American reggae-pop musician and actor Johnny Nash, best known for his 1972 No. 1 reggae-influenced hit "I Can See Clearly Now", died on Oct 6 of natural causes, his son John Nash II confirmed to celebrity website TMZ and a Los Angeles TV station. He was 80. "He was a wonderful father and family man. He loved people and the world. He will be missed within his community. Family was his everything," Nash's son told TMZ.com. Nash also told the CBSLA television station that his father died at his home. Born John Lester "Johnny" Nash, Jr. in Houston, Tex., on Aug. 19, 1940, Mr. Nash began releasing music in the late '50s, making his major label debut with the 1957 song "A Teenager Sings the Blues." He appeared on local TV from age 13, and was with Arthur Godfrey's TV/radio show from 1956-63. In 1959, he was cast in the film Take a Giant Step. He moved to Jamaica in the mid-1960s where he was influenced by reggae music, and began his recording career. Mr. Nash also scored hits with "Hold Me Tight" in 1968 (#5) and with his version of Bob Marley's "Stir It Up" and "There are More Questions Than Answers." 
According to his official website, Mr. Nash helped the late Marley sign a recording contract, and was also notably the first non-Jamaican to record reggae music in Kingston, Jamaica. Mr. Nash also sang the theme song for the Canadian-American animated series The Mighty Hercules, which ran from 1963-66. Upon the release of "I Can See Clearly Now" -- largely called a comeback song at the time -- the infectious hit sat at Number One for four weeks in the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, and became a hit in Canada, the U.K. and South Africa. The song made a return to the Billboard charts in 1993, when it was recorded by Jamaican singer Jimmy Cliff for the soundtrack for the film Cool Runnings, about the Jamaican Olympic bobsled team. Mr. Nash's last studio album, Here Again, was released in 1986. More recently, Mr. Nash had begun working on the transfer of old analogue tapes of his music from the 1970s and 1980s into a new digital format. As well as his son, Mr. Nash is survived by his wife, Carli. - Reuters/New Musical Express, 10/7/20.
Guitar legend and Van Halen leader Eddie Van Halen, whose hard-rocking band emerged from L.A.'s Sunset Strip music scene in the early Seventies to reign as one of the top rock acts for over four decades, died on Oct. 6 after a battle with throat cancer at St. Johns Hospital in Santa Monica, Calif., with his current wife, Janie, by his side. He was 65. "I can't believe I'm having to write this, but my father, Edward Lodewijk Van Halen, has lost his long and arduous battle with cancer this morning," Eddie and his former wife Valerie Bertinelli's son Wolfgang Van Halen posted on Twitter. "He was the best father I could ever ask for. Every moment I've shared with him on and off stage was a gift," Wolfgang added. Eddie's death comes just months after Wolfgang offered hope that his dad may one day tour again with the band, and before original VH vocalist David Lee Roth claimed earlier in 2020 that Eddie "was not doing very well." The health of the hospitalized Van Halen, who had been battling cancer over the past decade and had been in and out of the hospital over the past year, reportedly went quickly downhill in the final 72 hours after doctors discovered that his throat cancer had spread to his brain and other organs. In previous interviews, Eddie had said he believed he developed throat cancer from frequent holding a metal guitar pick in his mouth more than 20 years ago, however he was also a heavy smoker. Born in Amsterdam, Netherlands on Jan. 26, 1955, Eddie studied classical piano after moving to the Los Angeles suburb of Pasadena with his family in the 1960s. After switching to guitar, he and his older brother, Alex Van Halen, who took up the drums, formed bands that would eventually become Van Halen in 1972, with lead singer Roth and bassist Michael Anthony. 
