Classic Rock News

When Elton John dropped by the White House on Friday to perform at an event on the South Lawn, he was surprised by a special gift from President Biden: the National Humanities Medal.

Elton performed at A Night When Hope and History Rhyme, an event organized in collaboration with The History Channel and A+E Networks. In addition to celebrating the healing power of music, the event paid tribute to Elton’s philanthropic work, as well as his musical achievements.

“On behalf of the American people, thank you — and I sincerely mean this — for moving the soul of the nation,” the president told Elton. 

Elton entertained the crowd with favorites like “Your Song,” “Tiny Dancer,” “Rocket Man,” “I’m Still Standing,” and “Crocodile Rock,” a favorite of the Biden family.  He also spoke about his work with his Elton John AIDS Foundation, praising the American people and the U.S. government for their generosity in helping him in his fight to eradicate the disease.

But Elton was shocked when Biden and first lady Dr. Jill Biden presented him with the Medal, given to people those “activities, contributions, and achievements have significantly enriched the educational, intellectual, and cultural life of the nation.”

“I said to the First Lady, I’m never flabbergasted but I’m flabbergasted. And humbled,” said Elton. “It will make me double my efforts to make sure this disease [AIDS] goes away.”

On Instagram, he wrote, “There is so much more to be done to reach the most vulnerable communities – thank you to everyone who has joined and supported us so far on our mission to make sure no one is left behind.“

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Cars guitarist Elliot Easton and Def Leppard bassist Rick Savage are among the new additions to the lineup for Foo Fighters‘ upcoming Los Angeles-area tribute concert to late drummer Taylor Hawkins, taking place this Tuesday, September 27 at the Kia Forum.

Other artists who’ve joined the bill include Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden drummer Matt Cameron, Soundgarden guitarist Kim Thayil, Yes vocalist and Hawkins’ childhood friend Jon Davison, Tool drummer Danny Carey and The Pretty Reckless‘ Taylor Momsen.

Additionally, The Darkness frontman Justin Hawkins and pop star Kesha, who performed at the London tribute earlier this month, have been added to the LA lineup.

Previously announced participants, many of whom also played the London concert, include Led Zeppelin‘s John Paul Jones, Rush‘s Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson, Queen‘s Brian May and Roger Taylor, Def Leppard’s Joe Elliott and Phil Collen, Black Sabbath‘s Geezer Butler, The Police‘s Stewart Copeland, Heart‘s Nancy Wilson, the Joe Walsh-fronted James Gang, Joan Jett, Mötley Crüe‘s Nikki Sixx, Red Hot Chili Peppers‘ Chad Smith, Metallica‘s Lars Ulrich and Nirvana‘s Krist Novoselic.

Additionally, Dave Grohl‘s daughter Violet and Hawkins’ son Shane will perform. Foo Fighters’ performance of “My Hero” with Shane on drums was widely considered to be one of the main highlights of the six-hour London concert.

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Dave Mason has announced a fall tour, followed by the release of his autobiography in early 2023.

The Rock & Roll Hall of Famer will kick off the trek October 29 in Thousand Oaks, California, wrapping things up November 20 in Tucson, Arizona. Starting January 25, he’ll play a string of shows in Florida, which run through February 26.

“There is nothing quite like performing live. I love it!” Mason says in a statement

Also in early 2023, Mason will publish Only You Know & I Know, in which he’ll share “some of the great untold tales in rock and roll.” He’s certainly got plenty of those: In addition to being a founding member of Traffic, he has played and recorded with Jimi Hendrix, Paul McCartney, Eric Clapton, Michael Jackson, George Harrison and The Rolling Stones, and was a member of Fleetwood Mac.

Dave’s most recent album is 2020’s Alone Together…Again, a rerecorded version of his 1970 debut solo album, Alone Together.

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Dead & Company has come to the end of The Golden Road. The band took to Instagram on Friday to announce some good news and bad news: The Grateful Dead spinoff group is going to tour next summer, but that trek will be their last one.

