Classic Hits

Music fans are about to gain some new insight into the late Fleetwood Mac star Christine McVie, who passed away November 30, 2022, at the age of 79.

A new book, Perfect: An Intimate Biography of Christine McVie, is due out June 20, written by Lesley-Ann Jones, who was a friend of the Rock & Roll Hall of Famer.

According to the description, the book “offers a true insider’s view, and deep psychological insight into Christine as a both a woman and a musician,” sharing that it’s “the first, the only, the ultimate picture of a rock legend and a national treasure.”

It promises to delve into McVie’s career with Fleetwood Mac, noting she was the “strong, constant figure whom they dubbed ‘the mother’ of the band.” It will also explore her personal life, including affairs, divorce, addiction and more. 

Perfect: An Intimate Biography of Christine McVie is available for pre-order now.

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There were a lot of great concerts in 2023, and USA Today has chosen their favorites, with U2 topping the list thanks to their Las Vegas residency, U2: UV Achtung Baby Live at Sphere.

“It’s not a concert. It’s an experience,” they write about the shows, which kicked off September 29 at the new high-tech theater, noting, “the perfect band merged with the perfect venue to create an unquestionable marvel.”

They loved the U2 residency so much that it actually beat out the Taylor Swift Eras tour for the top spot, with the paper calling the residency “worth the hype.” 

Also making USA Today’s top concerts of 2023 list is Billy Joel and Stevie Nicks, who landed at eight for their co-headlining trek. The paper notes, “the sardonic New Yorker and the mystical muse of ethereal pop proved an endearing double shot.”

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Timothée Chalamet has been listening to a lot of Bob Dylan as he gets ready to play the iconic musician in the film A Complete Unknown, but he’s not just limiting himself to your typical Dylan hits. 

In an interview with MTV, Chalamet says that Dylan is probably the artist he listened to most in 2023 and got some help with his playlist from the rocker’s manager Jeff Rosen. 

“This might earn the ire and wrath of a lot of Bob fans, rightfully,” Chalamet says. “He sent me like a 12-hour playlist of unreleased Bob stuff from like 1959 to ’64.”

Chalamet says some of the music can actually be found online, but there are others songs that don’t seem to be available.

“I feel like I’m holding onto gold or something,” he says, adding, “some of it I’d love to sneak in the movie.” 

A Complete Unknown, to be directed by James Mangold, has been in the works for four years, but in all that time, Chalamet hasn’t met or sung for Dylan and he’s not necessarily sure he wants that to change.

“I would love to meet him now but my feeling for the last four years was God forbid I met him and he was like ‘No,’” he says. “All this hard work will go down the drain.”

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It looks like we may soon be getting some new music from Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour.

Polly Samson, Gilmour’s wife and occasional lyricist, has shared several photos on Instagram of Gilmour in the studio, suggesting he’s working on some new songs.

One photo shows him in front of a sound board with the caption, “Today’s desk was, I’m told, made before I was.”  There is also a photo of Gilmour on his guitar, and pics of musicians Adam Betts on drums and Tom Herbert on bass.

So far there’s no word on when a new Gilmour album will be released. When it happens it will be the rocker’s first new album since 2015’s Rattle That Lock.

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Robbie Robertson and Lenny Kravitz both have a shot at an Oscar nomination.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences just revealed the shortlist for songs and scores eligible for a nomination for the 96th Academy Awards, with Robertson, who passed away in August, making the Best Original Score shortlist for his work on Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon.

Kravitz has a shot at a Best Original Song nod for his Rustin track “Road to Freedom,” although there’s tough competition in the category. Among the 15 songs eligible, three Barbie tunes made the cut: Billie Eilish’s “What Was I Made For?”; “I’m Just Ken,” which features Slash and Wolfgang Van Halen on guitar; and Dua Lipa‘s “Dance the Night.”

The final nominees for the 2024 Academy Awards will be announced on January 23. The ceremony airs March 10 on ABC.

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Renowned music producer Eddie Kramer is teasing fans with the possibility of new music from the late Jimi Hendrix.

During an appearance on The Vinyl Guide podcast, Kramer, who is part of the Experience Hendrix team with Janie Hendrix and John McDermott, says it’s possible that AI could be used to turn archival Hendrix audio into new music, similar to what was done with The Beatles’ latest single “Now and Then.” 

