Elton John to perform on ‘The Wonderful World of Disney: Holiday Spectacular’

Elton John to perform on ‘The Wonderful World of Disney: Holiday Spectacular’
Disney/Abigail Nilsson

As usual, The Wonderful World of Disney: Holiday Spectacular has lined up some big-name guest stars for musical performances, and this year that includes Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Elton John.

Elton is set to perform his classic “Your Song,” and while it may be surprising that he isn’t singing his own holiday classic “Step Into Christmas,” his presence on the special isn’t: Disney+ will be streaming his documentary Never Too Late starting Dec. 13. 

The ABC special will be hosted by Julianne Hough and Alfonso Ribeiro, and feature musical performances from Florida’s Walt Disney World Resort, California’s Disneyland Resort and Hawai’i’s Aulani Disney Resort.

Other artists set to perform include John Legend, Pentatonix, Eva Max, Carly Pearce, Seth McFarlane and Liz Gillies, Leslie Odom Jr., Anika Noni Rose and Moana star Auli’i Cravalho.

Kristen Bell will narrate the special, which airs on ABC Dec. 1 and streams the next day on Hulu and Disney+.

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Green Day headlining Coachella 2025

Green Day headlining Coachella 2025
Goldenvoice

Green Day has been confirmed to headline Coachella 2025.

The festival takes place April 11-13 and April 18-20 in Indio, California. Lady Gaga, Post Malone and Travis Scott will headline, as well.

Also on the lineup are Misfits, Clairo, The Marías, Sam Fender, Jimmy Eat World, beabadoobee, Djo, Portishead‘s Beth Gibbons, Kraftwerk, The Beaches and The Go-Go’s.

Registration for access to a presale beginning Friday at 11 a.m. PT is open now. Those who attended the 2023 and 2024 festivals will have access to an earlier sale beginning Thursday at 11 a.m. PT.

For the full lineup and all ticket info, visit Coachella.com.

If you can’t make it in person, both Coachella weekends will stream live on YouTube.

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Joe Walsh shares birthday message to himself as he turns 77

Joe Walsh shares birthday message to himself as he turns 77
Scott Dudelson/WireImage

Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Joe Walsh turned 77 on Wednesday, and in a birthday post on social media, he looked back on the struggles he’s faced throughout his life and how he overcame them.

“This young man had trouble sitting still, expressing himself and relating to other people,” the Eagles guitarist wrote next to a black-and-white photo of his younger self. “He found various tricks (and pills and potions) through the years that seemed to make those things more manageable.”

He added, “[B]ut the things that really saved his a** were his guitar, his friends, the music they made together, the love he shares with his family and 30 years of blessed sobriety.”

“Today this young man turns 77 years old,” he concluded the post, “and he still sees this kid in the mirror. We did good, kid. We did it one day at a time.”

Walsh is still playing music today. He and his Eagles bandmates are in the midst of their Sphere Las Vegas residency, with their next show happening Dec. 6. A complete list of dates can be found at eagles.com.

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Howard Jones & ABC to return to the US for co-headlining tour

Howard Jones & ABC to return to the US for co-headlining tour
Dave J Hogan/Dave J Hogan/Getty Images

Howard Jones and ABC are returning to the U.S. for more shows next year.

The two artists teamed up for a tour last summer with Haircut 100, and now they’ll return for a co-headlining trek that kicks off Feb. 6 in San Francisco. The tour will hit such cities as Denver, Dallas, Houston, Nashville, Brooklyn and Washington, D.C., before wrapping Feb. 28 in Glenside, Pennsylvania. 

“So excited to be teaming up with the excellent ABC once again for another run of dates in the USA,” Jones shares. ABC frontman Martin Fry adds, “This tour’s gonna be unmissable.”

A complete list of dates and ticket information can be found at howardjones.com.

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Rod Stewart clarifies why his tour is called One Last Time: ‘I have no desire to retire’

Rod Stewart clarifies why his tour is called One Last Time: ‘I have no desire to retire’
Courtesy Live Nation

Considering the fact that Rod Stewart‘s newly announced 2025 tour is called One Last Time, you’d be forgiven for thinking that it’s the two-time Rock & Roll Hall of Famer’s farewell trek. Well, it is, and it isn’t.

Sir Rod writes on Instagram, “This will be the end of large-scale world tours for me, but I have no desire to retire. I love what I do and I do what I love.”

“I’m fit, have a full head of hair and can run 100 meters in 18 seconds at the jolly old age of 79,” he boasts.

He goes on to explain that, while he wants to continue to perform live, he’s going to do it on a different scale, writing, “I’d like to move onto a Great American Songbook, Swing Fever tour the year after next.”

Swing Fever is Rod’s most recent album: It’s a collaboration with bandleader Jools Holland, featuring Rod singing big band and swing music. Great American Songbook is, of course, Rod’s wildly successful five-volume series of albums in which he covered standards like “It Had to Be You” and “I’m in the Mood for Love.”

Rod says this tour would find him playing “smaller venues and more intimacy.” But then, he pivots and concludes, “But then again, I may not.”

He signed the post, “The Ambiguous Sir Rod Stewart.” So, is it his last tour? Your guess is as good as ours.

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Yes’ Jon Davison responds to lawsuit over song ‘Dare To Know’

Yes’ Jon Davison responds to lawsuit over song ‘Dare To Know’
Paul Zimmerman/WireImage

Current Yes frontman Jon Davison has issued a statement regarding the copyright lawsuit filed by his former friend and bandmate Riz Story.

Story, whose legal name is Rudolph Zahler, is claiming Davison and Yes’ Steve Howe stole the music from his song “Reunion,” which was featured in the indie movie A Winter Rose, for the Yes song “Dare To Know,” which appeared on the band’s 2021 album, The Quest.

