Classic Rock News

It’s been less than five months since Bryan Adams released Classic, a digital album stuffed with re-recordings of his greatest hits from the ’80s and ’90s — and part two is already on its way.

“Bryan is happy to announce ‘Classic Pt. II’ featuring 7 newly re-recorded favorites, is out digitally on Friday! Pre-save now!” Adams tweeted out on Thursday, sharing a link so fans can make sure the album arrives in their playlists at midnight.

Why is the “Summer of ’69” singer making these albums? Similar to pop supestar Taylor Swift‘s masters saga with her former label, Bryan is also fighting to reclaim the rights to his music.

In a March 2022 interview, he told Stereogum that Swift inspired him to re-record his old hits. Adams revealed that his former label, Universal Music Group, declined to hand over the rights to his catalog.

“She and I have been in a similar situation lately with our master recordings. My record company wasn’t interested in negotiating the return of my early masters, so I’ve done what she has done to re-record my early songs again,” he explained, adding that his Classic albums are coming out “thanks to Taylor.”

Swift invited Adams to sing with her during her Reputation Tour in 2019, and they performed “Summer of ’69” together. Bryan that hinted she made it even easier for him to think he could re-record his decades-old hits.

“I loved singing with Taylor,” he recalled, “In fact, I believe it’s the best version of the song since the original recording.”

Adams’ latest studio album of original material, So Happy It Hurts, was released this past March, one week after Classic.

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Ozzy Osbourne is once again taking the “Crazy Train” to the top of the charts.

The Prince of Darkness’ new solo single, “Patient Number 9,” has hit #1 on Billboard‘s Mainstream Rock Airplay ranking. It’s his fourth leader on the chart, which first began in 1981.

“Patient Number 9” took just five weeks to reach #1, which ties Shinedown‘s “Planet Zero” for the fastest run to the top of Mainstream Rock Airplay this year. Additionally, its ascension also gives featured artist Jeff Beck a new Billboard record.

The guitar virtuoso now boasts the longest gap between an artist’s first appearance on Mainstream Rock Airplay and their first #1, having hit the summit with “Patient Number 9” 37 years, one month and two weeks after debuting on the chart with the 1985 Rod Stewart collaboration “People Get Ready.”

The record was previously held by Queen‘s Brian May, who waited 26 years, three months and one week between his first appearance in 1993 with the solo song “Driven By You” and hitting #1 in 2019 as a featured artist on Five Finger Death Punch‘s cover of Kenny Wayne Shepherd‘s “Blue on Black.”

“Patient Number 9” is the title track off Ozzy’s upcoming 13th solo album, due out September 9.

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A new archival Joni Mitchell collection called The Asylum Years (1972-1975) that features remastered versions of the iconic singer/songwriter’s first four albums for the Asylum label is due out September 23.

The package, which includes 1972’s For the Roses, 1974’s Court and Spark and the double live album Miles of Aisles, and 1975’s The Hissing of Summer Lawns, will be available as a four-CD set, a five-LP vinyl collection and digitally.

After releasing her first four studio albums on Reprise Records, Joni signed to Asylum and began delving more deeply into jazz influences.

As Mitchell’s friend Neil Young writes in the box set’s liner notes, “She had grown from folk to jazz and in between, creating a unique kind of sound that I loved to listen to over and over.”

This period also saw Joni score her highest-charting albums and singles.

For the Roses peaked at #11 on the Billboard 200 and featured Joni’s first top-40 hit, “You Turn Me On, I’m a Radio,” which reached #25 on the Hot 100.

Court and Spark ascended to #2 on the Billboard 200, powered by the singles “Help” and “Free Man in Paris,” which reached #7 and #22, respectively, on the Hot 100.

Miles of Aisles also peaked at #2 and included a version of her classic “Big Yellow Taxi” that reached #24 on the Hot 100.

The Hissing of Summer Lawns climbed to #4 and featured the minor hit “In France They Kiss on Main Street.”

The cover of The Asylum Years (1972-1975) features an original painting by Mitchell, and fans who preorder the CD or LP version of the set from JoniMitchell.com will receive a limited-edition poster of the artwork.

Check out the box set’s full track list here.

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Peter Gabriel, Iggy Pop and James Taylor are among the artists who have lent their talents to Here It Is: A Tribute to Leonard Cohen, a 12-track album celebrating the late legendary Canadian singer/songwriter.

