Classic Hits

Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson has directed the music video for “Now and Then,” the final song from The Beatles. The song drops Thursday, November 2, at 10 a.m. ET,  with the video to follow on Friday, November 3, at 10 a.m. ET.

Jackson, who also directed the Emmy-winning docuseries The Beatles: Get Back, says he was at first reluctant to take on the project.

“I thought my next few months would be a hell of a lot more fun if that tricky task was somebody else’s problem, and I could be like any other Beatles fan, enjoying the night-before-Christmas anticipation as the release of a new Beatles song and music video approached,” he explains, noting the idea of making the clip “produced a collection of anxieties almost too overwhelming to deal with.” 

Jackson says his biggest worry was that there wasn’t enough authentic footage to use for the video, but his fears were unfounded. Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr shot new footage of themselves performing, and Apple had video of Paul, Ringo and George Harrison working on “Now and Then” in 1995. Plus, Sean Lennon and Olivia Harrison sent him unseen home movies, and Pete Best provided some never-before-seen footage. 

“To be honest, while we hope we’ve given The Beatles a suitable final farewell, that’s something you’ll need to decide for yourselves when it’s finally released – only a few days from now,” Jackson says. “Having got to the end, I’m very happy I’m not waiting for the release of somebody else’s ‘Now And Then’ music video. I have genuine pride in what we made, and I’ll cherish that for years to come.”

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On This Day, October 31, 1961…

Laurence Joseph Mullen Jr., better known to rock fans as U2 drummer Larry Mullen Jr., was born in Dublin, Ireland. 

It was Mullen who in 1976 posted an advertisement on a bulletin board seeking musicians interested in forming a rock band, which led to the eventual creation of U2. Bono and friend David Evans, aka the Edge, responded to that ad, and they, along with bassist Adam Clayton, went on to become one of the biggest rock bands in the world.

The Irish rockers have gone on to release 15 studio albums and win 22 Grammy Awards. They’ve sold between 150 million and 170 million records and were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2005 in their first year of eligibility.

While the band is currently in Las Vegas headlining their U2:UV Achtung Baby Live at Sphere residency, Mullen is sitting out the shows, as he recovers from surgery. He did, however, appear on the band’s new song, “Atomic City,” and was on hand to film the video on the streets of Sin City.

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Bruce Springsteen is heading overseas again next year. 

The rocker just announced a new set of European dates with the E Street Band, which will see them playing in Wales, Ireland, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Sweden, London and more.

The trek kicks off May 5 in Cardiff, Wales, and features four dates across Ireland, including a May 19 concert at Croke Park in Dublin. The tour also includes multiple night stands in Milan, Madrid, and Stockholm, with the tour wrapping July 25 at Wembley Stadium in London. 

Ticket onsales begin Friday, November 3, and vary depending on the tour date.

The European tour will follow the 2024 North American leg, which consists of shows Springsteen had to reschedule after postponing his 2023 tour to recover from peptic ulcer disease. The tour is set to kick off March 19, in Phoenix, Arizona. A complete list of dates can be found at brucespringsteen.net.

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The Rolling Stones have reached a new milestone on the Billboard chart. 

With the band’s latest album, Hackney Diamonds, debuting at #3 on the Billboard 200 this week, the Rock & Roll Hall of Famers are now the first act to have albums land in the top 10 in every decade from the 1960s to the 2020s.

Overall, The Stones have had 38 top 10 records, the most of any artist in the history of the list. They had their first top 10 in 1964 with 12 x 5; prior to Hackney Diamonds, their last was 2010’s Blue & Lonesome.

Since the ’60s, nine of The Stones’ 38 top 10s have gone to #1, although none since the ’80s. They include: 1965’s Out of Our Heads, 1971’s Sticky Fingers, 1972’s Exile on Main St., 1973’s Goats Head Soup, 1974’s It’s Only Rock ‘n Roll, 1976’s Black and Blue, 1978’s Some Girls, 1980’s Emotional Rescue and 1981’s Tattoo You.

Barbra Streisand is the only other artist to come close to The Stones’ feat. She has had a new top 10 in each decade from the 1960s to the 2010s.

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Jimmy Buffett may be gone, but his band plans to live on. Songwriter Mac McAnally, a longtime member of Buffett’s Coral Reefer Band, tells Billboard that the band plans to continue on, despite Buffett’s passing on September 1. 

“The Coral Reefer Band is second family to all of us. We are a family. And Jimmy wants us to continue and we want to continue,” McAnally shares. “There’s ongoing discussions about the best way to do that, the most practical way to do that and how to do it in a way that is worthy of the legacy that we’re part of.” 

He adds, “I can’t wait until we [figure it out] because we miss being out there, playing his songs to people and feeling that alternating current go back and forth from the stage to the crowd. I don’t know who’s got more energy, them or us.” 

Buffett’s last time on a stage was in June when he surprised the audience at McAnally’s show in Rhode Island, where they played the Buffett/Alan Jackson tune “It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere.”

“I looked back around at him because he was coming up behind me and he was 100% the happiest person on earth,” McAnally says, “because I don’t think he knew if he was going to feel it again and I don’t think he knew that he was never gonna feel it again after that.”

