Classic Rock News

Before the new year, Elton John told ABC’s Good Morning America that he wasn’t sure about the status of new music because of his eyesight issues. But it seems he’s not going to let that problem stand in his way.

Speaking to Deadline, Elton says, “Yep. I still love playing the piano. That’s going to happen and I’m waiting to get back in the studio. I can’t wait to release new stuff. So yeah, all is good. I’m raring to go.”

For now, though, Elton’s happy about his duet with Brandi Carlile “Never Too Late,” from his Disney+ documentary of the same name. The song has made the Oscars short list for best original song, and he says if it is nominated, he’ll definitely perform it at the ceremony on ABC March 2.

“It’ll be the first time I’ve ever played it live, so it’ll be great,” he says.

But in addition to another Oscar nomination — if he receives a nod, it’ll be his fourth — Elton says he’s looking forward to some other projects, as well as getting his “eyesight a little better.”

“We have some irons in the fire that’s pretty lucky,” he teased. “And I can’t reveal them yet, but they will be revealed soon.”

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Heart‘s Nancy Wilson had quite a reaction to Led Zeppelin the first time she and her sister and bandmate, Ann Wilson, saw the band in concert.

While speaking to Premiere Guitar for the Jimmy Page episode of their 100 Guitarists podcast, Nancy shares that in May 1969 they went to see Fifth Dimension at the Green Lake Aqua Theater in Seattle, where Led Zeppelin was the opening act. They actually walked out because they thought frontman Robert Plant was being too racy.

“We were like, ‘Oh my God, the singer, he’s so suggestive,’” she said. “He’s got his shirt wide open, he’s got his bare chest and his jeans were really low riders and he was moving in this way that was so super-suggestive and we were kind of, like, shocked.” 

She adds, “We were in a little folk band at the time, so we were from the suburbs, right. So we were kind of square, square little hippie chicks to be unenlightened, let’s just say. And so, we were like, ‘Oh, they’re so lewd. They’re just being so suggestive and lewd.'” 

But what put it over the top was Zeppelin’s performance of “The Lemon Song,” a track that appeared on their album Led Zeppelin II.

“Then he sang about, like, ‘squeeze my lemon’ and we’re like, ‘Oh, we must leave, we must leave the premises’ because we were just shocked,” she said. “We were scandalized, and we had seen enough and we walked away.”

Their thoughts on Led Zeppelin apparently changed at some point. In fact, Ann and Nancy paid tribute to Led Zeppelin when they received the Kennedy Center Honors in 2012, performing the classic “Stairway to Heaven,” which featured Jason Bonham, son of Led Zeppelin’s late drummer John Bonham. The performance earned a standing ovation from Plant and later went viral on YouTube.

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Actor Michael Shannon and musician Jason Narducy will hit the road in February for a tour where they’ll be performing songs from R.E.M.’s 1985 album Fables of the Reconstruction, and folks just got a taste of what to expect. 

The musicians appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon Wednesday, where they performed the R.E.M. classic “Driver 8.”

The tour kicks off Feb. 14 in Pioneertown, California, with stops in Los Angeles, Seattle, Boston, New York and more before wrapping March 14 in Chicago. 

This isn’t the first time the pair have launched a tour celebrating the 40th anniversary of an R.E.M. album. They previously went on the road in honor of the 40th anniversary of R.E.M.’s debut album, Murmur.

The latest tour includes two shows, Feb. 27 and Feb. 28, in R.E.M.’s home city of Athens, Georgia. During Shannon and Narducy’s Murmur tour, all four members of R.E.M. — Michael Stipe, Mike Mills, Bill Berry and Peter Buck — made a surprise appearance at the Athens show, although Stipe did not perform.

In other R.E.M. news … Buck is set to join Drivin N Cryin frontman Kevin Kinney for four shows in January. The shows kick off Jan. 28 in Atlanta and include stops in Chattanooga and Athens, before wrapping Jan. 31 in Ellijay.
 

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On This Day, Jan. 9, 1944 …

James Patrick Page, better known as Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page, was born in Heston, a suburb of London.

Page started his career as a studio musician and was a member of The Yardbirds before forming Led Zeppelin in 1968 with Robert Plant, John Paul Jones and John Bonham.

The band went on to become one of the bestselling acts in music history, releasing nine studio albums that all reached the top 10, with six hitting #1. 

Led Zeppelin called it quits in 1980 following Bonham’s death, although the surviving members would reunite in 1985 to perform at Live Aid in Philadelphia and again in 1988 for the Atlantic Records 40th anniversary concert in New York, with Bonham’s son, Jason Bonham, behind the drum kit. They reunited for a final time in 2007 at the Ahmet Ertegun Tribute Concert at London’s O2 Arena, again with Jason.

Outside of Led Zeppelin, Page and Plant worked together in the band the Honeydrippers and performed together as Page-Plant in the early to mid-’90s. Page also collaborated with several other artists, including David Coverdale and The Black Crowes.

Page was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Led Zeppelin in 1995. In 2005 he was appointed Order of the British Empire and earned a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award with Led Zeppelin.

