Classic Rock News

Warren Zevon is one of the artists nominated for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame this year, and a fellow Hall of Famer may have been partly responsible for his recognition. The Los Angeles Times reports that Billy Joel, who was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1999, wrote a letter to the nominating committee campaigning for Zevon’s recognition. 

“I just wanted to put in my two cents of supporting Warren Zevon to be included,” Joel tells the paper. “If anyone deserved to be, he did. He was a real original, and I don’t know if that’s appreciated enough.”

Joel says he didn’t think Zevon “got the attention he deserved,” explaining, “Well, he was a piano player, and we all tend to get lumped into this thing of ‘They’re not real rock guys’ — which I don’t think is fair, but I understand why it happens. Piano is perceived to be this middle-of-the-road instrument only played by dorks.”

Joel says seeing Zevon play proved that thought wrong, noting, “He was kind of breaking the piano to pieces, little by little, which I thought was an interesting style.” He added, “He banged it, and he banged it good. Even without amplifiers, he was getting the most volume he could get out of that thing.”

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The day Bruce Springsteen fans have been waiting six years for is finally here. Springsteen and the E Street Band launch their new tour Wednesday, February 1, in Tampa, Florida.

The trek hits such cities as Atlanta, Philadelphia, Boston, Houston and Seattle, with four shows in the New York area, before wrapping April 14 in Newark, New Jersey. 

This is Bruce and the E Street Band’s first tour since 2016, when they hit the road in support of The Ties That Bind: The River Collection, which celebrated the 35th anniversary of The Boss’ 1980 double album, The River.

Since then, Bruce has starred in his one-man Broadway show, Springsteen on Broadway, and also released two solo albums, 2019’s Western Stars and 2022’s Only The Strong Survive. He also released Letters To You with the E Street Band in 2020.

This new tour hasn’t been without controversy, though. When tickets went on sale many fans were unhappy about either not being able to get tickets or the high prices that were being charged thanks to Ticketmaster’s dynamic pricing option. In response, Bruce said in an interview with Rolling Stone that while he usually charged under market value for his concerts, this time he decided to do what his “peers” were doing. He argued that “most of our tickets are totally affordable.” 

And if fans can’t actually make it to a show, they can still enjoy the music. The Boss is releasing official multiple-track audio recordings from every stop on the tour right after each show. They will all be professionally mixed by Chiller Sound’s Jon Altschiller.

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The details of the annual Cliff Burton Day stream, which celebrates the life and legacy of the late Metallica bassist, have been announced.

The online event will take place on February 10, which would’ve been Burton’s 61st birthday. Host Nicholas Gomez will be interviewing Burton’s friends and family, including his sister Connie Burton and Metallica producer Flemming Rasmussen.

You can tune in to watch via Gomez’s YouTube channel at 10 p.m. ET.

Burton was born February 10, 1962. He played on Metallica’s first three albums — 1983’s Kill ‘Em All, 1984’s Ride the Lightning and 1986’s Master of Puppets — before he was killed in a 1986 bus accident at age 24.

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Louise Harrison, the older sister of George Harrison who has been credited with helping The Beatles break in America, passed away Sunday at an assisted living facility in Florida, The Mirror reports. She was 91.

The news was revealed on Harrison’s Facebook page, where friends, including Marty Scott, a member of Beatles tribute group Liverpool Legend, wrote that Louise died “painlessly and peacefully.”

Louise moved to the U.S. with her first husband in the 1950s, and she helped promote The Beatles in the U.S. as they were just starting out. She’d contact radio and TV stations trying to get them a break, which finally happened when an Illinois radio station played “From Me To You” in 1963.

It would only be a matter of months before they appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, which helped propel them to stardom.

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Bryan Adams is bringing his tour to North America this year. The “Cuts Like A Knife” singer just announced dates for his So Happy It Hurts tour, featuring special guest Joan Jett and the Blackhearts.

The tour kicks off June 6 in Baltimore, Maryland, and hits big cities like Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Nashville and Los Angeles before wrapping August 3 in Seattle, Washington. 

Tickets go on sale Friday, February 3, at 12 p.m. local time. A complete list of tour dates can be found at bryanadams.com. 

The tour news comes as Bryan kicks off a four-night stand in Las Vegas February 1 at the Encore Theater at the Wynn Las Vegas. He’s there through Saturday, February 5.

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The lineup for Sunday’s Grammy Awards just got bigger, with the latest talent helping the show pay tribute to some of the artists we lost in the past year.

