Classic Hits

After a month’s worth of teases, you can finally hear what it sounds like when retired NFL star Jason Kelce attempts to sing with two-time Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Stevie Nicks.

“Maybe This Christmas,” the duet they recorded for Jason’s annual charity album, which this year is titled A Philly Special Christmas Party, is out now. The whole album, which also features Boyz II Men, Jason’s brother, Travis Kelce, and others, arrives Nov. 22.

The song “Maybe This Christmas,” written by Ron Sexsmith, finds Jason — who can actually carry a tune — joining Stevie for a message of hope and healing this holiday season. “Maybe this Christmas will mean something more/ Maybe this year love will appear,” he sings. Stevie takes the second verse, singing, “Maybe forgiveness will ask us to call/ Someone we love, someone we’ve lost.”

Together, they sing, “Maybe there’ll be an open door/ Maybe the star that shone before/ Will shine once more.”

“There are no words to describe how incredible it is to have Stevie Nicks on this record,” says executive producer Conner Barwin in a statement. “There is so much emotion in this song, and it was thrilling to be with them in the studio and watch her and Jason connect, be creative together, and witness this beautiful song become a reality.”

It’s not clear how the hookup with the former Philadelphia Eagles star happened, but Stevie is a friend of Taylor Swift‘s, and she, of course, is dating Travis.

Proceeds from the vinyl sales will go to support Children’s Crisis Treatment Center’s Holiday Toy Drive and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s Snowflake Station, among other charities.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

A documentary about the late keyboard player Billy Preston — perhaps best known for being the only guest musician ever credited on a Beatles record — will screen at DOC NYC, America’s largest documentary film festival, on Nov. 17

Titled That’s the Way God Planned It, after Preston’s 1969 solo hit of the same name, the film features interviews with Eric Clapton, Ringo Starr and George Harrison‘s widow, Olivia, as well as rare footage. It focuses on Preston’s genre-spanning work with Aretha Franklin, The Rolling Stones, Elton John and more, as well as his struggle to come to terms with his sexuality and his substance abuse.

If you watched the Beatles’ Get Back documentary, you saw Preston jamming in the studio with the Fab Four and playing with them during their final live performance on the rooftop of Apple Records in London in January 1969. The single “Get Back” was credited to “The Beatles featuring Billy Preston.”

Following the rooftop concert, Preston was signed to The Beatles’ Apple Records and scored a hit with “That’s the Way God Planned It.” In his years after leaving the label in 1971, he recorded the hits “Will It Go Round in Circles,” “Outa-Space,” “Nothing from Nothing” and “With You I’m Born Again.”

Preston also co-wrote Joe Cocker‘s classic “You Are So Beautiful,” recorded and toured with George Harrison and The Rolling Stones, and was the first-ever musical guest on Saturday Night Live, among his many other accomplishments. He died in June 2006 after a bout of pericarditis in 2005 caused respiratory failure, which left him comatose.

Preston was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2021.

The screening of the doc at the festival will include a Q&A with director Paris Barclay.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

It’s officially time.

Mariah Carey kicked off her annual Christmas Time tour in Highland, California, on Wednesday. The Queen of Christmas celebrated the 30th anniversary of her album Merry Christmas during the tour’s opening night, where she reintroduced two beloved holiday tracks to the set list: “O Holy Night” and “Miss You Most (at Christmas Time.)”

The 19-song set also featured four different costume changes. Mariah started out wearing a white, sparkling custom House of Gilles gown before she changed into a short red dress by Valerian Sahiti. After that, she slipped into a floor-length custom silver ensemble with a matching cape, before she ended the show wearing a festive red bodysuit inspired by Santa Claus, reminiscent of the one she wore on the cover of Merry Christmas.

Of course, while wearing the festive bodysuit, Mariah closed the show with her celebrated yuletide classic “All I Want For Christmas Is You,” sung from inside of a sleigh.

The 21-date Christmas Time tour continues throughout November and runs through Dec. 17, where it wraps up in New York City.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Are you ready for yet another cover of Bob Dylan‘s classic “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door”?

