Joan Baez’s 1975 album Diamonds & Rust is set to be reissued on limited-edition 180-gram 45 RPM vinyl.
Only 2,000 individually numbered copies will be released on July 11, remastered from the original analog master tapes. According to a press release, the 45 RPM format offers “deeper grooves and greater fidelity, capturing Baez’s pristine voice and evocative arrangements in their most natural and immersive form.”
Diamonds & Rust has Baez covering songs by Jackson Browne, Stevie Wonder, The Allman Brothers Band, Bob Dylan and more. It also features several of her own tunes, including the title track, in which she sings about her past relationship with Dylan.
The Beatles legend Paul McCartney turned 83 on Wednesday, and the Rock & Roll Hall of Famer has now taken to social media to thank all the friends and fans who reached out to wish him a happy birthday.
“I wanna thank everyone who sent me beautiful birthday wishes,” he said in a video on his Instagram Story. “There were so many and they were all so soulful and thoughtful and made me have a really happy birthday.”
He added, “I had it with my kids and my grandkids and wife and her family. It was really beautiful. So thank you, people of the world. I love you. Thank you so much.”
Among the messages he received was an Instagram post from Barbra Streisandthat read, “To Paul … Happy Birthday. Hope you’re celebrating with a little help from your friends … including me.”
Streisand and McCartney recently collaborated on a new version of his song “My Valentine” for Streisand’s upcoming album, The Secret of Life: Partners, Volume Two. The albumcomes out June 27.
The Who’s Pete Townshend is opening up about the drama that led to the band firing their drummer, Zak Starkey.
Problems arose during The Who’s Teenage Cancer Trust shows at Royal Albert Hall in March, with Roger Daltrey calling out Starkey’s playing during “The Song is Over.”
“It’s been a mess,” Townshend shares in a new interview with The i Paper. “I couldn’t see anything wrong. What you see is a band who haven’t played together for a long time. But I think it was probably to do with the sound.”
He adds, “I think Roger just got lost. Roger’s finding it difficult.” He notes, “I have to be careful what I say about Roger because he gets angry if I say anything about him at all. He’ll be sacking me next.”
As for whether it was hard to let Starkey go, Townshend says he wasn’t the one who actually hired Zak in the first place: “Roger invited him in. … And at that time, I don’t know quite why he chose Zak, but Zak is another Keith Moon. He comes with real, real bonuses and real, real difficulties.”
He adds, “I will miss Zak terribly. … But quite what the story is, I don’t f***** know. I really don’t know.”
As for the band’s upcoming final tour of the U.S., Townshend doesn’t sound excited about it.
“I don’t know whether I’ve been up for doing anything with The Who since 1973,” he says. “But I am looking forward to it. Not because it’s the end, but because I hope that we can continue to explore other things.”
But those other things likely won’t be new music. Townshend says he wants to make another album but Daltrey doesn’t.
“He feels that we’ve got enough legacy, and that’s where we differ,” Townshend says.
Kevin Mazur/MG25/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue
When Hamilton was the hottest ticket on Broadway, celebrities flocked to see it — but it appears some of those celebrities were more captivated by the Pulitzer Prize-winning musical than others.
Appearing on Bravo’s Watch What Happens Live! on Thursday, host Andy Cohen asked Anthony Ramos a series of questions about the scariest situations he’s found himself in. Questions included the scariest audition he ever had and the actor who he was most scared to share a scene with — that was Liam Neeson, by the way.
Cohen then asked, “Who was the most terrifying celebrity to spot in the audience during your Hamilton days?”
Ramos, who played John Laurens and Philip Hamilton in the musical, answered, “The most terrifying was Madonna, with her iPad in her face. She was like this the whole time” — and mimed looking down at his lap.
Ramos added, “I’m like, ‘Damn, shorty, if you’re not enjoying it that much, yo, you know the door’s right there, you ain’t gotta stay here.'”
In addition to Hamilton, Ramos appeared in A Star Is Born,In the Heights,Transformers: Rise of the Beasts and last year’s hit action film Twisters.
The Bee Gees‘ 1978 #1 hit “Stayin’ Alive” has inspired a new song by Jonas Brothers.
The sibling trio just released their new single, “No Time To Talk,” which interpolates the Bee Gees track, and they say they got the Rock & Roll Hall of Famers’ permission to use the disco classic.
JoBros write on Instagram, “Growing up on the music that our Dad played for us led to a lifelong influence from the legends that came before us. That influence was undeniably felt while writing what is now ‘No Time To Talk’ and putting it out into the world today with The Bee Gees’ blessing feels unreal.”
The song takes the opening verse of the Bee Gees’ song — “Well you can tell by the way I use my walk/ I’m a woman’s man, no time to talk/ Music loud and women warm/ I’ve been kicked around since I was born” — and flips it to, “I can tell by the way you use your walk/ That you came to dance, no time to talk/ Turning up with all your friends/ You came to dance, around the clock.”
Instead of the Bee Gees’ iconic chorus, “Ah, ah, ah, ah, stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive,” they sing, “She said ‘I, I, I, I/ came to dance, no time to talk.'”
“Stayin’ Alive” originally appeared on the soundtrack of the 1977 John Travolta film Saturday Night Fever. It was the second single released from the soundtrack and spent four weeks at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was the second of the Bee Gees’ six consecutive #1 singles.
Bruce Springsteen is giving fans some insight into his upcoming box set with a 17-minute short film, Inside Tracks II: The Lost Albums.
