Classic Rock News

As Bruce Springsteen‘s breakthrough album Born to Run turns 50 in August, author and journalist Peter Ames Carlin takes a deep dive into the record in his new book, Tonight in Jungleland: The Making of Born to Run, out Tuesday.

While Born to Run was a critical and commercial success for Springsteen, prior to the record he was coming off two commercial failures — Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. and The Wild, The Innocent & the E Street Shuffle — and was close to being dropped by his label.

“That was like an existential threat to him because he was so about his work and his career and he was still discovering his voice and his identity,” Carlin tells ABC Audio. He notes that Born to Run turned out to be the album where Springsteen “figured out who he was and what Bruce Springsteen, the performer, was supposed to be.”

Carlin, who also wrote the 2012 biography Bruce, says for Born to Run, Springsteen focused on “simplifying his songs” and “making the lyrics direct and conversational.”

Carlin notes that while making the record Springsteen also had to get to a place “where he could acknowledge and work with his own desire to be successful.”

“I think he was a little leery of that up to that point,” he says.

Carlin got a chance to talk to Springsteen for the book and says The Boss didn’t have a hard time looking back at that period in his career.

“He loves to look back into the past, especially when it’s something that was that transformative of an experience for him,” the author says. “And I think it was also really interesting for him to look back at 50 years later and to remember what it was like to be young and hungry and with so much to prove.” 

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Jerry Garcia would have turned 83 on Friday, and in recognition, his native San Francisco gave the late Grateful Dead founder a big honor.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that on Friday, San Francisco mayor Daniel Lurie led a dedication ceremony as a stretch of Harrington Street, where Garcia spent part of childhood, was renamed Jerry Garcia Street in his honor. The ceremony took place just a few steps away from the home where Garcia lived with his grandparents.

“Jerry gave San Francisco and its people lasting memories and music,” Lurie told the crowd, according to the paper. “He created something out of nothing. Jerry had the spirit of a rock star, an innovator and a futurist.”

Garcia’s daughter Trixie was also present, and she said, “Jerry was a magical person. He was humble, he was generous, he was talented. It’s truly an honor, on behalf of Jerry Garcia’s family, to witness this historic street naming.”

San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park also hosted three days of Dead & Company concerts on Aug. 1, 2 and 3 celebrating the Grateful Dead’s 60th anniversary. During those shows, the band was joined at various points by Phil Lesh’s son Grahame Lesh, as well as Billy Strings and Sturgill Simpson.

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John Lennon took himself out of the spotlight for five years in the 1970s to raise his son Sean Lennon, but during that time he was “insanely jealous” of his former Beatles bandmate Paul McCartney‘s musical success. That’s according to longtime Lennon friend and confidant Elliot Mintz.

While appearing on Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan‘s podcast, The Magnificent Others, Mintz said that Lennon would speak “so lovingly” of Paul. But Mintz claimed Lennon was “insanely jealous” of all the “mega hits” that Paul was scoring with his band Wings. 

“He was jealous of the amount of attention and accolades, and the fact that Paul was filling stadiums,” Mintz claims. But when Mintz would argue that Lennon wasn’t even making albums or doing concerts, he says Lennon would tell him, “You’re missing the point. They’re embracing his genius, but have you heard ‘Silly Love Songs’?”

Mintz says he would respond, “Look, let’s be fair. He’s done things other than ‘Silly Love Songs.’ But that would go nowhere.”

He recalls that for Christmas in 1978, Paul and wife Linda McCartney came by John and Yoko Ono‘s New York City apartment and everybody got along fine. According to Mintz, Paul asked John if he was making any music, and John said no. When John asked Paul the same question, he responded, “I’m always making music. I make music every day of my life. I can’t stop making music.”

Mintz says at the time he thought to himself, “What would have happened if John [took] the bait and said, ‘I got a couple of guitars in the other room. What if I bring them out just for the hell of it?’ And the two of them could’ve sat in the living room and changed the face of contemporary music.”

