Favorite Seventies Artists In The News

Posted by Administrator on October 9th, 2019

Ginger Baker, drummer and co-founder of 1960s blues-rock supergroup Cream, died on Oct. 6, his family confirms. He was 80. Baker's death follows a 2016 fall in his home and subsequent open heart surgery after being diagnosed with a heart condition, and the news follows recent posts on his social media channels that he was hospitalized in "critically ill" condition. Baker was one-third of the 1960s power trio with guitarist Eric Clapton and bassist Jack Bruce that mixed blues with sunshine-pop, hitting the Billboard Hot 100 pop chart with "Sunshine of Your Love" (No. 5) and "White Room" (No. 6) in 1968. The band split in 1968 and reunited in 2005 for a residency at the Royal Albert Hall, captured that year on the live album Royal Albert Hall London May 2-3-5-6, 2005. Despite existing for only two years, Cream sold over 35 million records over their lifespan. After Cream disbanded, Baker and Clapton started another blues-rock supergroup, Blind Faith, with bassist Ric Grech and Traffic guitarist Steve Winwood, in 1968. Blind Faith burned out even quicker than Cream, releasing a 1969 self-titled album and undergoing one tour before going their separate ways. In 1972, Baker released two solo albums, Ginger Baker at His Best and Stratavarious, in which he dabbled in jazz fusion and Afrobeat. Late in life, Baker often appeared in the press as a lovable, irascible grouch, living in South Africa with his Zimbabwean wife, Kudzai, while treating his emphysema and degenerative spine condition. During Cream's brief reunion in 2005, he sang his oddball interlude "Pressed Rat and Warthog" (from 1968's Wheels of Fire) with ill-fitting socks falling down his legs and fought bitterly with Jack Bruce onstage. "It's a knife-edge thing for me and Ginger," Bruce was quoted as saying in Rolling Stone. "Nowadays, we're happily co-existing in different continents, although I was thinking of asking him to move. He's still a bit too close." Baker also contributed to Public Image Ltd.'s 1986 album Album and in 2009 published an autobiography, Hellraiser: The Autobiography of the World's Greatest Drummer. He stayed behind the kit until heart issues forced him to retire from performing in 2016. Even as his health seriously declined, Baker opted to spit in the face of death. "[It] is the final great adventure!. When I die, put me in a lead coffin and throw me out to sea!," he once said. Baker's son, Kofi Baker, released a statement following his father's death on Oct. 6. "The other day I had a beautiful visit with my dad... we talked about memories and music and he's happy that I'm keeping his legacy alive." Kofi, who is a drummer in his own band, admitted in the past that the pair endured a rocky relationship, but added "our relationship was mended and he was in a peaceful place. Thank you all for the kind messages and thoughts. I love my dad and will miss him always." - Billboard, 10/6/19.

Joni Mitchell's Joni 75: A Joni Mitchell Birthday Celebration (Live), Barbra Streisand's Walls, Elvis Costello & the Imposters' Look Now and Bryan Ferry and his Orchestra's Bitter-Sweet are among the nominees for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album when the 2020 Grammys are held next year. As of this year, the Grammys' Recording Academy expanded the category to also include "contemporary pop songs performed in traditional pop style" in addition to the usual albums made up of songs from the Great American Songbook as well as cabaret and musical theater-style songs. Joni Mitchell won the 2000 award in this category with her album Both Sides Now, and her salute album would be the second salute to her to win big in this category. Herbie Hancock's River: The Joni Letters won the 2007 awards for album of the year and best contemporary jazz album. Mitchell received a lifetime achievement award from the Academy in 2002. - Billboard, 10/8/19...... The UK's Daily Mail paper has obtained excerpts from Elton John's upcoming autobiography which include the Rocketman revealing that he was "24 hours from death" when he contracted an infection following surgery for prostate cancer in 2017. In the memoir, entitled Me, John says that he found out he had the disease following a routine medical checkup. The 72-year-old Elton explains that he made the decision not to undergo chemotherapy and instead had surgery to remove his prostate, which wouldn't see his visiting hospital "dozens of times" and interfere with his planned live shows. Although the procedure was a success, the singer contracted an infection which led to serious problems. "I was incredibly lucky -- although, I have to say, I didn't feel terribly lucky at the time," John wrote. "I lay awake all night, wondering if I was going to die. In the hospital, alone at the dead of night, I'd prayed: Please don't let me die, please let me see my kids again, please give me a little longer." Other revelations in the book include Elton hosting a dinner party where Sylvester Stallone and