“As we put the finishing touches on booking venues, and understanding that word travels fast, we wanted to be the first to let you know that Dead & Company will be hitting the road next summer for what will be our final tour,” reads the message on the band’s Instagram page.

“Stay tuned for a full list of dates for what will surely be an exciting, celebratory, and heartfelt last run of shows. With love and appreciation, Dead & Company.”

Dead & Company, formed in 2015, includes John Mayer, former Grateful Dead members Bob Weir, Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann, keyboardist Jeff Chimenti and bassist Otiel Burbridge. Their most recent tour was last year.

The band had previously announced plans for a 2023 edition of their Playing in the Sand destination festival, set for Moon Palace Cancún in Rivera Cancún, Mexico, from January 14 to January 17, 2023. 

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Pink Floyd has had many iconic album covers — The Dark Side of The Moon and The Wall come to mind. But the cover of its 1977 album Animals is up there: it shows London’s Battersea Power Station, with a pink pig floating between the chimneys. Now, fans are convinced the band plans to recreate the album cover to promote its newest archival release: Animals (2018 Remix), which features a 5.1 surround sound mix created in 2018.

A message posted on the band’s social media pages Friday reads, “To mark the release of Pink Floyd’s Animals 2018 Remix, London’s Battersea Power Station will be an eminently suitable canvas next Wednesday and Thursday, between 8:30pm – 11pm, with a sneak preview on Tuesday night at the same time, as a test run.”

The message is accompanied by the artwork from the release, which shows Battersea Power Station as it is today, with the iconic pig, nicknamed “Algie,” floating above it.

There’s speculation that the band plans to float an inflatable pig above the station in real life on September 27, 28 and 29, or that Pink Floyd members will make an appearance there, or both.

The deluxe box set comes out October 7, but the CD and Blu-ray versions are available now.

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The current season of Fox’s The Masked Singer marks the first time any contestant performed a song by The Beatles: It was “Love Me Do,” sung by The Hedgehog, later unmasked as Monty Python legend Eric Idle. Idle personally asked Paul McCartney for permission to sing the song, but he claims he wasn’t sure Paul would give it to him — because of something Idle did more than 40 years ago.

After his unmasking, Idle told viewers that while Paul had given him permission, he’d added, “Please tell me what show it is, so I can make sure to avoid it.” Idle tells Yahoo that Paul’s joke, and his trepidation about asking him for permission, stem from Idle’s 1978 film spoof of The Beatles — The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash.

“I have a friend who worked at Apple in London, and he said, ‘I think Paul will have forgiven you by now,'” Idle tells Yahoo. “Because, you know, I played [Paul] in The Rutles.” The portrayal wasn’t particularly flattering.

Idle says, “My wife and I bumped into him … shortly after [the movie came out], and he said, ‘Oh, I’m not sure we’re talking to you!’ Obviously, he wasn’t  quite so comfortable in those days.”

But eventually, Paul came around. He even sent out a tweet promoting The Masked Singer, writing, “I have heard whispers that a pal of mine is on America’s #TheMaskedSinger…Best of luck friend! Sing with all your heart!“

The Beatles were actually big Monty Python fans, and Idle and George Harrison were extremely close; Harrison even mortgaged his house to finance the comedy troupe’s classic film Life of Brian.

“He was a remarkable man. He really changed my life,” Idle says of Harrison, who died in 2001. “I’d never had a friend like that.”

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Black Sabbath‘s been going through “Changes” for a half-century.

The metal pioneers’ fourth album, Vol. 4, was released September 25, 1972, 50 years ago this Sunday.

Following in the footsteps of 1970’s one-two punch of Black Sabbath and Paranoid and 1971’s foundational sludge metal opus Master of Reality, Vol. 4 continued to bring the heavy with songs including “Snowblind,” a not-so-subtle reference to the band members’ drug habit.