This year’s In Memoriam segment is set to feature a special tribute to Fleetwood Mac’s Christine McVie, featuring a performance of her classic tune “Songbird” by her bandmate Mick Fleetwood, along with Sheryl Crow and Bonnie Raitt.

The show will also include tributes to Loretta Lynn, with Kacey Musgraves performing “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” and Migos rapper Takeoff, featuring Quavo and Maverick City Music performing “Without You.” 

The 65th annual Grammy Awards air Sunday at 8 p.m. on CBS live from Los Angeles.

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A new docuseries about Lollapalooza is set to debut on Paramount+.

The show, titled Lolla: The Story of Lollapalooza, will “chronicle the wild, exciting and strangely symbiotic 30+ year relationship between the iconic festival and its founder, music legend Perry Farrell, and the evolution of the now global cultural phenomenon that transcends generations of music fans and artists of all genres,” a press release says.

A premiere date for Lolla has yet to be announced.

Lollapalooza was first founded by Farrell in 1991. It was eventually retooled as a destination festival held in Chicago’s Grant Park and has since expanded internationally to South America, Europe and Asia.

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Elton John‘s 1972 album Honky Château celebrated its 50th anniversary last year, but we’re getting the 50th anniversary edition of the album this year.

Due out March 24, the package is available to preorder now as a two-CD or two-LP set. Additionally, the original album pressed on limited edition gold vinyl is available.

The CD version includes the original album, plus outtakes from the original session tapes, and eight live recordings from a show Elton and the band did at London’s Royal Festival Hall. It also comes with a 40-page booklet of photos and interviews with those who were there at the time.

The two-LP set includes the album, outtakes, and an eight-page booklet of photos and interviews.

Honky Château was the first of Elton’s six consecutive Billboard number-one albums. Elton, Bernie Taupin and the band decamped to a residential recording studio in France called Château d’Hérouville to make the album, hence the album’s title.

At night, Taupin wrote lyrics and left them on Elton’s piano for him to work on in the morning. In a statement, Elton recalls, “The first morning we were there, I had three (songs) done by the time the band drifted downstairs looking for something to eat,” including “Rocket Man.”

You can get a preview of the album Wednesday with the release of two of its tracks: a session demo of the fan-favorite deep cut “Mellow” and the Royal Festival Hall live version of “Rocket Man.” Other notable tracks on the album include “Honky Cat” and “Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters.” 

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On this day: February 1, 1972

Neil Young released his fourth studio album, Harvest, which went on to be a classic and signature album for him. The record peaked at number one on the Billboard 200 album chart and became the bestselling album of 1972.

Harvest featured two classic Young songs, “Heart of Gold,” which went to number one on the Hot 100, and “Old Man,” which landed in the Top 40. Other songs on the album include “The Needle and the Damage Done” and “A Man Needs a Maid.” 

The album featured special appearances by London Symphony Orchestra, as well as background vocals from guests like David Crosby, Graham Nash, Linda Ronstadt, Stephen Stills and James Taylor.

In December 2022, Young released a 50th anniversary edition of Harvest that included, among other things, a previously unseen two-hour documentary filmed in 1971 that focuses on the making of the album.

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Soundgarden guitarist Kim Thayil has shared his reaction to the band’s nomination for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, telling Billboard that the nod is very cool and a “pleasant surprise.”

The nomination is the second for the “Black Hole Sun” rockers, who were previously on the ballot in 2020.

“What was cool about [2020] was just the recognition of the acknowledgement,” Thayil says. “If you’re involved with your bandmates and fellow musicians in your peer group, you can sometimes get isolated from the general historical context of how the band has evolved and became part of the broader community of music and musicians.”

The guitarist adds, “I think that acknowledgement and that recognition was a reminder that, hey, the work that you did with your partners was part of a continuity and a history of music. That’s kind of cool.”

Though the nomination comes after the 2017 death of frontman Chris Cornell, the vocalist experienced what the Rock Hall meant for a band when he inducted Heart in 2013.

“[Cornell] lived the experience and said the enthusiasm of the fans was eye-opening for him, and understanding how important that was,” Thayil says.

“We always wanted to be the kind of band for our fans that we looked up to and inspired us,” he continues. “We wanted to be that kind of band [that] would make decisions with regard to that community that had supported us or that we had worked to build, and I think we did a great job of that.”

If Soundgarden is chosen for induction, it’ll be the second time drummer Matt Cameron is enshrined in the Rock Hall, following his entry in 2017 with Pearl Jam.

The Rock Hall inductees will be announced in May.

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