George Harrison hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 with “Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth),” from his #1 album Living in the Material World.
The song actually bumped Paul McCartney & Wings’ hit “My Love” from the top spot, pushing it to down to #2. It marked the first and only time that two former Beatles held the top two spots on that chart.
“Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth)” was one of three Harrison songs to hit #1 over the course of his solo career. The other two were “Got My Mind Set on You” in 1987 and “My Sweet Lord/Isn’t It a Pity” in 1970.
A long-lost Neil Young album is finally going to see the light of day this summer. Chrome Dreams, which was originally supposed to be released in 1977, is finally set to drop on August 11.
While Young never released Chrome Dreams, fans will be familiar with many of the songs that are on it, as many were released on later albums and compilations. They include several Young classics including “Like A Hurricane,” “Homegrown,” “Look Out For My Love,” “Pocahontas” and more. According to the press release, the album “is exactly how Young perceived it and has a sense of monumentality about it that conveys a place in history.”
The album will be released on CD and as a three-sided LP, with the fourth side containing an etching. It will feature 12 tracks, two of which have never been released. Four of the songs are also getting their first vinyl release.
Chrome Dreams is available for pre-order at the Greedy Hand Store at Neil Young Archives and will also be sold at music retailers. Digital audio will be available through the Neil Young Archives.
Here is the Chrome Dreams track list and original recording dates for the songs:
“Pocahontas” (August 11, 1976)
“Will to Love” (December 3, 1976)
“Star of Bethlehem” (December 13, 1974)
“Like a Hurricane” (November 29, 1975)
“Too Far Gone” (September 5, 1975)
“Hold Back the Tears” (February 6, 1977)
“Homegrown” (November 19, 1975)
“Captain Kennedy” (August 11, 1976)
“Stringman” (March 31, 1976)
“Sedan Delivery” (May 22, 1975)
“Powderfinger” (August 11, 1976)
“Look Out for My Love” (January 20, 1976
While Paul Stanley is best known as the frontman for KISS, music isn’t his only form of expression. In fact, he’s been making art for years and it will be on display at a new exhibition coming to The Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown, Ohio.
The exhibit, Paul Stanley: The Other Side, will run from August 13 to October 8 and feature 16 pieces, including new acrylic paintings and mixed media originals. Stanley is scheduled to attend an opening reception on August 12.
“For me, it takes my breath away. This is a terrific museum. And the first that really championed American artists. So, it will be a group of some of my favorite and best pieces,” Stanley shares.
Louis Zona, executive director of the Butler Institute, adds, “Paul Stanley is a figurative artist whose depictions of the human form are empowered by an explosive use of color. Stanley is an artist who encourages both order and dissonance in fields of color and form. His work can be viewed as a celebration of our visual universe.”
As for Stanley’s other gig, KISS’ End of the Road tour is scheduled to play Mannheim, Germany, on July 1. It returns to the U.S. October 19 in Cincinnati, Ohio, with their final two shows set for December 1 and 2 at New York’s Madison Square Garden. A complete list of dates can be found at kissonline.com.
In between playing bass in Pearl Jam, Jeff Ament helps to build new skateboarding parks with his Montana Pool Service organization, or MPS. The latest park has now opened in North Dakota.
“Yesterday, we opened a new skatepark on Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota,” Ament writes in a post on Pearl Jam’s Instagram published Wednesday, June 28. “Thx to the 600+ kids and families who came out to make it their own.”
Since 2000, MPS has helped to build over 30 skate parks in rural and Native communities, mostly in Ament’s home state of Montana.
Ament is also prepping a new album with his Deaf Charlie project, which features ex-Fitz and the Tantrums drummer John Wicks. The duo’s debut album, Catastrophic Metamorphic, arrives Friday, June 30.
Pearl Jam, meanwhile, will launch a U.S. tour in August.
Queen’s Brian May is once again sharing some behind-the-scenes info on his 1983 side band, Star Fleet Project, which included, Eddie Van Halen, Alan Gratzer, Phil Chen and Fred Mandel.
In the third mini doc about the project, May discusses their time in the studio, admitting, “I didn’t know if it was going to work. I really didn’t.”
“You know, we didn’t gel immediately, but it didn’t take very long before we did,” he says, explaining that the best thing about it was they felt “no pressure because there was no end product.” “We didn’t say, ‘We’re going to make a record here’,” he says. “It’s just like, ‘Let’s have some fun and see what we can do’.”
When it comes to being in the studio with Van Halen, May admits he “was in awe” of him. “It would be easy to kind of go down the road of being jealous and resenting someone who can do something that you can’t do, but for some reason that doesn’t really happen with guitar players,” he says. “So although I felt like I’m in the presence of a god here, there was also this feeling of pure joy, pure joy of being in the room with that guy.”
