Classic Hits

Ringo Starr and his All-Starr Band have added some new dates to their upcoming Spring tour, which kicks off May 19 in Temecula, California.

They’ve added four new shows to the trek — May 23 in Long Beach, California; May 30 in Prescott Valley, Arizona; June 4 in Woodinville, Washington; and June 10 in Jacksonville, Oregon. The tour is set to run through June 17 in San Jose, California.

“The joy for me about touring is playing live to an audience with the All Starr Band, so I’m always happy when we can add some more dates,” Ringo shares. “See you in May!”

For the new tour, Ringo’s All-Starr Band will be made up of Steve Lukather, Colin Hay, Edgar Winter, Warren Ham, Hamish Stuart and Gregg Bissonette.

A complete list of dates can be found at RingoStarr.com.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

On This Day, April 7, 2017 … 

Pearl Jam, Yes, Journey, Joan Baez, ELO and the late Tupac Shakur were among the artists inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame at a ceremony held at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. 

Pearl Jam was inducted by talk show host David Letterman, who was a last-minute replacement for a sick Neil Young. The Seattle rockers performed three songs: “Alive,” “Given to Fly” and a cover of Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World.”

The night also featured a reunion of Journey with their lead singer Steve Perry, but only to accept the award. They went on to perform with their current lead singer, Arnel Pineda.

And the ceremony became a Yes reunion, with their performance bringing together Jon Anderson, Steve Howe, Trevor Rabin, Rick Wakeman and Alan White.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Queen is back with episode 12 of their yearlong YouTube series Queen The Greatest Live, and in this week’s episode they are looking at their classic tune “Who Wants To Live Forever.”

The episode focuses on Queen and Adam Lambert’s June 2016 performance at the Isle of White Festival. It showcases the production of the song, which includes a dazzling laser light show that filled the sky with beams of blue and purple. 

“I’ve never heard it sung like that, that’s special,” Roger Taylor has said of Adam’s performance. 

Brian May added, “Adam is astounding, the lengths he can push things to is extraordinary. … Sometimes I’m standing right here playing ‘Who Wants To Live Forever,’ and he’s there doing his thing. And when he goes into this stratospheric thing in the middle, I very often go, ‘Wow.’”

“Who Wants To Live Forever,” which was written by May, is featured on Queen’s 1986 studio album, A Kind of Magic. It also played during a pivotal scene in the 1986 movie Highlander.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

U2 has been around a long time, and while it doesn’t look like they are calling it quits anytime soon, The Edge sounds ready to see some new artists carry the mantle for rock and roll.

“I don’t think rock music has that same power currently but I think things come and go, there’s pendulum swings within the culture,” he writes in an opinion piece for Hot Press. “Music, far from it going away, it’s being democratized to an incredible extent but with regard to rock music’s power to speak to people, we are due another wave of importance and I think it’s going to come… it’s time.” 

He adds, “Music has been a little asinine for the last number of years and now, there’s so much at stake, music is going to end up being a very important vector of change.” 

Finally, he notes, “I’m reminded of The Who song, ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’, and I think that’s the case – we hand on the torch to the next generation and just hope that they aren’t fooled again…”

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

David Bowie fans now have a chance to hear an unreleased version of his classic track “Let’s Dance,” and it’s all for a good cause.

Gala Music has teamed with musician/songwriter/producer Larry Dvoskin, with support from the Bowie Estate,  for a limited series of Bowie digital collectables, which will give fans access to a never-before-heard version of Bowie’s 1983 hit. The new take was recorded 19 years after the original release, and is being made available as part of the 40th anniversary of the tune.  

“This was a creative endeavor David never got to see released during his lifetime. We are honoring his wish by releasing it now,” Dvoskin shares.

As for the new version of the song, he notes, “I am first and foremost a huge Bowie fan. It would have been a mistake to attempt to copy the original,” adding, “This is something different. David simply imagined a more dreamy, electronic version. He is the original disruptor of expectations.”

The digital collectables will be available starting April 14, and proceeds from the sales will be donated to MusiCares, the Recording Academy’s charity that provides health and human services to the music community.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Brian May is lending his name to two brand new amps from Vox: the limited edition Brian May MV50 and Brian May AmPlug.

