Classic Rock News

Bonnie Raitt is set to headline the 2025 edition of MerleFest, which runs April 24-27 on the campus of Wilkes Community College in Wilkesboro, North Carolina. 

Raitt is set to headline on April 25, with The Avett Brothers and The Dead South also booked to headline. The lineup also includes The War and Treaty, Sam Bush and Asleep at the Wheel.

MerleFest was founded in 1988 by the late Grammy Award-winning musician Doc Watson, in memory of his son, musician Eddy Merle Watson, who died in 1985 at the age of 36. The festival serves as a fundraiser for Wilkes Community College.

Artists who performed at previous editions of MerleFest include Willie Nelson, Elvis Costello, The Doobie Brothers, Robert Plant, John Prine and Dolly Parton.

Tickets and festival information can be found at merlefest.org.

Next up for Raitt, she’ll play Charleston, West Virginia, on Wednesday. A complete list of dates can be found at bonnieraitt.com.

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HBO has unveiled the first trailer for a new documentary about everyone’s favorite easy listening music – yacht rock. 

Music Box: Yacht Rock: A Documentary is set to debut Nov. 29 at 9 p.m. ET, and the trailer features interviews with such yacht rock staples as The Doobie Brothers’ Michael McDonald, Christopher Cross, Kenny Loggins and Toto’s Steve Lukather, as well as Questlove, Fred Armisen and others.

In the clip, Questlove describes yacht rock as “perfect sitting down dancing music,” with Armisen noting, “The singers all seem to be saying, ‘Hey, it’s going to be OK.’” 

“These artists provided the soundtrack to our lives, and suddenly all that changed,” Questlove says, before Cross and McDonald discuss the fall in popularity of their music due to the video age.

“I expected to be totally forgotten by the end of the ’80s,” McDonald shares. 

It then delves into the resurgence, thanks to a 2005 online comedy series called Yacht Rock, which followed the lives of fictionalized soft rock stars. 

“I always thought it was kinda flattering to be made fun of,” McDonald says, with Loggins adding, “I began to see that it was a kind of a** backwards way to honor us.” 

“Obviously it made an impression on somebody,” McDonald concludes.

(Video includes uncensored profanity.)

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Sammy Hagar is teasing fans with some big news. 

The rocker just shared videos on social media of him and Van Halen bassist Michael Anthony in the studio, adding the caption, “Big announcement coming up next week. The best of all worlds band We are up to something.”

The post included #newmusic, and in the clips you can hear what is likely a new song. In one, Anthony is playing bass, while you can hear Hagar singing “thank you” in the background. In a second clip, Anthony appears to be recording backing vocals.

And it may be more than just music. The post also included #moreshows, suggesting another leg of the tour is happening. Hagar tagged Anthony, Joe Satriani and drummer Kenny Arnoff, who filled in for Jason Bonham during part of the last trek, in the post.

Hagar recently told ABC Audio that he had planned to make new music with his The Best of All Worlds tour band and had even written a song with guitarist Satriani already. He also mentioned that he hoped to do another leg of the tour.

Hagar launched the Best of All Worlds tour back in July, with a set filled with Van Halen classics and solo tracks.

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On This Day, Nov. 13, 2016 …

Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Leon Russell died in his sleep at age 74.

His songs, including “Superstar,” “A Song for You,” “Delta Lady” and “This Masquerade,” were big hits for other artists, and he worked with everyone from Bob Dylan and Joe Cocker to George Harrison and The Rolling Stones.

In 2010, Elton John, who called Russell a “mentor,” helped revive Russell’s career with their joint album, The Union, which earned a Grammy nomination for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals for the song “If It Wasn’t for Bad.”

In 2011, Russell was inducted into both the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. “A Song For You” was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2018.

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“Do They Know It’s Christmas?,” the song that invented the concept of the all-star charity record, is celebrating its 40th anniversary. The occasion will be marked with a special new version of the song, featuring vocals from the artists who’ve sung on different versions of the song over the years mashed together.

The original “Do They Know It’s Christmas?,” spearheaded by Bob Geldof, was released in 1984 and credited to Band Aid, a collection of U.K. stars that included U2‘s Bono and Adam Clayton, Sting, Phil Collins, Duran Duran, Paul Young and dozens more. The song was later revived in 1989, 2004 and 2014, each time with the artists who were popular at that moment.

According to the BBC, the 40th anniversary “ultimate mix” will be released Nov. 25, and a new video will be released featuring archival footage of the late David Bowie introducing the singers. The song will be part of a compilation album due out Nov. 29. 

The BBC reports that voices appearing on the new version will include Sting, Bono, Boy George, Sam Smith, Coldplay’s Chris Martin, Harry Styles, Ed Sheeran, the late George Michael and the late Sinéad O’Connor, singing to music recorded over the years by Paul McCartney, Collins, members of Radiohead, Blur and more.

“Do They Know It’s Christmas?” raised millions for famine relief in Ethiopia and led to the 1985 all-star benefit concert Live Aid. Over the last 40 years, the Band Aid Charitable Trust has raised nearly $180 million for that cause and others.

The original version of “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” was the bestselling single in U.K. history until it was eclipsed by Elton John‘s Princess Diana tribute, “Candle in the Wind ’97.”

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Elton John can afford to eat at any restaurant in the world, but there’s one course he can’t eat: dessert. That’s why he says if he was on death row, his final meal would contain nothing but dessert.

