Classic Rock News

The Bruce Springsteen Archives Center for American Music has launched a new charity auction in connection with its annual American Music Honors, which this year will honor John Fogerty, Smokey Robinson, Rage Against The Machine’s Tom Morello, Emmylou Harris and Joe Ely.

The auction includes plenty of Springsteen-related items, including a chance to meet The Boss, take a ride along the Jersey Shore with him and go home with his 2000 JPB Confederado motorcycle.

Other items in the auction include: tickets to a 2025 Springsteen concert of your choice; a signed Springsteen Born to Run photo; a black Squier Stratocaster signed by The Boss; a Telecaster signed by Springsteen and this year’s honorees, along with E Street Band members Nils Lofgren, Patti Scialfa and Stevie Van Zandt; and framed photos of Fogerty and Smokey, signed by photographer Danny Clinch.

Bidding is open until May 8. More info can be found at charitybuzz.com. Proceeds from the auction will benefit the Bruce Springsteen Archives & Center for American Music.

The third annual American Music Honors will take place Saturday at the Pollak Theatre at Monmouth University in West Long Branch, New Jersey, the home of the Bruce Springsteen Archives. The awards are handed out each year to artists “who have demonstrated artistic excellence, creative integrity, and a longstanding commitment to the value of music in our national consciousness.”

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While his main gig is frontman for The Rolling Stones, Mick Jagger has also dabbled in a solo career, and now a compilation of his biggest solo tracks is coming to vinyl for the first time.

The Very Best of Mick Jagger was originally released digitally and on CD back in 2007, but the album is getting its first-ever vinyl release on May 1.

The two-LP set consists of 17 tracks, including such songs as “Dancing in the Street” with David Bowie, “Just Another Night” and “Lucky In Love.” There are also three tracks that up until now have never been released on vinyl: “Too Many Cooks,” which was produced by John Lennon, “Checking Up On Baby” and “Charmed Live.”

The Very Best of Mick Jagger is available for preorder now.

Jagger has released four solo albums throughout his career: 1985’s She’s The Boss, 1987’s Primitive Cool, 1993’s Wandering Spirit and 2001’s Goodness In The Doorway. “Dancing in the Street” is his only top-10 solo hit.

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Bruce Springsteen fans are anxiously awaiting the release of Tracks II: The Lost Albums on June 27, and E Street Band drummer Max Weinberg says they won’t be disappointed.

“I’ve heard everything and I think the fans are going to love it,” Weinberg tells the U.K. outlet The Times. “There is one album [Inyo] Bruce played me where he utilized a mariachi band of musicians, Hispanic musicians. It was just incredible, incredible music.”

Tracks II contains seven unreleased Springsteen albums, recorded between 1983 and 2018. That means one album that’s not part of the set is the long-rumored full band recording of Bruce’s 1982 solo acoustic album, Nebraska, nicknamed Electric Nebraska by fans. But Weinberg hopes the public will one day get to hear it.

He says those recordings were “kick-**, great versions” of the album’s songs, noting, “There’s been this myth that they weren’t well played but we played the hell out of them.”

He adds, “I know the songs were recorded, the tracks are there, so I hope one day Electric Nebraska does make the light of day.”

For now, fans are going to have to settle for a film about the making of Nebraska. Deliver Me From Nowhere, starring Jeremy Allen White as The Boss, is due out later this year.

Tracks II: The Lost Albums is available for preorder now.

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The Who may be known for their live shows, but it turns out Pete Townshend may not exactly be enjoying his time on the stage.

In a new interview with Spain’s RockFM, Townshend shares that he doesn’t necessarily love performing.

“Most musicians are not like me. Most musicians do two things that I don’t really do or don’t enjoy doing. One is they love performing,” he says. “I don’t love performing. I don’t like being on a stage. I don’t mind being on a stage. I don’t hate it, but it doesn’t fill my soul in the way that you see some performers, just their soul is filled through being on the stage. That’s not me.”

The other thing he doesn’t love to do is collaborate with other artists, sharing, “For me, collaboration is something that I find very difficult.”

“If I was in a studio, like with a really, really great musician, or with a group of really great musicians, I think I would find it very hard. I often do find it very hard,” he says. “I find it difficult to collaborate. I find it very difficult looking in the eyes of another musician. I find myself looking to my own energy to express myself. So, I’m very different to most musicians in that respect,” although he notes that he does “admire the process of collaboration.”

While he may not love performing, Townshend will be doing just that in July. The Who have two shows coming up, both in Italy: July 20 in Padua and July 21 in Milan.

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KISS co-founder Peter Criss is releasing a new solo album, which will be his first in almost 20 years.

Criss revealed the news in an announcement video posted by the KISS FAQ podcast, sharing, “I have my new rock ‘n’ roll album to KISS Army guys coming out in the fall, and I really hope you like it, man.” 

The podcast’s host, Julian Gill, went on to describe the record as a “hard rock kick-a** album,” noting that he got to listen to it and that it’s “absolutely amazing to hear this new music.”

“It was vibrant and powerful,” he adds. “I think KISS fans are gonna love this album.”

According to Gill, the album features guest appearances by John 5, bassists Billy Sheehan and Matthew Montgomery aka Piggy D, the legendary Paul Shaffer and more.

“I had an absolute blast doing this album, and everyone was so much fun to work with — they were just amazing,” Criss told Rolling Stone in a separate interview. 

So far there’s no word on a title or exact release date for Criss’ album. It will be the drummer’s first solo album since 2007’s One For All.

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ZZ Top drummer Frank Beard is taking a longer break from the band.