The album was produced by Larry Klein, Joni Mitchell‘s ex-husband and main producer since the 1980s. Here It Is features versions of a mix of well-known and more obscure songs by Leonard Cohen, spanning from his 1967 debut album through 2016’s You Want It Darker, which was released shortly before his death.

Gabriel recorded the tribute album’s title track, “Here It Is,” a rarity that dates back to 2001, while Pop delivered a rendition of “You Want It Darker.” Taylor, meanwhile, contributed a new version of the 1984 tune “Coming Back to You,” which is available now as an advance digital track.

Norah Jones, Sarah McLachlan, Mavis Staples, Nathaniel Rateliff and David Gray are also featured on the tribute album.

Klein says he decided to organize the tribute album for his close friend Cohen after realizing that he’d frequently been covering his songs with other collaborators. He proceeded to assemble a group of respected jazz musicians and bring in guest singers to create reworked versions of Cohen’s tunes.

“It was an immensely gratifying experience to recontextualize these poems, and shine a different light on them,” Klein explains. “I hope that this musical language that we developed together…makes the songs connect with people in a new way.”

You can preorder Here It Is now; It will be available October 14 on CD, vinyl and digital formats.

Here’s the album’s full track listing:

“Steer Your Way” — Norah Jones
“Here It Is” — Peter Gabriel
“Suzanne” — Gregory Porter
“Hallelujah” — Sarah McLachlan
“Avalanche” — Immanuel Wilkins
“Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye” — Luciana Souza
“Coming Back to You” — James Taylor
“You Want It Darker” — Iggy Pop
“If It Be Your Will” — Mavis Staples
“Seems So Long Ago, Nancy” — David Gray
“Famous Blue Raincoat” — Nathaniel Rateliff
“Bird on the Wire” — Bill Frisell

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Wednesday night, The Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan and his longtime partner, Chloé Mendel, hosted a virtual benefit concert supporting the victims of the July 4 shooting in Highland Park, Illinois, where the couple has long lived. During the show, Corgan debuted a new song that he wrote about the tragedy.

Speaking to the audience ahead of the performance, Corgan shared that he was initially wary of using what happened as inspiration for music.

“It kind of reminds me of when you get your heart broken when you’re young and you write really bad poetry,” Corgan said. “I don’t want to write really bad poetry about something that was very hurtful.”

Later, Corgan found himself working on a new Pumpkins song, which turned into his “reaction … to what happened.”

“I don’t know if it’s a good song or a bad song, but it certainly expresses the way that I feel,” he said.

You can watch Corgan’s rendition of the song via the archived YouTube stream of the concert, starting around the 1:37:00 mark. The show, which raised over $250,000 for the Highland Park Community Foundation’s shooting response fund, also featured performances by Jane’s Addiction‘s Perry Farrell and Bob Moses, among others.

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The 1982 Motörhead album Iron Fist is being reissued in honor of its 40th anniversary.

The deluxe package will be released September 23 and includes various demos, alternate versions and instrumentals as well as a previously unreleased full live recording of Motörhead’s 1982 concert at Scotland’s Glasgow Apollo.

You can watch a new video for the demo version of the Iron Fist title track, featuring archival live footage, now on YouTube.

The original Iron Fist had the tough task of following Motörhead’s 1980 album, the iconic Ace of Spades, as well as the band’s beloved 1981 live album, No Sleep ’til Hammersmith. It would also end up being the last Motörhead album to feature the trio’s classic lineup of Lemmy, guitarist “Fast” Eddie Clarke and drummer Phil “Philthy Animal” Taylor.

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Earlier this month, country-rock pioneer Richie Furay, who co-founded Buffalo Springfield and Poco, released his latest solo album, the country covers collection In the Country.

The 12-track album mainly features renditions of major country hits, while also including some noteworthy crossover tunes, like Marc Cohn‘s “Walking in Memphis” and John Denver‘s “Take Me Home, Country Roads.”

Furay tells ABC Audio the album came about after he reconnected with producer Val Garay, who produced his 1979 album, I Still Have Dreams.

Furay says Val suggested they do a country hits project. They both came up with lists of tunes, which they narrowed down to include chart-toppers from Keith Urban, Garth Brooks, Lonestar, Alabama and Lee Ann Womack.

“Most of ’em were big hits … [but] I don’t want people to listen to this record and do comparisons,” Furay insists. “I just want ’em to sit back, ’cause, man, we just need music today … that people can just get lost in, and just say, ‘Wow, that’s just good sounding music.'”

Furay recorded the album in Nashville with talented session musicians. He also brought in some guests to contribute backing vocals, including his former Poco bandmate, longtime Eagles bassist Timothy B. Schmit.

