Classic Rock 93.9

On This Day, April 6, 2000…

An A-list group of artists paid tribute to Joni Mitchell at a concert at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City.  

Artists who performed at the event included Elton John, Cyndi Lauper, Bryan Adams, Shawn Colvin, James Taylor and more, with Mitchell also performing, backed by a full orchestra. The concert was filmed and later aired on the cable network TNT.

Mitchell quit touring in 2007 and spent several years off the stage, especially after she suffered a stroke in 2015. But that all changed in June 2022 when she performed alongside Brandi Carlile and a group of friends at the Newport Folk Festival.

And she’s set to take the stage again this June, where she and some of her musical friends will headline one night of Carlile’s Echoes Through the Canyon festival at Washington’s Gorge Amphitheatre.

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Diddy‘s 1997 number-one hit “I’ll Be Missing You” is based on the 1983 number-one hit “Every Breath You Take” by The Police, written by the band’s frontman, Sting.  On Wednesday, Diddy revealed just how much money Sting makes from the use of that sample.

After Diddy sampled “Every Breath You Take” without Sting’s permission, the rocker took legal action, earning a much higher percentage of the song’s royalties than he would have if Diddy had simply asked. As a result, the story goes, Sting makes $730,000 in royalties from the song each year — which works out to two grand per day.

Except it turns out he earns even more than that.

Responding to a tweet of an interview clip in which Sting confirms the $2000-per-day figure, Diddy offers a correction: “Nope. 5K a day. Love to my brother @OfficialSting!”

In the interview clip, Sting says he and Diddy are very good friends: In fact, he even joined Diddy and Faith Evans to perform the song — a tribute to the late rapper Notorious B.I.G. — on the 1997 MTV VMAs.

The person who ended up getting a raw deal was Police guitarist Andy Summers.  In addition to sampling the melody of “Every Breath You Take,” it also sampled Summers’ iconic guitar part for the song, but since he technically doesn’t have a songwriting credit, he didn’t get any money, and he’s still salty about it, having complained about it in several interviews.

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Thursday, April 6 marks another full moon, which means Peter Gabriel is once again treating us to another song off his upcoming album i/o, which is expected out sometime this year. The latest single is the Brightside Mix of the album’s title track, which features the Soweto Gospel Choir.

“This month the song is ‘i/o‘ and i/o means input / output. You see it on the back of a lot of electrical equipment and it just triggered some ideas about the stuff we put in and pull out of ourselves, in physical and non-physical ways,” Gabriel shares, noting it got him thinking about “the interconnectedness of everything.” 

“The older I get, I probably don’t get any smarter, but I have learned a few things and it makes a lot of sense to me that we are not these independent islands that we like to think we are, that we are part of a whole,” he says. “If we can see ourselves as better connected, still messed up individuals, but as part of a whole, then maybe there’s something to learn?”

Gabriel is set to hit the road in support of i/o next month, with his European and UK tour kicking off May 18 in Krakow, Poland. The tour hits North America starting September 8 in Quebec, Canada. A complete list of dates can be found at petergabriel.com.

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Rock fans saw a familiar face on this week’s episode of Fox’s The Masked Singer. Twisted Sister frontman Dee Snider was revealed to be The Doll, donning a costume that included a purple sparkly dress and heels.  

“Let me tell you, Gene Simmons, Iggy Pop, no one can work pumps like I did,” Snider said after his unmasking, “and by the way ladies, it’s like riding a bike. I wore them in the ’70s and it all came back to me once I put it on.” 

He ended his appearance by treating the audience to an impromptu performance of the Twisted Sister classic “We’re Not Gonna Take It.”

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Snider revealed he was pretty surprised to get the boot from the show, especially since he says Vegas had him as an odds on favorite to be in the top three. 

“Quite honestly I was shocked when they said my name,” he says. “I don’t know who the other performers are, but I heard them rehearsing and I wasn’t too impressed. And the audience response to me was huge. So I was like, what?!” 

He adds, “I thought I was gonna go all the way. You should have heard my [version of] ‘The Final Countdown.’ We were already rehearsing the next show. I crushed ‘The Final Countdown,’ but I never got to sing it.”

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Rod Stewart and wife Penny Lancaster have donated a white and gold teapot to raise money for a very good cause.

The pair shared on Instagram that they’ve signed their “favourite teapot” and donated it to Smile Train UK’s celebri-TEA auction, with money raised helping “children born with cleft around the world,” according to Smile Train.

As of Wednesday, the highest bid was over $850. The auction ends Sunday.

The auction is part of the organization’s #BigSmileTeaParty fundraiser, which asks folks to help raise money by either donating the cost of a cup of tea or hosting a tea party with family and friends. Rod notes the money “will change a child’s life forever.”

The tea pot auction is live now, but unfortunately items cannot be sent to the U.S. In addition to the teapot from Rod and Penny, there are teapots from the likes of Dame Helen Mirren, Dame Joanna Lumley and more.

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The members of Crazy Horse — Ralph Molina, Billy Talbot and Nils Lofgren — recently released the new album All Roads Lead Home. It features each band member contributing three original songs, which they recorded separately during the pandemic. But just because they weren’t physically together doesn’t mean they weren’t working together on the final product.

“It was kind of a long-distance collaboration, but a collaboration nonetheless,” Lofgren tells ABC Audio. “We listened to a lot of songs. I’d give them advice … and vice versa.”

