Favorite Seventies Artists In The News

Posted by Administrator on Oct. 28th, 2015

Current Lynyrd Skynyrd singer Johnny Van Zant says guitarist and sole original surviving band member Gary Rossington is "doing good" after a "slight heart attack" earlier in October, which was caused by a blood clot as he was in the hospital for another procedure for which doctors took him off his blood-thinning medication. Van Zant says Rossington, who underwent surgery after the health scare, wants to finish the band's 2015 itinerary, which has three shows left, including the Alabama National Fair in Montgomery. "(Gary has) lived through a lot of stuff in his lifetime, so, yeah he's gonna be OK here. He's still got a lot of life ahead of him," Van Zant says. A full slate of Skynyrd shows is being put together for 2016, including what Van Zant says will be "something going on in the amphitheaters...with some friends of ours, and if it all works out we're gonna hook up and go out and play a bunch of shows." Meanwhile, the band has just released Pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd & Second Helping -- Live From Jacksonville at the Florida Theatre, a new CD/DVD set of shows in their hometown of Jacksonville, Fla., and is already working on material for a follow-up to its last studio album, 2012's Last of a Dyin' Breed. - Billboard, 10/23/15...... On the one year anniversary of Cream bassist Jack Bruce's death from liver failure at age 71, a number of musicians including his former bandmate Ginger Baker paid tribute to him with a charity gig at London's Roadhouse venue on Oct. 24. Also participating in the "Sunshine of Your Love" gig were Roxy Music lead guitarist Phil Manzanera, Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson, Living Colour's Vernon Reid and Bruce's daughter Aruba Red. "Jack Bruce was one of my biggest heroes when I was growing up -- a consummate musician, composer and all round rock genius with a killer voice and one of the most creative and versatile musical minds of his generation," Bruce said before the event, which also raised funds for East Anglia's Children's Hospices. The concert culminated with renditions of two Cream songs, "Sunshine of Your Love" and "We're Going Wrong." - New Musical Express, 10/25/15...... Ann Wilson of Heart says her current North American tour behind her new solo EP, The Ann Wilson Thing!, is "just totally different from doing the other thing." "It's so much closer to the people and it's just a better connection with them," Wilson says. "I love the musicians in the band and we are getting to do songs that are so much fun for me as a singer to stretch out. I never thought I'd get to sing a Peter Gabriel song or Jimi Hendrix songs. It's just really been a lot of fun and we've been accepted everywhere with the same kind of warmth and excitement." Wilson wrapped the first leg of the tour Oct. 15 at a club in Nashville, Tenn., with special guests Emmylou Harris and Alison Krauss, then resumed touring with Heart and will do a few more solo dates in November and one in December. "I'm having a really great time in my life and in my career right now," says Wilson, who is performing no Heart songs on her solo tour. "I feel energized. I feel healthy. I still love what I do and I still care passionately about it being the real thing." - Billboard, 10/28/15...... The home used by Jimi Hendrix as he resided in London between 1968-69 has been opened to the public for the first time. The flat, located at 23 Brook Street, will also house an exhibition to the late legendary guitarist/vocalist when it opens in February 2016. The home belonged to Hendrix's then girlfriend Kathy Etchingham, and he relocated to Notting Hill area of London when they split. Fans will be able to view the top floor of the home with organizers having spent two years renovating the flat to its original form. Tickets for the exhibition will go on sale on Nov. 2. - NME, 10/28/15...... According to a report in the Detroit News, Aretha Franklin is being sued by a suburban Detroit homeowners association over what they clame is more than $11,500 in unpaid fees on her condo there. The Hills of Lone Pine Association filed the lawsuit in an attempt to foreclose on Franklin's property in the gated community in Bloomfield Hills. The lawsuit names Franklin and two companies that hold mortgages on the $700,000 condo. Franklin was quoted as saying she owns the condo but doesn't live there, and believes she's been "overcharged for years" and has paid only what's "credible and legitimate." She added her attorney is working to reach a settlement on the dispute. - AP, 10/27/15...... A deluxe reissue of Fleetwood Mac's acclaimed 1979 double-LP Tusk is coming