Billy Joel recently announced that he was planning to release some archival rarities that were discovered during the making of his HBO documentary, Billy Joel: And So It Goes, and now he’s debuted his first clip.
The rocker shared a video of a May 16, 1975, performance of his now signature tune “Piano Man,” from the British television music series The Old Grey Whistle Test.
“This next song is a true story,” a mustachioed Joel says before beginning the performance. “I say that because some of the stuff I write is a pack of lies.”
More videos are expected throughout the year, including the unreleased first-ever performance of the classic hit “Scenes From an Italian Restaurant,” recorded at CW Post University, and his first TV appearance in 1972.
Billy Joel: And So It Goes is now streaming on HBO Max. As a companion to the documentary, Joel released a new digital 100-track album, also called Billy Joel: And So It Goes, on Saturday.
The two-time Rock & Roll Hall of Famer just shared a July update with fans, revealing in a video that he’s back in the studio, once again working with T Bone Burnett on a new album.
The pair previously worked together on Ringo’s first country album, Look Up, which was released in January. Ringo jokes in the video, “Get ready for the next album, Look Up 2,” before laughing and clarifying “it won’t be called that, I don’t think.”
Ringo also thanked his fans for participating in his annual Peace and Love birthday tradition on July 7, sharing, “Just the support we’ve had from all of you has been great.”
He also reminded folks that he and his All-Starr Band are headed out on tour in September.
“Hope to see some of you there,” he said.
The next leg of Ringo’s tour kicks off Sept. 10 in Chicago, with dates confirmed through Sept. 27 in Las Vegas. It includes a headlining spot at the Bourbon & Beyond festival on Sept. 13 in Louisville, Kentucky.
The current All-Starr Band lineup includes Toto’s Steve Lukather, Men At Work’s Colin Hay, Warren Ham, Hamish Stuart, Gregg Bissonette and Buck Johnson.
A complete list of dates can be found at RingoStarr.com.
Phil Collins’ reps are shooting down claims that the singer is in hospice care.
The alleged rumors about the 74-year-old Collins’ health recently surfaced on social media. His reps have confirmed to ABC Audio that the rumors are not true and that Collins is in the hospital, but it’s because he recently underwent knee surgery.
TMZ was the first to report the news that Collins wasn’t in hospice.
Collins opened up about his health issues in a February interview with Mojo, where he discussed whether he planned to make more music.
“I keep thinking I should go downstairs to the studio and see what happens,” Collins said. “But I’m not hungry for it anymore.” He added, “The thing is, I’ve been sick, I mean very sick.”
Although he didn’t go into specifics with the magazine regarding his health, Collins has been dealing with health issues since 2007, including neck problems during Genesis’ tour that year, which required surgery. In 2014 he revealed that an undisclosed nerve issue left him unable to play drums again.
Due to his declining mobility, Collins performed seated during Genesis’ 2022 The Last Domino farewell tour, with his son Nic Collins taking over behind the drum kit.
The Rockabilly rockers, featuring original band members Brian Setzer, Lee Rocker and Slim Jim Phantom, have just announced dates for a new fall tour. The trek kicks off Oct. 25 in Mount Pleasant, Michigan, and wraps Nov. 23 in Wheatland, California.
“What blows me away every time is how this music still connects — decades later, it’s just as raw, just as real. We see fans from every generation now,” Setzer says.
“There’s nothing like the sound we make when the three of us hit the stage—it’s high-octane rockabilly, loud and proud. We’re fired up to bring that to fans across the country again!” Rocker adds. Phantom notes, “I’m thrilled and excited to be on the road in 2025 with the best Rockabilly band in the world!”
An artist presale begins Tuesday at 10 a.m. local time, with tickets going on sale to the general public on Friday at 10 a.m. local time.
This is the first Stray Cats tour since summer 2024. In February, frontman Setzer announced he’d been diagnosed with an autoimmune disease and that one of the side effects was that he was no longer able to play guitar.
But in March he announced that he was getting better and making progress. In April, on his 66th birthday, he shared video of him playing guitar again.
A complete list of dates can be found at straycats.com.
Iggy Pop performed the track “Punkrocker,” a song he released with the Swedish band Teddybears back in 2006, live for the first time Saturday during his set at the Project Pabst festival in Portland, Oregon.
As for why a song nearly 20 years old is getting its live debut now, “Punkrocker” has seen a resurgence thanks to its use in the new Superman movie.
Following the film’s premiere earlier in July, Pop toldThe Hollywood Reporter, “I always thought [‘Punkrocker’] had soul.”
“Superman is the best friend you could have,” the Godfather of Punk added.
Dusty Hill, longtime bassist for Rock & Roll Hall of Fame band ZZ Top, passed away in his sleep at home in Houston, Texas. He was 72.
Born Joe Michael Hill in Dallas, Texas, Dusty and drummer Frank Beard joined guitarist Billy F Gibbons in ZZ Top shortly after they were formed in 1968, with the band releasing their debut album, ZZ Top’s First Album, in 1971.
The band went on to release 15 albums over the course of their career, selling an estimated 50 million records.
ZZ Top’s most commercially successful album is 1984’s Eliminator, which peaked at #9 on the Billboard 200 chart and sold over 11 million copies in the U.S. The album included four hit singles: “Legs,” “Gimme All Your Lovin’,” “Sharped Dressed Man” and “TV Dinners.”
Hill was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame with ZZ Top in 2015.
The Ozzy Osbourne best-of compilation The Essential Ozzy Osbourne has jumped into the top 10 on the Billboard 200 following the metal icon’s death on July 22.
