Favorite Seventies Artists In The News

Posted by Administrator on Oct. 23rd, 2015

Singer/guitarist Cory Wells, one of the founding members of the mega-selling late 1960s/early 1970s band Three Dog Night, passed away on Oct. 20 in his Buffalo area home along the Lake Erie shore, the band confirmed in a press release. He was 74. "It is with deep sadness and disbelief that I must report the passing of Cory Wells, my beloved band mate for over 45 years," said Three Dog Night member Danny Hutton. "Cory was an incredible singer -- a great performer, he could sing anything. Cory was like a brother in so many ways. We had been together since 1965 and I am in shock at this sudden loss," Hutton added. Wells was one of the three leaders of the band, also including Chuck Negron, who topped the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart three times with such seminal classics as "Joy to the World" (which has appeared in countless movie and TV shows), "Mama Told Me (Not to Come)" and "Black and White." The band, which was known for their interpretations of other songwriters' material, earned a total of 20 Top 40 hits, and put 11 albums in the Top 20 of the Hot 200 album chart, with their best-selling album, 1971's Golden Biscuits hits compilation, peaking at No. 5. After decades with Three Dog Night, Wells stopped performing in September after developing severe back pain. Born in Buffalo, N.Y., on Feb. 5, 1942, Wells started his career in several Buffalo bands as a teen, including The Vibratos, later called The Enemies, before forming Three Dog Night in 1968. An avid fisherman, he maintained a home along the Lake Erie shore in greater Buffalo. He is survived by Mary, his wife of 50 years, his daughters Coryann and Dawn Marie, and five grandchildren. - Billboard, 10/21/15.

The intermission music played during the Grateful Dead's Fare Thee Well shows this summer, which was composed and recorded during a two-day jam session by the surviving Dead members, is getting an official release. The project came together when GD drummer Bill Kreutzmann's son Justin asked Neal Casal (The Chris Robinson Project, Hard Working Americans) to compose and record more than five hours of original music to be played along with the visuals he was preparing for the Fare Thee Well intermissions. Casal then helped create and curate five hours of original music. Titled Interludes for the Dead, the release will highlight the five hours of music and drop digitally on Nov. 27 via the psychedelic project, Circles Around the Sun. The music will also be available in a two-CD set as well as a limited-edition two-LP 180-gram vinyl. Also, all three CDs featuring the entire Circles Around the Sun recordings will be released in the 12-CD/seven-DVD sets available Nov. 20 on Dead.net. - Billboard, 10/20/15...... During his latest monthly residency at New York City's Madison Square Garden on Oct. 21, Billy Joel introduced surprise guest Steve Miller to the crowd to jam with him on a rendition of Miller's 1974 No. 1 hit "The Joker." Miller, 72, played guitar on "The Joker," and later another special guest, John Mayer, was brought onstage to assist on Joel's ballad, "This Is the Time." Joel and Mayer then performed the Eric Clapton/Cream arrangement of the Robert Johnson blues classic, "Crossroads." Joel also celebrated the recent New York Mets entry into the World Series after their sweep over the Chicago Cubs in the MLB playoffs by playing a spirited version of the "Meet the Mets" theme song on piano. - Billboard, 10/22/15...... A performance by Gladys Knight taped at the legendary Apollo Theater earlier in 2015 will air on Oct. 24 at 10:00 p.m. EDT on the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN) as part of the network's Legends: OWN at the Apollo series. Knight performed inventive arrangements of such Motown classics as "I Heard It Through The Grapevine" and one of her own Motown singles, "I Don't Want To Do Wrong," along with such classics from her Buddah Records days as "Neither One Of Us." Knight also brought out friends Stevie Wonder and Dionne Warwick for a version of "That's What Friends Are For," a Burt Bacharach tune that all three singers originally appeared on -- with Elton John -- in 1985. - Billboard, 10/19/15...... The two-bedroom cottage in Long Branch, N.J., where Bruce Springsteen composed his breakthrough 1975 album Born to Run is currently up for sale, listed at $299,000. The house on West End Court is currently owned by three Springsteen fans, who purchased it in 2009 with the idea of turning the home into a tribute to the New