Classic Rock News

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the release of Dire Straits frontman Mark Knopfler‘s debut solo album, Golden Heart.  To commemorate the milestone, an expansive box set featuring newly remastered versions of all of the solo studio efforts Knopfler issued from 1996 through 2007 will hit stores on December 10.

Mark Knopfler: The Studio Albums 1996-2007 will be available as a six-CD package or an 11-LP set, and will feature remastered editions of the lauded singer, songwriter and guitarist’s first five solo records — 1996’s Golden Heart, 2000’s Sailing to Philadelphia, 2002’s The Ragpicker’s Dream, 2004’s Shangri-La and 2007’s Kill to Get Crimson. The box set also will include as a bonus disc a new companion compilation titled Gravy Train: The B-Sides 1996-2007.

The vinyl box set will feature two-LP versions of the five studio albums, plus the single-disc compilation, all pressed on 180-gram black vinyl. This will mark the first time that Golden Heart, Sailing to Philadelphia and, of course, Gravy Train, will be available on vinyl.

Both box sets will come with a download card allowing access to digital versions of the albums, plus six embossed art prints of the albums’ covers.

The Knopfler studio album featured in the box set that saw the most commercial success is Sailing to Philadelphia, which peaked at #4 on the U.K. chart and was certified gold for sales of over 500,000 copies in the U.S.

For full details about the box set, visit MarkKnopfler.com.

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Joan Jett loves rock ‘n’ roll, and the rock legend will get back to doing what she loves with her band, The Blackhearts, when they kick off a series of 2021 concerts with a show this Sunday, August 1, in San Francisco at the Stern Grove Festival.

Jett & the Blackhearts have 20 concerts lined up this year, running through a November 21 performance in Reading, Pennsylvania.

Several shows on Jett and company’s schedule are joint gigs with some other big-name rock acts. These include an August 12 concert in Vienna, Virginia, with George Thorogood & The Destroyers; performances with Cheap Trick on August 28 and 29, respectively, in Chesterfield, Missouri, and Kansas City, Missouri; and an October 2 show in Laughlin, Nevada, with Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Joan and the band also will play the 2021 of Milwaukee’s Summerfest on September 9.

Meanwhile, The Stadium Tour, the long-delayed trek that will feature Joan Jett & the Blackhearts teaming up with Def Leppard, the reunited Mötley Crüe and Poison, is scheduled to finally get underway on June 16, 2002, in Atlanta. The outing is plotted out all the way through a September 7 show in San Francisco.

Visit JoanJett.com for a full list of dates.

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Sure, getting inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is nice, but now New Jersey’s own Jon Bon Jovi is getting a real honor: a rest stop named after him on the Garden State Parkway.

The neighboring New Jersey Turnpike has rest stops named after historical New Jerseyites, like Thomas Edison, but the Parkway is going for star power, reports NorthJersey.com.  The rest stop formerly known as — no joke — Cheesequake will now be known as the Jon Bon Jovi Service Area.

Other famed New Jerseyites who are getting the rest stop treatment include Whitney Houston, Frank Sinatra, Toni Morrison, James Gandolfini, salsa legend Celia Cruz and author Judy Blume.  It’s all part of a campaign by the New Jersey Hall of Fame, which is installing displays about each rest stop’s famous namesake.

But wait, you ask — where’s the Bruce Springsteen Service Area?

“Bruce Springsteen respectfully declined to have a service area named after him,” a New Jersey Hall of Fame spokeswoman told NorthJersey.com. “It should be noted, though, that Bruce has been very supportive of the New Jersey Hall of Fame over the years, and is very much a part of the fabric of the Hall.”

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Dusty Hill, the long-bearded, longtime bassist for beloved Texas blues-rock trio ZZ Top, has died at age 72.

ZZ Top frontman Billy Gibbons and drummer Frank Beard announced Hill’s passing with a message on the band’s official Facebook page.

“We are saddened by the news today that our Compadre, Dusty Hill, has passed away in his sleep at home in Houston, TX,” the note reads. “We, along with legions of ZZ Top fans around the world, will miss your steadfast presence, your good nature and enduring commitment to providing that monumental bottom to the ‘Top.’ We will forever be connected to that ‘Blues Shuffle in C.'”

Hill joined ZZ Top shortly after the group’s formation in 1969. Gibbons sang lead on most of the group’s songs, while Hill usually handled backing vocals, although he occasionally did take over as lead singer for select tunes, including the band’s classic 1975 hit, “Tush.”

