Classic Hits

Tributes poured in for Beach Boys singer Brian Wilson on Wednesday following his death at age 82.

The singer’s family shared the news of his death on social media, saying they are “heartbroken” and “sharing our grief with the world.”

Among those who posted messages and memories of Wilson were Elton John, Mick Fleetwood and actor John Cusack, who played Wilson in the 2014 film Love and Mercy.

Elton shared on Instagram that Wilson was “always so kind to me from the day I met him,” noting how Wilson sang “Someone Saved My Life Tonight” to him at a 2003 tribute concert.

“I grew to love him as a person, and for me, he was the biggest influence on my songwriting ever; he was a musical genius and revolutionary,” he added. “He changed the goalposts when it came to writing songs and shaped music forever. A true giant.”

Cusack shared photos of him and Wilson on social platform X, writing, “The maestro has passed – the man was a open heart with two legs – with an ear that heard the angels. Quite literally. Love and Mercy for you and yours tonight.”

Fleetwood noted on X, “Anyone with a musical bone in their body must be grateful for Brian Wilson’s genius magical touch!! And greatly saddened of this major worldly loss!!”

Others paying tribute include:

The Rolling Stones‘ Ronnie Wood, who wrote that his world “is in mourning” following the news of Wilson’s death, as well as the death of Sly and the Family Stone frontman Sly Stone. His bandmate Keith Richards wrote, “Rest In Peace, Brian Wilson.”

Sean Ono Lennon, the son of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, shared a post on X about how “heart broken” he is and shared how much Wilson influenced him. “I feel very lucky that I was able to meet him and spend some time with him,” he wrote. “He was always very kind and generous. He was our American Mozart. A one of a kind genius from another world.”

The Kinks‘ Dave Davies shared that Wilson had a “profound effect” on him, adding, “I’m devastated. I loved his Singing. He was an innovator and his writing prowess was remarkable. I loved him.”

There were also tributes from Carole King, The Monkees‘ Micky Dolenz, KISS‘ Gene Simmons, Christopher Cross, Nancy Sinatra and  Randy Bachman.

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Randy Bachman revealed in March that he and his former The Guess Who bandmate Burton Cummings were talking about hitting the road together. And while they haven’t announced a tour yet, they have booked their first performance together as The Guess Who in over two decades.

The duo, responsible for writing some of the band’s biggest hits, including “These Eyes” and “American Woman,” are set to reunite for next year’s Rock Legends Cruise. It will mark their first performance as The Guess Who in 23 years. They plan to perform The Guess Who hits, as well as songs from Cummings’ solo career and Bachman’s band Bachman-Turner Overdrive.

Rock Legends Cruise XIII is scheduled for Feb. 23-27, 2026, departing from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. Other artists on the cruise include Gene Simmons Band, Kevin Cronin Band, Blue Oyster Cult, Uriah Heep and Jefferson Starship.

Info on the full lineup and tickets can be found at RockLegendsCruise.com.

In September 2023, Bachman and Cummings reached a settlement with their former bandmates Jim Kale and Garry Peterson over the use of the band’s name. In the lawsuit, filed in October 2023, Cummings and Bachman accused Kale and Peterson of tricking fans into thinking Cummings and Bachman were still performing with The Guess Who, when they were actually getting a “cover band.”

The suit’s settlement resulted in Cummings and Bachman acquiring the trademark for the band’s name.

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Genesis has once again pushed back the release of the box set celebrating the 50th anniversary of their sixth studio album, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway.

The band originally announced the box set in November 2024 for a planned March 2025 release. It was then delayed until June, and now they’ve announced it won’t be coming out until the fall.

“We deeply apologise to fans who’ve been kept in The Waiting Room to receive their orders,” Genesis shares on Instagram. “Due to unforeseen production issues, the release planned for June 13 has unfortunately been delayed until late Autumn 2025.”

“We understand you’ve been patiently Counting Out Time, and will update with a final delivery date as soon as it is available,” they add.

The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway 50th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition, created with input from the band’s members — Tony Banks, Phil Collins, Peter Gabriel, Steve Hackett and Mike Rutherford — will include the remastered album, done at Abbey Road Studios; a Blu-ray with Dolby Atmos mixes, done under the supervision of Gabriel and Banks; and never-before-released demos. The set will also include The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway Live At The Shrine Auditorium, recorded Jan. 24, 1975.

There’s also a 60-page coffee table book, featuring interviews with all five band members, as well as previously unseen photos.

Released Nov. 22, 1974, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway was a concept album based on an idea by Gabriel, about a Puerto Rican youth named Rael who goes on a journey of self-discovery. During the tour for the album, Gabriel announced to the band he was leaving Genesis once the tour was over.