The song, which Dylan recorded for the soundtrack of the film Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, has been covered by everyone from the Grateful Dead and Guns N’ Roses to Avril Lavigne and Eric Clapton. Now Yellowjackets star Sophie Thatcher has recorded her version for the soundtrack of the new A24 horror film Heretic.

In the film, out on Nov. 8, Thatcher and Chloe East play two Mormon missionaries who try to convert a character played by Hugh Grant — who turns out to be a very bad guy. The new version of the song is heard at the end of the film. Thatcher says her version feels “very melancholic and feminine and more dreamy and atmospheric.”

“It works with the movie because Hugh Grant goes on a spiel about religion and Christianity, [and how] they’re all iterations of each other,” she says.

Thatcher also allows that her version sounds very much like Mazzy Star‘s ’90s hit “Fade Into You.” And that’s not the only ’90s alt-rock band that’s referenced in the film: At one point, Grant’s character sings a bit of Radiohead’s “Creep” to illustrate how similar it is to The Hollies‘ “The Air That I Breathe.”

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

After launching their co-headlining tour in football stadiums this year, Billy Joel and Sting will continue the party into 2025 by performing in four football stadiums — but they just announced a one-off show for next year in the more “intimate” surroundings of a baseball stadium.

The two Rock & Roll Hall of Famers will perform April 26 at the Milwaukee Brewers’ American Family Field, in what the The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports will be their only baseball stadium show of 2025. It’ll be Billy’s first show in Milwaukee since 2019 and Sting’s first show there since 2016.

American Family Field has a capacity of 41,900. By comparison, a football stadium, like the one they’re performing in on Nov. 9 in Las Vegas, can hold 72,000 fans.

Tickets go on sale Nov. 15 at 10 a.m. local time via livenation.com and ticketmaster.com. Citi cardholders will be able to access a presale beginning Nov. 11 at 10 a.m. local time.

Following the joint concert with Sting Nov. 9, Billy has two more shows left in 2024: a Nov. 23 solo date in Hollywood, Florida, and a New Year’s Eve show at UBS Arena in Belmont Park, New York, on Dec. 31. As for Sting, his Sting 3.0 tour with his power trio continues through November and ends Dec. 7. 

Billy and Sting’s first show together in 2025 comes on Feb. 8 in Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, then Sting resumes his solo tour on Valentine’s Day in South America.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

You wouldn’t think that Madonna would need any help making a love connection, especially back in her heyday. But according to Rosie Perez, she’s the reason that the Queen of Pop ended up having a romance with one of the most influential rappers of all time.

When Perez appeared on The Drew Barrymore Show on Nov. 6, she related a story of how, just half an hour before she was due to leave for the Soul Train Music Awards, her date bailed on her. She was furious, so when her friend Tupac Shakur called minutes later, she told him what was going on.

“And he said, ‘You know what, I’m gonna go with you, we’re gonna walk up in there, we’re gonna act like we’re on a date, and he’s going to die,‘” Perez recalls Tupac telling her. Then, at the awards show, Madonna approached her and asked if she and Tupac were an item.

“She was there and she came up to me and she was like, ‘Yo, what’s up? Y’all are together?'” Perez told Barrymore. “And I said, ‘No.’ She goes, ‘Really?’ I go, ‘Yeah.’ She goes, ‘Hook me up.’ I said, ‘You got it.'”

Madonna and Tupac ended up secretly dating from 1993 to 1994. They broke up, but while Tupac was in prison in 1995 he wrote Madonna a letter apologizing for their split. He was released from prison in October 1995, but was murdered a year later. He was 25.

You can watch the clip of Perez telling the story on EW.com.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Peter Gabriel, who sang about Native Americans in his song “San Jacinto,” has now become involved in a documentary highlighting the struggles of Canada’s First Nation indigenous peoples.

According The Hollywood Reporter, Gabriel is executive producing New Blood, which focuses on the historical trauma faced by First Nations people. The documentary shares its name with Gabriel’s 2011 album, which featured him performing some of his songs, including “San Jacinto,” with an orchestra.

Gabriel first became involved with the project when he allowed music from that album to be used in an Alberta, Canada, high school dance production inspired by the true story of a First Nation chief named Vincent Yellow Old Woman.