Dusty co-wrote many of ZZ Top’s songs, including “Tush” and other enduring classics including “Cheap Sunglasses,” “Gimme All Your Lovin’, “Got Me Under Pressure,” “Sharp Dressed Man,” “Legs,” and “Sleeping Bag.”

Hill was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as a member of ZZ Top in 2004.

The band’s plans for a major 50th anniversary tour in 2020 were sidetracked because of the COVID-19 pandemic. ZZ Top had recently started playing shows again, but the band announced last week that Hill had to return home to Texas “to address a hip issue,” and that the group’s longtime guitar tech, Elwood Francis, was filling in for him.

These recent shows marked the first time since Hill had joined ZZ Top that they performed with out him.

ZZ Top’s most recent album, La Futura, was released in 2012, although Gibbons revealed in recent interviews that the band had been working on material for a new record.

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A second annual edition of Daze Between, a series of events celebrating the life and legacy of Jerry Garcia that’s scheduled on and around the late Grateful Dead frontman’s August 1 birthday, recently kicked off and is slated to run through August 10.

While last year’s inaugural Daze Between was a virtual celebration because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2021 edition is a hybrid of live and streaming events and activities.

In conjunction with Daze Between, a variety of Garcia tribute concerts by Melvin Seals & JGB, The Garcia Project, Dark Star Orchestra and others will be held at various venues between Thursday, July 29, and Monday, August 9. Among these is a special Daze Between show on August 8 in New Haven, Connecticut, featuring Warren Haynes, Grace Potter and more.

In addition, Major League Baseball will host a series of special “Jerry Day” games featuring special Garcia merch giveaways and taking place July 29 at Boston’s Fenway Park, August 2 at Cincinnati’s Great American Ball Park, and August 10 at San Francisco’s Oracle Park.

Other events include livestreamed concert, an exhibition of Garcia’s digital art hosted by the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, and an online auction featuring a selection of Grateful Dead collectibles.

Daze Between was launched in partnership between Garcia’s family and the Grateful Dead’s Rex Foundation charity. Proceeds raised will benefit the foundation, which supports people involved with creative endeavors in the arts, sciences and education.

For details about the celebration, visit DazeBetween.com.

Garcia was born on August 1, 1942, and passed away on August 9, 1995, at age 53.

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Olivia Vedder is following in her father’s footsteps.

The teenage daughter of Eddie Vedder is making her musical debut with the song “My Father’s Daughter,” which was co-written by the Pearl Jam frontman. The track was recorded for the upcoming film Flag Day, which, fittingly, stars another father-daughter pair: Sean and Dylan Penn.

In Flag Day, which was also directed by the elder Penn, Sean stars as real-life counterfeiter John Vogel; Dylan plays his daughter, Jennifer.

You can hear a preview of “My Father’s Daughter” in the newly released Flag Day trailer, streaming now on YouTube. It’ll also be featured on the Flag Day soundtrack, due out August 20. The film premieres in select theaters that same day.

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Tuesday marked 40 years since the release of Stevie Nicks‘ solo debut album, 1981’s Bella Donna. Now the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer has released an essay explaining how important the album is to her.

On her socials, Stevie writes that “Bella Donna was a dream…I did not want the record to sound anything like Fleetwood Mac. That would have defeated the dream.”  Instead, she explains, she wanted her and her two backup singers Lori and Sharon to sound like “the girl version of Crosby, Stills & Nash.”

According to Stevie, the inspiration for the album was a poem she wrote, inspired by her then-boyfriend’s mother, Maria Teresa Rojas.  As Stevie tells it, Rojas’ lover in Chile was “banished to France” after the Chilean coup of 1973.

“She never saw him again,” Stevie writes. “I was so touched by this story of lost love that I wrote Bella Donna. The moment the poem and then the song was finished, I knew I had the basis for my first solo record.”

Stevie goes on to say that Bella Donna “defined how I would feel about love forever,” adding, “I could not have been more proud of those songs, or the three months it took [us] to craft it. It did not break up Fleetwood Mac. If anything, it kept us together.”

And finally, Stevie notes that Bella Donna “opened the doors of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, took my hand and invited me in for my own work…the thing I am most proud of. And all because of a tragic love affair that caused… an important and relevant song to be turned into a story that the world seemed to love.”

