Classic Rock News

Billy Joel has canceled all scheduled concert dates after revealing he was recently diagnosed with a health condition.

In a statement posted to his social media Friday, the singer shared he has been dealing with normal pressure hydrocephalus (NPH), a disorder where fluid builds up in the brain.

“This condition has been exacerbated by recent concert performances, leading to problems with hearing, vision, and balance,” the statement reads.

The post goes on to say that on doctor’s orders, Billy will be refraining from performing while he undergoes physical therapy. It adds that Billy “looks forward to the day when he can once again take the stage.”

“I’m sincerely sorry to disappoint our audience, and thank you for understanding,” Billy, 76, says in a statement.

Fans will receive an automatic refund for all canceled dates, which span through 2026. 

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Neil Young has shared the title track off his upcoming album, Talkin to the Trees, recorded with his Chrome Hearts band.

You can listen to the song now via digital outlets. The album, which also includes the previously released cuts “big change” and “Lets Roll Again,” is due out June 13.

Chrome Hearts consists of organist Spooner Oldham, guitarist Micah Nelson, bassist Corey McCormick and drummer Anthony LoGerfo.

Young will take the Chrome Hearts out on the road for a U.S. tour beginning in August.

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

There definitely was a reason to get excited during Bob Dylan‘s latest performance on Willie Nelson‘s Outlaw Music Festival tour.

During Thursday’s show in Spokane, Washington, Dylan was joined onstage by acclaimed bluegrass musician and fellow Outlaw performer Billy Strings for a rendition of “All Along the Watchtower.”

As seen in fan-shot footage, Dylan sang the track from behind a piano while Strings strummed and picked an acoustic guitar in his virtuosic style.

Dylan’s previous Outlaw sets have included the first performance of “Mr. Tambourine Man” in 15 years, and the live debut of covers of The Pogues‘ “A Rainy Night in Soho” and Ricky Nelson‘s “Garden Party.”

The Outlaw Music Festival continues Saturday in Ridgefield, Washington.

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Along with hearing Tony Iommi play on a song with English pop star Robbie Williams, you can now watch him do that, too.

Williams has premiered the video for “Rocket,” his collaborative single with the Black Sabbath guitarist. Iommi pops up in the clip while rocking the track’s guitar riff and standing back-to-back with Williams on the streets of England.

“Rocket” the song dropped on Wednesday. It will appear on Williams’ upcoming album, Britpop, due out in the fall.

Iommi, meanwhile, is prepping for the Black Sabbath reunion/farewell show in July, which will see him performing alongside fellow original members Ozzy Osbourne, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward for the final time. The stacked bill also includes an Ozzy solo performance, plus Metallica, Guns N’ Roses, Tool and Slayer.

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

On This Day, May 23, 2024 …

Bruce Springsteen was celebrated in London as he was honored as an Academy Fellow of The Ivors Academy.

He was the first international songwriter to receive the honor by the U.K. organization, which presents The Ivor Novello Awards, celebrating excellence in British and Irish songwriting. 

Paul McCartney, an Academy Fellow himself, was on hand to give Springsteen his honor. During his speech, The Boss recalled his early shows in London.

U2 was just honored as the 2025 Academy Fellow of The Ivors Academy. They became the first-ever Irish songwriters to earn a fellowship.

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

It’s been eight years since the last U2 album, but Bono and the boys are back.

The BBC reports that backstage at The Ivors ceremony in London on Thursday, where the band was given a prestigious fellowship of The Ivors Academy, they said they were in the studio making new music, complete with drummer Larry Mullen Jr. He’d been sidelined due to a neck surgery and was absent from U2’s residency shows at Sphere Las Vegas.

“It was difficult being away because of injury,” Mullen said. “So I’m thrilled to be back in a creative environment, even if I’m not 100% there and I’ve got some bits falling off.”

He added, “When I was away from the band, I missed it, but I didn’t realize how much I missed it.”

The band’s most recent projects have looked to their back catalog — playing Achtung Baby at the Sphere, rerecording their catalog acoustically on the Songs of Surrender album and reimagining How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. But as Bono said Thursday, “You do that because you need to understand where that desire to be heard came from.”

Now, however, “The sound of the future is what we’re most interested in. It doesn’t exist yet. It’s ours to make, and that’s what we have the chance to do.”

According to the BBC, Bono said U2’s latest songwriting sessions consisted of “just the four of us in a room, trying a new song and going, ‘What’s that feeling? Oh right, that’s chemistry.'”

“We’ve had it over the years but you lose it sometimes,” he added. “But isn’t it strange that it’s just got to the moment when just bass, drums, guitar and a loudmouth singer sounds like an original idea? That’s where we’re at in 2025.”

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Heart returned to the road earlier this year with their Royal Flush tour, and fans who caught their show saw a set that was filled with more than just Heart classics.

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame band is known to cover Led Zeppelin in concert, and Nancy Wilson says there’s a good reason they include those songs in the set.

