Classic Hits

March 23 marks the 40th anniversary of the release of ZZ Top’s eighth studio album, Eliminator, which went on to be the band’s most commercially successful album, peaking at nine on the Billboard Album chart.

The album, which used more synthesizers and drum machines than previous ZZ Top records, featured four hit singles: “Legs,” “Gimme All Your Lovin’,” “Sharped Dressed Man” and “TV Dinners.” “Gimme All Your Lovin’” peaked at two on the Billboard Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, with “Legs” and “Sharp Dressed Man” also making the top 10. “Gimme All Your Lovin’” also landed on the Billboard Top 40 chart.

The success of the album and the songs were helped by a series of hugely popular videos for “Legs,” “Gimme All Your Lovin’” and “Sharped Dressed Man.” They wound up in regular rotation on MTV, helping to attract a younger fan base.  

All three featured a trio of models, along with a red 1933 Ford coupe, like the one that appeared on the cover of the album, with the video for “Legs” marking the debut of the band’s spinning guitars, covered in white sheepskin. “Legs” went on to earn ZZ Top an MTV Video Music Award for Best Group. 

Eliminator was the first of the band’s albums to become a worldwide success and went on to sell over 11 million copies in the U.S. It has been certified Diamond by the RIAA.

And while ZZ Top lost member Dusty Hill in July 2021, they haven’t slowed down. They hit the road next month on a solo tour and will co-headline a tour this summer with Lynyrd Skynyrd, dubbed The Sharp Dressed Simple Man Tour. A complete list of tour dates can be found at zztop.com.

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Nabbing tickets to see Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band certainly wasn’t easy. For those who missed out, The Boss is now giving his fans a chance to win a trip to see him in his home state of New Jersey.

Springsteen has teamed up with Propeller for a new sweepstakes that helps raise money and awareness for The Ally Coalition, which works to better the lives of LGBTQ+ youth.

And the lucky winner and a guest will nab quite a grand prize: two tickets to The Boss’ April 14 show at the Prudential Center in Newark, along with airfare, hotel accommodations and ride-share credit. The winner will also take home a signed Fender American Original ’50s Telecaster guitar.

The deadline to enter is Tuesday, March 28, at 11:59 p.m. PT.

The Newark show is the final night of the first leg of the Bruce Springsteen & E Street Band tour. The trek hits Buffalo, New York, on Thursday.

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Wherever you hung out back in high school, it might not be as cool as the place where Jennifer Aniston used to kick up her feet.

On Wednesday’s episode of Live with Kelly and Ryan, the actress revealed she would often hang out at Cher‘s house. Why? She was high school classmates with the singer’s son, Chaz Bono, back in the ’70s.

“Well I went to high school with Chaz and amongst our group of our gaggle, we would always go to [Cher’s] house because it was nice,” Aniston explained. “It was Cher!”

For those dying to know what it’s like inside the legendary singer’s home, Aniston recalled the beautiful chiffon curtains, saying the house “was just wild and wonderful.”

The Morning Show star also said Keith Richards was Cher’s neighbor at the time. She noted Cher has since changed residences.

While Aniston implied her group of friends didn’t really comprehend the magnitude of Cher’s fame, she said, “It was just fun to be able to hang out with [her].”

She also spoke about raiding the hitmaker’s snacks back in the day. “She had food from Belducci’s — as she likes to say — and she seems to think I ate it all,” Aniston remarked. She recalled Cher used to tell her, while mimicking the singer, “You ate me out of house and home.”

“I was not the only one partaking in the cold cuts,” she continued.

Aniston also revealed she and her friends “might have taken a peek” into Cher’s closet.

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If you’re a Neil Diamond fan who can’t make it to New York to see his Broadway musical, A Beautiful Noise, you’re now in luck: it may be coming to a city near you.

Broadwayworld.com reports the musical is set to kick off a North American tour in the fall of 2024, hitting more than 25 cities.

“Some of my most thrilling nights have been while I was on tour, bringing my music to audiences across the world,” Diamond shares. “Having A Beautiful Noise go on tour is an honor and I can’t wait for audiences across North America to experience this show. I hope they enjoy it as much as I have.”

A Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Musical is currently playing at the Broadhurst Theatre. The tour is set to begin at Rhode Island’s Providence Performing Arts Center, with more cities to be announced soon.

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Get a peek into Dolly Parton‘s wardrobe and signature fashion style with her upcoming new book, Behind the Seams: My Life in Rhinestones.

Arriving on October 17, the special publication will chronicle Dolly’s longtime love for fashion, and share how her quintessential and universally beloved Dolly style came to be. Fans will also get stories about the global icon’s life and career, as well as a behind-the-scenes look at her private costume collection, which includes memorable wigs and high heels.

“I am happy, proud, and excited to present my book Behind the Seams to the public,” Dolly shares in a statement. “It is my hope that you will enjoy a look at my life in costume and hair and get to know some of the great people who have helped shape my life and my look. Enjoy!”