Richard Gere fought over Gere flirting with Princess Diana, and John once trying to give "scruffy" Bob Dylan a makeover after mistaking him for his gardener. Me hits bookstores on Oct. 15. - NME, 10/5/19...... Paul McCartney announced on Oct. 8 that he'll be releasing two new songs -- "Home Tonight" and "In A Hurry" -- for the 2019 Record Store Day on Black Friday, which falls on Nov. 22. Both tracks were recorded during McCartney's sessions for his 2018 album Egypt Station, and created with legendary producer Greg Kurstin. The limited edition vinyl will be available Nov. 29 as a 7-inch picture disc featuring album artwork based on the old-time parlour game "Exquisite Corpse." - Billboard, 10/8/19...... In other Beatles-related news, the Fab Four's former No. 1 album Abbey Road has returned to the Billboard Hot 200 album chart, from No. 71 to No. 3, after the album was reissued as a 50th anniversary deluxe release on Sept. 27. The release earned 81,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. in the week ending Oct. 3 (up 803%) with 70,000 of that sum in album sales (up 3,091%). Abbey Road was first released in the U.S. on Sept. 26, 1969 and spent 11 nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1 on the chart in late 1969 and early 1970. It first reached the top of the list dated Nov. 1, 1969, and it spent its final week at No. 1 on Jan. 24, 1970. Abbey Road's most recent rise is its first week in the top 10 since April 25, 1970 (when it ranked at No. 9) and its highest placing since March 14, 1970 (No. 3). The album has spent a total of 329 weeks on the Hot 200 chart (including the new chart week), which marks the most weeks on the chart for any studio album by the Beatles. Only the group's greatest hits set 1, released in 2000, has spent more time on the chart, with 388 weeks. Abbey Road is also the band's largest-selling studio album in the history of Nielsen Music, as it has sold 5.6 million copies in the U.S. since the firm began electronically tracking sales in 1991. For its 50th anniversary reissue, Abbey Road was freshly mixed and in a variety of formats, many coming with an array of previously unreleased recordings and demo tracks. It follows the previous Beatles reissues The Beatles (aka "The White Album") in 2018 and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in 2017. - Billboard, 10/6/19...... Elsewhere on the Fab Four front, lost footage of the band from 1965 has just been found in a bread bin in Wales. It sees the four Beatles joking around with the interviewer during an appearance in Cardiff, before breaking into a rendition of "There's No Business Like Show Business." Additional footage found, from 1967, shows the band talking about the spiritual figure Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and about their relationship to his readings. Speaking in response, John Lennon said: "Of course it's not a cult and if we didn't take it seriously we wouldn't be here." The film was found during the clearance of a house, and has been described as a "great find" by Paul Fairweather from Omega Auctions. "All four Beatles are in fine form throughout both of the Cardiff films, laughing and joking, while the interviewer tries to remain serious," Fairweather said. "The sound and image quality is fantastic. I expect these have never been seen since 1965." The footage has been valued at around £10,000. - New Musical Express, 10/6/19...... A concert film of Lionel Richie's acclaimed performance at the 2015 Glastonbury Festival will be screened in select cinemas around the globe for one night only on Nov. 19. Lionel Richie at Glastonbury will be prefaced by an exclusive introduction and personal reflections from Richie about a career journey that began in Tuskegee, Ala. and ultimately brought him to Glastonbury. "I'm so excited for the opportunity to share the 2015 Glastonbury Festival performance with fans across the globe," said Richie in a release announcing the event. "I'm honored to have played on such an iconic stage and the fans' energy that day truly made this show a memorable moment in my career." Tickets for the U.S. screenings of the film go on sale on Oct. 18 at FathomEvents.com, and a list of U.S. theater locations can also be found there. - Billboard, 10/8/19...... The Eagles announced on Oct. 8 that they will play their 1976 album Hotel California in its entirety, backed by an orchestra and choir, in six U.S. cities in early 2020. Starting in February, the Eagles will perform the classic album in Atlanta (2/7-8), New York (2/14-15), Dallas (2/29, 3/1), Houston (3/6-7), San Francisco (4/11-12) and Inglewood, Calif. (4/17-18). The Eagles first performed Hotel California in its entirety for the first time on Sept. 27 at MGM Grand Garden Arena, followed by a greatest hits set after a brief intermission. They repeated the evening on Sept. 28 and Oct. 5. - Billboard, 10/8/19...... Warner Bros.' new The Joker movie, already having stirred up a fair amount of controversy for its nihilistic R-rated storyline in the wake of a mass shooting in a