Classic Hits

They’ve worked together twice previously, but Elton John and Stevie Wonder have finally recorded an actual duet: “Finish Line,” which is available now as a digital download and on all streaming services.

In 1985, Elton and Stevie teamed with Dionne Warwick and Gladys Knight to record the HIV/AIDS charity single “That’s What Friends Are For,” and in 1983, Stevie played harmonica on Elton’s smash “I Guess That’s Why They Call It the Blues.” But for Elton’s upcoming album The Lockdown Sessions, they did a proper collaboration, with both men singing and playing piano, Stevie on harmonica and a gospel choir backing them up.

In a statement, Elton celebrates his “fifty years of friendship” with Stevie, and says recording the duet was “a magical process.” “When you listen to what he does vocally and instrumentally on ‘Finish Line’ you think, ‘This is a true genius here,'” he adds.

Stevie raves in a statement of his own, “It is both a joy and honor to sing, play piano and harmonica for Elton! He has truly been one of the great spirits of music, life, friendship, and love, who I’ve met on this life journey! True artistry and music like love equals a forever commitment lasting many lifetimes.”

The music legend adds, “Elton, anyone who hears your voice singing ‘finish line’ will hear and feel your wisdom, your pain, your soul, your love, but also your resilience…I love it!! Congratulations to you and our forever and never, never-ending music, friendship, life-song! Long live Sir Elton John!”

The Lockdown Sessions comes out October 22 and also features collaborations with Stevie Nicks, Pearl Jam‘s Eddie Vedder, Gorillaz, Miley Cyrus, the late Glen Campbell, Dua Lipa, Charlie Puth, Lil Nas X and more.

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The Scorpions have announced official details about their long-awaited forthcoming studio album, which is titled Rock Believer and will be released on February 11, 2022.

The record, which will be the veteran German hard rocker’s 19th studio effort, is a follow-up to 2015’s Return to Forever.

The album’s first single, “Peacemaker,” will be released on October 21.

The project was mostly written and recorded during the COVID-19 pandemic, with The Scorpions working at their Peppermint Park Studios in Hanover, Germany.

“The album was written and recorded in the Scorpions DNA with core Schenker/Meine compositions,” says frontman Klaus Meine, referring to himself and founding guitarist Rudolf Schenker. “We recorded the album as a band live in one room, like we did in the ’80s.”

Rock Believer will be the first studio album by the group to feature ex-Motörhead drummer Mikkey Dee, who joined The Scorpions in 2016.

After the album’s release, The Scorpions will launch their Rock Believer World Tour, which will kick off with the band’s previously announced nine-date Las Vegas residency at The Zappos Theater at Planet Hollywood that runs from March 26 through April 16. Queensrÿche will open the Vegas shows.

Following the residency, The Scorpions will head back across the pond, where a European leg of the trek will get underway on May 10 in Lisbon, Portugal.

Pre-sale tickets and VIP packages for the European concerts went on sale today, are available for members of the Scorpions Rock Zone fan community. Tickets will  go on sale to the general public on Friday, October 1.

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It was never a single, but Billy Joel‘s “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant,” from his 1977 album The Stranger, is one of his most beloved tracks.  Billy’s lyrics paint such a vivid picture  — a bottle of red, a bottle of white and those sweet romantic teenage nights with Brenda and Eddie — that it’s no wonder it’s finally inspired a music video after all these years.

The animated clip will premiere on Billy’s official YouTube channel at 10 a.m. ET on Thursday.  There will also be a live chat with the video’s creative director, Steve Cohen.  Another creative director, Ryan McAllister, explains the impetus behind the video in a preview posted on Billy’s socials.

“There’s a whole catalog of music that existed before music video,” says McAllister. “That led to a discussion of, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool to make a music video for one of these classic hits that never had [one]?'”

He continues, “It’s been about a year since we started working on this. And we’re super-stoked to see it out in the world. This project was sorta like the beginning of the path back from the darkness that started with the pandemic, so it has a really special place for all of us.”

October will mark the 50th anniversary of the release of Billy’s debut album, Cold Spring Harbor, and his five-decade career is being celebrated with Billy Joel – The Vinyl Collection, Vol.1, a nine-LP set coming out on November 5.

 

 

 

 

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Plans have been unveiled for two new archival David Bowie box sets that will be released in the coming months.

One is the fifth installment in the series of expansive collections focusing on different periods in the late rock icon’s career, Brilliant Adventure (1992–2001), which is due out on November 26. The other is an expanded version of Bowie’s legendary unreleased 2001 album TOY, titled TOY (TOY:BOX), which will be issued on January 7, 2022.

