Classic Rock News

Legendary soul singer Al Green is back with a new song, dropping a cover of the R.E.M. classic “Everybody Hurts.”

“While we were in the studio recording ‘Everybody Hurts,’ I could really feel the heaviness of the song and I wanted to inject a little touch of hope and light into it,” the 78-year-old Green shares. “There’s always a presence of light that can break through those times of darkness.”

And the cover has already gotten the attention of R.E.M. 

“Speaking on behalf of the entire band—we could not be more honored, more flattered, more humbled,” frontman Michael Stipe shares. “This is an epic moment for us.”

Green’s cover of “Everybody Hurts” is available now via digital outlets.

The tune is the first song released by Green since sharing a cover of Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day” back in 2023.

“Everybody Hurts” appeared on R.E.M.’s eighth studio album, Automatic For The People, and was a top-40 hit for the band. 

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On This Day, Nov. 19, 1988 …

Bon Jovi topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart with “Bad Medicine,” the lead single from their fourth album, New Jersey.

The song, written by Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora and Desmond Child, was the band’s third #1 single following the Slippery When Wet tracks “You Give Love A Bad Name” and “Living On A Prayer,” which were also written by the trio. 

“Bad Medicine” spent two weeks at #1 in the U.S. and also landed in the top 10 in Australia, Canada, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands and New Zealand.

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While the upcoming Bob Dylan flick A Complete Unknown is not a straight biopic, director James Mangold says Dylan did have input in the film, although he wasn’t exactly fact-checking the project.

Mangold tells Rolling Stone that he met with the rock icon several times before filming began, noting, “I felt like Bob just wanted to know what I was up to. ‘Who is this guy? Is he a s*******? Does he get it?’ I think the normal questions anyone asks when they’re throwing themselves in league with someone.”

When it comes to the feedback he gave on the script, star Timothée Chalamet tells the mag, “Bob would have these one-off lines that were so fantastic. Jim has an annotated Bob script lying around somewhere. I’ll beg him to get my hands on it. He’ll never give it to me.”

But apparently Dylan was a bit mischievous when it came to what he wanted in the film, with Ed Norton, who plays Pete Seeger, sharing that Mangold revealed Dylan made him put what’s described as “one totally inaccurate moment” in the film, although Mangold didn’t say what it was.

According to Rolling Stone, Norton said Mangold was a bit worried about including it, concerned about how the public would feel, to which Dylan reportedly said, “What do you care what other people think?”

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The Rolling Stones have shared a new preview of their upcoming live release, Welcome to Shepherd’s Bush, dropping Dec. 6.

Welcome to Shepherd’s Bush is a recording of the band’s June 8, 1999, London club show, and they just shared a video of their performance of the Voodoo Lounge track “You Got Me Rocking.”

The Shepherd’s Bush concert was a “secret gig” The Stones headlined just a few days before they played two sold-out shows at Wembley Arena. Only 1,800 fans witnessed the concert in person, among them celebrities like The Who‘s Pete Townshend, Lenny Kravitz, Led Zeppelin‘s Jimmy Page and Robert Plant.

Welcome to Shepherd’s Bush is being released in 4K Ultra High Definition with a Dolby Atmos audio option, making it the only Stones live concert film to be available in that format. It will also be released as a Blu-ray + two-CD set; a limited-edition two-CD package; a two-LP black vinyl package; and a two-LP set in 180-gram white vinyl.

The Stones will also be celebrating the release with a world premiere Nov. 21 at Vue Leicester Square in London.

Welcome to Shepherd’s Bush is available for preorder now.

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Former J. Geils Band frontman Peter Wolf is the latest musician revealing his story on the page.

The rocker, best known for such songs as “Freeze Frame” and “Centerfold,” has written his first-ever memoir, Waiting on the Moon: Artists, Poets, Drifters Grifters and Goddesses, which will be released March 11.

According to a press release, in the book Wolf will share “a treasure trove of vignettes, musings and recollections of his fascinating life during his six decades long career,” with each chapter reading “as its own short story.” 

In addition to his early life, career and time with the J. Geils Band, the book also promises to delve into his marriage to actress Faye Dunaway in the ’70s.

Waiting on the Moon is described as “an enchanting and revealing glimpse through lyrical snapshots of artists, writers, actors, and musicians as they work—the creative forces that drive them to achievement; the demons they battle; and the patterns of their human relationships.”

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In a very full-circle moment, Billy Corgan could end up winning the handwritten lyrics to the Hole song “Violet.”

As previously reported, Courtney Love contributed the lyrics to a raffle benefiting Ellis Park, a wildlife sanctuary in Indonesia founded by Warren Ellis of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. As for why Corgan would be interested, “Violet” has long been thought to have been about Love’s relationship with the Smashing Pumpkins frontman, whom she dated in the early ’90s before she went on to marry Kurt Cobain.

“I’d like to win these lyrics because I think it’s about a guy I know a little bit about,” Corgan says in an Instagram video. “I’d love to put that on my wall.”