It was announced in March that Beard had “temporarily stepped away” from the band’s tour “to attend a health issue requiring his focus in the near term.” Now that break includes the group’s tour of Australia and New Zealand, which kicks off Saturday.

A post on the Live Nation Asia site shares that Beard is skipping the shows due to recommendations by “medical personnel.’”

“Beard’s continued physical therapy has shown to be very effective in dealing with the issue that caused him to leave the recent US leg of the tour,” reads the statement. “While cheered by the positive news, band and management believe that his total recovery must be priority #1.”

Finally, it notes, “Beard’s attending physicians have suggested more physical therapy over a longer period would potentially achieve better and longer lasting results, and this will now be his focus.”

In Beard’s place, the band’s longtime tech member, drummer John Douglas, will join ZZ Top’s Billy F Gibbons and Elwood Francis for the tour. Douglas has been covering for Beard on U.S. dates this year and previously filled in for him back in 2002 during a ZZ Top tour of France.

ZZ Top’s Elevation Tour of Australia and New Zealand, with George Thorogood & The Destroyers, begins Saturday in Bendigo, Australia. They return to the U.S. for new shows starting June 10 in Moorhead, Minnesota. A complete list of dates can be found at ZZTop.com.

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On This Day, April 25, 1987…

Three weeks after its release, U2’s The Joshua Tree hit #1 on the Billboard 200 Albums chart.

The album, the band’s fifth studio release, was U2’s first U.S. chart-topper, and it remained at number one for nine weeks.

The record included future U2 classics “With or Without You” and “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,” which remain U2’s only #1 singles in the U.S., as well as “Where the Streets Have No Name.”

The Irish rockers went on to have seven more #1 albums: 1988’s Rattle and Hum, 1991’s Achtung Baby, 1993’s Zooropa, 1997’s Pop, 2004’s How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, 2009’s No Line on the Horizon and 2017’s Songs of Experience.

U2 celebrated the 30th anniversary of The Joshua Tree with tours in 2017 and 2019, during which they played the album in its entirety. The tour hit North America, Europe, Latin America and Asia.

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Sammy Hagar has released the new single, “Encore, Thank You, Good Night,” which is described as “a celebration and expression of appreciation” of his time in Van Halen.

Sammy has said that the song was inspired by a dream he had about late Van Halen guitarist Eddie Van Halen.

“This song is my final bow to that part of my life,” Sammy shares. “It’s not meant to be anything more than a thank-you — with love, with respect, and with one hell of a guitar solo.”

In the lyrics, Sammy thanks Eddie for coming into his dream, noting, “thank you for the visit, what took so long,” and also thanks him for the music, the “good times,” and the “fortune and the fame,” noting, “since you’ve been gone, things don’t feel the same.”

“Encore, Thank You, Good Night” is available now via digital outlets. Sammy is set to debut the video for the song on Sunday when he headlines the Stagecoach Festival’s Palomino Stage. It will also debut on YouTube.

Sammy co-wrote “Encore, Thank You, Good Night” with Joe Satriani, and it features Satriani on guitar, Van Halen’s Michael Anthony on bass and Kenny Aronoff on drums. These are the same guys Sammy will be playing Van Halen tunes with at his Las Vegas residency, The Best of All Worlds Tour Stays in Vegas – The Residency, which kicks off Wednesday at Dolby Live at Park MGM.

A complete list of dates can be found at RedRocker.com.

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The Rolling Stones have recorded a song for a tribute album to the late King of Zydeco, Clifton Chenier, which is being released in celebration of what would have been the singer and accordion player’s 100th birthday.

A Tribute to the King of Zydeco, dropping June 27, is a 14-track album featuring a host of A-list musicians covering tunes from Chenier’s catalog. Other artists on the record include Lucinda Williams, Steve Earle, Taj Mahal, John Hiatt and Jimmie Vaughan.

The Stones cover the tune “Zydeco Sont Pas Salés,” and are joined by accordion player Steve Riley. The tune marks the first new music from the band since they released 2023’s Hackney Diamonds.

Chenier helped pioneer zydeco, a music genre created in Louisiana that blends blues, R&B and Afro-Cuban rhythms with music indigenous to the Louisiana Creoles. He won a Grammy Award in 1983 for his album I’m Here and in 2014 he was honored with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Chenier passed away in 1987 at the age of 62.

Proceeds from the album benefit the all-new Clifton Chenier Memorial Scholarship at the University of Louisiana Lafayette. The album is available for preorder now.

In other Rolling Stones news … the rockers have teamed with the Aston Martin Aramco for a new co-branded merch collection. The line features hoodies, t-shirts and hats all with The Stones’ tongue logo and the Aston Martin wings. The line is described as “fusing the speed and precision of Formula One with the rebellious spirit of rock and roll.”

The collection launched Thursday at The Stones’ RS No.9 Carnaby Street store in London, and is now available online at rsno9.com.

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The late David Bowie‘s wife Iman is celebrating their love on what would have been their 33rd wedding anniversary.

The supermodel shared two heartfelt posts on Instagram marking the occasion, the first reading, “When someone you love becomes a memory, the memory becomes a treasure,” featuring the captions “#BowieForever” and “#ImanDaily.”

The second post included a black and white picture of them together, with a caption that included the date, April 24, and a poem, “I am going to love you until the end/ I will love you until I reach the end/ I will love you until I die/ I will see you in the sky/ Tonight,” along with the hashtags “#EternalLove” and, once again, “#BowieForever.”

Bowie and Iman wed in a private ceremony in Lausanne, Switzerland, on April 24, 1992. They welcomed their first and only child together, daughter Alexandria Zahra Jones, in 2000. The 24-year-old, who goes by the name Lexi, released a new album, Xandri, earlier this year.

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