Jersey rock legend. However, those plans were derailed. The owners say the house does occasionally draw visitors, and they say the try to accomodate the fans. Springsteen has said that he wrote every song on the Born to Run album -- including the title track and other classic songs such as "Thunder Road" and "Jungleland" -- while living in the home from 1974 to 1975. - AP, 10/18/15...... Welsh crooner Tom Jones is responding to criticism he received after stating that he was "paranoid" of homosexuals when he first started in the music industry. Speaking to the U.K. publication The Big Issue about his early days in show business, Jones was quoted as saying: "I was ready for most aspects of the music industry but when I met the producer Joe Meek, that threw me off a bit. Because he was a homosexual. I thought, wait a minute, is the London scene, the people who run British show business -- are there a lot of homosexuals involved here? Because if so, I'm going back to Cardiff." The words drew criticism from Andrew White, Director of LGBT rights group Stonewall Cymru, who told London's Daily Mail paper: "It's not unusual to meet gay people in show business so we'd have thought that Sir Tom would have learnt how to talk about us by now. Instead he's still painfully tripping over his words." Now, Jones has taken to Twitter to suggest that his comments were taken out of context, saying that his remarks were about "attitudes in the 50s & 60s." "Context! The story is about knowledge/attitudes in the 50s & 60s. it's called History!," he tweeted on Oct. 23. Jones released his latest album, the covers LP Long Lost Suitcase, on Oct. 9. - New Musical Express, 10/23/15....... Black Sabbath will be the among the headliners for the U.K.'s 2016 Download Festival, which is set for June 11 and 12. Sabbath, fronted by Ozzy Osbourne, will headline the June 11 show as part of the band's final "The End" tour in 2016. According to a press release, it will be "their biggest and most mesmerising production to date." Sabbath, also featuring original members Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler, will kick off their "The End" trek in the U.S. in Jan. 2016, in Nebraska. Following the U.S. dates, the band will commence a string of dates in Australia and New Zealand in April before heading to Europe in June. - NME, 10/20/15...... Current Queen vocalist and former American Idol runner-up Adam Lambert appeared on the U.K. talk show Chatty Man with host Alan Carr on Oct. 17 and recreated the classic music video of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" with Carr. Lambert recently revealed that he'd like to perform with Queen at this year's Glastonbury festival after rumours circulated that they might be a frontrunner for the 2016 headlining slot, but Queen guitarist Brian May suggested that Lambert's commitments might have been the reason the band didn't play the festival. "Look these things get put on the table, it would be interesting to do Glastonbury if we were an operational unit at the time," May said. "You see this year Adam's off doing his solo work at the moment so it wouldn't have worked. You only look at things that are possible logistically at the time," he added. - NME, 10/20/15...... Producer Eddie Kramer, who worked with Jimi Hendrix on Hendrix's final 1968 album Electric Ladyland, said in a recent interview with the BBC that Hendrix "would have pioneered rap" if he was alive today. "This whole idea of street music would have definitely influenced him," Kramer said. "Jimi was aware of everything that was going on, he was a musical sponge. The next step? Who knows... He may have even gotten into rap. I think about this all the time. Not only would he have been a great record producer, but he would have had his own record company, a film company, a musical production company. He would have been an enormous force -- pretty much like Jay-Z is today. He would have been king of the heap," Kramer added. Kramer was speaking ahead of the release of a forthcoming Hendrix documentary titled Electric Church. - NME, 10/19/15...... Michael Jackson's son Prince Jackson has finally acknowledged rumours suggesting the late King of Pop is not his biological father, but still insists that Michael is the only father he's ever known. After a Twitter troll posted "everyone knows you are a Rowe-Klein NOT A Jackson!! Yall (sic) should stop trying to put on a FAKE front and get real," Prince, 18, responded with a tweet of his own: "The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb" I was raised by my dad with my brother and