“It’s hard to put in words how it feels to wake up one day to hear that a person who I thought was a friend has brought not only an utterly fictitious, but also, a defamatory case against me,” Davis shared on Yes’ website, calling Riz’s claims “blatant lies.”

Davison says he and the band have evidence proving they didn’t steal “Reunion,” and says the musicologist report in Riz’s suit that claims the songs are similar “is seriously flawed and uses deceptive methods to force a similarity that is not there.”

Davison goes on to say he didn’t write “Dare To Know,” and that he never heard Riz’s composition “Reunion” and didn’t see the movie, noting he only congratulated him on the film “out of politeness.”

He also says it’s “a complete fabrication” that he talked about the music from the film with Riz, adding, “The ‘composition’ isn’t even on the soundtrack album, so I couldn’t have even stumbled across it by accident.”

“Any suggestion that I might have heard this generic melody when we were younger, let alone thought it was worthy of Yes, is utterly absurd,” Davison says. “Our lawyer described this as a ‘shakedown’, and I can see no better word for it.”

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That’s showbiz: Good news and bad news for Elton John’s musicals

That’s showbiz: Good news and bad news for Elton John’s musicals
Elton John onstage with the cast of his musical ‘Tammy Faye’; Bruce Glikas/Getty Images

When it comes to the two musicals that Elton John currently has onstage — one on Broadway and one in London’s West End — there’s good news and bad news. 

First, the bad news: Tammy Faye, Elton’s musical about the late televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker, opened on Nov. 14 and is closing on Dec. 8 after what will be just 29 regular performances. Why? According to The New York Times, the show, which cost $25 million, won awards in London but was poorly received once it moved to Broadway. Indeed, The Times called it “disjointed” and “strangely bland.”

The Times also described the show’s box office receipts as “disastrous” and noted that it was playing to houses that were 37% empty. Elton wrote the music for the show and also co-produced it via Rocket Stage, his production company.

Now, the good news: Elton’s other musical, an adaptation of the movie The Devil Wears Prada starring Vanessa Williams, has been in previews on the West End since the end of October and there’s no sign that it’s in trouble — in fact, November performances are completely sold out. What’s more, the cast will perform for King Charles III and Queen Camilla at the annual Royal Variety Performance, taking place Nov. 22 at London’s famed Royal Albert Hall.

Elton and his husband, David Furnish, will take the stage to introduce the cast at the prestigious event, which will feature magicians Penn & Teller, James Bay and “Murder on the Dance Floor” singer Sophie Ellis-Bextor, as well as other stars from across the entertainment spectrum.

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Jethro Tull releases ‘Jack Frost and Hooded Crow’ from upcoming Christmas album reissue

Jethro Tull releases ‘Jack Frost and Hooded Crow’ from upcoming Christmas album reissue
Inside Out Records

Jethro Tull is getting ready to reissue their 2003 holiday album, and they’ve just shared a track from the record.

The band has just released a new mix of “Jack Frost and Hooded Crow,” which will appear on the now-titled The Jethro Tull Christmas Album – Fresh Snow at Christmas. The album will be released Dec. 6, featuring the new mix, along with 40 minutes of previously unreleased recordings. 

It is being released as a limited-edition four-CD + Blu-ray set, which includes the new mix by The Pineapple Thief’s Bruce Soord, as well as the original mix, along with live recordings from two charity concerts at London’s St. Bride’s church to benefit the homeless: Christmas Live at St. Bride’s 2008 and a previously unreleased recording, The Ian Anderson Band Live At St. Brides 2006.

The Blu-ray will feature Dolby Atmos 5.1 mixes of the album, as well as high resolution audio mixes of the two live albums.

The remixed version of the album will also be released as a two-LP vinyl set, the very first time it’s been available on vinyl.

All formats are available for preorder now.

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Bonnie Raitt announces 2025 US tour

Bonnie Raitt announces 2025 US tour
Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for The Recording Academy

Bonnie Raitt has announced a new set of tour dates for 2025.

The Rock & Roll Hall of Famer’s newest tour will launch March 5 in Temecula, California, hitting such cities as Phoenix, Albuquerque, Dallas, Ft. Lauderdale, Memphis and more before wrapping May 10 in Louisville, Kentucky, although more dates are expected to be announced. 

Tickets for all shows go on sale Friday at 10 a.m.

But Bonnie still has some shows left in her 2024 schedule. On Wednesday she’ll bring her tour to Charlotte, North Carolina, for a benefit concert supporting communities impacted by Hurricane Helene. A complete list of dates can be found at bonnieraitt.com.

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On This Day, Nov. 20, 1995: The Beatles released ‘Anthology 1’

On This Day, Nov. 20, 1995: The Beatles released ‘Anthology 1’

On This Day, Nov. 20, 1995 …

The Beatles released the 60-track compilation album Anthology 1, featuring rarities, outtakes and live performances recorded from 1958 to 1964. 

It also included the first new Beatles song in 25 years, “Free as a Bird,” which featured audio from a John Lennon demo he recorded in 1977. It was given to Paul McCartneyGeorge Harrison and Ringo Starr by his widow, Yoko Ono, and the trio then recorded new music that was incorporated into the song.

Anthology 1 reached #1 on the Billboard 200 Albums chart and went on to be certified eight-times Platinum. “Free as a Bird” peaked at #6 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Anthology 1 was the first in a trio of compilations. Anthology 2, which featured the new song “Real Love,” was released in March 1996 and Anthology 3 was released in October 1996.

That same Lennon demo used for the new songs on the Anthology series was used to create the song “Now and Then,” which was released in 2023. It debuted at #7 on the Billboard Hot 100 and just earned a Grammy nomination for Record of the Year.

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