“We’re kind of built to play Zeppelin,” she tells ABC Audio, “because Zeppelin was another rock band who had the capability and the diversity enough to go all the way acoustic or big, loud electric.”

Nancy says it’s “hard for us not to do at least two Zeppelin” songs each show, noting they’ve covered such classics as “Going to California,” “Battle of Evermore” and “Stairway to Heaven” in the past.

“It’s kind of a variety show, you know, our show, we cover lots of bases,” she says. “It’s hard to get Zeppelin out of Heart. You know, we can’t ever not do Zeppelin somehow. … It’s just too much fun to not do it.” 

Fans will be able to catch Heart playing those Zeppelin tunes, as well as their hits like “Barracuda,” “Magic Man” and “Crazy on You,” when Heart launches the next leg of their An Evening With Heart tour on May 31 in Atlantic City, New Jersey. A complete list of Heart shows can be found at heart-music.com.

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Deadline reported in March that pop star Lizzo would star as rock ‘n’ roll pioneer Sister Rosetta Tharpe in an upcoming biopic. But now, news comes that Mick Jagger, in partnership with Live Nation Productions among others, is producing a feature film on Tharpe. This film appears to have no connection to the Lizzo project.

Oscar-nominated actress Aunjanue [ingenue] Ellis-Taylor has been tapped to write the movie, which has been granted the rights to Tharpe’s music by the late singer’s estate, according to Deadline. The producers have also secured the rights to the definitive biography of Tharpe, who died in 1973. A companion documentary is also planned.

In a statement, Jagger says he’s “so thrilled to be a part” of telling the story of the “trailblazing singer and electrifying guitarist,” adding that she “reshaped music history and influenced countless artists.”

Tharpe was a queer Black gospel singer, songwriter and guitarist who made a huge impact on early rock ‘n’ roll artists like Chuck Berry, Little Richard and Elvis Presley. Her electric guitar playing, in particular, influenced artists like Eric Clapton, Bonnie Raitt and Jagger’s Rolling Stones bandmate Keith Richards. Known as the Godmother of Rock and Roll, she was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2018.

As for the Lizzo project, it’s being developed and produced by an entirely different team and will focus on one event in Tharpe’s life: when she married her manager in front of 25,000 paying customers at a Washington, D.C., stadium in 1951 and then performed. The event has been described as “the first stadium show.”

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Here’s a sentence you probably never thought you’d read: A bar in Toms River, New Jersey, won’t allow a Bruce Springsteen cover band to perform there. And the reason has nothing to do with the actual band.

According to NJ.com, Riv’s Toms River Hub had booked a Springsteen cover band called No Surrender to perform on May 30. However, after Springsteen made headlines by criticizing President Donald Trump‘s administration from the stage in Manchester, England, bandleader Brad Hobicorn got a text from the bar owner, Tony Rivoli, telling him the gig was canceled.

According to Hobicorn, Rivoli told him it was “too risky at the moment” to have them play, because his customers are conservative. When Hobicorn offered to simply play classic rock songs, Rivoli said he wouldn’t pay them their fee for that.

“Unfortunately it’s just too much money,” Rivoli texted Hobicorn. “We would have done well but now because Bruce can’t keep his mouth shut we’re screwed.”

In a separate message to bass player Guy Fleming, Rivoli wrote, “Whenever the national anthem plays, my bar stands and is in total silence, that’s our clientele. Toms River is red and won’t stand for his bulls***.”

Hobicorn said that after Fleming revealed what happened in a Facebook post, Rivoli reached out and denied he’d canceled the gig. But the band decided not to play due to safety concerns and the “negative vibes.”

“This is not political for us at all,” Hobicorn said Thursday. “We’re just a cover band that’s trying to make some money and people rely on it financially. We’re the ones really getting hurt.”

Rivoli told NJ.com that he would have let the band play, adding, “I think a lot of people of my base would not have came, but I could have been wrong.”

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Elton John‘s career might have been very different if he hadn’t met Bernie Taupin way back in 1967, so it’s no wonder he wished his songwriting partner a happy milestone birthday on Thursday.

Elton, 78, posted a photo of him and Bernie sitting together in the ’70s. “Happy 75th Brithday, Bernie!” he wrote. “Over 50 years of friendship and we’re still going strong. Forever grateful to be creating and collaborating with you. Love you!”

Elton and Bernie’s most recent collaboration is Who Believes In Angels?, the album they teamed up with Brandi Carlile and producer Andrew Watt to make. And, of course, Bernie wrote the lyrics to all of Elton’s biggest and most beloved hits, from “Rocket Man” and “I’m Still Standing” to “Your Song,” “Tiny Dancer” and “Candle in the Wind.”

Bernie documented his life and career, including his partnership with Elton, in his 2023 memoir, Scattershot. In 2023, Elton inducted Bernie into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. In 2024, it was announced that a documentary about Taupin is in the works, featuring interviews with the likes of Ringo Starr, Annie Lennox and The Who‘s Pete Townshend.

Copyright © 2025, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.