Brilliant Adventure will be available as an 11-CD set, a 15-LP vinyl package and digitally. The box set includes remastered editions of five Bowie studio albums — 1993’s Black Tie White Noise, 1993’s The Buddha of Suburbia soundtrack, 1995’s 1.Outside, 1997’s Earthing and 1999’s ‘hours…’.  It also includes the previously unreleased live album BBC Radio Theatre, London, June 27, 2000; the Re:Call 5 compilation, featuring alternative versions, B-sides, soundtrack recordings and more; and the aforementioned TOY.

TOY features updated versions of select early Bowie songs recorded mostly live in the studio with members of his touring band at the time. David had hoped to release the album quickly but when his plan was delayed, he put the project aside and moved on to his next record, Heathen.

TOY (TOY:BOX) will be available as a three-CD set and a six-disc 10-inch vinyl collection. The package will include the originally planned album, alternative mixes of the TOY tracks and tunes intended as B-sides, and stripped-down, mostly acoustic mixes of the songs.

One TOY track, an updated rendition of the 1965 Bowie song “You’ve Got a Habit of Leaving,” has been released as an advance digital single.

You can pre-order Brilliant Adventure (1992–2001) and TOY (TOY:BOX) now. Visit DavidBowie.com for more information.

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Elton John owns homes around the world, but when it came to his latest real-estate purchase, he didn’t have to look too far.

The real-estate website Dirt reports that Elton’s bought the home that’s right next door to his house in Beverly Hills for $8.5 million.  According to Dirt, records show that the 5,300-square-foot, five-bedroom, single-story home, built in the ’60s, has been owned by a non-famous family for decades; they’ve faced foreclosure several times. 

Buying the house allows Elton, his husband David Furnish and their two sons to expand from their current half acre to nearly a full acre of space in one of Beverly Hills’ most prestigious neighborhoods. Their current home, purchased nearly 10 years ago for $7.3 million, is 4,300 square feet.

Elton and David also own a huge estate in the U.K., and also have homes in the South of France and Venice, Italy, plus what Dirt calls a “mansion-sized condo” in Atlanta.

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Elton John‘s definitely having a moment: First, his Dua Lipa duet “Cold Heart” has become his biggest hit in years, both in the U.S. and in his native U.K.  Now, he’s scored a chart feat he hasn’t pulled off for 23 years.

Billboard notes that “One of Me,” Elton’s collaboration with rapper Lil Nas X, has debuted at number 88 on this week’s Billboard Hot 100.  It’s Elton’s 69th Hot 100 entry and his second one this year, after “Cold Heart,” which is currently at #74. The last time Elton had two songs charting simultaneously was in 1998.

Posting a collage of his chart achievements, Elton wrote, “What!? Two tracks in the Billboard 100, #2 in the UK Charts, UK’s most downloaded single for three weeks now and 40 million monthly listeners on @spotify.”

“Thank you everyone!!” he added. “After all, you certainly know how to warm up my ‘Cold Heart.'”

That last sentence was also a reference to Elton’s latest release, “After All,” a duet with Charlie Puth.  Elton and Charlie performed the song together in Paris this past weekend as part of the Global Citizen Live event.  It was Elton’s final performance before he heads in for surgery to repair his hip — an injury that forced him to postpone his concerts this fall.

 

 

 

 

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John Mellencamp‘s first-ever collaboration with Bruce Springsteen, an introspective, acoustic-driven duet titled “Wasted Days,” has been released as a digital single, while a companion music video has premiered on Mellencamp’s YouTube channel.

The song is the first single from Mellencamp’s upcoming, as-yet-untitled studio album, which is due out in 2022.

“Wasted Days,” which was written by John, features lyrics reflecting on mortality and making the most of our time on the planet. Springsteen contributes an electric guitar solo to the tune.

The video, which was shot in New Jersey this month by frequent Springsteen collaborator Thom Zimny, includes scenes of Mellencamp and The Boss playing acoustic guitars while sitting at a kitchen table and standing in front of a detached garage with an American flag draped from it.

Mellencamp first revealed that he’d worked on new music with Springsteen in May while taking part in music mogul Clive Davis‘ star-studded virtual benefit for the Grammy Museum.  John told Billboard at the time, “Bruce is singing on the new record and is playing guitar.”

Springsteen, meanwhile, shared further information about the collaboration during a satellite radio interview in June. As reported by Billboard, Bruce said, “I worked on three songs on John’s album and I spent some time in Indiana with him.”

