Classic Rock 93.9

Stevie Nicks is among the artists who will headline the inaugural Sound on Sound festival, taking place September 24-25 at Seaside Park in Bridgeport, Connecticut.

The other headliners for the event are Dave Matthews and The Lumineers. Matthews will be performing as a duo with his frequent collaborator, Tim Reynolds.

The bill, which features more than 20 acts in all, also includes Ziggy Marley, Spin Doctors, Gary Clark Jr., Brandi Carlile, Jenny Lewis and The National.

Sound on Sound is being put on by Founders Entertainment, the same company behind New York City’s annual Governors Ball Music Festival. For the full lineup and ticket info, visit SoundonSoundCT.com.

Nicks also is confirmed to perform at three other U.S. festivals this year — on May 7 at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival; on June 19 at Bonnaroo in Manchester, Tennessee; and in early September at the JAS Aspen Snowmass event in Snowmass, Colorado.

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Billy Joel‘s mother Rosalind Nyman Joel would have been 100 years old today, and a restaurant where she and Billy used to eat when he was a kid is marking the occasion in a unique way.

DiMaggio’s Pizza of New York is a pizzeria across the street from where Billy was raised in Hicksville, New York, and when Billy was a kid, he and his mom would stop there to grab food after she took him for his music lessons.  At noon today, the restaurant will dedicate the “Roz Pie” in honor of Rosalind, who was born February 15, 1922.  The inspiration for Billy’s song “Rosalinda’s Eyes,” Rosalind passed away in 2014 at the age of 92.

DiMaggio’s will also host a singalong with civic and community leaders on Hicksville’s Village Green, which Billy immortalized in the lyrics of his song “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant.”

There’s no word on whether Billy himself will stop by, but there’s a good chance he’ll be in the area: His next concert date isn’t until February 26 in Las Vegas.

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Pearl Jam‘s Eddie Vedder is among the nominees for the 2022 Guild of Music Supervisors Awards.

As its title suggests, the GMS Awards celebrate the best music supervisors, who select the music for visual media including films, TV, video games and trailers, along with the best songs written for such media.

Vedder is nominated in the Best Song Written and/or Recorded for a Film category for his song “My Father’s Daughter,” which he co-wrote with Glen Hansard for the film Flag Day. The track notably also marked the musical debut of Eddie’s daughter, Olivia Vedder.

Other nominees in the category include JAY-Z and Kid Cudi‘s “Guns Go Bang,” from The Harder They Fall; “Dos Oruguitas,” from Encanto; Anderson .Paak‘s “Fire in the Sky,” from Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings; and Beyoncé‘s “Be Alive,” from King Richard.

Meanwhile, Flag Day music supervisor Tracy McKnight is nominated for Best Music Supervision for Film Budgeted Under $25 Million. The film’s soundtrack includes a number of original songs from Vedder, Hansard and Cat Power, as well as a cover of R.E.M.‘s “Drive” by the “Even Flow” rocker.

The 2022 GMS Awards take place March 20. For more info, visit GMSAwards.com.

Vedder just released his new solo album Earthling last Friday, and is currently touring with his Earthlings solo band, which features Hansard, Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith, ex-RHCP guitarist and current Pearl Jam touring member Josh Klinghoffer, Jane’s Addiction bassist Chris Chaney, and guitarist and producer Andrew Watt.

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Journey is gearing up for a lengthy U.S. trek with Toto dubbed the 2022 Freedom Tour that kicks off on February 22 in Pittsburgh.

Journey keyboardist Jonathan Cain tells ABC Audio that the two bands have a familial connection, because his daughter Madison is engaged to Toto guitarist Steve Lukather‘s son Trevor. The couple is slated to be married early this year.

“It’s all in the family now,” Cain jokes.

Meanwhile, Jonathan notes that this will be the first time that his group and Toto will hit the road together, and he says he feels the two acts are a good pairing.

“We did one show with Toto years ago,” Cain recalls. “And, you know, both crowds seemed to dig each other’s music, so we thought, ‘Why not?'”

Journey and Toto both feature virtuoso rock guitarists — Neal Schon and Lukather — and Cain says there’s a good chance that the two musicians will hit the stage together to jam during the trek.