sister." Prince and his siblings are currently being raised by their cousin, TJ Jackson (the son of Tito Jackson), and their grandmother Katherine Jackson. Prince, whose mother is Jackson's ex-wife Debbie Rowe, was born in 1997, and his sister Paris Jackson was born a year later. Critics have long speculated over the paternity of the kids, and their 13-year-old sibling Prince Michael Jackson II, who was born to a mystery surrogate, but Michael maintained he had fathered all three of his offspring -- even though they shared no similar facial features. - WENN.com, 10/22/15...... '70s funnyman Steve Martin has collaborated with his fellow Grammy-winning musician Edie Brickell on a new Broadway musical that will launch on the Great White Way in March 2016. Martin and Brickell collaborated on the music, with Brickell penning the lyrics and Martin writing the story. It was inspired by the pair's collaboration on the album Love Has Come for You. Set in the South in the 1920s and 1940s, the show is about a woman who befriends a soldier just home from World War II. The show had its premiere in San Diego in 2014 and this winter has a run at the Kennedy Center. - AP, 10/21/15...... The final trailer for the latest movie in the Star Wars saga, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, was unveiled during halftime on ESPN's Monday Night Football on Oct. 19, causing several online ticket sites, including Fandango and Movie Tickets, to crash. The J.J. Abrams-directed film hits U.S. theaters on Dec. 18, and its cast includes original 1977 Star Wars players Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill, along with Oscar Isaac, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Lupita Nyong'o and Adam Driver. - The Hollywood Reporter, 10/19/15...... Actor/comedian Marty Ingalls, best known for his co-starring role in the 1960s sitcom I'm Dickens, He's Fenster, died on Oct. 21 in Tarzana, Calif., as a result of complications from a stroke. He was 79. Ingels began his career with TV appearances in the 1960s before landing a co-starring role opposite John Astin on ABC's I'm Dickens, He's Fenster. He also appeared in two episodes of CBS' The Dick Van Dyke Show as Sol Pomeroy and on an episode of ABC's Bewitched. His big screen credits include The Busy Body with Sid Caesar in 1967, A Guide for the Married Man with Walter Matthau, and The Picasso Summer with Albert Finney in 1969. Ingalls later became known for lending his unique rasp to voiceover work in hundreds of cartoons and commercials. He also launched Ingels, Inc., an agency which booked film stars, including John Wayne and Cary Grant, in TV ad campaigns. Ingalls met Oscar-winning actress and former The Partridge Family star Shirley Jones at a party at actor Michael Landon's home, and the couple married in 1977. In 1990 they published an autobiography entitled Shirley & Marty: An Unlikely Love Story. "He often drove me crazy, but there's not a day I won't miss him and love him to my core," Jones said in a statement. He is survived by stepsons Shaun, Patrick and Ryan Cassidy; a niece and 12 grandchildren. - The Hollywood Reporter, 10/21/15.

The Grateful Dead's Phil Lesh posted a message through the Facebook page of the Terrapin Crossroads restaurant in San Rafael, Calif., that he owns on Oct. 17 announcing that he has been diagnosed with bladder cancer. The bassist says he is currently undergoing treatment at the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Ariz., to eventually remove tumors and expects to make a full recovery. "Thanks to my local doctor Cliff Sewell, and the incredible team at the Mayo Clinic, all is well and I can return to normal activities in two weeks from my surgery," Lesh wrote. As a result of his treatment, the musician said that his Phil Lesh & Friends shows at the restaurant scheduled for Oct. 24-25 have beed canceled. Lesh also battled prostate cancer in 2006. - Billboard, 10/17/15...... In a new interview with a New Zealand radio station, Kiss bassist/vocalist Gene Simmons said he thinks modern music's lack of infrastructure is killing the potential for more great bands like his own and the Beatles to come along. After recounting the major artists from 1958 to 1988 -- including Elvis Presley, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Madonna, U2 and Metallica -- Simmons said: "From 1988 until today -- give me the new Beatles and the new Stones. Give me just one. You can't. Rock is dead. And the reason for that? Downloading and filesharing. When you stop charging for things, it becomes worthless. And there's gonna have to be a business model that's gonna have to change. 