Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell has announced a special event tied in to the upcoming release of his new memoir, Heartbreaker.
The Rock & Roll Hall of Famer will sit down for a conversation with Rolling Stone senior editor David Fricke at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark on March 19, one day after the book’s March 18 release.
And it won’t be all talk. The evening will include an acoustic set featuring Campbell and his The Dirty Knobs bandmate Chris Holt, performing songs from throughout Campbell’s career.
Meanwhile, Campbell’s Heartbreakers bandmate Benmont Tench just released a new solo album, The Melancholy Season, and Campbell is urging fans to check it out.
“So proud of my Heartbreaker brother A wizard; a true star!!” Campbell shared on Instagram. “Go listen and make sure you catch him on the road!”
Have you ever wondered what it would feel like to be bossed around by Gene Simmons? Well, if you’ve got the dough, now’s your chance.
The KISS rocker is offering up what he calls the “ultimate Gene Simmons experience” – a chance to be his personal assistant and band roadie for the day.
The package is only available to one person per show, but that person will become a member of the Gene Simmons Band crew for the entire day. They’ll help load in and set up for the show, and get a GSB crew member shirt, hat and laminate.
They’ll start the day meeting Gene and members of his band to go over the day’s schedule, and they’ll also get to hang out backstage, attend sound check and have a meal with Simmons, who’ll bring them onstage during the show.
The package is good for the purchaser and a guest, and includes a signed set list. They can also bring up to four items for Simmons to sign, plus they’ll receive a signed bass guitar Simmons used for rehersals.
Of course, this package doesn’t come cheap. In fact, it costs $12,495 — and that doesn’t include tickets to the show.
Gene Simmons Band is set to head out on the road starting April 4 in Anaheim, California, with shows booked through Aug. 3 in Sturges, South Dakota. A complete list of dates can be found at genesimmons.com.
Folks are still hitting the theaters to catch the Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown.
BoxOfficeMojo reports that the film, starring Timothée Chalamet as the Rock & Roll Hall of Famer, has grossed over $120 million at the box office worldwide since its Christmas Day release.
According to Billboard, the film is now the eighth-highest-grossing music biopic, just behind Jamie Foxx’s Ray Charles biopic, Ray, which grossed $124 million.
Still topping the list as the highest-grossing music biopic is the Queen film Bohemian Rhapsody, which has a worldwide gross of over $910 million.
And for folks who want to see the movie but don’t want to go to the theater, they can do that, too. A Complete Unknown debuted on digital platforms in late February with never-before-seen bonus extras.
A Complete Unknown follows a 19-year-old Dylan as he arrives in New York from Minnesota and tracks his rise as a folk singer during the ’60s to the top of the charts, ending with his electric rock ‘n’ roll performance at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965.
L-R: Stephen Graham, Bruce Springsteen and Scott Cooper/Jose Perez/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images
Peaky Blinders actor Stephen Graham will play Bruce Springsteen’s father in the upcoming movie Deliver Me From Nowhere, and he tells British GQ what it was like to meet the Rock & Roll Hall of Famer.
“I think the first [scene] we did was when we pull up to this big house, and I’m in the ‘50s look, and everything. And he came over, and we had a lovely conversation. He was just like, ‘Thank you so much for being here,'” Graham tells the magazine. “I mean, he’s an icon. He’s an absolute icon. And such a wonderful man. What really touched me … is his humility, and the way he makes time for everybody.”
Graham says that after shooting his final scene as The Boss’ dad he had to quickly leave to get on a plane, but he later got a thank-you text from The Boss regarding the performance.
“It’s better than any award I could ever contemplate, but he said what I did within that scene, he saw his father again, which is just beautiful,” Graham shares.
The Bear‘s Jeremy Allen White is set to play Springsteen in the film. Graham says he’s “absolutely f****** unbelievable” as Springsteen, adding, “He’s brilliant. He’s unbelievable. To me he’s the new Pacino and De Niro.”
Deliver Me From Nowhere, directed by Scott Cooper, follows Springsteen’s efforts to make his 1982 solo album Nebraska. The film is based on Warren Zanes‘ book Deliver Me from Nowhere: The Making of Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska.
Peter Frampton and Michael McDonald attend the ninth annual LOVE ROCKS NYC benefit concert For God’s Love We Deliver/Getty Images for LOVE ROCKS NYC/photographer Dimitrios Kambouris
The ninth annual Love Rocks NYC concert took place at New York’s Beacon Theatre Thursday, raising $4 million for the nonprofit God’s Love We Deliver, which delivers meals to people who are too sick to prepare them themselves.
The concert featured an A-list lineup of talent, including Rock & Roll Hall of Famers Peter Frampton and Michael McDonald.
According to setlist.fm, McDonald performed The Doobie Brothers tracks “What a Fool Believes,” which he wrote with Kenny Loggins, and “Takin’ It to the Streets.”
McDonald also joined the legendary Mavis Staples, a five-time Love Rocks performer, for a performance of “I’ll Take You There.”
Frampton treated the crowd to his iconic tune “Do You Feel Like We Do” and also performed a cover of “Georgia (On My Mind).” He was then joined by Phish’s Trey Anastasio and 18-year-old guitarist Grace Bowers for a cover of George Harrison’s “My Guitar Gently Weeps.”
Cher performed a trio of tunes at the concert: a cover of Marc Cohn’s “Walking in Memphis,” “(This Is) A Song for the Lonely” and her classic “Believe.” Eurythmics’ Dave Stewart teamed with singer Vanessa Amorosi to perform Eurythmics classics “Here Comes the Rain Again” and “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This).”