“I’m sure that will happen a bunch,” he notes. “Been buddies for a long time and looking forward to it.”

The 2022 Freedom Tour will mark Journey’s first full-length tour since the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020.

“We are pleased as heck to be in the arenas [again],” Jonathan declares. “It’s a risky deal, but we’re going to follow the [COVID] protocol precautions for safety for the crew and the band.”

The tour is plotted out through a May 11 show in Hartford, Connecticut. Billy Idol originally had been announced as opening act for the first portion of the trek. However, sinus issues forced Idol to bow out of the tour, so Toto now is opening the entire trek.

Visit JourneyMusic.com for the full list of tour dates.

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The Who recently announced dates for a new two-leg 2022 North American trek dubbed The Who Hits Back! tour, marking the British rock legends’ return to the road after their postponing tour plans multiple times because of COVID-19.

In a new Rolling Stone interview, guitarist/songwriter Pete Townshend, 76, notes that although the new outing is “not a farewell tour,” he is hoping to retire from the road at some point.

“I had a conversation with [singer] Roger [Daltrey]. I said to him, ‘I don’t want to be like one of these guys that dies on tour,'” Townshend notes. “I do want to retire. And by ‘retire’ I don’t mean retire from being a musician or artist or creator.”

He adds, “Roger is of the opinion that he wants to sing until he drops. That’s not my philosophy of life. There are other things that I want to do…and will do, I hope. I hope I’ll live long enough to do them.”

For now, Townshend says The Who are committed to keep touring at least through 2023, when he says the band will be rescheduling the U.K. trek they postponed.

Meanwhile, Townshend says he been “very, very busy” working on various music projects, both for himself and with other artists.  One project is music for a previously reported art installation connected to his 2019 novel, The Age of Anxiety.  Another is a charity project to raise money for the Teenage Cancer Trust that involves “old music that’s been re-recorded,” and “possibly a podcast.”

Pete also has been collaborating with U.K. folk artist Reg Meuross “on a podcast [and a song cycle] about Woody Guthrie called Fire and Dust,” as well as with a group called the Bookshop Band that “write songs about novels and fictional books.”

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Former Talking Heads frontman David Byrne‘s acclaimed stage production David Byrne’s American Utopia has announced dates for a final run of Broadway performances at the St. James Theatre.

The show’s engagement, which previously had been scheduled through March 6, now is scheduled to close after a performance on Sunday, April 3.

Six performances of the show are scheduled during a standard week — at 8 p.m. on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays; at 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. on Saturdays and at 3 p.m. on Sundays. Tickets can be purchased by visiting AmericanUtopiaBroadway.com/tickets.

In addition, a limited number of discounted $44 tickets are available via an online lottery at LuckySeat.com. Ticket requests are limited to one or two per entrant, and entries open at 10 a.m. ET on the Monday of the week prior to the performance. Those chosen to receive tickets will receive an email with digital tickets on the morning of the performance.

As previously reported, the American Utopia show features Byrne accompanied by 11 musicians, dancers and singers who move freely about an almost-empty stage. The production includes several Talking Heads songs, material from David’s 2018 American Utopia album, and other tunes from his solo catalog.

The show’s original Broadway run took place from October 2019 to February 2020 at the Hudson Theatre. After an 18-month layoff because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the production began a new run at the St. James Theatre in September of last year.

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Fresh off their post-Super Bowl virtual reality performance, Foo Fighters have announced a new batch of shows in the real world.

The fall outing will kick off September 18 in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and will make its way through Canada before returning to the U.S. to wrap things up October 7 in Bend, Oregon.

Tickets go on sale this Friday, February 18, at 10 a.m. local time. For the full list of dates and all ticket info, visit FooFighters.com.

The newly added shows follow the Foos’ previously announced spring and summer North American headlining tour, which includes dates in May, July and August.

In addition to the live stage, you can also catch Dave Grohl and company on the silver screen when their new horror-comedy movie Studio 666 premieres in theaters February 25.

