Classic Hits

The members of ABBA have taken to social media to pay tribute to their longtime guitarist Lasse Wellander, who passed away at the age of 70 on Friday, April 7.

“Lasse was a dear friend, a fun guy, and a superb guitarist,” read a joint statement posted to Instagram by ABBA members Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad. “The importance of his creative input in the recording studio as well as his rock-solid guitar work on stage was immense.” 

They add, “We mourn his tragic and premature death and remember the kind words, the sense of humour, the smiling face, the musical brilliance of the man who played such an integral role in the ABBA story. He will be deeply missed and never forgotten.”

News of Wellander’s death was first announced by his family in a Facebook post. “It is with indescribable sadness that we have to announce that our beloved Lasse has fallen asleep,” they write. “Lasse recently fell ill in what turned out to be spread cancer and early on Good Friday he passed away, surrounded by his loved ones.”

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John Regan, a bass player who worked with Ace Frehley, Peter Frampton and others, passed away at the age of 71. Consequence reports that news of his death was confirmed by his wife, Cathy, in a post on a friend’s Facebook page. 

Regan played in Frehley’s group Frehley’s Comet from 1984 to 1990. He also toured with Frampton and appeared on several of his albums, including 1980’s Rise Up and 1981’s Breaking All The Rules. Frampton took to social media to pay tribute to the musician, calling him “one of my closest buddies.”  

“There might only be a handful, if that, of people who come into your world and truly enrich your life,” he shared on Instagram. “He certainly enriched my life because of the person and great player he was.”

Frampton added, “John Regan was the best of us. He went out of his way to help people when things weren’t right. It didn’t matter who you were, prince or pauper. … He was a friend to all. Always musically inspiring and one of the funniest people on the planet…I love you my brother. You will be missed by many. Rest in Peace.” 

Regan’s bass playing can also be heard on such songs as The Rolling Stones’ “Dirty Work” and the Mick Jagger/David Bowie collab “Dancing in the Streets,” as well as songs by David Lee Roth, Billy Idol and more.

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On This Day, April 10, 1970 …

Paul McCartney publicly “quit” The Beatles via a press release for his first solo album, in which he says he has no plans for new Beatles music or any future songwriting with John Lennon. Lennon, who’d left the group months ago but agreed to keep quiet about it, was reportedly furious. 

In December of that year McCartney filed a lawsuit to formally dissolve the band’s partnership, which was officially dissolved by an English court in January 1975.

As for that first solo release, McCartney, it went to number one in the U.S. McCartney later formed the band Wings, releasing seven albums. He went on to have huge solo success, releasing 18 solo records.

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Fans of The Who may not want to hold their breath waiting for the band to tour the U.S. again.

In an interview promoting their recent live album, The Who with Orchestra: Live at Wembley, Roger Daltrey shared his doubts that The Who would ever hit the road in North American again. 

Daltrey tells USA Today they don’t currently have any U.S. tour dates planned, noting, “I don’t know if we’ll ever come back to tour America.”

He added, “There is only one tour we could do, an orchestrated Quadrophenia to round out the catalog. But that’s one tall order to sing that piece of music, as I’ll be 80 next year. I never say never, but at the moment it’s very doubtful.”

Roger also points out that “touring has become very difficult since COVID,” with a lot of bands not being able to get insured for shows, making things very expensive.

“Most of the big bands doing arena shows, by the time they do their first show and rehearsals and get the staging and crew together, all the buses and hotels, you’re upwards $600,000 to a million in the hole,” he says. “To earn that back, if you’re doing a 12-show run, you don’t start to earn it back until the seventh or eighth show. That’s just how the business works. The trouble now is if you get COVID after the first show, you’ve (lost) that money.” 

The Who do plan to tour Europe this summer. The latest leg of their The Who Hits Back tour kicks off June 14 in Barcelona, Spain. A complete list of dates can be found at thewho.com.

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Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band are currently on their North American tour, and it certainly sounds like E Streeter Steven Van Zandt is loving it.

“This tour is really interesting, and different from what we’ve done for the past 40 years,” he tells USA Today, noting that unlike previous concerts where the set changes every night, this one has a theme and “is more like a Broadway show.”

He says, “It combines a theme of mortality with a proof of vitality. This show is a hurricane from beginning to end.”

Little Steven has toured with Springsteen for a long time and has performed a lot of his songs. So, what are some of his favorite ones to play live? “A lot of my favorites we don’t play,” he says, listing off cuts like “Restless Nights” and “Loose Ends” from the 1998 compilation Tracks, and “The Little Things (My Baby Does)” and “Gotta Get That Feeling” from 2010’s The Promise.

“But I love the show we’re doing,” Van Zandt says. “The guy has not written a song that I don’t enjoy.”

Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band still have a couple of shows left for this leg of the tour. They play Long Island, New York, on Tuesday, April 11, before wrapping things up on Friday, April 14, at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey. They then go to Europe and the U.K. before returning to the States in August. A complete list of dates can be found at BruceSpringsteen.net.