The set, which debuted and peaked at #81 on the Billboard 200 upon its initial release in 2003, launches to #7 on the latest edition of the chart. It moved 44,000 equivalent album units during the tracking week for July 18-24.
The Essential Ozzy Osbourne includes a number of the Prince of Darkness’ biggest solo hits, such as “Crazy Train,” “Mr. Crowley” and “Mama, I’m Coming Home.”
In other Ozzy news, Black Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler penned a tribute to his late bandmate in an essay for the U.K.’s The Sunday Times.
“To me, Ozzy wasn’t the Prince of Darkness — if anything he was the Prince of Laughter,” Butler writes. “He’d do anything for a laugh, a born entertainer.”
Ozzy had just performed alongside Butler, guitarist Tony Iommi and drummer Bill Ward on July 5 as part of the Back to the Beginning concert, which was previously announced as the final performance by the original Black Sabbath lineup. It was also promoted as Ozzy’s last-ever live show.
The lineup for the upcoming Bad Company tribute album has been revealed.
Can’t Get Enough: The Music of Bad Company, dropping Oct. 24, will have artists covering the group’s biggest hits, including “Feel Like Makin’ Love,” “Bad Company” and “Shooting Star,” along with a cover of Free’s top-five hit, “All Right Now.”
Artists contributing to the record include Def Leppard’s Joe Elliott and Phil Collen, Slash featuring Myles Kennedyand The Conspirators, The Pretty Reckless, HARDY, Halestorm,The Struts, and more.
Bad Company’s Paul Rodgers and Simon Kirke also appear on the album. Rodgers collaborates with Halestorm on “Shooting Star,” and with Blackberry Smoke’s on “Run With the Pack.” Meanwhile both Rodgers and Kirke join Elliott and Collen on “Seagull.”
“I’ve loved Bad Company since the very beginning, a phenomenal combination of two of my favorite bands, Free and Mott The Hoople, what’s not to love?!” says Elliott. “What a privilege it is for myself and Phil to cover one of my favorite Bad Co songs WITH Paul & Simon! Wow!”
The first track released from the record is The Struts’ cover of “Rock & Roll Fantasy,” which was previously released as a 7-inch vinyl for Record Store Day in April. It is available now via digital outlets.
Can’t Get Enough: The Music of Bad Company will be released on CD, digitally and on limited edition silver colored vinyl. All formats are available for preorder now.
The album’s release comes ahead of the band’s induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, happening Nov. 8 at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles. It will stream live on Disney+ and a highlights special will air on ABC at a later date.
Here is the track list for Can’t Get Enough: The Music of Bad Company:
“Ready For Love” – HARDY “Shooting Star” – Halestorm (feat. Paul Rodgers) “Feel Like Makin’ Love” – Slash Featuring Myles Kennedy and The Conspirators “Run with the Pack” – Blackberry Smoke (feat. Paul Rodgers & Brann Dailor) “Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy”– The Struts “Bad Company” – Charley Crockett “Rock Steady” – Dirty Honey “Burnin’ Sky” – Black Stone Cherry “Seagull” – Joe Elliott and Phil Collen of Def Leppard (feat. Paul Rodgers & Simon Kirke) “All Right Now” – The Pretty Reckless
Billy Joel is the subject of a new two-part documentary, Billy Joel: And So It Goes, and the film’s directors Susan Lacy and Jessica Levin didn’t have to hold back when interviewing the rocker for the film.
Lacy tells ABC Audio that from the beginning she asked Joel if there were “any sensitivities” she should be aware of, and he simply told her to “tell the truth.”
“Nothing was off-limits,” she says.
Part two of the documentary debuted Friday on HBO, and Levin says it’s “a little bit of a different animal” than part one, which was somewhat of an origin story.
“It’s a much more personal story,” she says, noting it delves into his time with wife Christie Brinkley, but also touches on his family and his Jewish heritage, explaining, that’s “probably the most important aspect” of the film.
The doc also features artists like Bruce Springsteen, Sting and others talking about Billy and his career.
“The thing about musicians is, whether the critics got him or not, musicians got him,” Lacey says. “It means a lot when you hear Bruce Springsteen say the critics missed a lot of the best of Billy ’cause they just didn’t know how to pigeonhole him, but his melodies are actually better than mine.”
The two parts cover quite a bit of Billy’s life and career, and Levin says she and Lacy hope viewers will “come away with a really complete and satisfying experience of understanding an artist that is a lot more than his top line hits.”
She adds, “I think that you will be really surprised about what a complex and emotionally available artist you find in the film in a way that Billy has never been seen before.”
Billy Joel: And So It Goes is now streaming on HBO Max.
Billy Joel is not an artist who often gets political. But in the second part of his HBO documentary, Billy Joel: And So It Goes, he has some very strong words for President Donald Trump regarding the comments he made after 2017’s Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
While Billy says in the film that he “never liked getting political onstage,” he did just that after Trump responded to the rally of white nationalists by giving a speech in which he said there were “some very fine people on both sides.”
Not long after the speech, Joel came out onstage at Madison Square Garden with a yellow Star of David on his jacket as a way of protest. He explained in the film, “I had to do something. I was angry.”
“Here they are marching through an American city saying, ‘Jews will not replace us.’ We fought a war to defeat these people!” he says. “And then when Trump comes out and says, ‘There were very fine people on both sides,’ he should’ve come out and said, ‘Those are bad people.’ There is no qualifying it. The Nazis are not good people. Period!”
Joel, whose father’s family escaped Nazi Germany, adds that while he didn’t want to “get up on a soapbox,” the star was his way of doing something. He said that he wore it “basically to say, no matter what, I will always be a Jew.”
Part two of Billy Joel: And So it Goes premieres Friday on HBO. Part one and two will also stream on HBO Max.