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A previously unreleased John Lennon song, recorded during a 1970 interview, may finally see the light of day.

The 33-minute cassette tape includes the as-yet-unheard song, “Radio Peace,” as well as interviews with Lennon and his wife, Yoko Ono, recorded at the New Experimental College at Skyum Bjerge, Denmark. That tape sold Tuesday for the equivalent of $58,125, according to the Bruun Rasmussen auction house. The tape was only expected to fetch up to the equivalent of $47,128.

The interview, recorded on January 5, included about half-a-dozen journalists and four 16-year-old students who arrived after an official press conference looking to speak with the Beatles member, according to the auction house.

At the time of the interview, The Beatles had recorded their last album, Abbey Road and, though not yet officially announced, had already gone their separate ways.

Lennon discusses, among other things, the reason for being in Skyum Bjerge, how his and Yoko’s art and music championed world peace, and how everybody could contribute to the cause. There’s also “talk about the length of his hair, and their micro-macro diet, how it was to perform with The Beatles and the importance of crashing the Beatle image.”

At one point, a student asks whether Lennon would play the guitar, and he plays “Radio Peace,” followed by “a slightly different version” of “Give Peace a Chance,” according to the auction house. The BBC reports that “Radio Peace” was written as the theme song for a radio station that never opened.

Lennon and Ono had been in Denmark “for private reasons” since December 1969. Anthony Cox, Ono’s ex-husband, had moved to rural north Jutland in Denmark, bringing their five-year-old daughter, Kyoko, with him. Kyoko was present for the recording.

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Former Yes keyboardist Rick Wakeman kicks off a new U.S. solo trek, hilariously dubbed the “Even Grumpier Old Rock Star Tour,” on October 13 in Natick, Massachusetts.

The outing, which was postponed multiple times because of the COVID-19 pandemic, is a follow-up to Wakeman’s 2019 “Grumpy Old Rock Star Tour.”

Wakeman tells ABC Audio that the tour got its updated moniker because of his frustration over the postponements.

“[E]very time it got moved, I got grumpier,” the 72-year-old Rock & Roll Hall of Famer notes. “So it made more sense to be the ‘Even Grumpier Rock Star’ show.”

He adds, jokingly, “I think if [there had been]…any more cancellations or postponements, it would have been the ‘Unbelievably, Really Stupidly Long, Even Grumpier Rock Star’ show.”

Regarding his new concerts, Rick says, “[I]t’s basically me with a grand piano, a couple of keyboards this time as well, which will enable me to do some slightly different pieces, plus anecdotes. Got a load of new ones.”

Wakeman reveals that he plans to play select Yes tunes; pieces from solo projects like his 1973 album The Six Wives of Henry VIII; and versions of classic songs by David Bowie and Cat Stevens on which Rick played.

Wakeman tells ABC Audio that almost every show will be different because, although he often prepares a set list for each gig, he rarely sticks to it.

Meanwhile, Rick says he’s thrilled to be returning to the road.

“[I]t’s just gonna be great to be playing in front of people again,” he declares. “I can’t tell you how much I have missed talking to people on stage, and meeting with people after the shows and before the shows.”

Wakeman’s U.S. tour runs through a November 19 concert in Clearwater, Florida.

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George Frayne IV, the veteran country-rock musician better known by his stage name Commander Cody, died Sunday at the age of 77 after battling cancer for several years, Variety reports.

During the late 1960s and ’70s, Frayne led the group Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen, which formed in 1967 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and relocated to San Francisco in 1969. In 1972, the band scored a top-10 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 with a cover of the 1955 spoken-sung rockabilly-flavored country tune “Hot Rod Lincoln.”

Frayne’s wife, Sue, announced his passing in a message on his Facebook page that reads, “Early this morning, as I lay my head upon his shoulder, George’s soul took to flight. I am heartbroken and weary, and I know your hearts break, too. Thank you so much for all the love you gave and the stories you shared.”

Sue also revealed that two “big gatherings” were being planned — one on Long Island, New York, and one in the Bay Area — to celebrate Commander Cody’s life and also “benefit musicians in need.”

Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen’s music combined elements of country, rockabilly, Western swing, jump blues, jazz and boogie-woogie. The band broke up in 1976, after which, Frayne continued to tour and record under the Commander Cody moniker.

Frayne also was an accomplished painter who published a book of his visual art titled Art Music & Life in 2009. He also taught art at the college level. In addition, an experimental video he made called “Two Triple Cheese Side Order of Fries” is part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

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