Classic Rock 93.9

The Rolling Stones haven’t announced any official plans for 2022, but in a new post on his social media pages, Mick Jagger hinted that the band might be getting back to work soon, we assume either touring or recording new music.

Jagger posted a series of photos of him vacationing in Jamaica, along with a note that reads, “A little downtime before things get busy!” The pics show Mick holding an acoustic guitar with the ocean behind him, looking at some fresh produce at an outdoor market, standing in front of a wall painting, and playfully knocking on the door of the Roof Night Club in Port Antonio, Jamaica.

The Rolling Stones wrapped up a U.S. leg of their No Filter Tour in November of last year, and the band is widely expected to continue touring this year at some point. The Stones also have been working on songs for a new studio album over the last couple of years, although no official release details for the project have been announced.

In other Stones news, guitarist Keith Richards has posted a video of him “unboxing” the upcoming deluxe 30th anniversary reissue of his 1992 sophomore solo album, Main Offender, on his social media pages.

The minute-long clip shows Richards flipping through the pages of the booklet included in the box set, which he calls “incredible.”

“What am I seeing? I’m seeing some of the greatest friends I’ve ever had, you know,” Keith comments as he checks out photos of his collaborators on the album. “Waddy Wachtel, Steve Jordan, Ivan Neville, Charley Drayton, Sarah Dash, Babi Floyd…Bobby Keys…It don’t get no better than that.”

He adds, “I love to work with these guys. Always have. It’s all love.”

The Main Offender reissue is due out March 18.

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The Who will play a special acoustic show on March 25 at London’s famed Royal Albert Hall as part of the 2022 edition of the annual series of benefit concert for the Teenage Cancer Trust that singer Roger Daltrey helps organize.

The event will mark the band’s first concert since February 2020, and will take place a month before the recently announced The Who Hits Back! tour of North America kicks off.

The acoustic show will feature Daltrey and Who guitarist Pete Townshend accompanied by two members of The Who’s touring band — guitarist/backup singer Simon Townshend and backing vocalist Billy Nicholls — as well as by bassist Phil Spalding, percussionist Jodie Linscott, keyboardist Geraint Watkins, violinist Charlie Hart and accordion player Andy Cutting.

The concert will feature a mix of Who classics, rarities and fan favorites. The show’s opening act will be The Wild Things, a British rock group whose upcoming album is being produced by Pete Townshend.

The 2022 Teenage Cancer Trust Concerts will run from March 21 through March 27. This year’s other headlining acts include Yungblud on March 23, Madness on March 24, Liam Gallagher on March 26 and Ed Sheeran on March 27. The event was canceled in 2020 and 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“My wonderful team and I have pulled out all the stops to make this 20th series of shows for Teenage Cancer Trust the best ever,” Daltrey says. “The Who will be back on stage this year at the Hall alongside some wonderful talent. After the last two unbelievably difficult years, young people with cancer deserve everything we can do for them.”

Tickets for the shows go on sale to the general public on Friday, February 25, at 9 a.m. local time at RoyalAlbertHall.com.

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Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones is one of more than 20 musicians from seven different countries featured in a video performing a new version of the blues song “When the Levee Breaks.” It premiered this weekend at PlayingforChange.com and on the Playing for Change YouTube channel.

“When the Levee Breaks,” a song written about about the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, was originally recorded by Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie in 1929. Led Zeppelin’s reworked version of the tune appears on the band’s 1971 album, Led Zeppelin IV.

The video, which features various musicians and singers performing their parts in different locations around the world, also includes Jane’s Addiction drummer Stephen Perkins and ex-Allman Brothers Band guitarist Derek Trucks, as well as Trucks’ wife and current band mate Susan Tedeschi on vocals, Robbie Robertson‘s son Sebastian on guitar, singer/songwriter Ben Lee on harmonica, and many others.

The clip also includes footage such natural disasters as flooding and drought.

“It seems that little has changed since 1927, or even 2005 with [Hurricane] Katrina,” Jones says in a statement regarding “When the Levee Breaks.” “It’s still a really powerful track, both musically and lyrically.”

Those who view the video are encouraged to donate money to the Playing for Change Foundation to aid its efforts raise awareness about and support organizations focused on various environmental issues.

The new recording and video of “When the Levee Breaks” is the latest in a series of covers of famous songs by international musicians that have been put together by  Playing for Change organization, which connects people around the world through music.