'Cause there are great bands out there, but there's no support system." - New Musical Express, 10/17/15...... Rod Stewart ended his two-decade songwriting drought with 2013's Time. Now he's on a roll with Another Country, another collection of tunes that he penned himself. "I was born in London, so I'm a cockney Scotsman," he says. "There's a huge Gaelic feel throughout the album, lots of violins and mandolins." On the upcoming single "Love Is," he tries to work out the truth about romance after three divorces. "This is me passing along, to anyone who will listen, a few nuggets of wisdom acquired from my dippings into life's chocolate box down the years," he says. "Believe me, though, I still don't understand the chemistry of love and why sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't." Another Country drops Oct. 23 from Capitol Records. - Rolling Stone, 9/10/15...... In an interview with TheDailyBeast.com website on the occasion of what would have been John Lennon's 75th birthday on Oct. 9, Yoko Ono said that both her and her husband saw bisexuality as a natural thing: "John and I had a big talk about it, saying, basically, all of us must be bisexual. And we were sort of in a situation of thinking that we're not [bisexual] because of society. So we are hiding the other side of ourselves, which is less acceptable. But I don't have a strong sexual desire towards another woman." Responding to John's statement one time that his relationship with Beatles manager Brian Epstein was "almost a love affair... [but] never consummated," Ono said: "The story I was told was a very explicit story, and from that I think they didn't have [sex]." Ono added that she was "sure Epstein made a move, yeah [but] John just didn't want to do it, I think... I think he had a desire to [sleep with men], but I think he was too inhibited." - Billboard, 10/13/15...... In other Beatles-related news, Paul McCartney's latest reissues of two of his 1980's albums, Tug of War and Pipes of Peace, have reentered the Billboard Hot 200 album chart at No. 56 and No. 70, respectively. Pipes of Peace features a new mix of the 1983 single "Say Say Say," a collaboration with Michael Jackson, with reviously unheard vocals from McCartney and Jackson, where they switch lead vocals on the track. The remix was released to radio on Oct. 2 and accompanied by a new video, directed by Ryan Heffington. So far, nine McCartney and Wings albums have been reissued in the Paul McCartney Archive Collection series, and all nine of them have reached the Top 10 of Billboard's Catalog Albums chart. - Billboard, 10/16/15...... Brian Wilson participated in a DVD release party for the new Wilson biopic Love and Mercy with the movie's stars, including Paul Dano and Elizabeth Banks, at Herb Alpert's Vibrato Grill Jazz club in Los Angeles on Oct. 13. The party started with a screening of the film and ended with a rousing, joyful 35-minute set by Wilson and his 10-piece band, which includes fellow Beach Boys member Al Jardine. Wilson was reportedly in fine spirits throughout the performance, often introducing the tunes: "Here comes a really good song from Pet Sounds," he said before playing "Wouldn't It Be Nice" or telling the audience when to stop clapping during "Good Vibrations" (not to mention gently chastising the band for starting the song too fast). Wilson's 12-song BB hits-heavy set also included a duet with Dano on "You Still Believe in Me." - Billboard, 10/13/15...... A new exhibit dedicated to Graham Nash, "Touching the Flame," opened to the public on Oct. 17 at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Oh., and after viewing it Nash says he thinks it "looks f---ing spectacular." The one thing that I was wanting to do more than anything is make sure people understood Graham Nash is more than just Graham Nash that musician; that I'm a photographer and a painter and a sculptor and la la la la la, all that shit. I'm happy to show it to people, to share what was going on in my life," the CSN/CSNY/Hollies member said. The exhibit combines artifacts over his entire career, including photographs, handwritten lyrics, clothing and instruments, with other memorabilia he owns, including handwritten Bob Dylan lyrics, guitars previously owned by Duane Allman and Phil Everly, and the belt and jeans that he wore at Woodstock in 1969. - Billboard, 10/16/15...... In 1970, after British actor David Hemmings (Blow Up) was rumored to be the preferred lead for a new Stanley Kubrick-directed movie called A Clockwork Orange, Mick