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Back in 2011, Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page and Jake Holmes, who wrote the song “Dazed and Confused” in 1967, settled a copyright infringement lawsuit that would lead to Zeppelin’s rendition of the song being credited as “written Jimmy Page, inspired by Jake Holmes.”  However, due to events including the release of the film Becoming Led Zeppelin, Holmes sued Page again earlier this year — and that case has now been settled too.

After Holmes wrote the song, Page’s previous band The Yardbirds recorded it, and then Page reworked it for Led Zeppelin in 1969. Holmes’ new complaint, obtained by ABC News, asserted that in the past three years, Page released numerous Yardbirds recordings that featured them performing “Dazed and Confused,” and those recordings falsely attributed authorship of the song to Page. As per the original settlement, though, the version that The Yardbirds recorded had always been credited to Holmes.

Plus, there were two performances of “Dazed and Confused” in the Becoming Led Zeppelin documentary, one by The Yardbirds. Once again, Holmes contended, that rendition was incorrectly credited to Page, not him.

On Friday, Holmes filed a notification that “a settlement has been reached that resolves the entire case.” The details of the settlement were not stipulated.

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A new Las Vegas residency isn’t the only thing that Def Leppard has planned for 2026.

The band tells USA Today that they’re working on a new album for release next year. It’ll be their first new studio album since 2022’s Diamond Star Halos. And like that record, they’re working on the new album remotely, rather than all the members together in a studio. 

“We’re blessed that technology has allowed us to do this,” singer Joe Elliott tells USA Today. “We get together metaphorically rather than physically and do Zoom meetings all the time. This way five people can work on the same song at the same time and it adds excitement to the flavors of what you’re doing. Laptops have become Abbey Road.”

Elliott added that there’s “plenty of stuff” completed for the new album, and that they just need to figure out which songs will make the final cut and in what order.

Meanwhile, the band is currently on tour. When they wrap up their dates in October, they’ll start preparing for Def Leppard: Live at Caesars Palace The Las Vegas Residency. The 12-show run is scheduled for Feb. 3, 2026, to Feb. 28, 2026, at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace. 

Elliott, who’s spent 48 years with Def Leppard, tells USA Today, “Health allowing, we’ll keep going until we feel we can’t anymore.”

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Ouch! Steve Nicks has been sidelined by an injury and is postponing her August and September concerts.

A note on her Instagram says that Stevie requires “recovery time” from “a recent injury resulting in a fractured shoulder.” The Rock & Roll Hall of Famer notes that her October dates will be unaffected and her schedule will resume Oct. 1 in Portland, Oregon.

“Stevie looks forward to seeing everyone soon and apologizes to the fans for this inconvenience,” the note concludes. Ticketholders are advised to hold onto their tickets for the rescheduled shows; you can get more info at the point of purchase.

Stevie’s rescheduled dates, all of which are listed on her Instagram, start Oct. 28 in Detroit and run through Dec. 10 in Hollywood, Florida. Visit StevieNicksOfficial.com for more info.

Many of these concerts by Stevie were announced in June to fill in the gaps in her schedule after the cancellation of her joint stadium dates with Billy Joel. The two were scheduled to play four shows together in New Jersey, California and Michigan, but following Billy’s brain disorder diagnosis, those concerts were scrapped.

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Joe Walsh‘s VetsAid charity concert is returning this year for its ninth edition, and it’ll be held in a place near and dear to the guitarist’s heart: his hometown of Wichita, Kansas.

VetsAid 2025 will take place Nov. 15 at the INTRUST Bank Arena. The lineup includes country star and Eagles touring member Vince Gill; Ryan Bingham and The Texas Gentlemen; and a “super-set” from Walsh, joined by Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks of the Tedeschi Trucks Band, Nathaniel Rateliff and more.