The “When the Levee Breaks” video originally premiered in December 2021 as part of the Peace Through Music: A Global Event for the Environment virtual benefit event.

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Edgar Winter has released a second advance single from his upcoming album project, Brother Johnny: An All-Star Tribute to Johnny Winter: a rendition of his late older sibling’s 1968 song “Mean Town Blues.”

Edgar’s version of the driving blues-rock gem, which is available to stream now, also features acclaimed contemporary blues guitarist Joe Bonamassa, drummer Gregg Bissonette of Ringo Starr‘s All Starr Band, and longtime John Mayer bassist Sean Hurley.

“Johnny’s most highly respected authenticity was as a blues man, particularly his style of slide guitar, and if there’s one song that best epitomizes and brings all those elements together to represent the many aspects of who Johnny was in the early days, it is ‘Mean Town Blues,'” Edgar writes in the liner notes for Brother Johnny. “Every time I hear it I think, ‘Now that’s Real Johnny Winter.’ It just captures the essence of everything he was.”

As previously reported, Brother Johnny, which Edgar organized as a tribute to his brother, blues-rock guitar great Johnny Winter, will be released on April 15. The album features contributions from an impressive list of guest musicians, including Starr, Joe Walsh, ZZ Top‘s Billy Gibbons, Michael McDonald and John McFee of The Doobie Brothers, ex-Allman Brothers Band members Warren Haynes and Derek Trucks, Foo Fighters‘ Taylor Hawkins, Toto‘s Steve Lukather, and many others.

The 17-track collection, which was curated by Edgar and producer Ross Hogarth, was put together to present Johnny’s artistic evolution. In addition to featuring various covers and renditions of songs by Johnny, it also includes two new originals by Edgar.

The album’s lead single, which was released in January, is a cover of the Chuck Berry classic “Johnny B.Goode” that features Edgar and Walsh sharing lead vocals.

Johnny Winter died in 2014 at age 70.

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The Scorpions have released another advance track from their their forthcoming studio album, Rock Believer, which is due out next Friday, February 25.

The new tune, titled “Shining of Your Soul,” is available via digital formats now, and is one of the few love songs on Rock Believer. Scorpions frontman Klaus Meine, who wrote the lyrics for the track, says it’s about the intensely passionate attraction that one person can sometimes feel for another.

Meine notes that “Shining of Your Soul” is about that emotion you may experience “[w]hen someone enters the room and you sense an aura that makes everything else fade into the background. When the atmosphere changes inexplicably, and one is enveloped in a warm glow. The shining of a soul.”

Musically, the song features verses that offer up a taste of reggae, while the choruses burst forth with the German rockers’ trademark melodic metal sound.

“Shining of Your Soul” is the fourth advance track from Rock Believer that the Scorpions have released, following “Peace Maker,” the album’s title track and “Seventh Sun.”

You can pre-order Rock Believer now.

As previously reported, The Scorpions will kick off their 2022 tour in support of the Rock Believer album with a nine-date Las Vegas residency at the Zappos Theater at Planet Hollywood, running from March 26 to April 16. Visit The-Scorpions.com for more info.

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Paul McCartney just announced a 2022 U.S. tour today, which should help him offset the big loss he recently took on the sale of a New York City penthouse he owned with his wife, Nancy Shevell.

The Wall Street Journal reports the the former Beatles star and his spouse sold their luxury apartment on Fifth Avenue overlooking the Big Apple’s Central Park for $8.5 million, which is $7 million less than they purchased the residence for in 2015.

According to the newspaper, the duplex apartment initially was listed at $12 million in June of 2021, then was reduced to $10.5 million in September.

McCartney and his wife bought the apartment, located at at 1045 Fifth Ave., for $15.5 million, which is about 40% less than they sold it for.

As reported by the Street Easy real-estate website in 2015, the co-op residence boasts wraparound balconies, a living room, library, master bedroom, and master sitting room that all face Central Park above the Jacqueline Onassis Reservoir, plus a formal dining room and “a double height gallery.” The duplex also boasts floor-to-ceiling windows that are 40 feet high.

The New York Post reports that the building was built in 1967 by late developer Manny Duell, who created the duplex for his wife. She lived there until her death in 2014.

McCartney’s upcoming trek, dubbed the Got Back Tour, is scheduled to run from an April 28 concert in Spokane, Washington, through a June 16 show in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

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More new Guns N’ Roses music is on the way.