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After making headlines by claiming that the amount of royalties Sting gets from Diddy‘s song “I’ll Be Missing You” is $5,000 a day, Diddy now claims it was a big joke.

Earlier this week, Diddy replied to a clip of Sting confirming that he makes $2,000 per day in royalties from “I’ll Be Missing You” because it samples “Every Breath You Take,” his 1983 number one hit with The Police, Diddy wrote, “Nope. 5K a day. Love to my brother @OfficialSting!”

But on Friday, Diddy took to Twitter to walk back his comment.

“I want y’all to understand I was joking! It’s called being Facetious! Me and @OfficialSting have been friends for a long time! He never charged me $3K or $5K a day for Missing You,” Diddy wrote. “He probably makes more than $5K a day from one of the biggest songs in history.”

The whole thing is really semantics, though. Diddy used the sample without permission, which caused Sting to take legal action: He sued for a chunk of royalties and won. So while Sting may not have personally “charged” Diddy for the sample, the fact remains that he gets a percentage of whatever royalties the song earns, whether it adds up to $2,000 per day — that’s $730,000 per year — or more.

In 2003, Sting told Rolling Stone, “Those guys just take your s***, put it on a record and deal with the legality later … I put a couple of my kids through college with the proceeds, and me and [Diddy] are good pals still.”

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Since Madonna‘s upcoming Celebration tour will be a, yes, celebration of her entire career, fans are wondering which of her many hits she’ll be performing. Well, she may have given us a hint in a video she posted documenting the first week of rehearsals.

Billboard‘s Keith Caulfield, a Madonna superfan, has apparently scoured the video frame by frame and has spotted two things that may indicate a couple of the songs the Queen of Pop is planning to sing.

In the part of the video where Madonna is seen throwing darts at a dartboard, there’s a table to her left. On that table is a lyric sheet for “You Must Love Me,” the Oscar-winning top 20 hit she recorded for the movie Evita.

In addition, Caulfield points out that there’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it shot of Madonna watching something on a laptop, which he identifies as a video of herself performing her debut single “Everybody” at famed New York City nightclub Danceteria in 1982. Meanwhile, the entire video is soundtracked to another early song, “Burning Up.”

So, are “Everybody,” “Burning Up” and “You Must Love Me” on the set list for the tour? We’ll just have to wait and see.

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Pink Floyd is back on the Billboard chart. The Dark Side of the Moon: Live at Wembley, London, 1974, which was released last month, has landed in the top 10 on several Billboard charts.

The album debuts at eight on the Top Album Sales chart, at nine on the Top Rock Albums chart, at five on the Vinyl Albums chart and at eight on the Top Current Album Sales chart. And on the weekly Billboard 200 Album chart, the record debuts at 49. 

The Dark Side of the Moon: Live at Wembley, London, 1974 was released in conjunction with the band’s 50th anniversary celebration of the classic album. It was part of the 50th anniversary box set that just came out and was also available as a standalone album, the first time the live concert was officially released as a standalone album.

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David Bowie fans will soon be able to watch the documentary Moonage Daydream without leaving the comfort of their own homes. The doc, from Oscar- and Emmy-nominated director Brett Morgan, will debut on HBO Saturday, April 29, at 8 p.m. and will also stream on HBO Max.

Moonage Daydream focused on Bowie’s catalog from 1970 to 1977, with Morgan having access to unseen footage of Bowie, as well as art and poetry from his personal collection. The movie was described as “a sublime kaleidoscopic experiential cinematic odyssey that explores Bowie’s creative, spiritual, and philosophical journey.”

The film, which screened during the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, received high praise from critics and was nominated for five Critics Choice Awards, winning for Best Editing. It also earned a BAFTA Best Documentary nomination.

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Steely Dan is reissuing another classic album on vinyl. The latest is their 1973 release, Countdown To Ecstasy, marking the first time it’s been released on vinyl in more than 30 years. 

The reissue, dropping May 26, is remastered by Bernie Grundman from the original analog tapes. It’s being pressed on 180-gram black vinyl at 33 1/3 RPM, plus there will be a limited edition premium 45 RPM version on Ultra High-Quality Vinyl.

Steely Dan is in the midst of an extensive reissue program, which will see the band’s first seven albums returning to vinyl; for many it will be the first time on vinyl since their original release. The program started in November with the reissue of the band’s debut album, Can’t Buy A Thrill, and over the next year fans can expect reissues of 1974’s Pretzel Logic, 1975’s The Royal Scam, 1977’s Platinum-selling Aja and 1980’s Gaucho.

Released in July 1973, Countdown To Ecstasy was the first Steely Dan album to feature Donald Fagan singing lead on every song. It features such tunes as “Bodhisattva,” “Show Biz Kids” and “My Old School.”

The Countdown to Ecstasy vinyl is available for preorder now.

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