in time for the Christmas shopping season, with alternate versions, never before released outtakes, and more. The reissue will be spread across five remastered CDs, two LPs and one DVD, and also include a number of demos and remixes, and live Tusk era recordings from shows in St. Louis and Tuscon. The set, also sporting a booklet with complete liner notes and new interviews, is due on Dec. 4. Fleetwood Mac is currently on tour, and headlined the UK's Isle of Wight festival earlier in 2015. - NME, 10/25/15...... Additional artists set to participate in the upcoming MusiCares person of the year gala honoring Lionel Richie have been announced by the Recording Academy. Stevie Wonder, Usher, Lenny Kravitz and Zac Brown will be joining previously announed performers Pharrell Williams, Luke Bryan and Lady Antebellum at the event, which takes place Feb. 13 at the Convention Center in Los Angeles. Richie will be bestowed the prestigious award in recognition of his "significant creative accomplishments" and for his career-spanning charitable work, which includes fundraising for AIDS awareness to human rights and famine, poverty, human trafficking and women's issues. The event takes place two days before the 2016 Grammy Awards. - AP, 10/27/15...... Def Leppard guitarist Phil Collen will release his autobiography, Adrenalized: Life, Def Leppard, and Beyond, on Nov. 3, and the musician says he reluctantly decided to write a book about his life as a rock & roll star. "I think memoirs and books like that are a bit egotistical, and I don't really like them. I think that whole thing of people going, 'Well, you know, it was really kind of cathartic for me to do a book...' That's a load of bullshit. It's egotistical. It's just talking about yourself, isn't it?" Collen says. Nevertheless, he said he tried to keep his standards high, and used two of his favorite memoirs -- Keith Richards' Life and Bob Dylan's Chronicles Volume One -- as models for what he hoped to achieve. "I thought they were great because they actually dealt with things that were happening in these fascinating people's lives," Collen explains. "It wasn't really about showing off and name-dropping; these people had a lot to say about what they did and how they got there." Def Leppard will release a new studio album, Def Leppard, on Oct. 30, and the band tours Japan and Australia in November. They'll co-headline a U.K. tour with Whitesnake in December, and tour America with Styx and Tesla beginning Jan. 27 in Greensboro, S.C. - Billboard, 10/27/15...... An installment of PBS's Austin City Limits series featuring Don Henley premiered on many PBS stations across the U.S. on Oct. 24. The Eagles principal performed an 11-song set in Austin in September for the show, which included selections from his new solo LP Cass County, along with such solo '80s hits as "Dirty Laundry," "The Heart of the Matter" and "The Boys of Summer." - Billboard, 10/23/15...... A special Kiss compilation featuring all-female artists performing classic Kiss songs, Kiss and Makeup, has been announced by the band's music licensing and marketing firm, MediaHorse. A selection of 16 Kiss tracks re-imagined by distaff artists including Avila, Haliene, Pearl, the Dollyrots, Brett Anderson and Kristen Schaeffer. "Having performed these songs many thousands of times for millions of fans around the world for over 40 years, we loved hearing these fresh new takes on our classic hits by so many super talented female artists," said Kiss's Paul Stanley. "Kiss is rock and roll.. and these ladies really know how to rock our catalog. We love Kiss and Makeup -- and so will you," he added. The album will drop on Oct. 27. - Billboard, 10/27/15...... A long held chart record by the Beatles has just been broken by the British boy band One Direction. The group's new LP, Perfect, has just charted its fifth Top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, besting a record set by the Fab Four. The Beatles launched three of their four Top 10 entries during their latter-period heyday, including "Hey Jude" (No. 10, Sept. 14, 1968), "Get Back," with Billy Preston (No. 10, May 10, 1969), "Let It Be" (No. 6, March 21, 1970), and in 1995, they returned to the Top 10 with "Free as a Bird," which started at No. 10 on Dec. 30 of that year. - Billboard, 10/27/15...... Former Pink Floyd member Roger Waters has chimed in on the 2016 U.S. presidential race, saying he fears former Sec. of State and Democratic hopeful Hillary Clinton might "drop a f---ing nuclear bomb." "Hillary worries me," Waters said in a new interview with Rolling Stone. "I have an awful worry that she might become the first woman president to drop a f---ing nuclear bomb on somebody. There is