May will celebrate the Star Fleet Project’s 40th anniversary with the release of a new box set, Brian May + Friends: Star Fleet Project, on July 14, which features several outtakes from the sessions.
He says about the set, “You can hear us feeling our way and gradually gaining confidence and locking in and becoming a really tight unit, which was amazing.”
The last concert featuring Lynyrd Skynyrd’s late founding member Gary Rossington is set to hit theaters in July, and now, fans are getting their first look at that particular performance.
A sneak peek of The 50th Anniversary of Lynyrd Skynyrd: An Exclusive Concert Film Experience has just been released, featuring the band performing the Skynyrd classic “Gimme Three Steps.”
The concert, which took place in November 2022 at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium, featured a host of special guests, including Jelly Roll, BrothersOsborne‘s John Osborne, Marcus King, Shinedown‘s Brent Smith and 38 Special‘s Donnie Van Zant —brother of current Skynyrd frontman Johnny Van Zant and late frontman Ronnie Van Zant.
Rossington had stopped touring regularly with Skynyrd in 2020 but joined them for most of the Ryman show, which was his final concert with the band. He passed away March 5, 2023.
The 50th Anniversary of Lynyrd Skynyrd: An Exclusive Concert Film Experience will have a weeklong run in movie theaters, drive-ins and outdoor venues from July 8 to 14. Tickets are on sale now.
Eric Clapton’s Crossroads Guitar Festival, which raises money for his Crossroads rehab center in Antigua, is returning in September. In a new post on Instagram, he explains why the festival is so badly needed now that the pandemic is over.
Clapton says the pandemic was particularly hard for those battling addiction, explaining, “For people that wanted to get well from alcohol or drugs or anything, it was a tough time, because the normal network of AA meetings was pretty much off limits.” He adds that “treatment centers were really badly hit because people couldn’t travel; and they were very fearful of going out,” noting many “voluntarily locked themselves down.”
Clapton explains, “A lot of people, and I think a lot of the community that I know, either died or dropped off or stopped going to meetings, as it was just too risky.”
The seventh installment of the Crossroads Guitar Festival will take place September 23 and 24 at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, with a lineup that includes Clapton ZZ Top, Robbie Robertson, Santana, Stephen Stills, Gary Clark, Jr., John Mayer Trio, Sheryl Crow, Robert Randolph, Roger McGuinn, Buddy Guy, Jimmie Vaughan, Joe Bonamassa, Jakob Dylan and more.
U2 frontman Bono is helping raise money for Ukraine with some of his original artwork.
The rocker has teamed with UNITED24, the official fundraising platform of Ukraine’s government, for a limited-edition merch line featuring the drawing he did of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for the June cover of The Atlantic.
“My drawings are not cartoons, but they are often caricatures of character. In the case of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, we have burdened him with impossible expectations – and impossibly, he has not let us down,” Bono says. “I suppose that’s because President Zelenskyy is not now one person, he’s the Ukrainian people.”
The merch line, on sale now at U2.com, consists of T-shirts and hoodies with the artwork, as well as a lithograph of the drawing. All money raised will go toward the purchase of ambulances for Ukraine.
The Recording Academy has set the date for the 2024 Grammy Awards. The 66th Grammy Awards will take place Sunday, February 4, at Los Angeles’ Crytpto.com Arena, airing live on CBS at 8 p.m. ET and streaming on Paramount+.
Fans will know who’s in the running for awards before the holidays, with this year’s nominees to be announced Friday, November 10.
The 2024 awards will see several changes, including three new categories: Best African Music Performance, Best Alternative Jazz Album and Best Pop Dance Recording. It will also see the Record of the Year and Best New Artist categories scaled down from 10 to eight nominees.
Ex-Megadeth bassist David Ellefson has shared an Instagram post clearing up “misinformation” about late drummer Lee Rauch.
In the post, Ellefson writes that Rauch didn’t actually play on Megadeth’s 1984 Last Rites demo recording, as had been widely reported.
“Lee never did any studio recordings with the band,” Ellefson asserts. “The ‘Last Rites’ demo that is out there on the web was recorded 100% by his successor, our other fallen brother, Gar Samuelson on drums.”
That appears to contradict Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine‘s tribute to Rauch, which read, “He played on the recording of our Last Rites demo tape in early 1984, and I can remember the good times during our rehearsals at Curly Joe’s studio in LA.”
Whether or not Rauch played on Last Rites, he was part of the rare Megadeth live lineup featuring Slayer‘s Kerry King alongside Mustaine and Ellefson.
Ellefson also offers his condolences over Rauch’s passing in his post, writing, “He was a kind young man with big ambitions (and an even bigger drumkit!!).”
Rauch’s death was announced by his brother on Friday, June 23.
