Classic Hits – Page 321

Artimus Pyle on the current Lynyrd Skynyrd lineup: “To me it’s kind of silly”

June 3, 2024 by WDNY Radio

Lynyrd Skynyrd has a bunch of tour dates scheduled for this summer, including a performance at CMA Fest in Nashville June 6. However, after the March 2023 passing of founding member and original guitarist Gary Rossington, there are currently no members of the original band performing in the group.

Artimus Pyle, who’s now the only living Lynyrd Skynyrd member inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame with the band, has some strong opinions about the current lineup using the Skynyrd name and tells ABC Audio he doesn’t believe Rossington would have supported the band continuing on after his death.

“Gary was a realist, and Gary had said [that] after his passing he would like to retire the name,” Pyle says.

While Artimus continues to play Lynyrd Skynyrd songs in concert with his Artimus Pyle Band, and even released the guest-filled album Anthems – Honoring The Music Of Lynyrd Skynyrd in February, he says he doesn’t try to pass himself off as Skynyrd.

“I would never call my band Lynyrd Skynyrd, because without Ronnie Van Zandt … there is no Lynyrd Skynyrd,” he says, referring to the band’s original frontman, who died in the 1977 plane crash that also killed Steve Gaines, Cassie Gaines and others, and injured Pyle. “It would be an embarrassment, because without Ronnie, there is not a Lynyrd Skynyrd.”

“It’s like when a basketball player retires and they retire the jersey. I felt like the names should have been retired, but you know, they want to keep the music alive,” he says. “When people come to that show and they don’t see anybody from Lynyrd Skynyrd, to me it’s kind of silly.”

Artimus Pyle is currently on tour and plays Cedar Park, Texas, on June 7. A complete list of dates can be found at artimuspyle.com.

Elton John marks 5th anniversary of ‘Rocketman’ film: “Still amazes me”

May 31, 2024 by WDNY Radio

On May 31, 2019, Rocketman, the biopic based on Elton John‘s life, opened in the U.S. Five years later, Elton is looking back on that day with an Instagram post.

Next to a clip from the movie of Taron Egerton as Elton performing “Crocodile Rock,” Elton wrote, “5 years since this movie hit the screens and it still amazes me to see fans around the world connect with my story and have it resonate with people.”

“Rocketman was more than just a movie for me – it was a journey through my life’s ups and downs, a life so crazy that only by creating a musical fantasy could we truly bring it to life!” he continued. “Thanks to the filmmakers and everyone who made it a hit and to all of you for the incredible support. Your love means everything.”

The clip notes that the movie has an 89% “Fresh” rating on RottenTomatoes.com and was given five-star reviews by a number of publications. It also won multiple awards, including the Golden Globe Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for Egerton, and an Oscar for Elton and Bernie Taupin for the original song they wrote for it: “(I’m Gonna) Love Me Again.”

Grateful Dead takes the stage wearing Bill Walton’s number

May 31, 2024 by WDNY Radio

Ahead of Dead & Company‘s show Thursday at Sphere in Las Vegas, drummer Mickey Hart posted on Instagram, “Tonight we pulse, we vibrate, we dance, for Bill. The BIGGEST deadhead in the world!” Indeed, the band did offer a fitting tribute to the late NBA legend Bill Walton, who died Monday at age 71. He was not only a fanatical Dead fan, but also a personal friend of the group’s members.

Fan-shot footage of the performance shows that the band took the stage with instruments decorated with Walton’s number, 32, which he wore while playing for UCLA, the Portland Trail Blazers and the San Diego Clippers.

During the “Drums” part of the show, the Sphere’s LED screen displayed footage of the time when Walton, who was Hart’s best friend, joined them onstage at a 2016 show for that segment. And when Hart sang “Fire on the Mountain,” the screen displayed images of Walton with the members of the Grateful Dead and Dead & Company over the years.

Walton’s first Dead show was in 1967, and he saw over 1,000 in his lifetime.

Listen to Joan Jett X Alanis Morissette mash-up ahead of their Triple Moon tour

May 31, 2024 by WDNY Radio

Joan Jett and Alanis Morissette, plus singer Morgan Wade, will kick off their Triple Moon tour in June. But ahead of the tour launch, Jett and Morissette have released a mash-up of two of their biggest hits.

