Classic Hits

A special tribute concert for longtime Yes drummer Alan White, who died on May 22 at age 72 after a brief illness, will take place on October 2 at the Paramount Theatre in Seattle.

The show will feature members of Yes and of Alan’s solo group White, as well as special guests, performing songs from throughout the drummer’s long career, including renditions of tunes by Yes, John Lennon, George Harrison and more.

The event will be hosted by Alan’s longtime friend, retired U.S. radio personality Bob Rivers, and all proceeds from the show will benefit the WhyHunger charity.

Tickets for the concert will go on sale to the general public this Friday, August 19, at 10 a.m. PT via Ticketmaster.

White was the drummer of yes from 1972 until his death. Prior to joining the famous British prog-rock band, he was a member of Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band, and he played on the 1969 album Live Peace in Toronto, John’s 1970 single “Instant Karma,” Lennon’s landmark 1971 album Imagine and 1972’s Some Time in New York City. Alan also contributed to Harrison’s All Things Must Pass album, including the chart-topping single “My Sweet Lord.”

In other news, another musical tribute to White is being planned for September 10 at the Newcastle Days festival in the Seattle suburb of Newcastle, Washington, where the British-born musician lived for many years up until his death.

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Mariah Carey‘s Atlanta home was burglarized last month while she vacationed New York and Italy.

The incident was confirmed by police, who told Page Six, “this is still an open investigation, the information may be limited.”

The burglary was reported on July 27. It was not immediately clear what was taken, if anything, from the multi-million-dollar home.

Mariah was active on social media, sharing her summertime adventures as she traveled with her 11-year-old twins Monroe and Moroccan and her boyfriend, Bryan Tanaka. On July 19, the singer shared a picturesque photo of herself in the water and captioned it, “Ciao Capri!”

A week later, Mariah was dishing out thank-yous for her stay in the Hamptons.

“Out East for the week, soaking it all in,” she captioned a snapshot of herself in pajamas. “Thank you @dylaneckardt @shawnelliottrealestate and the @nestseekers team!”

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On September 30, Eric Clapton will release The Complete Reprise Studio Albums – Volume I, a vinyl box set featuring remastered versions of his first six studio efforts for the Reprise label.

The 12-LP collection, which can be preordered now, features 1983’s Money and Cigarettes on a single disc, as well as 1985’s Behind the Sun, 1986’s August, 1989’s Journeyman, the 1994 blues-covers project From the Cradle and 1998’s Pilgrim as two-LP sets. The box set also features the Rarities Vol. 1 LP, which includes rare studio and live recordings from the era.

Money and Cigarettes peaked at #13 on the Billboard 200 and featured the top-20 hit “I’ve Got a Rock ‘n’ Roll Heart.”

The Platinum-certified Behind the Sun included “Forever Man,” which reached #26 on the Billboard Hot 100.

August featured “It’s in the Way That You Use It,” which Clapton co-wrote with The Band‘s Robbie Robertson, and the Tina Turner duet “Tearing Us Apart.” Those peaked at #1 and #5, respectively, on Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks chart.

Journeyman, which was certified two-times Platinum by the RIAA, included two Billboard‘s Mainstream Rock Tracks chart toppers — “Pretending” and “Bad Love.”

From the Cradle topped the Billboard 200 and has sold over 3 million copies in the States.

Pilgrim reached #4 on the Billboard 200 and included the hit “My Father’s Eyes,” which peaked at #16 on the Hot 100.

Rarities features two previously unreleased tracks, a new mix of “Pilgrim” and a cover of Albert King‘s “Born Under a Bad Sign” that’s a From the Cradle outtake. The latter tune is available now as an advance digital track.

A second box set of Clapton’s Reprise studio albums, spanning from 2001 to 2010, will be released in early 2023.

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Sammy Hagar was among the many well-known artists who contributed original songs to the soundtrack of the classic teen comedy-drama Fast Times at Ridgemont High, which premiered 40 years ago this Saturday.

Hagar wrote and recorded the movie’s title song, a riff-heavy rock tune that Sammy notes was one of a series a tunes he recorded specifically for films around that time.

“They just would send me the script of the movie, and I would read…through it,” Hagar explains to ABC Audio. “And they didn’t ask me to write the title track. I just wrote a song called ‘Fast Times at Ridgemont High.’ So…lyrically, I just kind of mimicked what was going on in the movie. You know, just a bunch of high school kids messing up…and trying to get laid, basically.”

The Red Rocker says having one of his songs as the title track of a popular movie then felt like he’d hit the “big time.”

Hagar notes that he always enjoyed writing songs for films, explaining, “I loved having a theme. For a songwriter, the first thing you need to have, after you have the [music]…I needed a title, a subject. ‘What am I writing about?’ And when they would hand that to you in a script in a movie…I just said, ‘Oh, yeah. Boom! I know what to do.'”