Bella Donna topped the Billboard 200 album chart and has since been RIAA-certified four-times Platinum on the strength of hits including “Edge of Seventeen,” “Leather and Lace,” and its highest-charting single, “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around,” a duet with the late rock legend Tom Petty.

 

 

 

 

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Back in January, Steve Martin posted a photo of himself with Martin Short and Selena Gomez — his co-stars in the upcoming Hulu series Only Murders in the Building — and Sting was in the picture, too.  At the time, Martin wrote that it was a “special day” on set, but Hulu wouldn’t confirm that Sting was actually in the show. Well, now we know he is.

The full trailer for the series has dropped, and the former Police frontman makes an appearance as himself.  The show follows Martin, Gomez and Short as the three true-crime fanatics who decide to do a podcast about the murder of one of the residents of their New York City apartment building — and attempt to solve the crime in the process.

In the trailer, we learn that the police believe the murderer is one of the building residents, and we see Sting, who is seemingly one of those residents, opening the door to his palatial apartment.  “There’s a very strong chance the killer is musical superstar Sting,” declares Short.

“The guy from U2?” Gomez asks, prompting to Martin to wince at the young star’s appalling lack of knowledge about one-named singers of iconic ’80s bands.

Of course, in real life, Sting does own a palatial apartment in New York City, so the casting is somewhat believable.

Only Murders in the Building debuts August 30 on Hulu.

(Trailer contains uncensored profanity.)

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Pink Floyd‘s “Their Mortal Remains” exhibition, which debuted in London in 2017, originally was scheduled to make its U.S. debut on Tuesday, August 3, at Los Angeles’ new ?Vogue Multicultural Museum on Hollywood Boulevard, but the opening has now been delayed until September 3.

According to a message on the museum’s Facebook page, the delay in the attraction’s opening is “due to issues with global freight.”

As the note explains, “The many containers filled with Pink Floyd’s [artifacts], stage sets, and private collections were shipped from the UK with an extensive lead time but coming out of the pandemic, there are many delays in global freight. These containers have now safely arrived in LA.”

The message also points out that those who already had purchased tickets for August “will be notified via email about how to reschedule their dates at no additional cost.” Tickets can be purchased now at VMMLA.com. Visit PinkFloydExhibition.com for more info.

In addition, the L.A. “Their Mortal Remains” exhibition, which initially had been scheduled through November 28, now will run until January 9, 2022.

As previously reported, the exhibition, which is fully sanctioned by Pink Floyd’s surviving members, takes an in-depth look at the pioneering prog-rockers, delving into their innovative music and album designs, groundbreaking concert staging and much more.

The exhibit uses audiovisual presentations and hundreds of artifacts to trace Pink Floyd’s story from its mid-1960s beginnings in London’s underground psychedelic music scene, through its massive success during the 1970s and ’80s, to the band members’ recent endeavors.

Among the many pieces of memorabilia featured are instruments, handwritten lyrics, vintage posters, photos and clothing items. Also on display are set pieces depicting Pink Floyd’s surreal album covers, stage props, promo videos, and rare film clips and live performance footage.

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Peter Frampton, Bad Company frontman Paul Rodgers and Guns N’ Roses‘ guitarist Slash are among the rockers sharing their support for Road Recovery, an organization that uses music to help teens battling addiction and other at-risk youth.

Each musician filmed a video testimonial speaking about Road Recovery’s mission and how music can help, especially during a particularly difficult time like the COVID-19 pandemic.

In Frampton’s clip, he notes, “Road Recovery’s creative staff and our amazing young people are in need of some encouragement to keep on keeping on,” and asks supporters to “film a short video of hope and inspiration to our dedicated staff of music professionals and the amazing youth in our…programs,” which then will be shared across the organization’s social media platforms.

In Rodgers’ video, the singer notes, “I’ve learned that you have to stay positive in your heart, body and soul, [and] steer clear of booze and drugs. You’re still OK to rock and roll.” He also recommends checking out the Qi Gong for Beginners series on YouTube. “It’s a moving meditation,” he says. “It’s very simple, but very profound.”

In Slash’s testimonial, the GN’R guitarist notes that he’s been hanging with and jaming with kids and adults in the Road Recovery programs for a while, and he finds it “really inspirational…to see how [they] get inspired by the arts are able to “turn [their lives] around.”

Other artists offering testimonials include Metallica‘s James Hetfield and Rage Against the Machine‘s Tom Morello. You can watch all the videos now via the Road Recovery YouTube channel.

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