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Founding members of The Guess Who, Burton Cummings and Randy Bachman, are suing two of their former bandmates. 

The pair has filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles federal court against original members Jim Kale and Garry Peterson, accusing them of misleading fans into thinking that they are included in the current lineup.

Peterson is the only original member still performing with the group; the suit accuses him and Kale of “concocting a deceptive scheme” that has tricked fans into buying tickets to Guess Who shows thinking Burton and Cummings are still performing with the band. Burton and Cummings say fans are instead getting “a cover band.”

The suit also accuses Kale and Peterson of replacing original photos of The Guess Who with pictures of Peterson’s version on streaming services and of using songs written by Burton and Cummings to promote the current lineup’s tour. They say all of this has left them unable to tour and has “tarnished the band’s legacy.”

Cummings and Bachman are seeking in excess of $20 million; they want a judge to force Kale and Peterson to inform the public and venues of the truth of who’s performing.

“With this lawsuit, Randy and I hope to set the record straight and protect fans from imposters trying to rewrite history,” says Cummings. “Even after we’re gone, the legacy of The Guess Who will live on, and we want to make sure that legacy is restored and preserved truthfully.”

Bachman adds, “Anyone presenting and promoting themselves as The Guess Who are clones who are ripping off our fans and tainting the legacy of the band. It’s about time for the real story to come out.”

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It sounds like a lot of people want Cher to help them get into the holiday spirit. The singer’s brand new holiday album, Christmas, debuted at #1 on the Billboard Top Holiday Albums chart.

Cher moved 21,000 equivalent album units of Christmas to land at #1, with the album also debuting at #32 on the all-genre Billboard 200 chart.

The album is now Cher’s 14th top 40 album; she joins Barbra Streisand as only the second female artist to have top 40 records in every decade since the 1960s. Bob Dylan and The Rolling Stones have done so, as well. 

Cher’s Christmas has her covering holiday classics like “Santa Baby,” “Run Run Rudolph” and more, along with four original tunes. It features guest appearances by Stevie Wonder, Cyndi Lauper, Michael Bublé, Darlene Love and Tyga.

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Bob Dylan has added a New York City date to his Rough and Rowdy Ways tour.  The rocker will now play the Beacon Theatre on November 16, one of seven shows in the New York/New Jersey area. 

In addition to the Beacon, Dylan is already set to play The Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, New York, on November 7 and 8, Brooklyn’s Kings Theatre November 14 and 15, and Newark’s New Jersey Performing Arts Center on November 20 and 21. 

Tickets for the Beacon show go on sale Friday, November 3, at noon ET. A complete list of dates can be found at bobdylan.com.

Dylan brought his Rough and Rowdy Ways tour to Montreal on Sunday, October 29. Rolling Stone reports he surprised the crowd with a cover of “Dance Me to the End of Love” by Leonard Cohen, a Montreal native. Dylan’s been covering local artists at many of his shows; he’s played John Mellencamp in Indiana, Chuck Berry in St. Louis and more. 

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Live from Daryl’s House, the award-winning show starring Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Daryl Hall, is coming back after a five-year hiatus.

Variety reports that the show, which debuted in 2007, will return on November 1 on a dedicated YouTube channel. The first guest will be Glenn Tilbrook from Squeeze; new episodes will arrive weekly, featuring Charlie Starr of the band Blackberry Smoke, King Crimson guitarist Robert Fripp, Andy Grammer, Lisa Loeb and Howard Jones.

According to Variety, in the November 1 episode the Hall & Oates legend says that Live from Daryl’s House was initially “an idea I had to use the Internet for entertainment, which hadn’t really been done before.” He adds, “Hard to believe but there wasn’t anything like it. So much has changed since then. I was kind of a pioneer.”

“I’m unbelievably excited about the new season,” he continues. “I love all the guests we’ve booked and I think we’ve gone to places, musically, that we’ve never gone to before.”

Before the five-year hiatus, the show, which comprises 90 episodes, shot its final episodes in 2018; the last two aired in 2020. In 2010, the series won a Webby Award for Best Variety Show.

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Peter Gabriel shared another track from his upcoming album i/o over the weekend, coinciding with October’s full moon. The latest is “And Still,” a song he wrote for his mother after she passed away.

“I wrote a song for my dad a number of years back, which I was actually able to play him, which was ‘Father, Son,'” Gabriel says. “When my mum died, I wanted to do something for her, but it’s taken a while before I felt comfortable and distant enough to be able to write something.”

He adds, “In the middle I wanted to write my mum a beautiful melody. She loved classical music, so we have a beautiful cello playing there. It took a while to get that right, it can’t be too emotional or too underplayed, but I think we got there in the end.”

You can listen to “And Still” now via digital outlets and YouTube.

As he’s done with all the other songs he’s shared from i/o, Gabriel plans to release several different remixes of “And Still.” The first is the Tchad Blake (Dark-Side Mix), which will be followed by Mark “Spike” Stent‘s (Bright-Side Mix) and Hans-Martin Buff’s Atmos mix (In-Side Mix). 

i/o, Gabriel’s first album of new material since 2010’s Scratch My Back, is due out December 1. It is available for preorder now.

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