The track is called “Hate Myself for Loving You Oughta Know,” and brings together Joan and The Blackhearts‘ 1988 hit “I Hate Myself for Loving You” and Alanis’ signature 1995 tune “You Oughta Know.” The song incorporates vocals and music for both songs, and the video includes snippets from both original videos, as well as live footage and vocals from Joan’s “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll” song and video.

Jett’s signature “Ow!” is also scattered throughout the mash-up, created by DJ Cummerbund.

“We wanted to celebrate [the tour] with this mashup,” Alanis wrote on YouTube. “Elated to see you very soon.”

The Triple Moon tour launches June 9 in Phoenix, Arizona. Will Jett and Morissette perform the mash-up onstage? There’s only one way to find out.

Lenny Kravitz remembers hanging with Prince, going with him to “mess with” Michael Jackson

May 31, 2024 by WDNY Radio

Lenny Kravitz has been around long enough, and moved in and out of musical genres enough, to have met and worked with everyone from Mick Jagger to Madonna to Jay-Z. But in a new interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, Kravitz says some of his most memorable moments were spent hanging out with two late legends: Prince and Michael Jackson.

“We spent so much time together. He used to call me late, late at night to meet him at a club to go play, just set up and go play,” he says of Prince. He adds the two would often go to Prince’s house “to watch funny movies or comedians,” adding, “He was really, really funny. He had an amazing sense of humor.” He was also, according to Kravitz, a sore loser.

“Prince is very competitive. He’s a very good ping-pong player. He’s very good at pool, basketball, everything,” Kravitz says. He recalls going over to Prince’s place in Paris one time with his then-girlfriend, Vanessa Paradis.

“Vanessa was really good at pool and she kicked his a**. And that was a hard one for him.”

Kravitz also remembers “going to visit Michael Jackson” with Prince, explaining, “He’d pick me up, we’d go see Michael in the studio and just mess with him.”

When Lowe notes the story was always that Prince and Michael Jackson were archrivals, Kravitz says, “I’m sure there was some kind of healthy competition, but it was more about having fun and sort of joking around with him. ‘Let’s go f*** with Michael.'”

When they did that, Kravitz says, “Michael was fascinated with my dreadlocks. He’s like, ‘What do you do?,’ y’know, touching my hair.”

But, he notes, “Both of them were really beautiful people.”

Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger” video hits 1 billion views on YouTube

May 31, 2024 by WDNY Radio

A lot of people have been watching Survivor singing about “watching us all with the eye of the tiger.”

The 1982 video for the band’s iconic theme from Rocky III has hit 1 billion views on YouTube, making it the band’s first entry into the streaming platform’s Billion Views Club.

The song, written expressly for Rocky III at the request of Sylvester Stallone, spent six weeks at #1 in 1982 and revived the fortunes of Survivor, whose previous albums had flopped. It also won them the Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group trophy at the 25th annual Grammy Awards.

Survivor’s next album, Caught In the Game, was a relative failure, but in 1984 they bounced back with Vital Signs, which featured new singer Jimi Jamison. It was a massive hit, featuring the top 10 singles “The Search Is Over” and “High On You.”

The Police’s Andy Summers acknowledges one major reason for their success: “We were cute”

May 31, 2024 by WDNY Radio

While it’s true that all three members of The Police were consummate musicians, and that the band’s songwriting talent was undeniable, guitarist Andy Summers admits there was another reason for their success.

“We were cute guys. We were nice-looking guys,” he tells Vulture of himself and bandmates Sting and Stewart Copeland. “Everybody went mad because we were completely sellable as a pop unit. If the three of us were together and we turned up anywhere, a huge crowd would appear.”

“We weren’t exactly a boy band, but we had tremendous adulation and appealed to the female section of the audience, to put it politely,” he adds. “They wanted to be with us, talk to us, and give us their money.”

Summers, who will launch a solo U.S. tour June 5, is also happy to take the credit for the success of the band’s biggest hit, “Every Breath You Take,” even though he didn’t technically write it.

According to Summers, the song’s parent album, Synchronicity, “went straight to #1 … because I wrote the guitar line for ‘Every Breath You Take,’ which transformed it.”

As Summers tells it, Sting and Copeland were “arguing for weeks” about how the song should sound.