“I want people to be able to get the sounds you make in a stadium show into your living room, and this achieves that,” May says. “I hope that people find them inspiring.” 

Both options come in red and offer what is described as “authentic Queen tone,” with the MV50 featuring Vox’s Nutube technology. The AmPlug is modeled on the classic Brian May Vox AC30 sound, and features a treble booster setting for rockers to get that “instant Brian May tone” plugged directly into their guitar’s output jack.

More info can be found at voxamps.com.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Depeche Mode added some strings to their synths during a recent performance on BBC Radio 2.

For the set, the “Personal Jesus” outfit was accompanied by BBC Concert Orchestra for renditions of the new single “Ghosts Again” and 1993’s “Walking in My Shoes,” as well as a cover of Gordon Lightfoot‘s “Sundown.”

You can watch the “Ghosts Again” and “Waking in My Shoes” performances streaming now via BBC Music’s YouTube channel.

“Ghosts Again” appears on Depeche Mode’s new album Memento Mori, which dropped in March. The record marks Depeche Mode’s first since the 2022 death of member Andy Fletcher.

Depeche Mode is currently on a North American tour in support of Memento Mori, which continues Friday in Toronto.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

On This Day, April 6, 2000…

An A-list group of artists paid tribute to Joni Mitchell at a concert at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City.  

Artists who performed at the event included Elton John, Cyndi Lauper, Bryan Adams, Shawn Colvin, James Taylor and more, with Mitchell also performing, backed by a full orchestra. The concert was filmed and later aired on the cable network TNT.

Mitchell quit touring in 2007 and spent several years off the stage, especially after she suffered a stroke in 2015. But that all changed in June 2022 when she performed alongside Brandi Carlile and a group of friends at the Newport Folk Festival.

And she’s set to take the stage again this June, where she and some of her musical friends will headline one night of Carlile’s Echoes Through the Canyon festival at Washington’s Gorge Amphitheatre.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Diddy‘s 1997 number-one hit “I’ll Be Missing You” is based on the 1983 number-one hit “Every Breath You Take” by The Police, written by the band’s frontman, Sting.  On Wednesday, Diddy revealed just how much money Sting makes from the use of that sample.

After Diddy sampled “Every Breath You Take” without Sting’s permission, the rocker took legal action, earning a much higher percentage of the song’s royalties than he would have if Diddy had simply asked. As a result, the story goes, Sting makes $730,000 in royalties from the song each year — which works out to two grand per day.

Except it turns out he earns even more than that.

Responding to a tweet of an interview clip in which Sting confirms the $2000-per-day figure, Diddy offers a correction: “Nope. 5K a day. Love to my brother @OfficialSting!”

In the interview clip, Sting says he and Diddy are very good friends: In fact, he even joined Diddy and Faith Evans to perform the song — a tribute to the late rapper Notorious B.I.G. — on the 1997 MTV VMAs.

The person who ended up getting a raw deal was Police guitarist Andy Summers.  In addition to sampling the melody of “Every Breath You Take,” it also sampled Summers’ iconic guitar part for the song, but since he technically doesn’t have a songwriting credit, he didn’t get any money, and he’s still salty about it, having complained about it in several interviews.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Rock fans saw a familiar face on this week’s episode of Fox’s The Masked Singer. Twisted Sister frontman Dee Snider was revealed to be The Doll, donning a costume that included a purple sparkly dress and heels.  

“Let me tell you, Gene Simmons, Iggy Pop, no one can work pumps like I did,” Snider said after his unmasking, “and by the way ladies, it’s like riding a bike. I wore them in the ’70s and it all came back to me once I put it on.” 

He ended his appearance by treating the audience to an impromptu performance of the Twisted Sister classic “We’re Not Gonna Take It.”

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Snider revealed he was pretty surprised to get the boot from the show, especially since he says Vegas had him as an odds on favorite to be in the top three. 

“Quite honestly I was shocked when they said my name,” he says. “I don’t know who the other performers are, but I heard them rehearsing and I wasn’t too impressed. And the audience response to me was huge. So I was like, what?!” 

He adds, “I thought I was gonna go all the way. You should have heard my [version of] ‘The Final Countdown.’ We were already rehearsing the next show. I crushed ‘The Final Countdown,’ but I never got to sing it.”

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.