Jagger lobbied hard for the role of head "droog" Alex, which was eventually given to Malcolm McDowell. Jagger organized a petition signed by every member of the Beatles, Marianna Faithful, and actress/model Anita Pallenberg who had relationships with Stones members Brian Jones and Keith Richards) and others. In Jagger's vision of A Clockwork Orange, he would play Alex, the Stones would be his droogs and the Beatles would provide the soundtrack. That petition -- an unusual piece of obscure history -- is now up for auction via Paddle8.com, which expects the tattered petition to fetch between $18,000-$25,000. In the end, A Clockwork Orange was scored by one of music's first major transgender figures -- Wendy Carlos -- and Jagger would star in two mostly forgotten 1970 films -- Ned Kelly and Performance. - Billboard, 10/16/15...... ELO has released a second single, "When the Night Comes," from its upcoming album Alone in the Universe. In September, the Jeff Lynne-led band began streaming the LP's first single, "When I Was a Boy," for fans. Fans who preorder Alone in the Universe, which is due Nov. 13, will receive "When I Was A Boy" instantly. - NME, 10/15/15...... Elton John has written an op-ed about his tireless fight to help AIDS victims for Billboard magazine's first ever philanthropy issue. "Through the years, I've done my best to use the incredible platform that I've been blessed with to make a difference, particularly in the fight against AIDS," Sir Elton wrote in the magazine, adding "That's why my foundation continues to work with communities and organizations made up of individuals who share our passion for fighting the stigma that drives this disease. We're committed to securing the basic human rights of those living with or at risk of contracting HIV." John, 68, founded his AIDS foundation in 1992. Since then, the EJAF has raised $349 million for HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention and has become one of the largest HIV/AIDS grant-makers in the world. - Billboard, 10/15/15...... U.K. hard rockers Def Leppard will release their first eponymous LP, Def Leppard, on Oct. 30, and guitarist Phil Collen promises the new album, the group's 11th studio effort, is "the best Def Leppard album since Hysteria," which was released in 1987 and went 12 times platinum. "It's the freest, most liberating thing we've ever done," Collen says. "It's the first time we've ever done an album where there weren't any constraints. We didn't have a record company or an executive at a label going, 'OK, we need this, we need that' or 'OK, the concept of the album is gonna be blah, blah, blah... So we pretty much did that and just followed the muse." On Jan. 27, Collen, frontman Joe Elliott, and the rest of the band will kick off a 13-date US tour behind the new 14-track set in Greensboro, N.C., also visiting cities such as Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. (1/29), Orlando (1/30), San Antonio, Tex. (2/2), Little Rock, Ark. (2/9), Atlantic City, N.J. (2/14) and Brooklyn, N.Y. (2/16) before wrapping in Allentown, Penn., on Feb. 17. - Billboard, 10/16/15...... Neil Young played two seldom-visited tracks from his back catalog -- "Vampire Blues" and "LA" -- for the first time in 40 years during a concert at The Forum in Inglewood, Calif., on Oct. 14. "Vampire Blues" was originally featured on Young's 1974 On The Beach, with "LA" first featured on his 1973 live album, Time Fades Away. Young also played "Vampire Blues" for the first time since 1974 during a show in Eugene, Ore., a week earlier. Young is currently on tour with Promise Of The Real as his backing band across the United States and delved deep into his extensive discography during The Forum gig. - NME, 10/16/15...... Joni Mitchell's good friend and fellow folk-rock legend, Judy Collins says Mitchell is "making good progress" after being diagnosed with a brain aneurysm in March of this year and was found unconscious in her L.A. residence. "NEWS ON JONI --I have just heard from a close mutual friend that Joni is walking, talking, painting some, doing much...," Collins posted about Mitchell on her Facebook page on Oct. 14. Updates on Mitchell's health have been occasional, but hopeful for a full recovery. In 1968, Collins charted the Mitchell-penned "Both Sides Now" to No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, and won her lone Grammy for Best Folk Performance for the cover. - Billboard, 10/15/15...... Warner Bros. has signed a development deal with TV/radio host Tavis Smiley to turn his upcoming book about Michael Jackson's final