something scarily hawkish about her, and she has that politician look down of, 'You are never going to get a word of truth out of me.'" Waters had even less kind words for Republican frontrunner Donald Trump in September: "It's American exceptionalism gone crazy and delivered under the umbrella of absolute ignorance... He is pig-ignorant and he always was and he always will be." Waters says he's putting his support behind Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, a socialist who caucuses with the Democrats. "He's the only person in the race that I see with any credibility," he said. - Billboard, 10/27/15...... In related news, Cher tweeted on Oct. 23 that Donald Trump is "a giant among GOP front runners," and also sized up the Republican candidates, calling Ted Cruz "the devil," saying Marco Rubio has a "rage against women," and asking "just tell my why?!" to Ben Carson's candidacy. - Billboard, 10/23/15...... The photographer who snapped the photo used on the cover of Bob Dylan's 1966 album Blonde on Blonde has attempted to solve some of the mysteries surrounding the cover, which shows a blurred image of the singer-songwriter against a brick wall background. Jerry Schatzberg, in an interview with rock critic Bob Egan, says the blurriness of the image wasn't intentional but was instead due to him shivering from the cold weather. "It was pretty cold out. I know all the critics, everybody said 'Oh, they were trying to do a drug shot'. It's not true. It was February, [Dylan] was wearing just that jacket, and I was wearing something similar, and the two of us were really cold," Schatzberg said, adding that "To his credit, [Dylan]'s the one that chose that photograph." The location of the photo has been questioned over the years too, with Schatzberg now saying that he "thinks" he shot it in the "meat-packing distract of downtown [New York]". However, he added that the original setting would now be "totally disguised" due to recent gentrification of the area. - NME, 10/27/15...... On Oct. 26 David Bowie's publicist confirmed reports in the British press that Bowie will release a new album called Blackstar next year. The London Times reported that Bowie will release his 25th studio LP on Jan. 8, which will be the rocker's 69th birthday, and that the album's title track will be released as a single on Nov. 20. But the spokesman denied other aspects of the recent reports, citing the "inaccurate reporting on the sound and content of the album." The Times had described the album as possibly Bowie's "oddest yet" and "completely bonkers." German electro pioneers Kraftwerk were referenced as a point of comparison, along with jazz influences. Bowie is unlikely to mount a tour behind the the LP, as it was reported earlier in October that he has allegedly "retired from touring." - NME, 10/26/15...... Dr. Arnold Klein, the dermatologist who was famously connected to Michael Jackson and other Hollywood celebrities including Elizabeth Taylor, Dolly Parton and Carrie Fisher, died on Oct. 22 at Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage near Palm Springs, Calif. He was 70. Klein, who called Jackson "my best friend," treated him for more than 25 years before the pop star's drug-related death in 2009. Debbie Rowe, a nurse who worked for Klein, married Jackson and had two of the singer's three children, Prince and Paris, before the couple divorced. Dr. Klein dismissed media reports alleging that he fathered the children through a sperm donation. When Jackson died, federal drug agents investigating the singer's prescriptions cleared Klein, and his attorney denied that Jackson was addicted to Demerol used for pain relief during medical procedures. The judge ruled that Klein's testimony would not be relevant to the case. - AP, 10/23/15...... Maureen O'Hara, the Irish-born Hollywood actress known as the "Queen of Technicolor" who starred in such iconic films as Miracle on 34th Street and How Green Was My Valley, died at her home in Boise, Idaho, on Oct. 24. She was 95. Ms. O'Hara "was called the Queen of Technicolor," because when that film process came into use, nothing seemed to show off its splendor better than her rich red hair, bright green eyes, and flawless peaches and cream complexion." Yet she was not only famous for her eauty, but for her tendency to portray lively, tenacious women, like Mary Kate Danaher in the 1952 movie The Quiet Man alongside John Wayne. She also appeared opposite Wayne in four other films, including The Wings of Eagles, Big Jake and McKlintock. Ms. O'Hara also starred as John Candy's overbearing mother in Only the Lonely, and her final credit was as the star of the 2000 CBS telefilm The Last Dance. - Jezebel.com, 10/25/15.