The evening, hosted by comedians Alex Edelman, Amy Schumer, Susie Essman and Tracy Morgan,also featured performances by Beck, Anastasio, Alicia Keys, The Struts’ Luke Spiller, punk rocker Jesse Malin, Black Pumas’ Eric Burton and more, with the whole lineup coming out at the end for an all-star encore of Stevie Wonder’s “Higher Ground.”
The Love Rocks concert launched in 2017 and has now raised more than $50 million, enough to fund 5 million meals for New Yorkers in need.
On Thursday Madonna reposted a photo of herself hugging transgender actress Karla Sofía Gascón. On Friday she decried the marginalization of trans people on her Instagram Story.
“It breaks my heart to witness the pain of Trans-people who are not accepted by society by a society that fears them because they are different,” she wrote. “How can we know what it feels like? Have walked in their shoes?”
Madonna referenced the general division in the U.S. at this moment. “The Lynch mob mentality in this country is at an all time high,” she writes. “The excitement people get from watching people go down or be silenced, be blacklisted/is disturbing. The enjoyment we get from other people’s pain is a sin.”
She concludes, “Humanity should put more time and effort into lifting people up and supporting anyone who is striving To be the better version of themselves!”
As previously reported, Gascón wrote in a post on Thursday, “Madonna, I want to thank you for all the love you have shown me … and for your words of love and strength. I love you.”
Fifty years ago Friday David Bowie released his ninth studio album, Young Americans, which was considered a departure from his glam-rock style, focusing more on funk, soul and R&B influences.
The album, which came out less than a year after 1974’s Diamond Dogs, featured backing vocals by a then-unknown singer named Luther Vandross; its first single, the title track, peaked at #28 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
Its second single, “Fame,” featured TheBeatles‘ John Lennon on guitar and backing vocals, and became Bowie’s first Hot 100 #1.
“Fame” was actually one of two songs on the album that featured contributions from Lennon; the other was a cover of The Beatles track “Across the Universe.”
Several months after the album’s release, Bowie appeared on the music show Soul Train, performing “Fame” and “Golden Years” from his next album, Station to Station. The appearance by Bowie marked one of the first times a white artist appeared on the R&B music show.
Young Americans turned out to be a breakthrough album for Bowie in the U.S. It debuted in the Billboard 200’s top 10 in the U.S. and remained on the chart for 51 weeks. The song “Fame” was one of four Bowie songs to be included in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s list of the 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.
Simon & Garfunkel hit #1 with their fifth and final studio album, Bridge Over Troubled Water.
The album featured such iconic Simon & Garfunkel tunes as the title track, “The Boxer,” “The Only Living Boy in New York,” and “Cecilia.”
With Garfunkel concentrating on an acting career, Simon wrote all the songs on the album, with the exception of a cover of the Everly Brothers’ “Bye Bye Love.”
The album went on to become a massive hit and spent 10 weeks at #1. It also sold 25 million copies, and went on to win six Grammy Awards, including album of the year.
40 years ago today — March 7, 1985 — “We Are the World” was released. The charity single was recorded Jan. 28 after the American Music Awards, with stars ranging from Bob Dylan and Stevie Wonder to Bruce Springsteen and Tina Turner. Billy Joel was one of the artists participating, and the one thing he didn’t like about the experience was “We Are the World” itself.
“I wasn’t that crazy about the song,” Billy told ABC Audio some time ago. “I think that was my main memory of that: ‘Oh, this is the song?'”
Written by Lionel Richie and Michael Jackson, it features lyrics like “it’s true we make a brighter day/ just you and me.” Billy says he thought it “sounded like a Pepsi commercial,” but he still took part, finding ways to break up the tedium during the extremely long night.
“If you watch the shots where they have the chorus, some of the times I’m in them and sometimes I’m not,” he laughed. “They kept doing take after take … and I realized that they didn’t need me every time.”
“So I’d kind of sneak off, I’d meet with Bruce Springsteen at the cold cut table, and we’d just stand there and have a beer and listen to everybody else sing, and then we go back!” he laughed.
Billy also recalled the now-legendary moment when Stevie Wonder had to teach Bob Dylan how to sing like Bob Dylan. “I wish they had kept it [in the song], ’cause it was absolutely hysterical,” he said. It’s captured in the Netflix documentary The Greatest Night in Pop.
Lionel Richie once told ABC Audio that a pop culture moment like “We Are the World” couldn’t happen today.
“They’ll say to you, it doesn’t fit our format or it doesn’t fit our demographics, or we’ll do some market testing now to see if it fits the marketplace,” he noted. “So by the time you end up getting the music to the people, it’s over. It’s very difficult now to get the world’s attention.”
It’s been over a decade since Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers keyboardist Benmont Tench released his debut solo album, You Should Be So Lucky, and he’s back with his sophomore release, The Melancholy Season.
Tench tells ABC Audio that while he’s had enough songs to make a new record since about 2017, “things had intervened” that kept him from doing so, including health issues, a new baby and then COVID-19. But he thinks the delay wound up working out for him.
“Though I had enough songs … I didn’t have all of these songs,” he says. “And these songs, the ones that came in later, when put with some of the earlier ones, made a coherent whole.”
Tench says the tracks on the album paint a picture of what he was going through between 2014 and 2019, which includes Petty’s death in 2017. He says of the songs, “It’s more of a picture of … what was in the air for a concentrated period of time during which there had been a lot of changes.”
As for naming the album The Melancholy Season, Tench shares, “I thought it was a good title for a record. I also thought that it summed up the mood of the record pretty well.”
The album’s cover is a painting Tench had seen at the Art Institute of Chicago, which he says he’s “always loved.”
“And when I thought, ‘I want to call this record The Melancholy Season,’ the first thing I said was, ‘Do you think there’s a way we can use this painting for the cover of the album?’” he says. “Because I think it evokes the record very well.”