Tickets go on sale Aug. 8 at 10 a.m. CT via selectaseat.com; the all-in price is $50. 

Walsh said in a statement, “It’s been a long-term goal of mine since we began VetsAid nearly ten years ago to bring it all home to my native Wichita to serve Kansan veterans and their families. It’s where my parents were both born and are buried, where I was born and where I will always feel a deep connection and sense of heritage and responsibility.” Walsh is a Gold Star son whose father died while stationed on active duty on Okinawa.

The proceeds from the concert will go to veterans services charities based in Kansas or with operations on the ground in Kansas; grant applications are open now via vetsaid.org/grants.

The first VetsAid took place in 2017 in Fairfax, Virginia. Over the years, VetsAid has disbursed more than $4 million in grants.

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If you piled it all up, the amount of marijuana smoked at Grateful Dead and Dead & Company concerts over the years would probably reach from here to the moon. But Deadheads will be indulging legally for the upcoming anniversary shows.

Three Dead & Company shows are taking place at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park from Aug. 1 to Aug. 3 in celebration of 60 years of the Grateful Dead’s music. And Pollstar reports that for the first time ever at a Dead & Company show, cannabis will be sold legally. That’s due to Grass Lands, an on-site marijuana consumption area that was first introduced at the Outside Lands festival in 2018. Grass Lands will be present at the shows, offering products from a variety of growers, many of them local. 

But weed won’t be the only organic material on offer during the shows. The Jerry Garcia Foundation will set up a tent in Participation Row, a charity tent village at the concerts, to distribute free organic and non-GMA sunflower seed packets to concertgoers to “promote pollinator preservation.”

In a statement, Garcia’s wife, Manasha Garcia, said, “Jerry advocated for the preservation of the environment. We hope sharing organic seeds inspires others to plant gardens that are beneficial to butterfly and bee populations.”

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Billy Joel‘s two-part HBO documentary, And So It Goes, is inspiring fans to check out his back catalog — and that’s sending his albums back onto the charts.

Billboard reports that according to new Luminate data, Billy experienced an 80% jump in traditional album sales and a 356% increase in digital song downloads. His catalog streams also increased by 16%.
 

What this means is that Billy’s Greatest Hits Vol. I & II has reentered the Billboard 200 for the first time since 2016. It’s now at #145, which is the highest it’s been since 1986. His album The Stranger is now at #167, which is its highest ranking since 1980.

Meanwhile, Billy’s most-streamed song of the week is “Piano Man,” followed by “She’s Always a Woman.”

It should be noted those numbers only reflect the activity following the first part of the documentary, which debuted on July 18. The second part aired July 25, and Billboard reports that between July 25 and 28, streams were up 17%. 

The full Billboard charts will be updated next week to reflect the impact of both parts of the documentary.

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If you’re an Alice Cooper fan, you know that the Rock & Roll Hall of Famer is really into playing golf and has hosted a charity golf tournament for the past 27 years. But in a new interview, Alice says he only got into the sport because he needed something to distract him from his substance abuse.

Speaking to the Scott Mills Breakfast Show on BBC Radio 2, Alice explained, “I had to find an addiction that wasn’t gonna kill me because all my other ones were killing me. And I lived in Arizona, so I went, ‘Well, there’s 130 courses in Phoenix — I’ll try that.'”

“And I got addicted immediately,” he continued. “I hit two good shots and I went, ‘OK, I’m here.’ I play every morning.”

Asked if he plays with his “rock friends,” Alice dished, “Some of the guys can play. A lot of the guys really shouldn’t be on the golf course at all. You know, Meat Loaf should never have been on a golf course.” He added that Eddie Van Halen wasn’t exactly a whiz on the links either.

“So you played golf with Eddie Van Halen and Meat Loaf?” the deejay asked.

“Well, I played golf,” quipped Alice.

Alice and his original Alice Cooper Group recently released their first new album in over 50 years, The Revenge Of Alice Cooper.

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