Meanwhile, Hagar says one of the cool things about his “Fast Times” song was getting to work with a soundtrack musician who was experimenting with synthesizers, and who added an effect that Sammy described as sounding “like a knife being sharpened.”

“It was so advanced [at the time],” Hagar notes. “It was really cool…You know, no one had ever heard anything like that before.”

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1960s family pop group The Cowsills will release their first new album in almost 30 years, Rhythm of the World, on September 30.

The 11-track collection, which can be preordered now, is made up of new original songs. The title track has been released as an advance single via digital formats.

The group now features three Cowsill siblings —  Bob, Paul and Susan.

Bob says the songs on Rhythm of the World were mostly written by the group in hotel rooms, dressing rooms and the tour bus while taking part in the Turtles-headlined Happy Together summer tour.

He explains that the lead track, “Ya Gotta Get Up!,” was inspired by Turtles singer Howard Kaylan‘s “exuberant plea with the audience each night of the tour,” while the closing song, “Katrina,” tells the story of brother Barry Cowsill‘s 2005 death in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina devastated the city.

“[For] all the songs … we use melody and harmony to bring some love and the hope of peace to the world,” Bob notes. “We are thrilled to be here to claim our legacy and share our music!!!”

The Cowsills are best known for such hits as 1967’s “The Rain, the Park & Other Things” and their 1969 cover of the Broadway musical Hair‘s title song, which both peaked at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100. The group also served as the inspiration for The Partridge Family.

The Cowsills currently are part of the lineup of the 2022 Happy Together Tour, which runs through an August 29 show in Grand Island, Nebraska. The group also has several other concerts on their schedule, including performances on September 9 in Somers Point, New Jersey, and September 10 in New York City.

Here’s Rhythm of the World‘s full track list:

“Ya Gotta Get Up!”
“Lend a Hand”
“Hawks on the Line”
“Every Little Secret”
“Nuclear Winter”
“Rhythm of the World”
“Largo Nights”
“Goodbye’s Not Forever”
“The Long Run”
“Try to Believe It Too”
“Katrina”

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Twenty-five years ago today, Backstreet Boys released their self-titled debut U.S. album … and they’re still performing most of the songs from it every night on tour.

This 1997 album was actually a compilation of two international albums: a 1996 release also called Backstreet Boys and a 1997 release called Backstreet’s Back. It initially debuted at #29, but thanks to the success of the group’s first big U.S. hit, “Quit Playing Games (With My Heart),” its popularity continued to grow.

In five months, the album had climbed to its peak — #4 — and sold 2 million copies. By the end of 1998, it was the third best-selling album of the year, with more than 5.7 million copies sold. To date, it’s sold more than 14 million copies.

In addition to “Quit Playing Games (With My Heart),” Backstreet Boys also included many of the group’s most beloved songs, including, “All I Have to Give,” “As Long as You Love Me,” “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back),” “I’ll Never Break Your Heart,” “We’ve Got It Goin’ On” and “Get Down (You’re the One for Me).”

The success of Backstreet Boys helped set the stage for the release of their next album, Millennium, which set a record for most copies sold in a single week — 1.124 million — when it arrived in 1999. Millennium went on to become one of the best-selling albums of all time, with 24 million copies sold.

And while BSB has gone on to release many more albums since then, the impact of Backstreet Boys can be seen in the group’s current set list, which includes no less than seven songs from that album. Their current DNA World Tour is set to wrap up this November; their first holiday release, A Very Backstreet Christmas, arrives October 14.

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The third installment of Aerosmith‘s five-week archival streaming concert series, 50 Years Live!: From the Aerosmith Vaults, premieres Friday at 3 p.m. ET on the band’s official YouTube channel.

The movie captures the veteran rockers performing in July 1993 at the Coca-Cola Star Lake Amphitheater in the Pittsburgh suburb of Burgettstown, Pennsylvania, during the band’s tour in support of its chart-topping, hit-packed ’93 studio album, Get a Grip.

The show features renditions of “Eat the Rich,” “Love in an Elevator” and “Cryin’,” as well as older classics like “Walk This Way,” “Back in the Saddle,” “Rag Doll,” “Janie’s Got a Gun,” “Dude (Looks Like a Lady),” “Dream On” and “Sweet Emotion.”

The film, which has been remastered in HD from the original master tapes, will be viewable for one week after its premiere.

As previously reported, the five-part series, which kicked off two weeks ago, is offering new archival “official bootleg” concert films featuring never-before-seen footage debuting weekly. Each flick captures Aerosmith during a different decade.

One day after each film premieres, highlight clips from the respective movies will be added to Aerosmith’s YouTube channel.