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A singer covering a Green Day song at an England venue found himself performing in front of Billie Joe Armstrong himself.

The “American Idiot” rocker stopped by the Cavern Club in Liverpool, which is famous for hosting The Beatles back in the day, and caught a set by resident artist Callum McMorran, who just happened to be putting a spin on Green Day’s “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life).”

The Cavern Club posted footage of the moment on Instagram, adding in the caption, “Imagine performing a @greenday song to Billie Joe Armstrong… Well our resident @callummcmorran got to on The Cavern Club front stage.”

Armstrong has an England gig of his own coming up Jan. 15 in London, which he’s playing with his side project The Coverups.

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Back in 1990, Billy Joel staged the first rock concerts ever held at New York’s Yankee Stadium. Now he’s coming back, and he’s bringing Rod Stewart with him.

Billy has announced that he and Rod will play a one-night-only show at the iconic New York venue on July 18. A Citi cardmember presale starts Jan. 13 at 10 a.m. ET. The general sale begins Jan. 17 at 10 a.m. ET.

During his residency at Madison Square Garden, which ended last year, Billy generally avoided performing at other venues in the New York-New Jersey area, but now all bets are off. He’s also going to perform at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, on Aug. 8 with Stevie Nicks.

Billy and Stevie began performing shows together in 2023. Last year, he added Sting and Rod to his list of co-headliners for stadium dates.

Billy’s next show is Jan. 17 in Hollywood, Florida, solo. On Feb. 8, he and Sting will perform in Indianapolis.

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Succession’s Jeremy Strong is set to play Bruce Springsteen’s manager Jon Landau in the upcoming movie Deliver Me From Nowhere, and he tells Deadline working on the film has “been one of the greatest working experiences I’ve ever had.”

“(Landau) has a lot to do with who Bruce is, his spirit and the kind of concentric, uplifting circles that emanate from the core of his being,” Strong says of Landau. “I like to do a deep dive playing these characters, and I’ve had a lot of access in this case to them.” 

The Bear‘s Jeremy Allen White plays Bruce in the film, and Strong says both the rock star and Landau have been very helpful to them in the process. “The more I’ve learned about them and witnessed them together, it really is a love story in a sense between these two men,” he says.

“It’s just been a beautiful thing to see and to have them on set, capturing it with them and weaving together the tapestry,” Strong shares. “Bruce and Jon will feed me stories, anecdotes, memories, thoughts, feelings that have all made their way into the film that we’re making.”

“But honestly, man, if you’re a Bruce person as I am now more than ever, just being in the orbit and telling the story about Nebraska … it’s really a story about artistic authenticity in an increasingly synthetic world,” he adds.

Deliver Me From Nowhere, directed by Scott Cooper, follows Springsteen’s efforts to make his 1982 solo album Nebraska. The film is based on Warren Zanes‘ book Deliver Me from Nowhere: The Making of Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska.

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Former Yes frontman Jon Anderson will once again be hitting the road with the cover group The Band Geeks.

The rocker just announced new tour dates for 2025, with the trek consisting of 18 shows that kick off April 1 in Tucson, Arizona, and wrap May 18 in Carteret, New Jersey. 

The show will feature Anderson performing songs from throughout his career, including tracks from the Yes catalog, along with songs from his first album with The Band Geeks, True, which was released in August. 

Ahead of the tour, Anderson and The Band Geeks will release a new live album and DVD, Jon Anderson and The Band Geeks Live – Perpetual Change, a recording of their concert at the Arcada Theater in St. Charles, Illinois, which took place during their 2023 summer tour. It comes out March 14 and is available for preorder now. 

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Gene Simmons has added a handful of new dates to his U.S. tour with his Gene Simmons Band.

In addition to his previously announced shows, which start in April in California and run through May in Houston, the God of Thunder will perform April 3 in Anaheim, California, April 8 in Auburn, Washington, April 10 in Magna, Utah, and May 18 in Rockford, Illinois.  

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

Following KISS’ final show at New York’s Madison Square Garden last December, Simmons’ first solo show was in April 2024 at the grand opening of the Rock & Brews Restaurant and Concert Bar in Ridgefield, Washington. He and his band then went on to play shows in Brazil and Europe.

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Variety has put together its annual list of the 500 biggest names in showbiz over the past year, and Elton John has made the cut.

The Rock & Roll Hall of Famer is recognized in the Talent category of the Variety500, which was released ahead of the publication’s annual Entertainment Summit on Jan. 8. According to the trade, the list recognizes the year’s “leaders, movers and shakers” in the entertainment world. 

Elton is singled out for all the recent highlights of his career, including the 2024 release of the documentary Elton John: Never Too Late, the 2023 conclusion of his Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour and the livestream of the final show on Disney+, Elton John Live: Farewell From Dodger Stadium, which earned him an Emmy, making him an EGOT winner. 

Other musicians making the Talent list this year include Taylor Swift, Harry Styles, Ariana Grande, Selena Gomez, Rihanna and Beyoncé. 

The rest of the 500 names are in TV, film, gaming, production, digital media, marketing, podcasting and other entertainment-related disciplines.

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