Furay says of Schmit, who appears on multiple tracks, “He’s just a dear friend … whenever I ask Timothy if he wants to come and be a part of a record … if he’s got the time … he’s always there.”

Schmit also connected Furay with current Eagles touring member Vince Gill, who sings on a cover of the 1958 Ricky Nelson hit “Lonesome Town.”

Furay says working with Gill “was really a thrill and a blessing for me … He’s such a great, talented guy.”

Here’s In the Country‘s full track list:

“Somebody Like You” (Keith Urban)
“I Hope You Dance” (Lee Ann Womack)
“Take Me Home, Country Roads” (John Denver)
“She Don’t Know She’s Beautiful” (Sammy Kershw)
“Your Love Amazes Me” (John Berry)
“I’m in a Hurry (And Don’t Know Why)” (Alabama)
“Lonesome Town” (Ricky Nelson)
“Walking in Memphis” (Marc Cohn)
“I’m Already There” (Lonestar)
“The River” (Garth Brooks)
“In This Life” (Collin Raye)
“Chalk” (Buddy & Julie Miller)
 
Digital Bonus Tracks:
“I Cross My Heart” (George Strait)
“Pickin’ Up the Pieces” (Poco)

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David Lee Roth has posted a previously unreleased solo song at his official website and YouTube channel called “Nothing Could Have Stopped Us Back Then Anyway” that finds the Van Halen frontman reminiscing about his old band.

Accompanying the track is a vintage photo of Roth and his three Van Halen band mates all jumping in the air at the same time. The stripped-down tune features multi-tracked acoustic guitars and sparse keyboards accompanying Roth’s vocals.

The song begins with the lines, “We laughed, we cried, we threw that television off the balcony/ That memory means so much to me,” and Diamond Dave sings later, “Remember when you safety pinned the tablecloth to my pants/ And I stood up to the sound of dancing, and the sound of our romance beginning.”

According to the fan site Van Halen News Desk, Roth recorded “Nothing Could Have Stopped Us Back Then Anyway” several years ago with current Rob Zombie guitarist John 5 during the same sessions that yielded some of the other tracks Dave has released over the past couple years, including “Somewhere over the Rainbow Bar and Grill,” “Giddy-Up!,” “Low-Rez Sunset” and “Pointing at the Moon.”

In a 2021 interview with AL.com, John 5 mentioned “Nothing Could Have Stopped Us Back Then Anyway” while discussing his sessions with Roth.

“Being a Van Halen fan and a Dave Lee Roth fan, it’s unbelievable because it’s about Dave singing about Van Halen and what it was like,” the guitarist noted. “Really something special, so I really hope that comes out.”

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Neil Young will release a remastered version of his 1989 EP Eldorado as a standalone vinyl disc for the first time on August 19.

The five-track collection was originally only released in Japan and Australia on CD and was later included as part of Young’s Original Release Series #4 box set, which arrived in March.

Eldorado includes two songs, “Cocaine Eyes” and “Heavy Love,” that had never appeared on any other album as well as three tunes from Neil’s 1989 studio album Freedom — “Don’t Cry,” “Eldorado” and a cover of the 1963 Drifters hit “On Broadway.”

Young recorded the disc with bassist Rick Rosas and drummer Chad Cromwell, while longtime Crazy Horse guitarist Frank “Poncho” Sampedro is featured on the title track.

The EP can be pre-ordered now and is available on CD as well as vinyl. Those who order the discs will also receive a high-res download of Eldorado.

When discussing the sound quality of the new release, Neil says, “Because of the technology used in mastering from the original files, the digital to analog transfer is superb, getting more out of the digital masters than the original CD could present. This then, is the best sounding Eldorado ever!”

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The Allman Brothers Band and The Bangles are taking part in the 2022 edition of Ten Bands One Cause.

The annual charity initiative features 10 artists reissuing albums on pink vinyl to raise money for Red Door Community, formerly known as Gilda’s Club NYC, which supports those with cancer and their caregivers. The organization was founded in memory of late comedian and Saturday Night Live star Gilda Radner, who died of ovarian cancer in 1989.

This year’s crop of reissues includes The Allman Brothers’ Live from A&R Studios, which was recorded in 1971 but wasn’t released until 2016, and The Bangles’ 2014 compilation Ladies and Gentlemen…The Bangles! Other artists taking part include The Black Keys, Judah & the Lion, Nas and Senses Fail.

For more info, visit 10Bands1Cause.com.

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