Here’s the complete remaining schedule of the 50 Years Live!: From the Aerosmith Vaults series:

8/12 — Live from the Coca-Cola Star Lake Amphitheatre, Pittsburgh, PA, 1993 (Get a Grip Tour)
8/19 — Live from Comerica Park, Detroit, MI, 2003 (Rocksimus Maximus Tour)
8/26 — Live from Arena Ciudad de Mexico, Mexico City, 2016 (Rock ‘n’ Roll Rumble Tour)

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The second episode of the new four-part Rolling Stones docuseries My Life as a Rolling Stone premieres on EPIX this Sunday, August 14, at 9 p.m. ET.

The new installment focuses specifically on Keith Richards, looking at how important the founding Stones guitarist’s passion for music has been to the band, and how his bad boy and rebellious image has played such a major role in the group’s legend.

In a preview clip, Richards talks about how important he feels it is for a song to have a good guitar intro.

“[I]f an intro can grab you, you’re gonna to be in for at least a few more minutes,” he notes. “And if the riff behind that intro grabs you then, then you pretty much got ’em.”

Richards also discusses the unique way he devised of setting up his guitar, which entails removing the low E string and tuning the remaining five strings to a G chord.

He explains about the sound of the specially tuned guitar, “There is something about the intonation of the notes, the separation at the point — I would say almost mystical — that when hit in the right way, in the right moment, you know, [it’s a] cheap ride to heaven.”

As previously reported, the series, which was produced to coincide with the British rock legends’ 60th anniversary, is made up of four hour-long episodes, each focusing on a different band member. Last week’s premiere episode profiled singer Mick Jagger, while the final two installments will look at longtime guitarist Ronnie Wood and late drummer Charlie Watts, respectively.

In addition to new conversations with Jagger, Richards and Wood, My Life as a Rolling Stone features new interviews with a variety of other noteworthy music artists.

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This Saturday, August 13, marks the 40th anniversary of the premiere of the classic teen comedy-drama Fast Times at Ridgemont High.

The hit film, which featured such soon-to-be stars as Sean Penn, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Phoebe Cates and Forest Whitaker, also had deep connections to the rock music world.

For starters, the screenplay was written by one-time Rolling Stone journalist Cameron Crowe, who went on to write and direct such rock-themed movies as Singles and Almost Famous.

The Fast Times soundtrack was packed with original songs by well-known rock artists, including Jackson Browne, Joe Walsh, Don Henley, Timothy B. Schmit, The Go-Go’s, Don Felder, Billy Squier, Sammy Hagar, Graham Nash and Stevie Nicks.

Meanwhile, Heart guitarist Nancy Wilson appears in a scene in which Judge Reinhold‘s character Brad Hamilton tries — and fails — to flirt with her.

Several other scenes included humorous references to popular rock acts. Here are three examples:

–In a scene featuring Leigh’s Stacy Hamilton and Cates’ Linda Barrett, as the two friends chat in the high school cafeteria, they realize that several of their female classmates have “cultivated the Pat Benatar look.”

–As the shy, nerd-ish Mark Ratner, portrayed by Brian Backer, nervously prepares for his first date with Stacy, his smooth-talking but sketchy pal Mike Damone — played by Robert Romanus — shares his special five-point plan for a successful date. Point five? “When it comes down to making out, whenever possible, put on side one of Led Zeppelin IV.”

–Just before the end credits of the film roll, we’re informed that Penn’s perpetually stoned surfer-dude character Jeff Spicoli has won a bunch of reward money for saving model/actress Brooke Shields from drowning, but spent all the cash to hire Van Halen to play his birthday party.

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Way back in 2018, when Elton John first announced his Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour, he told reporters that he’s told his kids, “When Daddy dies, promise me you won’t have a hologram of me going around the world.”  But he never said anything about appearing in the metaverse while he’s still alive.

Elton’s husband and manager, David Furnish, tells the British publication MusicWeek that he’s been looking into how to expand Elton’s brand in the metaverse — meaning 3D virtual worlds that allow people to interact via computer-generated avatars. 

In the past couple of years, the metaverse has become very popular with musicians — many artists have staged exclusive concerts within these virtual worlds. So, Furnish says, why shouldn’t Elton get in on the action?

“That’s going to be a big new market for music discovery,” Furnish tells Music Week. “We’re looking at it closely but carefully. Elton’s been a bit like an avatar his entire life, throwing things on and off, changing and moving forward.”

It’s all part of Furnish’s five-year plan to promote Elton’s music to younger audiences; projects like the Rocketman film and Elton’s Lockdown Sessions album have been a part of that. The plan seems to be working: According to Furnish, more than half of Elton’s Spotify listeners are aged 18 to 35.

And while Elton admits he’s hopeless when it comes to technology, Furnish says that once his husband “understands the role it plays in his world, he’s happy to give it a try … but then you better get it right.” As Furnish puts it, “If it doesn’t turn out the way it should, he’s not happy.”

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