Featuring Eddie's explosive riffs and solos, VH quickly became a staple of Sunset Strip clubs such as Gazzari's and the Whisky a Go Go before releasing their eponymous debut album in 1978. Van Halen climbed to No. 19 on the Billboard Hot 200 album chart and became one of the most successful rock debuts of the decade, followed by a string of top-selling albums that would make VH one of the biggest rock acts of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Known for his two-handed tapping technique on the strings, Van Halen earned a place along such guitar virtuosos as Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page as one of rock's most celebrated guitarists. Roth, who often clashed with the Van Halen brothers, split from the band in the mid-Eighties and was replaced for a decade by Sammy Hagar, who once sang lead with the '70s hard rock band Montrose, an influence on Eddie's group. Wolfgang Van Halen became the band's bassist in 2006 and the original VH lineup, with Wolfgang replacing Michael Anthony on bass, reunited in 2007 for a tour and, four years later, an album. VH's run included a dozen studio albums during their on-and-off reunions, and they added synthesizers to the mix for hits such as "Jump" and "I'll Wait." Eddie also played the solo on Michael Jackson's 1982 hit "Beat It" and made guest contributions to albums by Hagar, Queen's Brian May, Pink Floyd bassist Roger Waters, LL Cool J and David Garfield. 
A perpetual winner of guitar polls -- he was voted the No. 1 guitarist of all time by readers of Guitar World magazine in 2012 -- Eddie and Van Halen were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007, though Eddie did not attend the ceremony. VH also won a Grammy Award for "Best Hard Rock Performance with Vocal" in 1992. The group has sold more than 80 million albums worldwide -- the last of which, A Different Kind of Truth, came out in 2012, with Tokyo Dome Live in Concert following three years later. Eddie was married twice -- to actress Valerie Bertinelli from 1981 to 2007, and married current wife Jane Liszewski in 2008. Eddie's fellow superstar musicians and fans were quick to salute his memory on social media, including Sammy Hagar, who shared a photo of himself and the late guitarist on Instagram and added the caption: "Heartbroken and speechless. My love to the family." Others paying tribute include Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Lenny Kravitz, Nikki Sixx, Brian Wilson, Joe Elliott, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, Yusuf/Cat Stevens, Billy Idol, Kenny Chesney and Pete Townshend. Valerie Bertinelli, who was married to Eddie from 1981 to 2007, has yet to directly comment on the guitar great's death, but she did repost Wolfgang's tribute to his father, which confirmed his passing, on her social media pages, and added a string of broken heart emojis. Memorial arrangements for Van Halen are pending. - Reuters/Billboard/New Musical Express, 10/6/20.
Fleetwood Mac's 1977 chart-topper 
After many weeks of teasing a comeback with "PWR UP" teasers on their social media channels, in newspaper ads and on posters, AC/DC confirmed with an announcement on 
A virtual reunion of the legendary heavy metal "mockumentary" band Spinal Tap will take place in October, with 
Queen + Adam Lambert released their first live album, 
Cliff Richard will mark his upcoming milestone 80th birthday on Oct. 14 with a new album, Music... The Air That I Breathe featuring two new songs he's recorded, "Falling For You" and "PS Please." Set for release on Oct. 30, Music... The Air That I Breathe will also feature his duets with Bonnie Tyler, The Bellamy Brothers, Sheila Walsh, The Piano Guys and Albert Hammond, as well as covers including the Beatles' "Here Comes The Sun." "Looking back, I remember thinking that I wouldn't make it to 50 and here I am at 80, and what's even better than that is I have a new album!," Sir Cliff says. "It features not just me, but friends I admire who duetted with me on some of the tracks. I loved recording it and hope you will enjoy listening to it," he adds. Richard had announced a UK tour to celebrate his 80th, dubbed "The Great 80 Tour," which was due to kick off in Gateshead on Sept. 23. However, it's been postponed due to the ongoing threat of COVID-19. Although Richard, who has been making records since the 1950s, has slowed down and reduced his touring schedule in recent times, he vows to never retire from the music industry. "The word 'retire'... I don't think that's in my vocabulary," he has said in past interviews. - Music-News.com, 9/30/20...... Benjamin Keogh, the grandson of Elvis Presley and son of Presley's daughter Lisa Marie Presley, was laid to rest in Meditation Garden at Presley's Graceland mansion on Oct. 1. "Benjamin Storm Presley Keough was laid to rest in the Meditation Garden at Graceland with his family including his grandfather, Elvis Presley, great-grandmother, Gladys Presley, great-grandfather, Vernon Presley and great-great-grandmother, Minnie Mae Presley," a statement on the Graceland website reads. Keogh died at age 27 in mid-July, and the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner's Office ruled on July 14 that his official cause of death was a shotgun wound and the manner of death was ruled suicide. A rep for Lisa Marie told The Hollywood Reporter at the time, "She is completely heartbroken, inconsolable and beyond devastated but trying to stay strong for her 11-year-old twins and her oldest daughter, Riley. She adored that boy. He was the love of her life." - Billboard, 10/2/20.