“Finally … Sting said, ‘Go on, go in there and make it your own,'” he recalls. “I went in and the famous guitar line came to me very quickly. … When I finished the guitar line all in one go, they all stood up and cheered. It sealed it.”

“I recently saw that it hit two billion streams on Spotify,” he adds. “I was just about to write to the accountant in London and go, ‘Should we talk about this?’ Because even if it’s half a dime for every play, it’s got to be a lot of money.”

Hear David Bowie cover The Who (differently) on track from ‘Rock ‘N’ Roll Star!’ box set

May 31, 2024 by WDNY Radio

For his 1973 album Pin Ups, David Bowie recorded his version of The Who‘s “I Can’t Explain.” But a different take from Bowie on the Who classic has been released ahead of an upcoming box set.

This previously unheard version, called “I Can’t Explain (Trident Studios Version – Take 2),” was recorded in London in 1972, and it’s much faster than the slowed-down version that Bowie eventually put on Pin Ups. It’s included on the five-CD/Blue-ray audio box set Rock ‘N’ Roll Star!, due out June 14.

As previously reported, the box set features 29 unreleased tracks that show Bowie’s musical journey from February 1971 to the release of 1972’s The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. Those tracks include early songwriting demos, rehearsals from Bowie’s home, BBC sessions, live performances, outtakes and alternative versions.

The Blu-ray adds the 2012 remaster of the original Ziggy Stardust album, additional mixes from 2003 and an alternate version of the album, Waiting in the Sky (Before the Starman Came to Earth), featuring recordings made at Trident Studios in December 1971. Two books are also included in the package, including a 36-page reproduction of Bowie’s personal Ziggy Stardust-era notebooks.

Rock ‘N’ Roll Star! is available for preorder now.

Mick Jagger urges fans to vote in November election: “Don’t take anything for granted!”

May 31, 2024 by WDNY Radio

Since he’s British, Mick Jagger is not eligible to vote in the upcoming U.S. presidential election this November — but he wants American Rolling Stones fans to be sure they do.

While onstage at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, on Thursday, Jagger introduced the portion of the show where the Stones play a song voted on by fans. In fan-recorded video, Jagger can be seen telling the crowd, “Now we’ve got the vote song for you, which everyone got really involved in, I wanna thank you … so many people voted.”

“And what’s more important than that is, November, there’s a presidential election, so don’t forget to vote in that,” Jagger continued. “Don’t take anything for granted!”

The band then performed the song that the fans chose: “Emotional Rescue,” which they hadn’t played onstage since 2014.

Jagger, of course, didn’t tell the crowd who to vote for, though in the past the Stones have had multiple disagreements with former President Donald Trump over the unauthorized use of their songs at his campaign events.

Guitars from Bob Dyan, Jerry Garcia, Bono & more bring big bucks at Music Icons auction

May 31, 2024 by WDNY Radio

In addition to the record-setting $2.9 million sale of John Lennon‘s 12-string guitar, the two-day Music Icons sale by Julien’s Auctions brought big bucks for instruments by other rock legends.

The 1965 Fender Telecaster guitar played by Bob Dylan on his album Blonde on Blonde and on his now-legendary 1966 tour, and subsequently used by The Band‘s Robbie Robertson on countless other recordings, sold for $650,000. Jerry Garcia‘s Travis Bean “Winterland Ballroom” guitar went for $520,000. The Les Paul guitar played by Steve Jones during his time in The Sex Pistols went for $390,000.

The 1959 Gibson Les Paul that The Guess Who‘s Randy Bachman used to write and record the #1 hit “American Woman” went for more than $285,000. All told, the auction sold 187 of Bachman’s guitars.

Instruments used by U2 also did well: Bono‘s autographed 2005 Gretsch Irish Falcon guitar and a Fender bass used by Adam Clayton during the band’s Las Vegas residency each brought $260,000.

A yellow “Cloud 3″ electric guitar used by Prince in the ’80s and ’90s, once believed to be lost, went for a whopping $910,000, setting a new record for the most expensive Prince guitar ever sold at auction.

Other fun items that were sold at the auction include a red wrestling singlet worn onstage by Queen‘s Freddie Mercury in 1984, which went for $91,000; the sneakers Adam Clayton wore during U2’s Vegas residency, which went for more than $11,000; and a Versace dress worn by Tina Turner during her 1996 Wildest Dreams tour, which sold for $38,100.

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