Behind the Seams: My Life in Rhinestones serves as the second installment in a trilogy of books that started with 2020’s Songteller: My Life in Lyrics.

Dolly’s Behind the Seams: My Life in Rhinestones is available for preorder now.

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Paul McCartney has never been one to play it safe in his career, but amongst all the risks he’s taken, he now reveals forming Wings was one of his biggest.

“The main question I had was whether to keep going after The Beatles, because it was a hard act – some might say, an impossible act – to follow,” he shares on his website in response to a question on Twitter. “Once that band had finished, I didn’t know what to do with myself, and trying something new was really risky.”

Paul notes that then deciding to put wife Linda in Wings was another big risk, because “she was not a ‘musician.’” He describes early reviews about her as hurtful: “But I rationalized it by thinking about when we started The Beatles and none of us knew our chords – over time we got better and picked things up.”

McCartney describes the beginning of Wings as going “back to square one.”

“I’d doubled back to almost being nothing – just some guy in the band – and now I was earning my fame again,” he says. “By the time the mid-70s came around when we were doing a big American tour, that was the vindication of it. We were so tight and had come up together, as it were. The risk paid off.”

He says his bandmate John Lennon was a much bigger risk-taker than he was, noting, “If there was a cliff to be jumped off, John would jump!”

“Obviously, I’m not completely square,” he says. “I do a lot of zany stuff! That’s in my character too, but I don’t live my life as a risk-taker. I try and work it out to some extent.”

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Culture Club has reached a settlement with their former bandmate Jon Moss, which will have them paying the drummer over $2 million in lost profits.

Moss, a founding member of the ’80s group, had filed a lawsuit against his former bandmates, Boy George, Roy Hay and Michael Craig, claiming he was owed money after being “expelled” by their manager in 2018.

According to Metro UK, the band agreed to a judgement in favor of Moss just six days before they were due to go to court to decide the value of the Culture Club name, as well as the amount Moss was entitled to and more. As part of the judgement, the band will pay the agreed upon amount immediately, while Moss has agreed to “relinquish” all rights to the Culture Club name.

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Lindsey Buckingham seems to be trolling folks on social media. Following the premiere of the Amazon Prime series Daisy Jones & the Six, a clip of Fleetwood Mac’s 1997 reunion concert performance of “Silver Springs” has gone viral on social media, and Lindsey appears to have responded.

Buckingham shared a portion of the performance on TikTok, featuring just his guitar solo, stopping just as Stevie Nicks is about to sing the song she wrote about their breakup. Buckingham captioned the clip, “I hear we’re talking about that ‘97 Silver Springs’ again…,” which prompted several responses on social media. 

“Leaving in the solo but cutting off before the bridge when Stevie stares a hole right through your soul,” one person commented, while another added, “He knows well and good that is not the part we’re talking about.” Daisy Jones star Riley Keough responded to his post, “Yes we are.”

“Silver Springs” was written for 1997’s Rumours, but was left off of it. It became a B-side for “Go Your Own Way,” and the live version was featured on the 1997 album The Dance. The performance clip has gone viral because Daisy Jones author Taylor Jenkins Reid says the book was inspired by watching that Fleetwood Mac concert, and particularly mentioned the performances of “Silver Springs” and “Landslide.”

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Elton John’s “Rocket Man” is one of his biggest hits, but apparently even Elton didn’t know what the song was about until recently.

Elton is celebrating last year’s 50th anniversary of Honky Château, the album “Rocket Man” is on, and in a clip posted to Instagram, we see the moment he learned what the tune was really about.

“’Rocket Man’ was our first-ever number-one record I think. And it was on the Honky Château record,” he says. “It was a pretty easy song to write a melody to because it’s a song about space so it’s quite a spacious song.”

But apparently it really isn’t about space, with Elton’s songwriting partner Bernie Taupin setting him straight. 

“It was actually a song inspired by Ray Bradbury from his book of science-fiction short stories called The Illustrated Man,” Taupin explains. “In that book, there was a story called The Rocket Man, which was about how astronauts in the future would become sort of an everyday job, so I kinda took that idea and ran with it.”

Well, that was news to Elton, who responded, “Do you know, I never knew that.” He captioned the clip “you learn something new every day.”

Elton is celebrating the 50th anniversary of Honky Château with an anniversary edition, which is dropping Friday. It is available for preorder now.

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On This Day, March 22, 1980… 

Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)” hit number one on the Billboard singles chart, where it spent four weeks. The tune is the band’s first and only U.S. number-one single. 

Written by Roger Waters, “Another Brick in the Wall” was a three-part composition that appeared on the band’s 1979 rock opera The Wall. “Part 2,” the only portion that was released as a single, was a protest song against corporal punishment at schools.

The tune featured a chorus of school children, who were compensated at the time for their contribution with concert tickets, an album and a single. In 2004, however, they successfully sued for royalties.

“Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)” went on to sell over a million copies and also topped the charts in the U.K., Austria, Canada, Finland, Germany and elsewhere.

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