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Back in 2012, Rod Stewart published Rod: The Autobiography, in which he detailed his life in the fast late as a global rock star. Fans will soon be able to get a slightly different take on the last 25 years of his life — from his wife.

Penny Lancaster is Rod’s third wife, the mother of his two youngest children and a celebrity in her own right in the U.K. She’ll publish her autobiography, Someone Like Me, on Sept. 25.

Announcing the book on Instagram, she writes, “At times I’ve felt alone and overwhelmed by some of the most difficult experiences I’ve had, but I’ve found that delving deeper and sharing these moments has not only helped me, it’s also had a positive impact on others.”

According to the publisher, Penny’s memoir details her struggles, including being bullied at school due to undiagnosed dyslexia, being the victim of a sexual assault as a young girl, undergoing IVF treatment, supporting loved ones — including Rod — through cancer diagnoses, and dealing with depression and menopause.

The book also covers her family life with Rod, and her efforts to promote women’s health and safety, including her work as a special constable for the City of London Police.

Rod was previously married to Alanna Stewart and Rachel Hunter; in addition to his children with them, he has kids from two other relationships. All together, he’s the father of eight kids and often credits Penny for working to bring the family together for celebrations and holidays.

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The new Billy Idol documentary Billy Idol Should Be Dead debuted at the Tribeca Festival Tuesday, and in it the rocker reveals how he discovered he had a long-lost son he never knew about.

Idol was already a father to son Willem Broad with ex Perri Lister and daughter Bonnie Blue Broad with Linda Mathis. But after Bonnie took a DNA test, she discovered there was another member of the family.

“My husband just surprised me with a 23andMe, with a DNA test as a Christmas present,” Bonnie says in the doc, according to People. “And then a few weeks later, I get the results back on the app and open it and I’m like, who is this? This Brant. And it says his info’s like, New York, 1985, looking for my bio dad. I was like, ‘What?'”

Brant Broad says he thought someone else was his father, but a DNA test proved otherwise. When he asked his mother about it, she revealed that when she and the guy Brant thought was his dad broke up she spent a weekend with Idol.

The rocker has since welcomed Brant into the family; Brant even attended Idol’s Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony in 2023.

“Once I saw Brant with Bonnie and Willem, they’ve all got the same quirky sense of humor,” Idol says. “And once I saw that, I could see he’s my son, really.”

Brant adds, “He’s definitely showed me a lot of love, so I’m blessed.”

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Founding Beach Boys singer, songwriter and creative mastermind Brian Wilson has died. He was 82.

“We are heartbroken to announce that our beloved father Brian Wilson has passed away. We are at a loss for words right now,” read a post on Wilson’s Facebook page. “Please respect our privacy at this time as our family is grieving. We realize that we are sharing our grief with the world,” with the post signed, “Love & Mercy.”

One of the most significant figures in pop music’s acceptance as an art form, Wilson wrote the music to nearly all of his famous band’s best-known songs, from their early surf-rock classics to their more complex recordings of the mid-1960s and beyond. Wilson’s catalog includes the timeless hits “Surfin’ U.S.A.,” “Surfer Girl,” “Fun, Fun, Fun,” “I Get Around,” “Help Me, Rhonda” and “California Girls.”

With his gift for vocal harmonies and musical arrangements, Wilson helped craft one of the most celebrated albums of all time, The Beach Boys’ 1966 release Pet Sounds, as well as its follow-up single, “Good Vibrations.” Paul McCartney has said that Pet Sounds was a huge influence on The Beatles‘ 1967 album, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

But Wilson’s work with the Beach Boys was severely impacted by the mental health issues he’d experienced since his 20s. In 1975, those issues, combined with over-indulgence in food, alcohol and drugs, led him to come under the care of controversial psychologist Dr. Eugene Landy, who ultimately became Wilson’s therapist, business manager, executive producer and even co-songwriter. 

Wilson’s family, concerned about Landy’s undue influence on the musician, the fees he charged and the amount of medication he’d prescribed, moved to sever Landy’s relationship with Wilson. In 1989, Landy’s license was revoked due to alleged ethical violations, but he worked with Wilson until 1992, when he was legally barred from contacting him again. Their relationship was documented in the 2014 biopic Love & Mercy.

Wilson’s relationship with his bandmates was difficult for decades. His last album with The Beach Boys, That’s Why God Made the Radio, was released in 2012, coinciding with the band’s 50th anniversary. In recent years, Wilson focused on his solo career; his last studio album, At My Piano, was released in November 2021 and featured solo piano versions of many classic Beach Boys songs. Starting in 1999, he also toured on and off as a solo artist.