Love seemingly confirmed “Violet” was about Corgan when she introduced the song as being about a “jerk” during a 1995 TV performance, quipping, “I hexed him now he’s losing his hair.”

In an interview with NME 30 years later to promote the raffle, Love shared that “Violet” is “not just about Billy Corgan, as many might assume.”

“It’s about sitting on the fire escape of his flat, sipping cheap wine and taking a Vicodin (oh, to be young!) while the Chicago sun sets, leaving behind a bejewelled amethyst sky,” Love said.

Should you, like Corgan, be interested in the handwritten “Violet” lyrics, the raffle is open through Dec. 15.

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Alex Van Halen has revealed that there is indeed plenty of unreleased Van Halen music in their so-called vault, but whether the material will ever see the light of day is another story.

Alex recently sat down for an interview with Chris Jericho‘s Talk is Jericho podcast, where he shared that there are likely “three or four” albums’ worth of material — “if not more” — in the vault.

“On the one end of the spectrum is the fact that little licks don’t make a song,” he said. “On the other end of the spectrum, some of those licks are so unbelievably powerful, it’s too bad that they ended up in the back of the vault, rather than being records.”

But Alex isn’t in a hurry to release anything and wants to make sure that if he does release songs, they’re up to the standards of previous Van Halen music.

“They will stay there [in the vault] until we figure out how and why and what to do with them,” he shared. “And again, you have to remember, it has to be on the level of where Ed and I, where we used to play.”

“We’re not just gonna shovel it in. We have access to some of the greatest musicians on the planet, and a lot of ’em are more than willing to take a chance on some of the stuff,” he noted, adding “that takes time. And you wanna do it right. I wanna do it right.”
 

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Pete Townshend is opening up about his personal battles with what he describes as “chemical depression” and the unconventional way he deals with it.

In an interview with the U.K. paper The Times, The Who legend shares that he stopped going to counseling after three years, noting, “I realized that the woman counseling me had only said about three words. I was just listening to myself.”

Instead, he says he writes in his journals and “every morning I rebuild myself in a sense with tea and coffee, and a few vitamin pills.”

“When I first wake up I’m suicidal, actually suicidal,” he says, sharing that on a typical morning it takes him about 30 minutes to escape the darkness.

“I have a couple of cups of tea, two digestive biscuits (cookies)—apparently equal to 17 sugar lumps—and I feel happy,” he said. “If I start my journals before I have my cup of tea, I’ll paint a very bleak picture of my life. Despite the fact that I have everything that I want and everything that I need. … And I have had a really extraordinary life.”

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Paul McCartney wrapped the latest leg of his Got Back tour on Sunday with a performance at the Corona Capitol Festival in Mexico City, and he brought out a couple of special guests to end the evening.

Fan-shot footage posted to YouTube shows McCartney performing The Beatles track “The End” with the help of rockers Jack White and St. Vincent on guitar. Both White and St. Vincent were on the Corona Capitol bill, as well.

St. Vincent, who appeared on the remix album of McCartney’s 2021 solo release, McCartney III, also joined The Beatle earlier in the set for the classic “Get Back.”

As for the rest of the set, according to setlist.fm, as he’s done most of the tour, McCartney performed a mix of solo, Beatles and Wings classics, once again including the most recent Beatles tune, “Now and Then,” along with “Maybe I’m Amazed,” “Love Me Do,” “Blackbird,” “Jet,” “Band on the Run” and “Hey Jude.”

McCartney kicked off this latest leg of the tour in Uruguay in October. He launches a European leg on Dec. 4 in Paris, wrapping with a show Dec. 19 in London. A complete list of dates can be found at paulmccartney.com.

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 Timothée Chalamet and the cast of A Complete Unknown recently talked to Rolling Stone about the making of the Bob Dylan film, and Chalamet shared some insight into his commitment to what he calls a “role of a lifetime.”

“It was something I would go to sleep panicked about, losing a moment of discovery as the character — no matter how pretentious that sounds — because I was on my phone or because of any distraction,” he says. “I had three months of my life to play Bob Dylan, after five years of preparing to play him. So while I was in it, that was my eternal focus.” 

He adds, “He deserved that and then more … God forbid I missed a step because I was being Timmy. I could be Timmy for the rest of my life!”

Chalamet was listed as “Bob Dylan” on the film’s call sheet, and it fooled co-star Elle Fanning, who got an invite to a preproduction meeting with director James Mangold and “Bob,” thinking she was meeting the rock icon.

“I’m probably the first person in life to be let down by having a rehearsal with Timothée Chalamet, right?” she tells Rolling Stone. “Like, the first girl in history.” 

Monica Barbaro, who plays Joan Baez, said Chalamet “wasn’t so full-on” with his method acting, but she noted he was “in his own world” on set, “in a way that I think Bob often was as well.”

And Ed Norton, who plays Pete Seeger, described Chalamet’s commitment as “relentless.”

“No visitors, no friends, no reps, no nothing,” he said. “And I agreed totally — it was like, we cannot have a f****** audience for this. We’ve got to believe to the greatest degree we can. And he was right to be that protective.”

A Complete Unknown opens Dec. 25.

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