“It’s really very advanced digital manipulation, and now the technology has become so evolved,” Kramer shared, noting that he really doesn’t like to describe the technology as AI. “I’m sure if we found another tape [that has] Jimi’s voice buried, I know I could use something similar, which I’ve done before, but now it’s going to be on a much higher level.”

As for whether there’s music that exists that could be used to produce new songs, Kramer says, “Yes, there are tapes that I would love to get my hands on,” although he notes the process to get that to happen “could be quite lengthy.”

Kramer helped produce the recent live Hendrix release, Jimi Hendrix Experience: Live at the Hollywood August 18, 1967, and says he looks forward to discovering more old Hendrix material.

“This whole concept of restoration, it feels sometimes as if I’m part archaeologist with the little brushes brushing away the dirt from the stones and the bones and then revealing something spectacular,” Kramer says. “I love it.”

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Frank Sinatra is back on the charts thanks to the holiday season.

Ol’ Blue Eyes’ 1948 cover of the holiday classic “Jingle Bells” has jumped to #20 on the Billboard Hot 100, matching the song’s previous chart peak from last year.

“Jingle Bells” is Sinatra’s first top 20 hit since 1967, when he and daughter Nancy Sinatra went to #1 with “Somethin’ Stupid.” It is his fourth top 20 hit overall. The others are ”Strangers in the Night,” which went to #1 in July 1966, and “That’s Life,” which hit #4 in December 1966.

While artists such as Meghan Trainor, Kimberley Locke, Michael Bublé, and more have covered “Jingle Bells” over the years, Sinatra’s is the only cover to hit the Hot 100.

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On This Day, December 21, 2014…

Superstar Elton John and longtime partner David Furnish were officially married at their estate in Windsor, England.

Their celebration came nine months after same-sex marriage became legal in the U.K., and nine years to the day that they entered into a civil partnership.

Their 2005 ceremony took place at Windsor Guildhall, the same month the Civil Partnership Act became official in the U.K.

The pair, who have been together since 1993, are parents to two sons, Zachary, born December, 2010, and Elijah, born January, 2013.

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Barry Manilow has scored a holiday hit with his version of Mariah Carey‘s “All I Want for Christmas Is You.” But if things had gone differently, we would’ve gotten a whole album of Christmas songs from the legendary entertainer.

“I was going to make a Christmas album this year, but this year turned [out] to be the craziest year of my career and I couldn’t finish it,” Barry told ABC Audio. “But I had three songs done and that was one of them.”

Barry said he made Mariah’s song his own by making it “a little simpler,” adding, “I really loved the writing of the song. I thought the melody was strong. I thought the lyric was strong.”

In fact, Mariah’s song is one of the rare modern holiday tracks that is just as popular as classics like “White Christmas” — something Barry says is extremely hard to pull off.

“As you become more and more popular, it always gets to, ‘OK, let’s do a Christmas album.’ And that is a big challenge,” he notes. “Because a lot of us try to write our own Christmas songs … and you can’t compete with the standards.”

Barry’s decision to cover a beloved song, instead of trying write one himself, and then release it as a stand-alone single turned out to be a good one. And it’s paid off in a way he never expected.

“I loved what we had done to that song. And I said, ‘Why don’t you just put it on Spotify during the Christmas month? See what happens,'” he notes. “And holy moly, it’s bulleting up the charts. I never thought I would tell anybody that I’m bulleting up the charts again.” 

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December 21 is the first day of winter, and the Grateful Dead is helping welcome the season by treating fans to a winter solstice playlist.

The band announced the new playlist on Instagram, which is made up of “over 16 hours of the best and longest versions of essential Dead tracks – roughly the same amount of darkness we’ll see during the Winter Solstice!” 

The playlist includes performances from the ’70s and ’80s, including live versions of such songs as “Playing in the Band,” “Shakedown Street,” “Scarlet Begonias,” “Fire on the Mountain,” “Sugar Magnolia,” “Casey Jones,” “Truckin’” and “Not Fade Away.”

There are also various jams and solos, including a Watkins Glen soundcheck jam from 1973, a Phil Lesh solo from Rochester, New York, in 1977 and a “Mind Left Body Jam” from Oklahoma City in 1973.

The Grateful Dead winter solstice playlist is available now to stream on Spotify, Apple Music and more.

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