Steve Winwood landed his first Billboard Hot 100 #1 with “Higher Love,” from his fourth solo album, Back in the High Life.
The song, featuring backing vocals by Chaka Khan, spent one week on top of the chart. It went on to win Grammy Awards for Record of the Year and Best Male Vocal Performance.
Winwood’s second and only other #1 single came less than two years later when “Roll With It” topped the chart in July 1988.
Whitney Houston covered “Higher Love” in 1990, which was released on the Japanese version of her hit album I’m Your Baby Tonight. In 2019, Norwegian DJ Kygo released a remix of that version, which hit #1 on the Dance Club Songs chart.
The special guests who join Billy Joel onstage during his Madison Square Garden residency shows tend to be fellow rock stars like Bruce Springsteen, Sting, Jon Bon Jovi or John Mellencamp. But at Billy’s August 29 show, he welcomed a guy who’s better known as an actor: Kevin Bacon.
In addition to starring in classics like Footloose, A Few Good Men and Diner, Bacon is an accomplished musician who’s recorded nine albums with his band The Bacon Brothers, so perhaps it wasn’t surprising to see him stroll onstage with a guitar in hand to join Billy for a rendition of his 1974 track “The Entertainer.” He and Billy also duetted on Billy’s 1980 classic “You May Be Right.”
Billy’s next Madison Square Garden show is September 10. He also has a handful of stadium shows with Stevie Nicks throughout the fall. Their final date together — so far — will be March 9 in Arlington, Texas. That show is a rescheduled date; the original show was canceled due to an illness in Stevie’s band.
It looks like fans of The Rolling Stones won’t have to wait much longer for news on their upcoming album.
The Rock & Roll Hall of Famers continue to tease the album, which looks to be called Hackney Diamonds. They’ve launched a new website, which just reads “Welcome to Hackney Diamonds,” along with the caution “warning weak glass” and a picture of a hammer.
After clicking on the site a few times, The Stones’ lips logo, all broken up like glass, appears, along with a countdown that ends Wednesday, September 6.
On social media, the band also posted a series of photos of the cracked lips logo projected onto several iconic locations in New York, Paris, Madrid and Berlin.
The Stones first started teasing a new album earlier this month with a cryptic newspaper ad in the British paper the Hackney Gazette. Although they didn’t confirm they were behind it, many fans picked up on the connection because the band’s hits, “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” “Gimme Shelter” and “Shattered” were mentioned in the text. The “I” in Diamonds was also dotted with the lips logo.
And there’s no doubt fans have been waiting a long time for an album from The Stones. It will be their first record since 2016’s Blue and Lonesome, which was an album of blues covers. Their last album of original songs was 2005’s A Bigger Bang.
Aerosmith is counting down to the launch of their Peace Out tour, which will be their final tour ever, and they’re giving fans a preview.
The Rock & Roll Hall of Famers shared photos on Instagram of what appears to be the tour’s new stage setup, which features two giant screens floating above the stage, with the Aerosmith’s signature wings high above them.
And it also looks like fans may be treated to some quieter moments in the show. One of the pictures shows frontman Steven Tyler and guitarist Joe Perry rehearsing while sitting on stools at the front of the stage.
“We’re back in a BIGGER saddle!! 5 days till we kick off Aerosmith Peace Out the farewell tour!” they share. “You don’t want to miss this thing!”
Aerosmith’s Peace Out tour, with special guests The Black Crowes, kicks off Saturday, September 2, at Philadelphia’s Wells Fargo Center. A complete list of dates can be found at aerosmith.com.
Bob Dylan once gave Post Malone some lyrics for a new song, but why the public has never actually heard that track is a mystery.
Rolling Stonereports the tune was supposed to be part of a project producer Michael Cash came up with, which would have featured Dylan lyrics recorded by a group of hip-hop artists. It was inspired by T BoneBurnett’s 2014 project, Lost on the River: The New Basement Tapes, a project in which artists like Elvis Costello recorded songs using old but newly uncovered handwritten Dylan lyrics.
Cash reached out to Dylan’s rep, Jeff Rosen, and eventually Dylan agreed to send some lyrics for Post. The song was called “Be Not Deceived,” which Cash said was “about loss of innocence,” calling it “poetry.”
