Classic Rock 93.9

Creedence Clearwater Revival’s seven studio albums are set to be released on special color vinyl in February.

Each album — their 1968 self-titled debut; 1969’s Bayou Country; 1969’s Green River and Willy and the Poor Boys; 1970’s Cosmo’s Factory and Pendulum; and 1972’s Mardi Gras — will get a separate color, with descriptions like Mardi Gras purple, Calm Before The Storm, Bayou Sunset and Spellbound Swirl.

Those albums produced nine top-10 singles, including “Proud Mary” from Bayou Country; “Bad Moon Rising” from Green River; and “Down on the Corner” and “Fortunate Sun” from Willy and the Poor Boys.

All seven colored vinyl editions will be released Feb. 14 and are available for preorder now.

Creedence Clearwater Revival frontman John Fogerty is set to return to Las Vegas in January. He’ll play three shows at the Encore Theater at Wynn Las Vegas starting Jan. 22.

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Iron Maiden drummer Nicko McBrain has announced his retirement from touring with the band.

The news was shared on Facebook, with McBrain writing, “After much consideration, it is with both sorrow and joy, I announce my decision to take a step back from the grind of the extensive touring lifestyle,” noting that his last show was Saturday in Sao Paulo.

McBrain, who’s been with Iron Maiden since 1982, added, “What can I say? Touring with Maiden the last 42 years has been an incredible journey! To my devoted fan base, you made it all worthwhile and I love you!” 

In a statement posted by Iron Maiden’s manager Rod Smallwood on behalf of the band, he thanked McBrain “for being an irrepressible force behind the drum kit for Maiden for 42 years and my friend for even longer,” adding, “I speak on behalf of all the band when I say we will miss you immensely!”

Iron Maiden then announced that Simon Dawson, a former session drummer who has worked with bassist Steve Harris since his 2012 solo debut British Lion, will be taking over behind the drum kit.

Fans can expect to see him on stage with Maiden starting with their Run For Your Lives Tour, celebrating their 50th anniversary, which kicks off May 27 in Budapest.

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Grateful Dead and Bonnie Raitt will be celebrated on Sunday as some of this year’s recipients of the Kennedy Center Honors. 

The celebration is happening at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., with highlights from the ceremony to air Dec. 22 on CBS. So far performers set to honor this year’s recipients have not been announced.

In a Washington Post profile released ahead of the ceremony, The Dead’s Mickey Hart discussed the band’s appeal, noting, “You couldn’t pigeonhole the Grateful Dead. You still can’t.”

“The Grateful Dead is a lot of things,” he added. “The Grateful Dead is a record. The Grateful Dead is mythology. The Grateful Dead is us. The Grateful Dead is a force.”

In her own Washington Post profile, Raitt discussed her love of playing live.

“It’s like a magical exhalation that happens, the exchange between the audience and us,” she says. “Playing live is what drives you. That’s what your purpose is. At the end of the night, I feel like I’ve had my blood changed.”

This year’s celebration will be hosted by Queen Latifah, who received a Kennedy Center Honor in 2023. The other honorees this year are director Francis Ford Coppola and jazz musician Arturo Sandoval, as well as the iconic Harlem venue The Apollo, which will receive a special Honors recognition as an American institution.

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Styx and REO Speedwagon frontman Kevin Cronin are headed out on the road together.

The artists just announced dates for the Brotherhood of Rock tour, which will celebrate the 25th anniversary of their first tour together. The tour was announced with a video in which Cronin and Styx’s Tommy Shaw magically switch bodies in their sleep.

The trek, which features former Eagles lead guitarist Don Felder as a special guest, will kick off May 28 in Greenville, South Carolina, and wrap Aug. 24 in Milwaukee.

A Citi presale for tickets begins Dec. 9 at 10 a.m., with tickets going on sale to the general public Dec. 13 at 10 a.m. A complete list of dates can be found at styxworld.com.

Styx and Cronin, as frontman of REO Speedwagon, first toured together in 2000 and 2001, and this will mark the sixth time they’ve hit the road together.

In June, Styx went out on tour with Foreigner on the Renegades and Jukebox Heroes tour. The band is now on a solo tour, playing Durant, Oklahoma, on Friday. Back in September, REO Speedwagon announced they would stop touring in 2025 due to “irreconcilable differences.”

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Eric Clapton has released a new video for the track “The Call,” which had its premiere on a billboard in Times Square in New York.

Clapton does not appear in the clip, which has a camera panning across a desk with an old rotary phone, answering machine, vintage turntable and more. It also features drawings on napkins that begin to move to the music. 

This is the second video released for a track from Clapton’s latest album, Meanwhile. He previously released an animated clip for the album’s first single, “One Woman.”

Meanwhile, Clapton’s first album with new material since 2016’s I Still Do, is made up of six new songs and eight previously released tunes. It features guest appearances by the late Jeff Beck, Van Morrison, Bradley Walker, Judith Hill, Daniel Santiago and Simon Climie.

The album was released digitally in October, with vinyl and CD editions being released Jan. 24. Both are available for preorder now.

Clapton recently announced he’ll be heading to Tokyo for a six-night residency at the Nippon Budokan, starting April 14. He’ll also return to London’s Royal Albert Hall for three shows that kick off May 21. A complete list of dates can be found at ericclapton.com.

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Paul McCartney is being honored by The Royal Mint with his very own coin.