In between Tony Iommi‘s signature chugging riffs and Ozzy Osbourne‘s demonic wail came a surprise in the form of “Changes,” a tender, introspective piano ballad. Speaking previously to ABC Audio, Iommi shared that he and his Sabbath bandmates were unconcerned with how “Changes” might be perceived.

“The first thing that it had to please was us,” Iommi sad. “We’d always done that with Sabbath music.”

“It wasn’t, ‘Is anybody gonna like it?'” he added. “We have to … start off with us first, because we’re presenting ourselves. So if we like it, then we just hope that everybody else liked it.”

Vol. 4 is now certified Platinum by the RIAA. Black Sabbath reissued the album in 2021 with 20 unreleased recordings, including outtakes, live tracks, instrumentals and alternate versions.

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If you’re a Rolling Stones fan, you’ve no doubt seen the photo of the band members in drag on the U.S. version of the single “Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadow?” Now, you can see that photo come to life: The original 1966 video for the song has been officially released.

Director Peter Whitehead created the black-and-white video using footage from the single artwork photoshoot.  All five original members of the band — Mick Jagger, Charlie Watts, Keith Richards, Bill Wyman and Brian Jones — are shown dressed as women, standing around on a New York City street. Well, everyone is standing around except for Wyman: He’s sitting in a wheelchair wearing a women’s military uniform, which includes a skirt and pumps.

The footage of the band in drag is intercut with a clip of Jagger walking through what looks like an art fair on the street, plus random shots of the other band members.

Along with that visual, the band has released a live performance video of the same song, also shot by Whitehead. That one — filmed on September 23, 1966 during a performance at London’s Royal Albert Hall –shows the band being mobbed onstage by screaming fans.

“Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadow?” was a top 10 U.S. hit in 1966.

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Ozzy Osbourne has premiered the second episode of his ongoing series, which documents the making of his new solo album, Patient Number 9.

The episode, titled “The Sabbath Connection,” focuses on Ozzy’s reunion with Black Sabbath bandmate Tony Iommi on the record. Iommi plays on two Patient Number 9 songs: “No Escape from Now” and “Degradation Rules.”

In between, a number of the other Patient Number 9 guests and collaborators — including Pearl Jam‘s Mike McCready, Guns N’ Roses‘ Duff McKagan, Metallica‘s Robert Trujillo, Black Label Society‘s Zakk Wylde, Red Hot Chili Peppers‘ Chad Smith and producer Andrew Watt — share what Black Sabbath means to them.

You can watch “The Sabbath Connection” streaming now on YouTube. The third and final episode premieres next Friday, September 30.

Patient Number 9 was released earlier this month. It also includes guest spots from Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and late Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins.

(Video contains uncensored profanity) 

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Stevie Nicks‘ new version of the 1966 Buffalo Springfield classic “For What It’s Worth (Stop, Hey, What’s that Sound)” is out now — but she says she’s wanted to record it since 1968.

Speaking to Apple Music 1’s Zane Lowe, Stevie explains that she was a fan of the song, penned by Stephen Stills, when it first came out. When she was living in San Francisco in 1968, she told herself, “I’m going to record that song one day.” Then, earlier this year, Stevie says, “It just came into my head”; she recorded the song in May. 

Stevie claims she had “no idea” that Stephen originally wrote the track about the Sunset Strip curfew riots in LA in the ’60s. But she feels that “For What It’s Worth” is relevant today because in that song, Stills managed “to cover everything that everybody’s complaining about, and fighting against, in the entire world.”

The song includes the lyrics, “There’s battle lines being drawn/nobody’s right, if everybody’s wrong.”

“He managed, in that song, to touch on everything so subtly,” she explains. “You could have said, ‘Okay, is that song about gun violence? Is that song about women’s rights? Is it about immigration?’…you could take it all in, to be about anything that you personally wanted it to be about.”

Stevie tells Lowe it “seemed to be the right time” to cut the song and adds that her message to fans is, “I hope that…whatever your views on anything are, I hope that you can rise above that and take it for what it is. And also, I just hope you like the song.”

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