In early 2024, Wilson was placed under a conservatorship after the death of his wife, Melinda Wilson, who he married in 1995 and with whom he had adopted five children. “This decision was made to ensure that there will be no extreme changes to the household and Brian and the children living at home will be taken care of and remain in the home,” his manager said in a statement. Melinda was credited with helping separate Wilson from Landy.

Wilson was the subject of three authorized documentaries: 2021’s Brian Wilson: Long Promised Road, 2004’s Beautiful Dreamer: Brian Wilson and the Story of ‘Smile’ and 1995’s Brian Wilson: I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times. In 2024 he participated, along with his former bandmates, in the Disney+ documentary The Beach Boys.

His many career achievements included induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame with The Beach Boys in 1988, induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2000 and being recognized at the Kennedy Center Honors in 2007.

Wilson’s daughters Carnie Wilson and Wendy Wilson are also chart-topping musicians, having made up two-thirds of the bestselling ’90s pop group Wilson Phillips.

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Eric Clapton is shooting down rumors about his health.

A story on Radar claims that the three-time Rock & Roll Hall of Famer has been using a wheelchair due to a nerve disease, but the report is now being shot down.

“There is no validity to the false information circulating online claiming Eric is reliant on a handicap-equipped van and wheelchair to attend his shows,” reads the post on Clapton’s Facebook page. “Eric has just finished a residency at The Budokan in Tokyo, and a highly successful tour in England, Italy, and France and is in excellent physical condition, singing and playing better than ever.”

The post even adds a photo of Clapton performing at London’s Royal Albert Hall in May as proof he’s doing OK.

Clapton is scheduled to play several shows in the U.S. this fall. His tour kicks off Sept. 8 in Nashville, with shows in Cleveland, Philadelphia, Boston and New York before wrapping Sept. 20 in Uncasville, Connecticut. A complete schedule can be found at EricClapton.com.

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On This Day, June 11, 2002…

Beatles legend Paul McCartney married his second wife, Heather Mills, a former model and activist, whose leg was amputated in 1993 after she was run over by a police motorcycle in London.

The couple wed at Castle Leslie in the village of Glaslough in County Monaghan, Ireland, with the celebration attended by several celebrities, including McCartney’s Beatles bandmate Ringo Starr.

The wedding took place four years after the death of McCartney’s first wife, Linda McCartney, from cancer.

McCartney and Mills welcomed their first and only child together, daughter Beatrice, in 2003, and three years later announced they had separated, with their acrimonious divorce finalized in 2008.

McCartney went on to marry a third time, to New Yorker Nancy Shevell, in 2011. They are still married to this day.

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Back in March KISS announced the KISS Army Storms Vegas fan event, which will feature an unmasked electric performance by Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons, but now Stanley says plans for the event may be changing.

In a new appearance on the Broken Record Podcast, Stanley says they will still perform, but the plan is to make some changes so it more closely represents a KISS Kruise.

“It started off as something, honestly, that Gene and I kind of took a back seat in, and, honestly, we reached a point not too far in the past where we both said, ‘You know what? This isn’t the way we want it,'” Stanley says of the Vegas event. “And it’s going to go through some major changes to be what we think it should be,” noting, “we needed to put our big hands into this and we needed to steer the ship.”

KISS Army Storms Vegas will take place Nov. 14-16 at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas. In addition to Stanley and Simmons, it will feature KISS guitarist Tommy Thayer, along with former KISS member Bruce Kulick, Skid Row’s Sebastian Bach and others. Stanley says they also plan to add more bands to the bill.

“It doesn’t need a ship. It will have all the familiar touchstones that people love about a KISS Kruise,” he says. “To do it in Vegas at the Virgin hotel, it’s gonna be everything that people want and have been hoping for.”

Tickets for KISS Army Storms Vegas are on sale now.

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Lenny Kravitz has paid musical tribute to Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Sly Stone, frontman of the legendary group Sly and the Family Stone, whose death was announced Monday. He was 82.

Kravitz shared video on Instagram of him playing guitar to Sly and the Family Stone’s classic track “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin),” captioning the post, “GOOD MORNING and THANK YOU SLY.”

Kravitz had previously shared a tribute to Sly on his Instagram Story, sharing a photo of the musician with the caption “Sly FOREVER.”

The Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger also paid tribute, sharing a photo and writing, “Thanks for the inspirational music Sly.”

Other rockers who remembered Stone on social media include KISS’ Paul Stanley, Gov’t Mule’s Warren Haynes, E Street Band guitarist Stevie Van Zandt and Bachman-Turner Overdrive‘s Randy Bachman.

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