Classic Rock News

Manny Charlton, founding guitarist of the Scottish rock band Nazareth, has died, according to a Facebook post from his grandson. A cause of death was not given. Charlton was 80.

Charlton was Nazareth’s guitarist, producer and co-songwriter from 1968 to 1990, and played on the band’s most successful albums, including 1975’s Hair of the Dog, which was RIAA-certified Platinum in the U.S. and featured the group’s biggest hit, a cover of “Love Hurts,” originally made famous by The Everly Brothers in 1960.

Charlton produced Guns N’ Roses‘ early demos, but bowed out of producing their debut album due to commitments with Nazareth. The album, ultimately recorded with producer Mike Clink, went on to sell an estimated 30 million copies globally and became the biggest-selling debut of all time. GN’R recorded “Hair of the Dog” for their 1993 all-covers album, The Spaghetti Incident?

After Deep Purple bassist Roger Glover produced several early Nazareth albums, Charlton took over for Hair of the Dog, and remained the band’s producer until 1983, a period during which they released some 17 studio albums.

Charlton went on to release numerous solo projects, including 2014’s Hellacious, which featured guest appearances from original GN’R drummer Steven Adler, as well as Def Leppard/Dio guitarist Vivian Campbell, Vanilla Fudge‘s Tim Bogert and others.

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Here’s wishing Ringo Starr a very happy 82nd birthday filled, of course, with peace and love!

As previously reported, the former Beatles drummer is marking the occasion with the latest installment of his annual “Peace and Love” birthday celebration. This year’s event will feature Ringo gathering privately in Los Angeles with wife Barbara, some of his All Starr Band mates and several other celebrity friends to give a “Peace and Love” salute at noon local time.

Taking part in the celebration will be All Starr Band members Steve Lukather, Edgar Winter, Colin Hay, Warren Ham and Gregg Bissonette, as well as Benmont Tench, Richard Marx, Matt Sorum, Jim Keltner, Ed Begley Jr., Linda Perry, Diane Warren, and the late Roy Orbison‘s sons Roy Jr. and Alex.

As usual, Ringo is asking everyone to join in by saying or thinking “Peace and Love,” and/or flashing a peace sign, at noon local time wherever they are in the world.

As part of this year’s celebration, Artemis Music Space Network, with help from the International Space Station, will transmit Starr’s message across the planet, and into Earth’s orbit and outer space.

At noon, Ringo will signal the Artemis Mission Control Center in Houston, Texas, to beam his message and music — including his 2021 single “Let’s Change the World” — to the International Space Station, which will relay peace-and-love messages and music down to the planet and out to the stars.

The event will kick off with a number of musical performances paying tribute to Ringo.

Meanwhile, “Peace and Love” celebrations are taking place in many locations around the world, including at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. In addition, a special Starr playlist will be played today in over 10,000 Starbucks stores.

For more info, visit Ringo’s Facebook page.

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As Journey prepares to release its latest studio album, Freedom, this Friday, founding guitarist Neal Schon reveals he’s working on becoming friends again with the group’s famous former lead singer, Steve Perry, who parted ways with Journey in 1998.

In a new interview, Schon tells Vulture that he and Perry have had the chance to connect more since he recently took a more active role in Journey’s business dealings.

“We’re talking and getting to know each other again — though not trying to get together musically again,” Schon says. “But he’s learning who I am now, through a portion of our business that I’m kind of controlling now. I’m talking about a Journey trademark that I’ve obtained, as we’ve never owned our own trademark.”

Schon continues, “All these years, many people lied to us [with regard to Journey’s business]. My wife and I finally got to the bottom of it after investigating for years. We were fought hard by everybody, but we managed to obtain the trademark. So we’re talking about that and figuring out the future of that, but we’re talking.”

Schon says that he and Perry were “very, very tight” during Perry’s early years with the band.

“I have great memories of when Steve and I first met,” he notes. “We hung out all the time, man. We were like brothers. We were crazy. We spent a lot of nights out way too late doing things we shouldn’t be doing. Drinking and whatnot … But bottom line, we had a really good time for many, many years … He was a really funny guy.”