days, Before You Judge Me: The Triumph and Tragedy of Michael Jackson's Last Days, into a television series. Smiley's book is due out in June 2016 via Little, Brown and Company, and Warner is also planning to develop a television series around Smiley's other recent book, My Journey with Maya, as a part of the same deal. In other Michael Jackson-related news, actress Jane Fonda revealed that she "once swam naked with Michael Jackson" during the time she was filming the 1981 movie On Golden Pond. "Michael Jackson came and stayed for 10 days on the set," Fonda told an audience at the Loyola Marymount University School of Film & TV on Oct. 15 as part of The Hollywood Reporter's Hollywood Masters series. "We lived together. I went skinny dipping with him. Also, by the way, with Greta Garbo. Fonda added that Michael "wanted to be a movie star -- he had just finished doing The Wiz -- and he had a tape recorder with him, and every day I would bring him to the set, and in between scenes she (her On Golden Pond co-star Katharine Hepburn) would sit down in a chair and pull over a chair for him and tell him stories." - Billboard/WENN.com, 10/15/15...... Bruce Springsteen announced on Oct. 15 that he'll release a long awaited box set of his 1980 double-LP The River on Dec. 4 via Columbia Records. Described as a "comprehensive look at the River era" in a Columbia press release, The Ties That Bind: The River Collection boasts 52 tracks over four CDs which includes unreleased tracks and four hours of never-before-seen video spread out over three DVDs. Included will be the original double album; The River: Single Album which is a CD of 1979/80 studio outtakes; a two-DVD film of never-released concert footage from the band's 1980 show in Tempe, Ariz.; rare tour rehearsal footage of what was then new songs; a brand new documentary The Ties That Bind about The River; and a coffee table book of 200 rare or previously unseen photos and memorabilia with a new essay by Springsteen biographer Mikal Gilmore. - Billboard, 10/16/15...... Jamaican author Marlon James became the first Jamaican winner of the prestigious Booker Prize for fiction on Oct. 13 for A Brief History of Seven Killings, his vivid, violent and expletive-laden novel based on the 1976 attempted assassination of Jamacian reggae legend Bob Marley. James was awarded the £50,000 ($77,000) prize during a black-tie dinner at London's medieval Guildhall, and said he hoped his victory would bring "more attention to what's coming out of Jamaica and the Caribbean, because I think there are some brand-new voices coming out who are exploring contemporary society, who are exploring what's beyond politics, what's beyond colonialism." The book charts political violence in Jamaica and the spread of crack cocaine in the U.S., and hinges on a 1976 attempt on Marley's life -- who is identified in the book only as "The Singer." In other Bob Marley news, a former CIA prisoner who was allegedly tortured by the spy agency in a harsh interrogation program that included being forced to listen to the Irish boy band Westlife at ear-splitting levels says he now listens to Marley to help cope with life after being released from prison. Suleiman Abdullah Salim, a Tanzanian fisherman, is one of three former CIA prisoners on whose behalf the ACLU has sued two architects of the spy agency's harsh interrogation program. Interrogators played the music on repeat for Salim "at ear-splitting volume," according to the ACLU. - AP/Billboard, 10/13/15...... Willie Nelson's camp posted a message on his Facebook page on Oct. 14 saying the octogenarian country legend has been forced to cancel a show and reschedule two others due to an unspecified illness. "Unfortunately Willie has been feeling under the weather so a couple dates have been rescheduled and one cancelled. Sorry for the inconvenience," the statement reads. The affected dates include an Oct. 15 show in Florence, S.C. (rescheduled to 4/6/16), an Oct. 16 concert in Roanoake, Va. (reschedled to 10/19) and an Oct. 17 performance in Reading, Pa. (cancelled). - Billboard, 10/15/15...... During a reading to promote her new book M Train at Illinois' Dominican University on Oct. 15, Patti Smith was moved to tears when one fan returned several items that were stolen from her tour van 40 years ago. Smith was approached by a fan named Noreen Bender who handed her a bag containing personal items she believed were stolen from the van, including "a top, a Keith Richards T-shirt, a remembrance cloth and other accessories" she had kept in a Bob Dylan merchandise bag for over 40 