Colorado theater during premiere week of a previous Batman franchise movie, has come under more fire for using a track by convicted pedophile and '70s glam rock artist Gary Glitter on its soundtrack. The critical and commercial hit uses Glitter's 1972 hit "Rock and Roll Part 2" in a lengthy and pivotal scene, in which star Joaquin Phoenix dances down a long flight of stairs and transforms into the iconic character. Much of the anger on social media has centered on the fact that Glitter could be receiving royalties from Warner Bros. for using his song. "Gary Glitter gets royalties for Joker. They're literally paying a paedophile to use his music in a movie about the consequences of child abuse. I'm off the fence -- this movie is immoral bullshit," tweeted one critic, while another said the track choice was the "most morally questionable" aspect of the film. Glitter, 75, whose real is name Paul Gadd, enjoyed huge success in the 1970s and 1980s as a star of Britain's glam rock scene, but fell dramatically from grace in the late 1990s after being arrested for downloading child pornography. In 2015, he was found guilty of attempted rape, four counts of indecent assault and one count of having sex with a girl under the age of 13, and sentenced to 16 years in prison. However, one Twitter user pointed out that Joker wasn't the first film to use a Glitter track, "Rock n Roll" having been played on 2004's Meet the Fockers. - The Hollywood Reporter, 10/7/19...... As a new biopic on screen legend Judy Garland hit U.S. theaters in late September, Barbra Streisand took to Twitter on Oct. 5 to pay tribute to the late star by posting YouTube clips of the pair singing "Happy Days Are Here Again" and "Get Happy" together back in 1963. "Such a special moment in my career," Streisand wrote. "She was incredible. Totally unique. Just been reminded this aired 56 years ago today on CBS." Streisand and Garland performed together during episode 9 of The Judy Garland Show, which was taped on Oct. 4, 1963, and then broadcast by CBS two days later. This duet paved the way for Streisand, who had just released her first album, to receive her first Emmy nomination, for outstanding performance in a variety or musical program or series, in 1964. - Billboard, 10/7/19...... ABBA's Bjorn Ulvaeus has praised young climate change activist Greta Thunberg in a new video, saying she has "superpowers." In a video message to Australia's SBS news, Ulvaeus described the intense young lady as a "populist nightmare" who "drives some people, mostly men, crazy, and I find it difficult to understand where that anger comes from." "How can you stoop so low as to criticise the looks of a child? A young girl," he added. "The reason is of course the lack of counter-arguments. ven if you don't think that everything Greta says or does is unquestionable, you have to admire her guts and her focus. It's a monumental achievement to create a global mass movement from scratch in such a short time." Earlier in 2019, Ulvaeus revealed that new ABBA music will be arriving this autumn, with a digital avatar ABBA tour also set to take place soon. - New Musical Express, 10/7/19...... Experimental pop musician Anna Nasty, who has been recording and performing as Olivia Neutron-John, has announced she will no longer use the punny moniker after a Sept. 28 show in New York after she received a cease-and-desist letter from Olivia Newton-John's legal team. Nasty said she received the letter in July, about two months after the release of her band's self-titled debut album, and "because I have very limited resources, I was unable to fight it." The Washington, D.C. area musician, who started recording as Olivia Neutron-John around 2013, says she's "going to take this as an opportunity to step back and reinvent." - New Musical Express, 10/8/19...... Peter Frampton performed the finale of his 2019 farewell tour at The Forum in Los Angeles on Oct. 5. The 69-year-old Frampton announced in February that he's suffering from Inclusion-Body Myositis (IBM), a muscle disorder that causes inflammation, weakness and atrophy, and that he's retiring from live performing after his farewell tour. Billed as "Peter Frampton's Finale -- The Farewell Tour," the show saw Frampton making reference to his disease after night's final number, saying the "love and support of his fans would help him heal," but the show wasn't a bummer. Rather, it felt like a celebration with the singer/guitarist taking a joyful look back at his career, with several thousand people on hand to partake in the party. Dressed in jacket, T-shirt and jeans, Frampton looked lean and fit and it didn't appear that the disease has affected his ability to perform, as he was fine in voice and his guitar virtuosity remained intact for the two-hour set that opened with "Something's Happening" followed by such Frampton Comes Alive! tracks as "Lines on My Face," "Show Me the Way," "(I'll Give You) Money," "Baby, I Love Your Way" and "Do You Feel Like We Do." The show also included a mostly instrumental cover of Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun" hit hard, following Frampton's intro that noted he once performed the song live with the late Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell on vocals. Encores included "Four Day Creep," "I Don't Need No Doctor" and "While My Guitar Gently Weeps." - Billboard, 10/6/19...... In a new interview with Rolling Stone, Ric Ocasek's widow Paulina Porizkova remembers her last moments with the late Cars frontman. Porizkova, who found Ocasek in his home after his death, said that his recent surgery was not at all the cause behind his death. "I don't know how much I want to say about the surgery, but it was successful. He was recuperating really well," she says. "So his passing was a f---ing shock." She also spoke of bringing cookies home for the singer on the night before his death. "He said, OK, thanks, hon. I had some terrible cookies because I was in the mood for cookies, but I'll have your gooey cookies tomorrow. I think I'm going to bed early since I m feeling a little sore.' And that was the last time I saw him alive." Ocasek died on Sept. 15 aged 75. Porizkova also stated that she was baffled by the New York medical examiner's autopsy on Ocasek, which stated that Ocasek died of atherosclerosis. - New Musical Express, 10/6/19...... Sting has announced he'll release a new live album dubbed My Songs: Live recorded during his "My Songs World Tour" earlier in 2019. "This is my life in songs," Sting writes in the live album's insightful song-by-song liner notes. "Some of them reconstructed, some of them refitted, some of them reframed, and all of them with a contemporary focus." Sting's 2019 My Songs studio album featured updated sonics, dynamics and arrangements based on the way his songs have evolved for him over the years. Meanwhile, Sting will be performing his musical "The Last Ship" in five cities in 2020 starting Jan. 14 at Los Angeles' Ahmanson Theatre followed by runs in San Francisco, Washington D.C., St. Paul, Minn. and Detroit. - Billboard, 10/4/19...... Sony Music and the Michael Jackson estate announced on Oct. 4 that Jackson's This Is It album is getting a limited-edition 10th anniversary box set reissue. Only 1,000 numbered copies will be made of the set that is available for pre-order at the Jackson online store and will be released on Dec. 11. Each will include four LPs on translucent-blue vinyl, a 3-D Blu-Ray disc of the film, a 60-page coffee table book with two dozen previously unpublished pictures and an authentic lenticular concert ticket for the July 24, 2009, concert at O2 Arena in London that was never held because Jackson died 18 days before his comeback series of shows were scheduled to begin. Jackson's This Is It soundtrack came from the movie that captured his final concert rehearsals before his 2009 death. The film was released in theaters that October and had the highest global box office gross of any concert documentary. - AP, 10/4/19...... As part of a promotion by AirBnB, KISS and eight KISS fans will set sail on separate boats off the coast of southern Australia on Nov. 18 to perform for great white sharks, with the fans separated from them by a small submarine. While KISS stays above board on one vessel, the fans will be lowered beneath the surface of the water from a second boat into the viewing sub in an area known for shark activity. Using underwater speakers, KISS will begin playing, and the sound will be audible to the submerged fans and the sharks. "I was a little taken aback by it, but they explained that sharks are attracted to low frequencies and so they're attracted to rock 'n' roll," KISS singer/guitarist Paul Stanley told The Associated Press. "Since we're going to be in Australia, it gives a whole new meaning to doing a concert down under." The event will take place in the Indian Ocean off Port Lincoln, South Australia. KISS will be in full makeup and costumes for the performance, which will be at least four songs. "I'm not sure how much of us the sharks can take," Stanley said. "I'm hoping they know 'Rock And Roll All Nite.'" Proceeds will go to charity, according to AirBnB. Reservations can be made starting at 6 p.m. EDT on airbnb.com/KISS on Oct. 14. - AP, 10/3/19...... In advance of the Oct. 11 release of Freddie Mercury's Never Boring solo box set, Hollywood Records has shared a newly remixed, 4K video version of one of the late Queen singer's most legendarily over-the-top videos, re-created from the original raw footage shot during his blow-out 39th birthday party at the legendary Mrs Henderson transvestite club in Munich, Germany. The clip finds Mercury, decked out in harlequin tights and a gold-tasseled military jacket, playing host to a menagerie of pals living it up under the club's lights, grinning as his eyes eerily glow red, getting a champagne flute to the face and harmonizing on the song's scat-singing chorus amid a pile of queens. In other Queen-related news, the band's historic performance at Live Aid has been recreated in an upcoming episode of The Simpsons. Queen guitarist