Elton and his husband, David Furnish, are the guests on the latest episode of the podcast Ruthie’s Table 4, hosted by British chef Ruth Rogers of London’s Michelin-starred restaurant The River Cafe. During their discussion, Elton reveals that he’s “semi-diabetic,” so he’s sworn off sugar completely — he hasn’t eaten it “for a long time,” he says.

“What I crave is chocolate and ice cream, I can’t have any ice cream,” Elton says. “I love ice cream.” All that he’s allowed, he says, is “an apple” or “a bit of melon.”

As a result, Elton says, “If I had a death row meal, it wouldn’t contain anything except sweets, because I can’t eat them now. So I’d have ice cream, doughnuts, apple pie, rhubarb crumble, blah blah blah.”

Elton and David also talked about their first date, which involved food. A lot of food.

The two initially met at a dinner party at Elton’s house — he was a friend of a friend, David says. Elton asked for his number that night, called him the next day and invited him over for a dinner of takeout Chinese food.

“I arrived at the house and there’s four giant cardboard boxes on the kitchen counter and the table is set for two,” David recalls. “I said, ‘Who else is coming? What’s all this food for?’ Elton didn’t know what I like, so he ordered the entire menu.”

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Rush’s Alex Lifeson is launching yet another new guitar. The rocker’s company Lerxst has just revealed the new Grace limited-edition signature guitar, made in partnership with Canadian manufacturers Godin Guitars.

The new axe is inspired by Lifeson’s Hentor Sportscaster guitar that he used in 1984 while recording and touring behind Rush’s 10th studio album, Grace Under Pressure. Like the original, Grace is red with a mirror pickguard.

This is the second guitar launched by Lerxst. The first, the Limelight guitar, was inspired by the Hentor Sportscaster that Lifeson used before recording Rush’s 1981 album, Moving Pictures.

“We were blown away by the positive feedback we got from the release of Limelight earlier this year and knew that we wanted to do another one,” Lifeson shares. “With Grace, we wanted to pay tribute to the 40th Anniversary of Grace Under Pressure by building off of my favorite guitar from that period and – much like Limelight – evolving the concept to create an instrument with a sound and playability that would speak to modern players.”

He adds, “It’s a beautiful instrument that suits many different styles of playing and the mirrored pickguard comes in handy for late night sessions when you need, um, to check, ah, your hair or something.”

More information on the Lerxst Grace can be found at the official Lerxst Reverb Shop.

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U2’s Larry Mullen Jr. has teamed with pop star GAYLE, best known for the tune “abcdefu,” on a new song, “Between the Lines,” which they co-wrote for the new movie Left Behind, Billboard reports.

The film tells the story of the New York City mothers who fought to open the city’s first public school for dyslexic children; it’s personal to both artists, as GAYLE and Mullen’s son both have dyslexia.

“I was really anxious that when I agreed to do [the song] that somebody who actually had dyslexia was involved and they would do the lyrics,” Mullen tells Billboard. “It was just completely fortuitous and luck that myself and GAYLE kind of fell into each other.”

Mullen, who is one of the film’s producers, said creating the song with his two co-writers and GAYLE was “a collide of cultures, two different eras coming together. And the collision is kind of a beautiful one despite the musical differences.”

Mullen only recently returned to music, having been sidelined by neck surgery that caused him to sit out U2’s residency at Sphere Las Vegas.

“It was great to be able to do this track because I could play on it, whereas six months ago, I couldn’t,” he said.

Left Behind will premiere Jan. 17 in New York City.

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The Experience Hendrix Tour, celebrating the music of the legendary Jimi Hendrix, has announced new dates for 2025.

The trek, which returned in 2024 for the first time in five years, features an all-star lineup that includes guitarists Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Zakk Wylde and Eric Johnson, along with Devon Allman, Samantha Fish, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram and Marcus King, who’s joining the tour for the first time.

The 2025 tour is set to kick off March 11 in Cincinnati, hitting such cities as Milwaukee, Chicago, Detroit and Washington, D.C., before wrapping April 12 in Atlanta.

“It’s a beautiful and powerful phenomenon to witness!” Janie Hendrix, president and CEO of Experience Hendrix and co-founder of the tour, says. “We have all of these incredibly talented musicians, each with their own special vibe, coming together in celebration of Jimi and his music.”

She adds, “You can feel the energy and the love being poured out on stage and every audience adds to the electricity! It’s amazing!”

The lineup for each Experience Hendrix show varies depending on the city. A complete schedule, with lineups and ticket information, can be found at experiencehendrixtour.com.

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Lynyrd Skynyrd is set to play several dates on the 2025 Rock the Country touring festival, which will be headlined by Kid Rock and Nickelback. 

Skynyrd is confirmed for five festival dates: April 5 in Livingston, Louisiana; April 26 in Knoxville, Tennessee; May 3 in Poplar Bluff, Montana; May 31 in York, Pennsylvania; and June 14 in Hastings, Michigan.

Depending on the day, the bill will also feature artists including 3 Doors Down, Travis Tritt, Hank Williams Jr., Staind‘s Aaron Lewis and Lee Greenwood.

Tickets go on sale Friday, and presales are open now. For more info, visit RocktheCountry.com.

Next up, Lynyrd Skynyrd is set to play the Rock N’ Support hurricane relief concert in Palmetto, Florida, on Nov. 15, with special guest Marcus King. A complete list of Skynyrd dates can be found at lynyrdskynyrd.com.

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