Classic Rock 93.9

40 years ago today — March 7, 1985 — “We Are the World” was released. The charity single was recorded Jan. 28 after the American Music Awards, with stars ranging from Bob Dylan and Stevie Wonder to Bruce Springsteen and Tina Turner. Billy Joel was one of the artists participating, and the one thing he didn’t like about the experience was “We Are the World” itself.

“I wasn’t that crazy about the song,” Billy told ABC Audio some time ago. “I think that was my main memory of that: ‘Oh, this is the song?'” 

Written by Lionel Richie and Michael Jackson, it features lyrics like “it’s true we make a brighter day/ just you and me.”  Billy says he thought it “sounded like a Pepsi commercial,” but he still took part, finding ways to break up the tedium during the extremely long night.

“If you watch the shots where they have the chorus, some of the times I’m in them and sometimes I’m not,” he laughed. “They kept doing take after take … and I realized that they didn’t need me every time.”

“So I’d kind of sneak off, I’d meet with Bruce Springsteen at the cold cut table, and we’d just stand there and have a beer and listen to everybody else sing, and then we go back!” he laughed. 

Billy also recalled the now-legendary moment when Stevie Wonder had to teach Bob Dylan how to sing like Bob Dylan.  “I wish they had kept it [in the song], ’cause it was absolutely hysterical,” he said.  It’s captured in the Netflix documentary The Greatest Night in Pop.

Lionel Richie once told ABC Audio that a pop culture moment like “We Are the World” couldn’t happen today.

“They’ll say to you, it doesn’t fit our format or it doesn’t fit our demographics, or we’ll do some market testing now to see if it fits the marketplace,” he noted. “So by the time you end up getting the music to the people, it’s over. It’s very difficult now to get the world’s attention.”

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It’s been over a decade since Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers keyboardist Benmont Tench released his debut solo album, You Should Be So Lucky, and he’s back with his sophomore release, The Melancholy Season.

Tench tells ABC Audio that while he’s had enough songs to make a new record since about 2017, “things had intervened” that kept him from doing so, including health issues, a new baby and then COVID-19. But he thinks the delay wound up working out for him.

“Though I had enough songs … I didn’t have all of these songs,” he says. “And these songs, the ones that came in later, when put with some of the earlier ones, made a coherent whole.”

Tench says the tracks on the album paint a picture of what he was going through between 2014 and 2019, which includes Petty’s death in 2017. He says of the songs, “It’s more of a picture of … what was in the air for a concentrated period of time during which there had been a lot of changes.”

As for naming the album The Melancholy Season, Tench shares, “I thought it was a good title for a record. I also thought that it summed up the mood of the record pretty well.”

The album’s cover is a painting Tench had seen at the Art Institute of Chicago, which he says he’s “always loved.”

“And when I thought, ‘I want to call this record The Melancholy Season,’ the first thing I said was, ‘Do you think there’s a way we can use this painting for the cover of the album?’” he says. “Because I think it evokes the record very well.”

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INXS is celebrating the 40th anniversary of their album Listen Like Thieves with a new deluxe edition, and now they are giving fans a preview of the bonus material that will be included in the release.

The Aussie rockers have released a performance of the track “Biting Bullets.” It’s part of a newly unearthed BBC recording, Live From The Royal Albert Hall, London, 1986, that will appear on Listen Like Thieves (40th Anniversary Deluxe Edition), along with unreleased outtakes, demos, and a brand-new remix of the album by Giles Martin and Paul Hicks.

In addition to the three-CD/LP deluxe edition, there will be a two-CD extended edition of Listen Like Thieves, which includes the new mix and the CD of B-sides, remixes and live recordings, as well as a single LP edition with just the remix.

All versions will be released May 9 and are available for preorder now.

Listen Like Thieves, released Oct. 14, 1985, was INXS’ fifth studio album and was considered to be the band’s international breakthrough. It featured their first top-five single, “What You Need,” with the album reaching #11 in the U.S.

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The Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards was honored Wednesday as the first recipient of the Connecticut Governor’s Award of Excellence; he was recognized for his “deep commitment to supporting the local community.”

During a ceremony held at The Westport Library, Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont called Richards “an amazing member of our community,” adding, “We’re so proud that he’s here and I’m so proud of the opportunity to give him this award of excellence.”

Richards, a Connecticut resident since 1985, thanked the state for recognizing him with the honor, which came with a custom-made medallion and key to the state.

“I’ve been here for 40 years and it’s been a great place for me,” Richards shared. “I brought the kids up here … I said I have to get the kids out of New York City so they could get some fresh air to breathe. So, we moved up here, and ever since we’ve had a great life.”

He added, “I’m incredibly happy about everything, especially things like this, because you don’t get them every day.”

Keith also mentioned the Westport Library, noting, “This is a great building, a wonderful library, which even I didn’t know the full extent of.” He then talked about the importance of books: “It’s very important that we keep our books unburnt.”

The Connecticut Governor’s Award of Excellence is described as “a prestigious new honor celebrating Connecticut residents who epitomize the state’s core values of creativity, resourcefulness, passion, dynamism, and generosity.”

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The Doors are celebrating the 60th anniversary of the band by sharing some of their favorite Doors-related locations with fans.

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame band has teamed with Apple Maps for a new guide to some of the historic places that shaped the band’s legacy.

The collaboration includes 20 locations, many of them in Los Angeles, like the legendary Whisky a Go-Go, as well as Tail O’ the Pup hotdog restaurant, which was previously the site of The Doors’ Workshop. There’s also Electric Entertainment, which was once Elektra Sound Studios, where The Doors recorded their music.

