Classic Hits

At 83, Paul McCartney doesn’t seem ready to slow down.

The former member of The Beatles, who actually turns 84 on June 18, is still making music, having just released the new album The Boys of Dungeon Lane, and continues to tour, with his last trek wrapping in November. And in a new interview with NME, McCartney reveals whether he’ll ever considering hanging it all up.

“I don’t know. I never know, y’know?” he says,. “I remember when I was 50 years old, my manager at the time said, ‘Well, are you thinking of retiring?’ I went, ‘Uh, I don’t think so.’”

“But he obviously thought, 50 … which, I get it, because we thought 30 was really old [when] we were 20,” he continues. “So 30 was like that’d be unseemly, but it came, and it went, and people were still playing, and audiences like the music.”

McCartney notes that he still gets “creative satisfaction” from songwriting. “There’s something magical about it.”

“It’s still a great achievement to sit down with, let’s say, my guitar and there’s nothing there, and I’m just noodling around, and suddenly, maybe after three or four hours, I’ve got a song. I know how it goes, and I’ve written the lyrics down, and it’s a real achievement,” he says. “That still is a magic feeling for me. I think that’s the creative buzz still, and hopefully always will be.”

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Elvis Costello is returning to North America for a handful of shows this fall.

The rocker has booked six new dates of his Radio Soul!: The Songs of Elvis Costello From The Early Days to the Late Hours tour, starting Sept. 10 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and wrapping Sept. 18 in Muskegon, Michigan.

Costello will be backed by his band The Imposters, made up of Steve Nieve, Pete Thomas and Davey Faragher, with the addition of guitarist Charlie Sexton.

Registration is now open for an artist presale that begins Wednesday at 10 a.m. local time. Tickets go on sale to the general public Friday at 10 a.m. local time.

Costello launched the tour, originally called Radio Soul!: The Early Songs of Elvis Costello, in the summer of 2025. He performed songs from 1977’s My Aim is True to 1986’s Blood & Chocolate, as well as some “other surprises.” The addition of “to the Late Hours” in the title suggests he may be expanding the set list.

Costello is set to kick off a European/U.K. leg of Radio Soul!: The Early Songs of Elvis Costello in Lund, Sweden, on Friday. A complete list of dates can be found at ElvisCostello.com.

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On This Day, June 2, 1941…

Drummer Charlie Watts was born in London, England.

After getting his start playing blues and jazz, Watts joined The Rolling Stones in 1963, and remained with the group for 58 years until his death.

Watts, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards are the only three members of the band who appear on every Stones album. He was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame with the band in 1989.

Watts played his final show with the Stones on August 30, 2019. It was announced in August 2021 that he was going to sit out of the Stones’ No Filter tour due to heart surgery. He passed away on August 24, 2021, at the age of 80.

Watts posthumously appeared on The Rolling Stones’ 2023 album Hackney Diamonds. His drumming was featured on two songs, “Mess It Up” and “Live by the Sword,” which were recorded in 2019. He is also expected to posthumously appear on the band’s upcoming album, Foreign Tongues, which will be released July 10.

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John Mellencamp has begun rehearsals for his Dancing Words Tour — The Greatest Hits, and he’s giving fans insight into the process.

Mellencamp shared videos on Instagram that were shot on the first day of rehearsals at Belmont Mall Studio in Indiana. The first post takes fans through the garage in which they’ve been rehearsing “since the 1980s,” according to the voiceover.

In a second video, Mellencamp lets fans know that during the tour, “we’ll be playing 27 songs and every one of them was a hit that you’ll be able to sing along with.”

“This will be the last time I play some of these songs, and the first time I’ve played some of ’em in decades,” he adds, noting, “Hope to see you all out there.”

Since announcing the tour, Mellencamp has been posting videos of him getting in shape for the trek, which usually find him exercising while smoking — something he says isn’t about to change.

At the end of the video, he tells his followers, “And oh, by the way I’m still working out and I’m still smoking,” before lighting up a cigarette.

When Mellencamp initially announced the tour, he said his sets will include hits like “Jack & Diane,” “Hurts So Good,” “Small Town” and “Pink Houses,” along with songs like “R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A. (A Salute To 60’s Rock),” “I Need a Lover,” “Wild Night” and “Ain’t Even Done With the Night,” which he hasn’t played in years.

The Dancing Words Tour — The Greatest Hits begins July 10 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and wraps Aug. 12 in Mountain View, California. A complete list of dates can be found at Mellencamp.com.

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In an exclusive interview with ABC News’ Chris Connelly, Barry Manilow has opened up about how being diagnosed with lung cancer and undergoing a left lung lobectomy havs altered his voice.

“My voice — I don’t know whether it’s coming back,” Manilow said in an interview that aired Monday on Good Morning America. “I did my first sound check about a month ago and I didn’t sound like me at all. I just couldn’t believe that it’s over.”

He added, “That is really upsetting. Because I don’t want it to stop.”

The singer, who’s known for his hits like “Copacabana,” “Mandy” and more throughout a career that has spanned more than 50 years, said he feels like he’s “taken my voice for granted.”

“I don’t take it seriously,” he said. “Now I do, because it doesn’t seem to be there the way it always was.”

Manilow’s cancer diagnosis was announced on Dec. 22, 2025, on his official website. The singer, who said he previously experienced six weeks of bronchitis, had just completed a Las Vegas residency and a five-night series of charity Christmas concerts in Palm Desert, California. He said his doctors ordered an MRI following his illness with bronchitis.