The documentary focuses on the fact that until the 1990s, the Canadian government funded so-called “residential schools” run by the Catholic Church, where indigenous children were taken from their families and sent to be assimilated. In 2021, Canada underwent a national reckoning after the remains of hundreds of indigenous children — students in those schools — were discovered in unmarked graves.

The New Blood documentary chronicles Chief Vincent’s own experience in a residential school, which led to him becoming a drug addict and then, later in life, becoming chief of Siksiká Nation, one of the four nations of the Blackfoot Confederacy. 

The film will air on Canada’s CBC on Nov. 22.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

On This Day, Nov. 7, 1943 …

Joni Mitchell was born in Alberta, Canada.

Born Roberta Joan “Joni” Anderson, Mitchell’s rise to fame began in the ’60s and ’70s with such classic songs as “Big Yellow Taxi,” “Chelsea Morning,” “River” and “Both Sides Now.” She also wrote “Woodstock,” which later became a huge hit for her friends Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.

Mitchell has released 19 studio albums over the course of her career, but it’s her fourth album, 1971’s Blue, that is considered by many to be one of the best pop and rock albums in history.

In 2015 Mitchell suffered a brain aneurysm. She once revealed that she had to learn to walk again following the medical emergency. She made few public appearances after that and hadn’t performed live in 20 years when, in 2022, she surprised audiences at the Newport Folk Festival, joining Brandi Carlile for a guest-filled Joni Jam.

Since 2022, Mitchell has played a few more Joni Jams, and performed on the Grammys in 2024. She most recently headlined two nights at the Hollywood Bowl in California in October, with Elton John joining her onstage during one of the shows.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

The new Bruce Springsteen documentary Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band is streaming now on Hulu and Disney+, and while the movie gives fans insight into the band’s live show, it also turns the camera on Bruce’s dedicated fans.

The film’s director, Thom Zimny, tells ABC Audio that he’s always felt welcomed by the fans, noting that for many, coming to a concert is about more than just getting to see Bruce play some songs.

“When I was interviewing the fans, the beautiful thing I encountered was this universal connection to the music,” he says. “And it goes beyond fandom.” 

“I really talked to the people at length and found, to have simple stories of their connection to be a really powerful thing,” he says. “It wasn’t being obsessed with celebrity or chasing a rock god. It’s more that they’ve taken this positive thing in their life, made a community out of it and it reinforces ideas for them that bring joy in their life.”

He adds, “That silent communication that you see in people’s faces with the music and the band, it’s something that I abstractly wanted to try to get across. It’s really hard to put into words.” 

Zimny himself is one of those fans, and when asked to pick his favorite Springsteen album, he had a hard time choosing.  

“For me, every day there’s an opportunity to step into a Springsteen album. … Every day you can find an album to start at the beginning and play straight through till the end,” he says. “The narrative arc and the journeys on these albums are flawless and they stay with me in a timeless way.” 

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Get ready for a new take on a holiday classic.

Bing Crosby‘s beloved yuletide song “White Christmas” is getting a new version featuring V from BTS.

“White Christmas (with V of BTS)” arrives just in time for the holiday season on Dec. 6. It comes in partnership with the Bing Crosby Estate, Primary Wave Music and Geffen Records, and arrives after V’s long-standing admiration for Crosby.

“I’m so grateful to have had the chance to be featured in a song with my all time favorite jazz artist, Bing Crosby. I grew up listening to his song ‘It’s Been a Long, Long Time’ countless times a day, and I feel incredibly fortunate and honored to have sung along on ‘White Christmas’ with the voice of someone I consider an idol,” V said in a press release. “Being a huge fan of his, I sang with the utmost sincerity and admiration for him, and I hope many people enjoy it as much as I enjoyed singing it. Lastly, I wish a lovely holiday season to everyone listening to the song.”

Mary Crosby, Bing Crosby’s daughter, said that her family is thrilled to have V singing with her father on the song.

“We are incredibly excited about V joining Dad for the duet of ‘White Christmas,'” Harry Crosby, Bing Crosby’s son, added. “We are happy that V will help share the joy of this timeless Christmas song.”

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.