Schon also mentions how well he got along with Perry during the 2017 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony, adding, “I hope that we can become even better friends in the future.”

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After Whitesnake canceled the remainder of the European summer leg of its Farewell Tour because various band members had taken ill, frontman David Coverdale reports that he’s back home and trying to get well.

“Still not 100% but, very happy to be home,” Coverdale wrote in a Twitter message posted Tuesday. “Being sick in a hotel, on tour, just ain’t the ticket…I hope You & Yours Are Well, Wherever You Are…Know You Are Appreciated & Loved…XXX.”

The tweet is accompanied by four images, including ones with messages that read “When all else fails take a nap” and “Keep healthy and stay safe,” and another showing a drawing of a pair of hands holding a rose and captioned, “For you.”

Last week, before Whitesnake officially announced that the rest of the European shows had been canceled, the band reported that the 70-year-old rocker had been “diagnosed with an infection of the sinus & trachea” and that his doctor had recommended “5 days of no singing and bed rest.”

During the trek, drummer Tommy Aldridge and guitarist Reb Beach also battled illness.

Whitesnake is now scheduled to return to the stage for the North American leg of its Farewell Tour, which kicks off August 17 in Hampton Beach, New Hampshire, and is plotted out through an October 21 performance in Las Vegas. Most of the shows will feature the band supporting The Scorpions.

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Emerson, Lake & Palmer‘s third studio album, Trilogy, was released 50 years ago today.

The album is the famed British prog-rock trio’s highest-charting studio effort in the U.S., peaking at #5 on the Billboard 200. Trilogy includes the band’s most successful single, the Greg Lake-penned “From the Beginning,” which reached #39 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Trilogy was produced by Lake and also features three instrumentals, the Keith Emerson compositions “Fugue” and “Abaddon’s Bolero” and an arrangement of Aaron Copland‘s “Hoe-Down” from the 1942 ballet Rodeo. Copland gave ELP permission to adapt the piece, which was slightly retitled “Hoedown.”

“Hoedown” became a popular song for ELP to perform live.

Trilogy has been certified Gold by the RIAA for sales of 500,000 in the U.S.

Here’s the full Trilogy track list:

“The Endless Enigma (Part 1)”
“Fugue” (Instrumental)
“The Endless Enigma (Part 2)”
“From the Beginning”
“The Sheriff”
“Hoedown” (Instrumental)
“Trilogy”
“Living Sin”
“Abaddon’s Bolero” (Instrumental)

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KISS is currently in the middle of a 2022 European leg of their End of the Road tour, and while no final date has been announced for the band’s farewell trek, singer/bassist Gene Simmons recently revealed that the outing’s end is definitely farther down the road.

In a phone interview late last month, a journalist for the Finnish rock fanzine Chaoszine asked Simmons how he felt about playing various European cities for the last time, to which Gene replied, “I don’t think it’ll be the last time. We are adding another 100 cities on the tour before we finally stop.”

He added, “The band is strong. We feel good. We’re playing strong, so we’re going to stretch it out a little more.”

Asked if the tour will come to an end sometime in 2023, Simmons said, “We don’t know. We’ve never retired before. This is our first time. So it’s like painting a painting or like writing a book. When somebody says, ‘When is it going to be finished?’ you’re in the middle of it. You don’t know, but you know it’s going to finish.”

As for how he thinks he will feel when the tour finally does wrap up, Gene explained, “It’s like climbing the tallest mountain in the world. Going up is really tough, but when you get to the top of the mountain, there’s no feeling like that. So you’re happy, but of course, you’re sad too because we’re never going to do that again.”

The current European leg of the KISS tour runs through a July 21 show in Amsterdam, and will be followed by a series of Down Under concerts in August and early September. The band also has a few U.S. performances and the two-part KISS Kruise XI confirmed for the fall.

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If you’re thinking of knocking the metal cred of any new Metallica fan who just discovered “Master of Puppets” through Stranger Things, maybe think again.