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Ringo Starr‘s recently announced latest photo book, Lifted: Fab Images and Memories of My Life with The Beatles from Across the Universe, has officially been released and can be purchased now exclusively at JuliensAuctions.com, coinciding with Valentine’s Day.

Two editions of the limited-edition book are available — a Collector’s Edition that’s priced at $59 and a Signature Edition that costs $495. The Signature Edition, limited to just 500 copies, features a color cover of The Beatles signed by Ringo and comes housed in a special slip case.

Lifted pays tribute to Starr’s years with the Fab Four and features many rare, unseen and newly discovered photos of the band members, as well as recollections and anecdotes written by Ringo.

Starr put together the book with help from noted pop-culture journalist and author David Wild while quarantining during the COVID-19 lockdown. Besides images from his personal archives, Ringo also “lifted” photos of the band from the internet that caught his eye, which are featured in the book.

Starr explains in a statement, “These fantastic images came back to me in recent years from here, there and everywhere — online and off — and have somehow helped me get back to seeing my life with The Fab Four through fresh eyes.”

Proceeds from Lifted will benefit Ringo’s Lotus Foundation, which funds and supports charitable projects that focus on various social welfare causes.

Meanwhile, Ringo has shared a photo on Facebook of him, his brother-in-law Joe Walsh and their wives, Barbara and Marjorie Bach — who are sisters — celebrating the Los Angeles Rams’ Super Bowl victory on Sunday. The pic shows all four wearing Rams jerseys, accompanied by a note from Ringo that reads, “We are the champions go Rams go peace and love.”

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The ninth installment of the star-studded Rock Legends Cruise, which originally was supposed to take place sail in February 2021, but was postponed because the COVID-19 pandemic, finally sets sail today from Port Canaveral, Florida.

One of the nautical rock extravaganza’s headlining acts this year is Deep Purple, and the famed British hard-rock band’s founding drummer, Ian Paice, tells ABC Audio that this is the first time his group has ever played this type of event.

Asked how he feels about doing the cruise, Paice explains, “I’m not trying to get any pre-formed ideas about it. I’m sure it’ll be very nice to spend a week in Florida in the middle of winter on a boat where I don’t have to work too hard, and I can wander off to a bar whenever I feel like and have a nice exotic tropical drink.”

To warm up for the cruise, Deep Purple played two gigs in Florida this past week, which were among the band’s first live performances since the pandemic began in 2020. Since that time, Deep Purple has released two studio albums — 2020’s Whoosh! and last year’s covers collection Turning to Crime.

Paice says the band likley won’t include too much material from the new albums on the cruise, noting that the performance time is limited and “the people on that boat are gonna want to hear those classic songs.”

Deep Purple currently has no other U.S. shows scheduled for this year, but Paice says, “[A]ssuming that everybody is fit and healthy and still wants to do it…then [the band will tour the States in] 2023.”

The Rock Legends Cruise IX runs through February 18, and also features Styx, Don McLean, ex-Eagles guitarist Don Felder, Blue Öyster Cult and many more.

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With Valentine’s Day taking place this Monday, Neil Young & Crazy Horse have debuted a new animated lyric video for their song “Don’t Forget Love,” which appears on the group’s latest album, Barn.

The clip, which was directed by Neil’s wife, actress Daryl Hannah, features a series of animated drawings created by Gary Ward. Among the many images depicted in the art are a human heart, a couple kissing, a hand flashing a peace sign, a hand holding a few roses, a rain cloud, a rainbow, the sun shining on the moon and the Earth, and animals including bears, an owl, a dove and a blackbird.

The delicate song features sparse instrumentation, driven by piano, with lyrics that encourage “don’t forget love” when negative things are happening in your life.

In a brief video interview with Young posted in December on his YouTube channel, Neil explains, “I wrote that song for myself so that whenever I start to lose it I can just listen to that and go, ‘I wrote that. Why can’t I just do that?’ So, you know, a lot of it’s cheap therapy. Very cheap.”

As previously reported, Barn was recorded last June in a restored 19th century barn Young owns in the Colorado Rockies, and was released in December. A documentary about the making of the album, also called Barn and which Hannah also directed, premiered around the same time as the record’s release, and currently is streaming for free on Neil’s YouTube channel.

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