Grammy-winning singer Helen Reddy, who scored three No. 1 singles in the US during the 1970s including 
The song earned the singer her first Grammy the following year ("I would like to thank God, because She makes everything possible," she said in her short acceptance speech). Further hits include "Peaceful" (#12), "Delta Dawn" (#1), "Leave Me Alone (Ruby Red Dress)" (#3), "You and Me Against the World" (#9), "Angie Baby" (#1), and "Ain't No Way to Treat a Lady" (#8). In 1973, Reddy's popularity earned her a summer-replacement TV variety show on NBC, and for most of the rest of the decade she was a hostess on NBC's Friday night rock-variety show, 
Country-pop singer/songwriter Mac Davis, who penned hits for the likes of Elvis Presley and as a solo artist topped the Billboard chart in 1972 with 
His composition "I Believe In Music," which he recorded in 1972, has sold millions of copies in cover versions by over 50 artists, and that same year "Baby Don't Get Hooked On Me" became his biggest hit, followed by "Rock and Roll (I Gave You the Best Years of My Life)" (#15, 1975), "One Hell of a Woman" (#11, 1974), and "Stop and Smell the Roses" (#9, 1974). In Dec. 1974, Davis began hosting his own TV variety progam, The Mac Davis Show, but further single releases ("Burnin' Thing," "Forever Lovers," "It's Hard to Be Humble" and "Texas in My Rear View Mirror") were less successful. In 1979, Davis made his film debut in the football-themed movie North Dallas Forty, starring Nick Nolte, and later appeared in the romantic comedy Cheaper to Keep Her. Davis then performed in Las Vegas' MGM Grand Hotel in the early '80s, and in the second half of the decade put recording on hold as he became a fixture on TV talk shows, including The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Davis later starred in movies including Angel's Dance, The Wendell Baker Story and Deck the Halls, and several TV series -- including a stint on the sitcom Rodney between 2004 and 2006. He also starred in the titular role of American humorist Will Rogers in the Broadway production of "The Will Rogers Follies." Tributes to Davis have flooded in for the prolific songwriter and entertainer, including tweets from Kenny Chesney, Richard Marx and Dolly Parton, who Davis worked with, and remembered him as having "a giant heart." - Music-News.com/Rolling Stone, 9/30/20.