“They checked my lungs, and they found the dot, the spot, that thing that you don’t want to, you don’t want to ever have,” Manilow said. “They said I had lung cancer and we have to get it out.”

“It was just too heavy for me,” he added.

Manilow said the “spot” was diagnosed as Stage 1 cancerous tumor in his left lung, which he underwent successful surgery to remove. His doctors said he didn’t need chemotherapy or radiation, according to Manilow, but he contracted pneumonia, which landed him in the ICU.

Manilow said the experience was “terrifying.”

“There was a couple of moments there that I thought this may be goodbye,” he said. “But these people at this hospital, they were just angels, saints. I could cry so hard every time I think about these nurses and doctors.”

Today, ahead of his 83rd birthday on June 17, Manilow said he’s “doing good,” but that “it took longer than I thought it was going to take to get past this lung cancer.”

Earlier this year, Manilow’s song “Once Before I Go,” which he released in September 2025, reached the top 10 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart. The song will appear on his new album, What a Time, which will be released Friday.

“I can’t wait to get back,” he continued. “I’m in great shape, I’m ready to go. I just hope my voice is there. If I sound good, that would be just great!”

“I really don’t want to cry onstage, but I don’t know whether I’ll be able to hold that back this time,” he added.

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Looks like Paul McCartney may have another hit on his hands in the U.K.

The Beatles legend’s latest solo album, The Boys of Dungeon Lane, is on track to top the U.K. Official Albums chart this week.

If it does hit #1, it will be McCartney’s eighth solo #1 in the U.K., although the chart includes albums released with Wings among his other solo hits. McCartney’s first non-Beatles #1 came in 1971 with Ram, although technically the album is credited to both Paul and his wife Linda McCartney. His last solo #1 was 2020’s McCartney III.

A new #1 would also move McCartney to #14 on the list of artists with the most #1 albums.

McCartney’s The Boys of Dungeon Lane, produced by Andrew Watt, features songs about McCartney’s childhood in Liverpool, early adventures with future Beatles bandmates George Harrison and John Lennon, and more.

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Def Leppard has extended their 2026 world tour.

The Rock & Roll Hall of Famers have announced an Oct. 15 show in Hollywood, Florida. That will be followed by a tour of Mexico and South America, featuring special guests Extreme.

The Mexico dates kick off Oct. 17 in Querétaro, followed by stops in Mexico City and Guadalajara. The band then heads to San Salvador, El Salvador, on Oct. 24, followed by shows in Costa Rica, Ecuador, Colombia and Argentina. The tour wraps Nov. 8 in Santiago, Chile.

A complete list of dates and ticket information can be found at DefLeppard.com.

Next up, Def Leppard will launch a European and U.K. tour starting June 13 in Rättvik, Sweden, and wrapping July 8 in Paris. They’re also booked to play Wacken Open Air 2026 in Wacken, Germany, which runs from July 29-Aug. 1

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Michael Stipe is headed to late-night TV.

The R.E.M. frontman is set to be the musical guest on Jimmy Kimmel Live! Tuesday night, where he’ll be joined by producer Andrew Watt.

Stipe and Watt recently teamed up to record the song “I Played the Fool,” which served as the theme to Steve Carell’s HBO series The Rooster. The song featured blink-182’s Travis Barker on drums and former Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist Josh Klinghoffer on guitar and piano.

Back in April, Stipe made an appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, where he debuted an unreleased song, “The Rest of Ever,” from his upcoming debut solo album. During the appearance he revealed that the long-in-the-works album, which Stipe’s been teasing since at least 2022, will finally be released at the end of 2026.

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While Keith Richards recently said The Rolling Stones had no plans to tour this year, it sounds like Mick Jagger is itching to get on the road.

During an appearance on BBC Radio 2’s Tracks of My Years, which also featured bandmate Ronnie Wood, Jagger made it known that he wants to tour again.

“I’d love to go on tour, I can’t wait,” he said, although he did concede, “I don’t think it’s going to be this year. But hopefully it’s going to be as soon as possible.”

The last time The Stones hit the road was in 2024, headlining a North American tour in support of their 2023 release, Hackney Diamonds.

The appearance on Tracks of My Years comes ahead of the release of The Rolling Stones’ 25th studio album, Foreign Tongues, which is due out July 10.

Paul McCartney makes an appearance on the new album, as he did on Hackney Diamonds, and Jagger said working with him “was great.”

“We’re in Los Angeles and he did two days and he played on one song, was a punk song, and then this one’s more like a, more like a funk bass,” said Jagger. “So that was very exciting and … he was very quick, very quick learner.”

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Peter Gabriel dropped another song from his upcoming album, o/i.

The latest, released on Sunday to coincide with May’s second full moon, is “A Hard Lesson,” which Gabriel describes as “the oldest track of the project.”

“It probably started in the late 80s or early 90s when I was in Senegal,” Gabriel explains. “I was falling in love with the music I heard there. I loved the tension created by the use of polyrhythms, particularly the threes and fours, so that was the start of this song.”

He adds, “It’s a quirky, strange and long track but it’s a journey. It’s about trying to find a place, your place, how you fit in.”

As he did with his last album, 2023’s i/o, Gabriel is releasing a new song from o/i with each full moon of the year. The entire album will be released by the end of 2026, along with Dark-Side and Bright-Side mixes handled by Tchad Blake and Mark “Spike” Stent, respectively.

“A Hard Lesson (Bright-Side Mix)” is now available via digital outlets.

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