In the comments of a TikTok video celebrating the ’80s thrash classic’s inclusion in the season four finale of the Netflix sci-fi series, Metallica declares, “FYI — EVERYONE is welcome in the Metallica Family.”

“Whether you’ve been a fan for 40 hours or 40 years, we all share a bond through music,” the metal legends add.

The post also notes that everyone who may now be a longtime Metallica fan was once a new Metallica fan.

“All of you started at ground zero at one point in time,” Metallica writes.

Many others in the comments applauded Metallica’s stance, with one writing, “Protecting the newcomers from the gatekeepers. A new generation of Metallica fans [has] been born.”

“Master of Puppets” soundtracks a significant scene in the Stranger Things 4 finale involving the Dungeons and Dragons-loving character Eddie Munson, played by Joseph Quinn. In a statement following the episode’s premiere, Metallica wrote that they felt “beyond psyched” about the song’s inclusion.

“We were all stoked to see the final result and when we did we were totally blown away,” the band said.

Meanwhile, bassist Robert Trujillo revealed that his son, Tye, provided guitar tracks for the “Master of Puppets” performance.

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A special presentation of a concert that Queen + Adam Lambert played during the current European leg of their Rhapsody Tour will premiere July 24 via the Kiswe global streaming platform.

The event, dubbed Rhapsody over London, features Queen and Lambert performing in early June during their 10-show run at London’s O2 arena. The 28-song, two-and-a-half-hour concert was documented with 26 cameras and a crew of film technicians over 100 strong.

The presentation, which only will be available until July 31, will also include a live Q&A with Lambert and Queen’s Brian May and Roger Taylor speaking backstage before the next-to-last show of their European trek in Tampere, Finland.

Four ticket packages are available, and fans who purchase tickets will have the chance to submit questions that the band members may answer live during the Q&A. Questions must be submitted via video by July 19.

All packages include the O2 concert, the July 24 Q&A and a pre-show pass to watch the 2019 documentary The Show Must Go On: The Queen + Adam Lambert Story. The Show Must Go On will only be available for viewing on July 22 and July 23.

Some packages will also offer a video-on-demand bundle that will give viewers access to the world premiere of the Queen + Adam Lambert concert film Summersonic – Live in Japan, the band’s 2020 concert flick Live Around the World, a 2020 livestreamed Q&A event that featured Lambert, May and Taylor and promoted Live Around the World, and a feature called Meet the Press that compiles highlights from the group’s various press conferences over the last 10 years.

Tickets for Rhapsody over London can be purchased at Livestream.QueenOnline.com.

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Carlos Santana reportedly passed out onstage during a Tuesday concert at Pine Knob Music Theatre, an outdoor amphitheater in Clarkston, some 40 miles northwest of Detroit, Michigan.

The 74-year-old rock legend was about an hour into his concert when he was “overcome with heat exhaustion and dehydration,” his manager, Michael Vrionis, said in a statement obtained by ABC News.

“Carlos was taken to the emergency department at McLaren Clarkston for observation and is doing well,” the statement continued.

“The show for tomorrow July 6th at The Pavilion at Star Lake (formerly the S&T Bank Music Park) in Burgettstown, PA. will be postponed to a later date. More details to follow thru Live Nation,” Vrionis added.

Santana was introducing the song “Joy,” from his 2021 album Blessings and Miracles, shortly before he passed out, according to Detroit Free Press journalist Jo-Ann Barnas. He was describing the song as “mystical medicine music to heal a world infected with fear.”

Santana was treated for about 20 minutes before medical staff covered him with a tarp and wheeled him offstage, according to social media posts and video.

“Ladies and gentlemen as you can we see have a severe medical emergency,” the venue staff reportedly announced to the audience. “Let’s share our prayers…We need it right now…Please send your light and love to this man.”

Last year, the Rock & Roll Hall of Famer canceled the December dates of his Las Vegas residency to recover from what was described as “an unscheduled heart procedure.” He was scheduled to perform eight dates at the House of Blues at Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino. Santana also announced that he tested positive for COVID-19 in February.

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