After an attorney representing The Doobie Brothers wrote a humorous letter to comedian/actor Bill Murray's golf company requesting for damages for an alleged breach of copyright for using the 1972 Doobies hit "Listen to the Music" in a TV ad for a new shirt without their permission, Murray's company William Murray Golf has responded with a glib letter of its own. The letter from the Doobies' attorney Peter T. Paterno gained attention both for its claims and the humorous style in which it was written. "The Doobie Brothers perform and recorded the song Listen to the Music, which Tom Johnston of the Doobie Brothers wrote," Paterno wrote. "It's a fine song. I know you agree because you keep using it in ads for your Zero Hucks Given golf shirts. However, given that you haven't paid to use it, maybe you should change the name to "Zero Bucks Given." Now, Murray's lawyer has responded in kind with their own glib letter. Alexander Yoffe of the Yoffe & Cooper law firm began by complimenting Paterno on "finding levity in the law at a time when the world and this country certainly could use a laugh." He continued to confirm that both those working at the law firm and at William Murray Golf were fans of the Doobie Brothers, noting that was why "we appreciate your firm's choice of 'Takin' It To The Streets', rather than to the courts, which are already overburdened "Minute By Minute" with real problems." Yoffe ended his letter by offering to send William Murray Golf shirts to the band -- a gesture he hoped would "win each of you over as new fans of the brand... At least that's "what this fool believes." - New Musical Express, 9/26/20...... Appearing on NBC's The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon on Sept. 27, Sting revealed that he's planning on releasing a new duets album, possibly in time for the Christmas season. "Over the years, I've recorded many, many duets with some amazing people -- Herbie Hancock, Eric Clapton -- so we just put them all together and said, 'You know, we should put this out'," he told Fallon in the interview, which has been posted on 
Pink Floyd announced on Sept. 27 that they'll be releasing a 
In an interview with the new edition of MOJO magazine, The Kinks frontman Ray Davies said he never wanted to release the classic Kinks song "Waterloo Sunset" as a single in May 1967 and went on to feature on their album Something Else later that year. Davies now says that he had originally wanted to keep the song private. "I got my family together -- my sister was over from Australia and there was Jackie my niece and a couple of my nephews -- and I played them the acetate of it about 20 times. I said, 'That's for us and I don't want it to come out'. It was so important to me I didn't want it to come out. Shows I'm not a very good businessman. I just wanted it to be ours," Davis told the magazine. He added that he didn't begrudge the track being released, but was "pleased that people connected to it in the right way." "And regardless of the nationality thing, it's two young lovers looking at the sunset seeing their future," Davis added. Elsewhere in the interview, the 76-year-old Sir Davies also revealed that he was almost killed by a World War II bomb when he was just two days old. "When I was two days old -- [my older sister Gwen] would have been about five or six -- she suddenly decided to pick me up and take me out of the kitchen where my cot was. And she heard a V-2 bomb come over. The V-2 landed just up the road from Fortis Green and all the glass in the kitchen, where I'd been lying, was shattered all over the room and I would have been killed. Talk about being intuitive..." Davies, who was knighted in 2017 for his services to the arts, admitted that the one good thing to come out of Hilter's attempt to destroy London was that he "unwittingly gave us kids somewhere to play" on the bomb sites. "No. It must have been one of the last V-2s because I was born in 1944. Hitler's last attempt to destroy London," he said. - NME/Music-News.com, 9/26/20...... In a new interview with the London Sunday Times, Queen guitarist Brian May opened up about his ongoing recovery from a heart attack he suffered earlier in 2020. In May, May told fans that he had been "very near death" when he was hospitalised after doctors discovered that three arteries in his heart "were congested and in danger of blocking the supply of blood to his heart." Now May says his recovery still feels like "a long climb back." "I've had complications due to the drugs I'm on, one of which was a stomach explosion that nearly killed me. The heart attack was a symbol of an arterial disease, but I don't drink, I don't smoke, I don't have high cholesterol and I was exercising through the tour, so why did it happen? At least I now have a heart that is working far better than it was." Queen had been planning to head out on a huge UK and European tour in the summer of 2020, but it has been rescheduled to 2021 due to coronavirus. - NME, 9/26/20...... In a new interview with Radio.com, Ozzy Osbourne revealed that he's started working on a new album that will be the follow-up to his Ordinary Man LP which was released in Feb. 2020. "I'm doing another record right now. I just started to work with Andrew [Watt] again. It's what gets me up in the morning, and it's what I'm here to do," Ozzy says. He continued: "It saved my life, doing that last album. [It's better than] sitting on my ass all day waiting for the f---ing pandemic to be over. And then you go, 'Oh, yeah, I am a rock and roller. I'd better do an album.' You've got all the f---ing time in the world to make the best album possible," he added. - NME, 9/26/20...... 
A new Bee Gees documentary titled How Can You Mend a Broken Heart after the Aussie hitmaking trio's