So, where’s the song? Cash says Malone came to the studio in March 2021 to record the tune, thinking Dylan was going to be there too, but he wasn’t. Malone recorded about 40%, but didn’t finish it. Cash noted, “It needed flair. It needed more layers. It wasn’t a complete piece of music, but it was definitely a song.”
Cash said the track just “needed to be finished,” but Malone never returned to the project. After a while Dylan’s camp had enough, and Cash was told they were going to retract the lyrics.
There’s no definite answer as to why Post never completed the recording. Cash says, “It just seems like nobody really managed expectations, and it just seems like nobody communicated.” He added, “A really cool piece of music got made, and then it just got weird. It got really weird.”
The Who played a special show at the royal family’s Sandringham estate in Norfolk, England, on Monday, and they left their mark in a pretty permanent way.
U Discover Music reports that Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend planted a tree in the Royal Gardens as a way of supporting Heritage Live’s sustainability initiative. Heritage Live is responsible for holding concerts on the grounds, and the tree symbolizes its mission to reduce the impact large outdoor concerts have on the environment.
“I was very pleased to be asked by Heritage Live to plant this tree at Sandringham,” Daltrey shared. “I am thrilled that the Laurel Oak has been planted adjacent to the oldest tree in Sandringham Gardens, a 700 year old Veteran Oak.”
Townshend added, “Planting this tree is a great way of acknowledging Heritage Live’s sustainability initiative. I hope this Tilia ‘Winter Orange’ has a happy life in Sandringham Gardens.”
In addition to The Who, Van Morrison and Robbie Williams played at the Royal Sandringham Estate last weekend. It was the first time the royal family’s estate was used as a music venue.
Peter Frampton will spend some of his fall on the road.
The rocker just announced eight new dates for his 2023 Never Say Never tour. The new shows kick off November 9 in Louisville, Kentucky, hitting cities in Mississippi, Texas, Oklahoma and Alabama before wrapping November 22 at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville.
“I am going to be continuing the tour in November,” Frampton shared on Instagram. “I’m just a glutton for enjoyment and hope you can come see us!”
In 2019, Frampton launched what he said would be his final tour ever, after being diagnosed with a degenerative muscular disease that would eventually stop him from playing guitar. But he changed his mind and launched the Never Say Never tour in June.
“I’m very pleased to let you know that I am feeling strong and my fingers are still roaming the fretboard,” he said when announcing the initial dates. “Every note I play now has more meaning and soul. I love playing live and this fighter wants to stay in the ring for as long as he can.”
A complete list of Never Say Never tour dates and ticket information can be found at frampton.com.
The Beatles play what would be their last-ever full public concert, at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park.
The band played an 11-song set, which didn’t include any songs from their recently released album, Revolver.
The public was unaware that it would be the band’s final concert, although The Beatles themselves knew and brought a camera onstage to capture the moment.
The Beatles’ final public performance of any kind was their iconic “rooftop concert” in London in January 1969. That concert was recorded for the documentary Let It Be and was also part of the 2021 documentary The Beatles: Get Back.
Metallica rocked many, many people during their trip to Los Angeles’ SoFi Stadium.
The metal legends have broken SoFi’s record for single-show attendance, the venue shared in a Facebook post.
SoFi, which opened in 2020, has a capacity of over 70,000 and is said to be able to expand to over 100,000 for certain events.
Metallica played SoFi on Friday, August 25, and Sunday, August 27, as part of their M72 world tour in support of their new album, 72 Seasons. The outing, which includes two shows in each city featuring completely different set lists, continues Friday, September 1, in Phoenix.
Dolly Parton’s new “Let It Be” cover, reuniting TheBeatles‘ Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, has made an impact on the charts.
The song has debuted on several Billboard charts, including the Rock Digital Songs Sales chart at #2, the Country Digital Song Sales chart at #15 and the Digital Songs Sales Chart at #22.
While both Beatles have had several Billboard hits throughout their careers, with the group and without, this is the first time McCartney and Starr have shared credit on a Billboard entry without the other members of the band.
Parton’s star-studded “Let It Be” cover also features Peter Frampton and Mick Fleetwood. It will appear on Dolly’s upcoming album, Rockstar, which drops November 17. It is available for preorder now.