Speaking with Consequence.net, guitarist Slash reveals that the “Welcome to the Jungle” rockers plan to drop some fresh tunes ahead of their European tour launching in June.

“There is new material coming — everybody’s always asking,” Slash says. “I would imagine that there will be one or two songs that come out around the time that we hit the road in June.”

Last year, GN’R released two new songs, “Absurd” and “Hard Skool.” Prior to that, the Rock & Roll Hall of Famers hadn’t put out anything since 2008’s Chinese Democracy, which featured Axl Rose as the only remaining original member in the band. Slash and bassist Duff McKagan rejoined the group in 2016 after leaving in the mid-’90s.

Ahead of the European tour, Guns N’ Roses will headline Florida’s Welcome to Rockville festival in May.

Meanwhile, Slash is currently on tour with his solo band Myles Kennedy & the Conspirators in support of their new album, 4.

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Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell and his current band, The Dirty Knobs, have released a second advance single from their forthcoming sophomore album, External Combustion, due out on March 4.

The new tune, “Electric Gypsy,” is available now via digital formats, while a music video for the song has debuted on Campbell’s official YouTube channel.

The clip begins with Campbell hitchhiking in the desert, where he’s picked up by RV driven by a tattooed woman. Inside the motor home are The Dirty Knobs’ members and some female friends. The vehicle soon stops, and the musicians and their friends get out, and band proceeds to play the song out in the desert around a fire pit.

In a recent Facebook post, Campbell writes, “‘Electric Gypsy’ is one of my favorite songs on the new record. The song came to me in a moment of inspiration before a session with the band — and we recorded it that day in one take, guitar solo and all.”

As previously reported, External Combustion is an 11-track collection that features guest appearances by Ian Hunter of Mott the Hoople fame, Heartbreakers keyboardist Benmont Tench and alt-country artist Margo Price.

Campbell wrote most of the songs on External Combustion during the past year, although two tunes date back to the 1990s and were recently rediscovered by Mike in his vault of unreleased tracks.

Prior to “Electric Gypsy,” Campbell and the group also released the album’s lead track, “Wicked Mind,” as an advance digital single, along with a companion music video.

External Combustion can be pre-ordered now, and is available on CD, on vinyl and via digital formats.

Campbell and The Dirty Knobs kick off a U.S. tour on March 9 in Tampa, Florida. Visit TheDirtyKnobs.com for the band’s full schedule.

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Here’s your chance to party in wine country with Metallica.

The metal legends have announced a charity raffle with the grand prize of two VIP three-day passes to the ‘Tallica-headlined BottleRock Napa Valley festival, taking place May 27-29 in Napa, California.

The campaign will raise money for Metallica’s All Within My Hands charity foundation. The more you donate, the more entries you’ll receive.

For more info, visit Metallica.com.

In related news, Metallica’s hometown baseball team, the San Francisco Giants, have announced the details of its 2022 Metallica Night. The annual celebration, which has missed the past two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic, makes its return to Oracle Park on May 24.

Previous Metallica Nights have featured the band performing the national anthem and throwing out the game’s ceremonial first pitch.

You can grab tickets now via MLB.com.

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Everyone knows that Billy Joel is from Long Island, New York, but if you’ve ever wanted to get a better sense of the places that he sings about in his songs, you can now do it online.

The Billy Joel “New York State of Mind” Landmarks website has just launched, featuring an interactive map of 50 locations in New York that are either connected to Billy’s life, or are mentioned in his songs. You can navigate to places he’s played, like Madison Square Garden or Yankee Stadium, or see, for example, exactly where the “Miracle Mile” is that Billy sings about cruising in “It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me” is located.

In keeping with this theme, a new digital five-track EP called Places is out on all streaming platforms, showcasing some of the locations on the map.  The songs include “Movin’ Out (Anthony’s Song),” “New York State of Mind,” “Big Man on Mulberry Street,” “Everybody Loves You Now” and “Miami 2017 (See the Lights Go Out on Broadway).” It’s just the first in what will be a series of thematic EPs.

And if you want even more Billy, Walmart is now selling exclusive collectors’ editions of six of his albums, pressed on 12-inch colored vinyl with photo inserts.  Piano Man, The Stranger, 52nd Street, Glass Houses, An Innocent Man and Storm Front are all available, in different colors.

Both the website, the EP and the vinyl discs are part of the #50YearsofBilly celebration, recognizing 50 years since the release of his debut solo album, 1971’s Cold Spring Harbor.

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