He noted they “stayed in it with each other, but we worked in our own home environment and kind of carried it to an ending where we all picked our favorite three and came up with this great compilation.”

In addition to the three songs from each band member, Neil Young contributes the live bonus track “Song of the Seasons,” which originally appeared on the album Barn, also featuring Crazy Horse. Young also played a big role in the trio’s decision to change up their plans to make All Roads Lead Home a double album.

“Ralphie asked Neil to give us a bonus track and Neil said, ‘Yeah, I can do that. But instead of a double album, why don’t you pick your best songs, take my bonus track and do a great 10-song vinyl, just keep it lean and mean,’” Lofgren explains. “And that’s what we wound up doing.”

Considering the album came out during the COVID-19 pandemic, Lofgren thinks the title, which Talbot came up with, is beautiful. He adds of the record, “This was another labor of love, and music that allowed us to do something to actually share.” 

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Mott the Hoople and David Bowie are forever linked thanks to the 1972 classic “All The Young Dudes,” which Bowie wrote for the band. But it turns out the relationship between the artists didn’t last beyond the collaboration. 

“David was a different kettle of fish,” Mott the Hoople’s Ian Hunter tells Classic Rock magazine. “David was great all the time I knew him, but he wasn’t a guy I would have hung out with.” 

Hunter says it was “nothing personal,” and they “got on fine in the studio” and even hung out a few times. “But I don’t make mates easy. I never did,” he says. “And when I do make a mate, it’s for life. He was a friend like lots of people you meet along the way.” 

Bowie, who was a fan of the band, reportedly offered them a song after hearing they considered breaking up after their 1971 album Brain Capers didn’t perform well. Hunter is still a little surprised by the tune they got.

“It’s a great song,” he says. “God knows why he gave it to us. I’ve said that many times, but really, if I’d’ve had that song I wouldn’t have given it to anybody.”

Hunter describes Bowie as determined and ambitious, which he wasn’t, noting, “I just wanted to play rock ’n’ roll because it excited me.”

“But generous to a tee, lovely with the band,” he says of Bowie. “I mean, he gave us ‘Dudes.’ I’ve got nothing but praise for David.”

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Like the rest of us, the members of Metallica are getting older. With one of their fellow “Big 4” thrash bands — Slayer — already retired, when will it be time for the “Enter Sandman” outfit to hang it up?

“Obviously, there is a point where it’s maybe not going to function anymore at some level, where we can’t play ‘Battery’ or ‘Master of Puppets’ or songs like that,” Lars Ulrich tells Revolver.

Before you say anything snarky, Ulrich’s aware that some might feel Metallica’s already reached that point — “I appreciate that,” he laughs — but in his eyes “it hasn’t happened yet, knock on wood.”

“Hopefully it won’t happen for a while,” Ulrich, 59, says. “I mean, [Paul] McCartney‘s out there past his 80th birthday. The [Rolling] Stones are still out there. [Bruce] Springsteen just started his tour.”

“I would say if we stay healthy, hopefully we’ve got another decade,” he adds, telling the interviewer, “The second I’m done with you, I’m getting on the Peloton.”

Metallica will release their new album, 72 Seasons, on April 14, and has world tour dates currently scheduled into fall 2024.

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The Lost Weekend: A Love Story, opening April 13, is a documentary about John Lennon’s relationship with his personal assistant May Pang. It began in 1973 when Lennon and Yoko Ono were on a break, with Ono encouraging Pang to become her husband’s girlfriend, although Pang wasn’t on board at first.

“I refused,” Pang tells People. “I respected their marriage. I said, ‘That’s not what I want to do.’ I was very happy as a worker.”

When they finally got together, Pang says she cried after their first sexual encounter because she didn’t know “where it was going to lead.” She says Lennon told her, “‘I don’t know where this is going to lead, but let’s just do the jump.'”

They eventually moved in together, and their relationship lasted 18 months. “He was just an interesting person. He really loved everything, and wanted to explore,” Pang says of The Beatles member. “He loved to get up, have his coffee in the morning. He loved blueberry pancakes, he loved swimming. He was just an awesome person who wanted to discover things.”

Lennon and Ono reconciled in 1975, although Pang says she and Lennon continued to see each other until his death in 1980.

“He’d secretly come over to see me. He would say, ‘You know, I still love you,'” she offers. “He said things to me that were really very intimate and you could sense there was something still. It was gnawing at him. It was not a finished situation.”

All in all, Pang seems grateful for the relationship. “The beginning was still raw. Now, I see it as a gift. Our relationship was a gift and it was meant to be,” she says. “I was happy I could give him something that he felt good about, that he never felt before.”

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Former Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist Josh Klinghoffer has shared his thoughts on the band’s new albums, Unlimited Love and Return of the Dream Canteen.

During an interview with Brazil’s 5 Notas, Klinghoffer says, “It’s tough, only because I honestly think we were doing cooler music.”

“I would love for it to have been finished,” he adds.

Klinghoffer joined RHCP in 2009, and played on 2011’s I’m With You and 2016’s The Getaway albums. He parted ways with the group when longtime on-again, off-again guitarist John Frusciante rejoined in late 2019. Presumably the material Klinghoffer is referring to was in the works prior to Frusciante’s return.

“I never want to sound negative about anyone doing music,” Klinghoffer says. “But … I was shocked when I heard [RHCP’s] new record.”

On a personal level, though, Klinghoffer says he “still [has] an enormous love” for Frusciante.

“He’s one of my musicians, one of my favorite writers,” Klinghoffer says.

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