There are several venues outside of LA, including The Fillmore in San Francisco, the site of the former Fillmore East in New York and the Roundhouse in London, as well as the Four Season Hotel George V in Paris, where Doors frontman Jim Morrison used to stay.

Fans can find The Doors locations by going to the Apple Maps guide and searching The Doors.

This new collaboration is one of several ways the band has been celebrating their 60th anniversary. They are also dipping into their archives to share some live recordings to digital services for the very first time. The first, Live at the Matrix 1967: The Original Masters, was released in January.

They kicked off the celebration last year with the release of the six-LP box set The Doors 1967-1971. The six albums in the set were then released individually on high fidelity audiophile vinyl in January.

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Bryan Adams is giving fans another preview of his upcoming album, Roll With the Punches.

The rocker just released the new track “Make Up Your Mind,” which he says is a “song is about making the decision in a relationship to either move forwards together or finally move on.”

He adds, “If you’ve ever questioned the past, yearned for another shot, or felt the bittersweet sting of ‘what if,’ this song is for you.”

“Make Up Your Mind” is the second song Adams has released from Roll With the Punches, following the title track, which he shared in February. 

Roll With the Punches, the “Run To You” singer’s 16th studio album, is expected out later this year.

Next up, Adams is set to launch a residency at the Wynn Las Vegas on Friday, with shows running until March 14. A complete list of dates can be found at BryanAdams.com.

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Courtney Love is far from A Complete Unknown, though she sings about feeling like one in a cover of Bob Dylan‘s “Like a Rolling Stone.”

The Hole frontwoman put her spin on the Highway 61 Revisited classic during an event in London celebrating the release of actor, playwright and author Todd Almond‘s new book, Slow Train Coming, which is about the Dylan-inspired musical Girl from the North Country.

Also during the event, Love spoke about her plans to tour in support of her upcoming solo album, which she said is “probably her last one.” One thing that’s not in her plans, though, is reuniting Hole.

“Stop with the Hole thing, stop,” Love said.

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John Fogerty is the latest Rock & Roll Hall of Famer announced to play the Glastonbury Festival, taking place June 25-29 at England’s Worthy Farm.

Neil Young and Rod Stewart were previously announced for the festival, but now the full lineup is out, with Fogerty performing on June 28. Young is set to headline the festival that same night, while Stewart is performing in the “legends” slot on June 29.

The 1975 and Olivia Rodrigo are the other festival headliners, with the lineup also featuring Nile Rodgers & Chic, Gary Numan, Alanis Morissette, Weezer and more.

For the full lineup and all ticket info, visit GlastonburyFestivals.co.uk.

Fogerty’s got several other shows booked for 2025. His next is Sunday at the Florida Strawberry Festival in Plant City, Florida. He’s also set to play New Orleans Jazz Fest, taking place April 24-27 and May 1-4. A complete list of Fogerty dates can be found at JohnFogerty.com.

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Neil Young has shared the first trailer for his upcoming concert documentary, Coastal, directed by his wife Daryl Hannah.

The film follows Young on his 2023 Coastal tour, which marked his return to the stage following the COVID pandemic.

“This will be the first time I’ve played in front of anybody in almost four years,” Young says in the black-and-white clip, which features behind-the-scenes footage of him on tour.

The description of the film invites music fans to “take a journey with Neil Young as he cruises the coast on his recent solo tour. Featuring songs rarely, if ever played live, performed in breathtaking theaters,” adding, “Get an exclusive glimpse behind the curtain of this unguarded iconoclast.”

Coastal will hit theaters for one night only on April 17. Tickets are on sale now.

To coincide with the movie’s theatrical release, Coastal: The Soundtrack will be released April 18, featuring 11 songs, which were recorded in several cities.

In a press release, the album is said to be “as intimate a live album as Neil Young has ever recorded, created at a time when the world was coming out of hibernation from the COVID pandemic.”

Coastal: The Soundtrack is available for preorder now.

In other Young news: U.K.’s Glastonbury Festival just announced its official lineup, and while Young’s participation in the festival was revealed in January, we now know that Young and his band The Chrome Hearts are set to headline the Saturday, June 28 bill. 

Young is also set to hit the road on his love earth tour this summer, with U.S. dates kicking off Aug. 8 in Charlotte, North Carolina. A complete list of dates can be found at NeilYoungArchives.com.

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Jethro Tull is set to release their new album, Curious Ruminant, on Friday, their third album in three years.

While their last album, 2023’s RökFlöte, was inspired by Norse mythology, frontman Ian Anderson tells ABC Audio this album is a more personal one, with the title inspired by “what I try to do every day.”

“I like to learn something new every day,” he says. “I am curious, not in the sense of being weird or odd, I am curious in the sense of having curiosity, ruminant in the sense of being contemplative, I like to think about what I’ve learned.”

He adds, “It kind of sums up the nature of the album, which is a little more personal, inasmuch as I’m talking about my own feelings and my own opinions and my own standpoint on a number of subjects.”

Anderson notes that the album’s title track acts “as a kind of umbrella really, for all the songs.”

“It doesn’t make it into a concept album, but it provides a convenient roof to the siblings growing up together in the process of writing the songs,” he explains.

And while the songs on the album may be more personal than those on previous records, Curious Ruminant is definitely not a solo album.

“It’s still very much a band album,” he says. “And musically speaking, it’s some great playing from the other guys.” 

Following the release of Curious Ruminant, Jethro Tull will head out on a European tour that kicks off April 10 in Budapest. So far they don’t have any U.S. dates on their schedule. A complete list of Jethro Tull tour dates can be found at JethroTull.com.

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