McCartney’s coin, officially approved by The Beatles legend, will feature McCartney’s Magic Piano and will reference his career, with piano notes chosen by McCartney, the Wings logo and his Höfner Violin Bass guitar.

“This feels like a huge honor,” McCartney shared. “It’s not anything I would have ever expected to happen when I was a kid.”

This will be the first time McCartney has ever appeared on an official U.K. coin. To mark the occasion, The Royal Mint has gifted McCartney a special pick-shaped version using sustainable gold, inspired by his early use of pennies as guitar picks.

“Our coins recognize the greatest icons and events in British history, so it’s fitting that Paul McCartney’s remarkable music career is now celebrated on an official U.K. coin,” Rebecca Morgan, director of commemorative coin at The Royal Mint, said. “What makes this coin extra special is that Paul has been involved throughout the design process. The coin celebrates elements from throughout his solo career, and we hope fans will enjoy the layered references to songs, instruments, and bands.” 

The Paul McCartney coin comes in a variety of finishes, including gold, silver and silver with color. They’re available to order now, starting at about $20, with the most expensive being a limited-edition 1-ounce gold coin, which sells for about $3,800.

The news coincides with the launch of the European leg of McCartney’s Got Back tour, which kicked off Wednesday in Paris. He’s set to wrap the tour in London with two nights at the 02, Dec. 18 and Dec. 19.

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On This Day, Dec. 6, 1969 …

The Altamont Speedway Free Festival kicked off in the Bay Area of California, headlined by The Rolling Stones and featuring a lineup that included Santana, Jefferson Airplane, The Flying Burrito Brothers and Crosby, Stills & Nash.

The counterculture concert, attended by nearly 300,000 people, was marred by the presence of the Hell’s Angels motorcycle club, which had been hired as security for the day. The group clashed with concertgoers, which led to the stabbing death of one of the attendees, 18-year-old Meredith Hunter, and three accidental deaths, as well as numerous injuries and property damage.

Footage from the concert was featured in the 1970 Rolling Stones documentary Gimme Shelter.

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Sammy Hagar has joined the lineup for Metallica‘s 2024 Helping Hands benefit concert, taking place Dec. 13 in Los Angeles.

The Red Rocker will be joined by his Best of All Worlds lineup, which includes his former Van Halen bandmate Mike Anthony, guitar virtuoso Joe Satriani and drummer Kenny Aronoff.

Metallica has also announced that musical duo SistaStrings will be playing Helping Hands, as well.

The biannual Helping Hands benefits Metallica’s All Within My Hands charity foundation and features a rare acoustic performance from the metal legends. 

Previous openers and special guests include Greta Van Fleet, Cage the Elephant and St. Vincent.

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Timothée Chalamet and the cast of the Bob Dylan film A Complete Unknown do their own singing in the film, and now fans will be able to enjoy their performance long after they’ve left the movie theater.

A Complete Unknown (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) will be released Dec. 25 to coincide with the film’s opening, and the first two singles have just been released: “Girl From The North Country,” sung by Chalamet as Dylan and Monica Barbaro as Joan Baez, and Dylan’s signature tune, “Like A Rolling Stone,” sung by Chalamet.

Both songs are available now via digital outlets.

“To me, there was only one way to make this film — to cast actors that are profoundly talented, ambitious (and brave enough!) to inhabit the whole of the artists they would portray,” the film’s director, James Mangold, shares. “And in order to inhabit that world those artists had to be able to sing the songs. We were never out to replace the power, beauty and majesty of what exists, but rather, to celebrate it.” 

In addition to the Dec. 25 digital release, a limited-edition vinyl version of the soundtrack will drop in late January. It is available for preorder how.

A Complete Unknown follows a 19-year-old Dylan as he arrives in New York from Minnesota and tracks his rise as a folk singer during the ’60s to the top of the charts, ending with his electric rock ‘n’ roll performance at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965.

The film also stars Edward Norton as Pete Seeger, Elle Fanning as a character named Sylvie Russo, Boyd Holbrook as Johnny Cash and Nick Offerman as Alan Lomax.

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Grateful Dead, who’ll receive the Kennedy Center Honors on Sunday, have a long history of philanthropy, and in a new interview with Billboard they talk about their motivation for giving back to the public. 

“We’re part of a community, and so the better the community is doing, the better we’re doing,” Bobby Weir says of their mission to help, noting that the late Jerry Garcia “always used to say, ‘You get some, you give some back.’ It just makes sense.”

“We help people and give them stuff. It’s just a good way to live life,” Bill Kreutzmann adds. “I wish that more people in the world lived life that way, instead of wars and bombings.” 

The members of The Dead will also be celebrated for their philanthropy by the Recording Academy in February as the MusiCares Person of the Year.

“It all follows in that tradition of teaching the industry what it should know about,” Mickey Hart says. “That’s that Grateful Dead kind of style, where we just did it because we knew it was the right thing to do.”

He adds, “If we wanted to do this the rest of our lives was the idea, we have to do these things, because people support us — and we reciprocate.”

The band members also reiterated to Billboard their previous revelation that prior to Phil Lesh‘s October death they were making plans to reunite for their 60th anniversary in 2025, noting Lesh was excited about the possibility.

“(Phil) had a dream that he was going to get to play with us three one more time,” Kreutzmann notes. “And that didn’t happen — but that’s how it goes.”

The Kennedy Center Honors will air on CBS Dec. 22.

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