“The Lost Albums are records that were full records, some of them even to the point of being mixed and not released,” he says in the clip. “For one reason or another something I felt was missing from some of them, or they just didn’t feel complete at the time.” He adds, “I often read about myself in the ’90s as having some lost period or something … really I was working the whole time.”
Tracks II includes seven albums that have never been released before — LA Garage Sessions ’83,Streets of Philadelphia Sessions, Faithless, Somewhere North of Nashville, Inyo, Twilight Hours and Perfect World — and in the film Springsteen and essayist Erik Flanningan go through each one of them individually, as music from the records play in the background. The black and white film also features archival footage of Springsteen in the studio recording the albums.
Springsteen ends the video by teasing a follow-up to Tracks II.
“During Covid, the pandemic, where what I did for that period of time was I finished everything I had in my vault,” he says. “So this is Tracks II: The Lost Albums, but there will be a Tracks III.”
After exploring more rootsy music with his last few solo albums, John Oates is putting the soul back into his music.
John’s new album, simply titled Oates, is due Aug. 29. “The last few albums have been very singer-songwriter, kind of acoustic-based, but I got to the point where I wanted to kick butt a little bit more,” he tells ABC Audio.
“So I had to pull out the electric guitar and the amps. And this album is much more a return to ’70s R&B soul and groove-oriented. So it’s exciting to … kind of return to where, a place that I’m very comfortable with, but at the same time something I haven’t done in a long time.”
Helping him with that return are two young acts: Lawrence, the soul-pop band led by siblings Clyde Lawrence and Gracie Lawrence, and singer/songwriter Devon Gilfillian. In fact, hearing Lawrence inspired Oates to write a song with the same kind of feel, and he asked Clyde and Gracie to guest on it. You can hear the result on “Enough Is Enough,” which is out now.
Gilfillian co-wrote the song “Real Thing” with Oates and sings on another track, “Mending.” The album also includes Oates’ cover of Marc Cohn‘s classic “Walking in Memphis.”
Oates will start a tour June 20 in North Carolina and has dates mapped out through an Aug. 27 show at the Troubadour in West Hollywood. He’ll also perform at Milwaukee’s Summerfest on July 4.
Former Genesis guitarist Steve Hackett is sharing another preview of his upcoming live album, The Lamb Stands Up Live at the Royal Albert Hall, which will be released July 11.
The album is a live recording from Hackett’s U.K. tour celebrating the 50th anniversary of the legendary Genesis concept album The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. He just released a video featuring a live performance of the track “Fly on a Windshield,” featuring a guest appearance from Marillion’s Steve Rothery.
Hackett calls the performance “one of my favorite moments on the album,” noting, “I very much enjoyed creating my guitar contribution for this track, and on this release is also Steve Rothery’s fabulous contribution, as we exchange licks.”
The Lamb Stands Up Live at the Royal AlbertHall will be released as a special-edition two-CD and Blu-ray set, as well as on vinyl as a deluxe four-LP set. Both are available for preorder now.
Hackett is set to revisit The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway once again this fall when he brings his Genesis Greats, Lamb Highlights and Solo tour to North America. The trek kicks off Oct. 4 in Ithaca, New York, and wraps Nov. 22 in Portland, Oregon. A complete list of dates can be found at hackettsongs.com.
Bruce Springsteen fans can look forward to a new album next year. In a new interview with Rolling Stone, The Boss gave an update on what he’s been working on, sharing, “I have a record finished.”
Although he didn’t offer up too many details, he says, “It’s a solo record … I would imagine it will come out in ’26 sometime.”
The Boss also reconfirmed previous reports that he’s recorded a follow-up to 2022’s Only the Strong Survive, which was filled with classic soul and R&B covers.
“It’s been finished for quite a while,” he says. “The covers records are things I make for my own amusement and entertainment when I’m not writing. It was just a project that I had a lot of fun doing. And I love all that music, I love all those songs and those singers.”
He adds, “So I do have another one, and there’s other covers things I’ve done that were not necessarily soul-related, so it’s another project.”
Springsteen also set the record straight about the long-rumored all-band version of his 1982 solo album Nebraska, first insisting to the mag “it doesn’t exist.”
“We tried to do a few songs with the band for a few minor electric versions of Nebraska, maybe something else, I’m not sure,” he says. “But that record simply doesn’t exist.”
But he later corrected himself, leaving a voice message for the journalist he talked to: “I checked our vault and there IS an electric Nebraska record, though it does not have the full album of songs.”
Looks like we can expect to hear some new music from ASIA soon.
The band – whose current lineup includes founding member Geoff Downes, drummer Virgil Donati, guitarist John Mitchell and vocalist and bassist Harry Whitley – has just signed a new record deal with Frontiers Music Srl.
“ASIA is thrilled to have recently signed a new deal with Frontiers Music Srl,” Downes shares, noting they are “now entering an exciting new chapter in the band’s 45-year history with a sequence of live albums, DVDs and a brand new studio album scheduled for a 2026 release.”
He adds of the label, “It’s very much a homecoming for the band, and so we are greatly looking forward to a long and fruitful partnership with them in the future. Watch this space!”
Formed in 1981, ASIA was made up of John Wetton, Steve Howe, Downes, and Carl Palmer, all members of well known prog rock groups. Their 1982 self-titled debut hit #1 in the U.S., thanks to songs like “Heat of the Moment” and “Only Time Will Tell.”
The band has gone through multiple lineup changes over the years, with the original four reuniting in 2006, until Howe retired from the band in 2013. Wetton passed away in 2016. Different lineups continued to tour over the years, with the new lineup launching their first tour in 2024.
ASIA released their last album, Gravitas, in 2014.