Brian May posted an image of Homer Simpson made over as Mercury to his Facebook page last night (October 4). Further plot details on the upcoming episode are not yet known. - Billboard/New Musical Express, 10/4/19...... Lynyrd Skynyrd founding member and longtime .38 Special bassist Larry Junstrom has died at age 70. Born Lawrence E. Junstrom in Pittsburgh on June 22, 1949, Junstrom was one of the founding members of Southern rock icons Skynyrd, joining the Jacksonville-Florida-bred band after singer Ronnie Van Zant, drummer Bob Burns and guitarists Gary Rossington and Allen Collins joined forces in 1964 as My Backyard` By 1969 they changed their name, releasing their debut album in 1973, Pronounced Leh-Nerd Skin-Nerd, which included such soon-to-be-classics as "Gimme Three Steps," "Simple Man" and one of the most enduring rock anthems of any era: "Free Bird." By the time the band broke out of Florida, though, Junstrom had been long gone, leaving in 1971 and replaced by Leon Wilkeson. He wasn't out of the spotlight long, though, hooking up with another all-time classic Southern band, the Donnie Van Zant-fronted .38 Special in 1976 and playing with that band for 38 years on 12 studio albums until 2014 and scoring such hits as "Hold on Loosely" and "Caught Up In You." Junstrom retried from .38 Special in 2014 following a hand injury that required surgery. Lynyrd Skynyrd paid homage to one of the band's co-founders on their website, writing, "Rest Easy, LJ, you will always be remembered as the big man, on the big bass with the even bigger heart!" - Billboard, 10/7/19...... Pioneering African-American actress and singer Diahann Carroll, who made television history with her turns on Julia and Dynasty, died at her home in Los Angeles on Oct. 4 after a long bout with cancer. She was 84. Ms. Carroll was known as a Las Vegas and nightclub performer and for her performances on Broadway and in the Hollywood musicals "Carmen Jones" and "Porgy & Bess" when she was approached by an NBC executive to star as Julia Baker, a widowed nurse raising a young son, on the comedy Julia. Although Ms. Carroll initially didn't want to do the part because she "didn't think the show was going to work, "she eventually became the first African-American female to star in a non-stereotypical role in her own primetime network series. Julia, which premiered in September 1968, finished No. 7 in the ratings in the first of its three seasons, and Ms. Carroll received an Emmy nomination and a Golden Globe for her work. After hosting a CBS summer replacement variety show in 1976, she retired from show business and moved to Oakland. Landing the role of Dominique, the half-sister of John Forsythe's Blake Carrington in Dynasty, in 1984 put her back on the map in Hollywood. More recently, Ms. Carroll had recurring roles on NBC's A Different World, ABC's Grey's Anatomy, and USA's White Collar. She also appeared in such films as Eve's Bayou (1997) and on stage as Norman Desmond in a musical version of Sunset Blvd. She was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 2011. She was married four times, to Monte Kay, Freddie Glusman, Robert DeLeon and singer Vic Damone, from 1987 until their 1996 divorce. In addition to her daughter, producer-journalist Suzanne Kay, survivors include her grandchildren, August and Sydney. - The Hollywood Reporter, 10/4/19...... Comedian Rip Taylor, known for his extremely flamboyant and enthusiastic personality as well as his penchant for showering people with confetti, died on Oct. 6 of as yet undisclosed causes. He was 84. Born in Washington, D.C. in 1935, Taylor briefly worked as a congressional page. During the Korean War, he joined up with the special services and worked to entertain troops, where he came up with a comedy routine that made him famous, and by the '60s he had become a regular player in the Catskills. Taylor's comedy then became a recurring feature on the The Ed Sullivan Show, though Sullivan himself only referred to Taylor as "The Crying Comedian" when he couldn't remember his name. His frequent TV appearances made Taylor an in-demand comedian, landing him high-profile gigs in Las Vegas in the '70s opening for performers like Frank Sinatra, Debbie Reynolds, Judy Garland, and The Kingston Trio. The '70s also saw him transition to the world of television, regularly appearing on Hollywood Squares, The Gong Show, and as a guest host on The Match Game. He played a genit on Sigmund And The Sea Monsters, popped up on The Brady Bunch Hour, and hosted a weird pageant parody series called The $1.98 Beauty Show. Taylor also did voice work in projects like Scooby Goes Hollywood, The Emperor's New School and Tom And Jerry: The Movie. He appeared in movies like Wayne's World 2, Chatterbox and Indecent Proposal (making a rare appearance without his usual toupee). Taylor also somehow became a fixture of the Jackass movies and made a post-credits cameo in Johnny Knoxville's Dukes Of Hazzard. Taylor is survived by his longtime partner, Robert Fortney. - The Hollywood Reporter, 10/6/19.