. Designed by Sweden's Georg Bolin and owned by the Stockholm music studio where the '70s Swedish super-group often recorded, the piano will be auctioned in London on Sept. 29. - AP, 8/28/15...... Ahead of her upcoming tribute at the National Portrait Gallery's inaugural American Portrait Gala on Nov. 15 in Washington, D.C., Aretha Franklin says that she'd like to see her life story on Broadway. "I would like to see it be a dramatic musical," she says. "I loved 'The Motown Musical'; it was so great. I think the timing is very good now, especially behind 'Jersey Boys', Carole King ['Beautiful']. Gloria Estefan ['On Your Feet'] has come to Broadway now and why not Aretha?" Franklin added that she's in talks with a award-winning actress-director Marsha Mason to work on the production, who's "very amenable and would love to do it." In 2015, the Queen of Soul is also celebrating the 30th anniversary of her Grammy-winning album Who's Zoomin' Who and its Top 5 hit "Freeway of Love." "I liked 'Freeway,'" she says. "I really did like 'Freeway' and usually when I really like a song like that, people like it, too." - Billboard, 8/26/15...... Carlos Santana says he's close to finishing his new "Santana IV" project, which will reunite the members of the 1971-72 lineup of the band, as well as a new jazz fusion group called Supernova that will also include saxophonist Wayne Shorter, keyboardist Herbie Hancock and guitarist John McLaughlin. "Definitely spring recording and summer touring in Europe and maybe America," Santana says of the Supernova plan. "It's kind of like playing with, sharing music with Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking, 'cause Wayne and Herbie, they're at that level of genius, genius, genius, genius," Santana says. "I'm just grateful that they accept it and want to do it. And every time I play with [his wife] Cindy [Blackman], it goes viral. People go crazy. The energy between Cindy and I is very, very supernova." Santana IV, meanwhile, will feature original Santana members Greg Rolie, Marcus Malone and Michael Carabello, as well as drummer Michael Shrieve, who joined in 1969, and Neal Schon, who was Santana's second guitarist during 1971-72 before forming Journey with Rolie. An album has been recorded and will be mixed during September and Santana expects to have the group on the road next year as well. Santana's regular band is currently on the road, with his son Salvador as special guest. He'll begin his next residency at the Las Vegas House of Blues on Sept. 16 and Santana also hopes to record "a whole album" with Ronald Isley and bassist Larry Graham, both old friends who he's recently been working with. - Billboard, 8/26/15...... Elvis Presley has earned his 53rd top 40 album on the Billboard 200 chart as the new compilation Elvis Presley Forever debuts at No. 11. The set, sold exclusively through the U.S. Postal Service, is Presley's highest-charting album since 2003, when Elvis: 2nd to None peaked at No. 3. The debuting album was released in conjunction with the promotion of Presley's new USPS commemorative stamp. Elvis Presley Forever also debuted at No. 1 on Billboard Top Rock Albums chart, which originated in 2006. - Billboard, 8/26/15...... A deluxe 45th reissue of the Velvet Underground's 1970 album Loaded is due on Oct. 30. Boasting 6 discs of material, including the original album remastered in stereo and mono, as well as previously-unreleased demos, outtakes and alternate mixes, the lush Re-Loaded 45th Anniversary Edition will also feature two live albums -- Live at Max's Kansas City and an unreleased (though widely bootlegged) set recorded in Philadelphia in 1970. The release follows 45th anniversary box sets for The Velvet Underground & Nico, White Light/White Heat and The Velvet Underground. - Billboard, 8/25/15...... The back catalog of Van Morrison, comprising some 33 album titles, has been acquired by Legacy Recordings in a career-spanning deal that encompasses 50 albums, videos and compilations and unlocks all of his albums for digital distribution, many for the first time. Most of the Morrison catalog has never been available for streaming, and many titles have been unavailable to download via the myriad digital music services. Legacy also has plans to issue physical releases. The new Legacy Van Morrison archive includes all of Morrison's solo works from 1971 to the present, including live works, plus the recordings made with his early-career rock band Them from 1964 through 1966. In time, Legacy Recording president Larry Block says the label plans to release a new career-spanning single CD compilation and deluxe Legacy Editions of classic Morrison solo albums. The rollout will include a 37-track anthology The Essential Van Morrison, which dropped on Aug. 28 as a two-disc CD album and in digital formats. Morrison, 70, signed a recording deal with RCA Record in late 2014, which yielded the release Duets: Re-Working The Catalogue. - Billboard, 8/25/15..... In a recent interview with the UK paper The Guardian, John Lennon and Yoko Ono's son Sean Lennon said he feels "no matter what I do, people see me as the spoiled slacker son of John and Yoko." "There's always going to be that element, and I kind of have to accept it and just do things anyway," added Sean, who is co-producing the next Fat White Family album as well as working with the group's side-project Moonlandingz. Sean said he has even considered releasing his projects under a pseudonym "to see what people's true reaction would be," but that would "be sort of disrespectful to my dad and my family and myself." "It's like, oh, well, I can't be proud of who I am? I didn't want to hide," he said. "The only reason I'm interested in art and music at all is because of my parents. Respect for them is at the heart of everything I do. It defines me. I consider myself a momma's boy, a poppa's boy -- I sort of hero-worshipped them as a child, then went to work making music on my own," he added. As for his dad's legacy, Sean says that his favorite Beatles music is "that period starting with Revolver -- when they were really pushing the limits of progressive songwriting." - NME, 8/25/15.