years. Bender explained that a male friend of her Chicago roommate had given her the items. They are thought to be the same items Smith lost when her rented tour truck was stolen outside a Gold Coast hotel following her gig at the Chicago, Illinois' Aragon in June 1979. Surprised and reduced to tears to get the items back, Smith explained to the audience that the top was the same one she wore on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine in July 1978 and the cloth had belonged to her brother and road manager Todd Smith, who died in 1994. The van contained musical equipment worth over $40,000 including amplifiers and guitars and was never found. - New Musical Express, 10/15/15...... Founding Lynyrd Skynyrd guitarist Gary Rossington suffered a heart attack during the second week of October according to a Facebook post on Oct. 13. To give Rossington time to recover, the band has announced it is canceling upcoming shows set for Terre Haute, Ind., and Pleasant, Mich. Rossington is he only original Lynyrd Skynyrd member to remain in the band since its inception in 1964. - Billboard, 10/13/15...... Tommy Chong of the '70s doper duo Cheech & Chong has revealed that he will be undergoing surgery to remove a tumour in his rectum in the hope it will end his painful battle with cancer. Chong checked into the hospital in Los Angeles on Oct. 15 shortly after appearing on the syndicated celebrity TV show Access Hollywood Live, where he revealed he's desperate to overcome his longtime health issues. Chong won his battle with prostate cancer in 2012, insisting pot suppositories were a miracle cure, but earlier this year the comedian was diagnosed with rectal cancer -- and he believes the hemp oil he used to beat his first cancer is the cause of his latest crisis. "When you go into your orifice you've got to clinically know what you're doing with it," Chong said. "I put suppositories up there and I don't know how they did the oil and so on, and so now I found a laboratory where they test and they make sure that the oil that they give you to inject and everything else is pharmaceutically correct, it's pure," he added. Chong says he also believes his stint on TV show Dancing With the Stars is responsible for his latest diagnosis, adding, "I was under a lot of stress and then I wasn't smoking or doing any pot, and the pot keeps you from getting disease. I got it (cancer) during that.... They're going to remove the tumor surgically... It's going to be fine." - WENN.com, 10/15/15...... Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump tweeted on Oct. 14 that he will agree to stop using the Aerosmith song "Dream On" during his campaign events after band frontman Steven Tyler sent him a cease-and-desist letter on Oct. 10, and added that he "has a better one to take its place." "Even though I have the legal right to use Steven Tyler's song, he asked me not to. Have better one to take its place!," Trump posted, and followed up on Twitter with "Steven Tyler got more publicity on his song request than he's gotten in ten years. Good for him!" There is no word yet on which "better song" Trump has chosen to replace "Dream On." - Billboard, 10/14/15...... Journey drummer Deen Castronovo pleaded guilty to domestic violence charges on Oct. 12 and was sentenced to four years probation by a judge in Salem, Ore. Castronovo, who was arrested on June 14 and charged with knowingly causing physical injury to a woman, will be required to undergo counseling for domestic violence offenders and drug abuse. The Marion County District Attorney's Office says he faces more than five years in prison if he violates the terms of his probation. After the first arrest, Castronovo again two weeks later and ordered to jail when prosecutors said he texted the woman 122 times and called her 35 times despite a no-contact order. He has been with Journey since 1998, when he replaced Steve Smith. - AP, 10/13/15...... Pop crooner Engelbert Humperdinck responded to recent comments by Tom Jones in which Jones referred to him as a "a c***" during an interview with a UK paper. Humperdinck said that he was taken aback by the comment and said he was particularly shocked by the language used from Jones considering he is a Sir. "To be honest I feel sorry for Tom always being in a bad mood. Life is too short to hold anger inside. I wish him luck," Humperdinck told Noise11.com. Humperdinck and Jones reportedly had a falling out after Humperdinck left record label MAM in the 1970s. MAM was owned by Jones and Gordon Mills, who managed both artists. - New Musical Express, 10/14/15.