Classic Hits – Page 812

Olivia Newton-John’s daughter pays tribute to her mom: “My life giver, my teacher”

August 10, 2022 by WDNY Radio

Olivia Newton-John‘s only child, daughter Chloe Lattanzi, is paying tribute to her late mother, calling the beloved actress and singer “my life giver” and “my teacher.”

Chloe, who Olivia shared with ex-husband Matt Lattanzi, posted a heartfelt message to Instagram on Tuesday alongside a clip from the music video of their duet, “Window in the Wall,” which was released last year.

“You are my lighthouse mama. My safe place. My heart space,” Chloe, 36, began. “It has been my honor and continues to be my honor to be your baby and best friend.”

“You are an angel on earth and everyone touched by you has been blessed,” she concluded in the caption. “I love you forever my life giver, my teacher, my mama.”

Last year, Olivia told ABC Audio why she’d chosen to make the song — which is about trying to find common ground — a duet with her daughter, explaining, “When I heard the song, I thought of her … it was a knowing, for me, that that’s how it needed to be.”

Olivia died Monday at the age of 73. The Grease star’s husband, John Easterling, revealed her passing in a statement posted to her social media pages.

Chloe reacted to the loss of her mother at the time by taking to Instagram and sharing a slideshow of photos of the two of them throughout the years.

Three days before her mother’s death, Chloe posted a photo of them together on Instagram and wrote, “I worship this woman. My mother. My best friend.”

Bangles frontwoman Susannah Hoffs to publish debut novel in 2023

August 10, 2022 by WDNY Radio

Bangles singer Susannah Hoffs is going from walking like an Egyptian to writing like an author: She’s publishing her first novel, This Bird Has Flown, next spring.

The book is about a washed-up pop singer who finds new inspiration when she falls in love with an Oxford literature professor she meets on a plane to London. Helen Fielding, who wrote Bridget Jones’ Diary, calls the book a “sexy, page-turning treat.”

Susannah tells Entertainment Weekly, “I decided to make my protagonist a musician and songwriter because it’s a job I know well … I also wanted to give readers a peek behind the curtain of what it’s like to face an audience with your heart thumping so loudly you fear they can hear it, too — and then, somehow, to find your voice.”

The “Eternal Flame” singer adds that she found the novel-writing process “truly exhilarating,” adding, “It was permission to escape into my fictional world with my characters, as though I’d gone through a portal into another world. … It was essentially like playing with dolls in my imagination.”

This Bird Has Flown — presumably titled after the Beatles song “Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)” — arrives April 4, 2023.

Steely Dan reveals plans to perform full albums at Capitol Theatre residency

August 10, 2022 by WDNY Radio

Steely Dan winds down its current U.S. trek, The Earth After Hours Tour, with a three-show residency this week at the historic Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, New York.

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees have revealed that each of the shows, scheduled for Wednesday night, Friday and Saturday, will feature them playing a different album from their catalog in its entirety.

Wednesday night’s concert will include a full performance of Steely’s Dan’s sixth studio album, 1977’s Aja, which features such classic tunes as the title track, “Deacon Blues,” “Peg” and “Josie.”

The August 12 show will feature a performance of the group’s entire fifth album, 1976’s The Royal Scam, which includes “Kid Charlemagne” and “Haitian Divorce.”

Bringing the residency, and the tour, to a close, the August 13 concert will feature a performance of Steely Dan’s 2021 live album Northeast Corridor, which was recorded during recent tours by the band at four venues in the Northeastern U.S. The album showcases renditions of some of Steely Dan’s most popular tunes, including “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number,” “Hey Nineteen,” “Aja,” “Peg” and “Reelin’ in the Years.”

Opening all three shows with be jazz outfit The Dave Stryker Trio.

Visit TheCapitolTheatre.com to purchase tickets to the concerts and for more details.

Brian May, Rick Wakeman taking part in Starmus science and music festival

August 10, 2022 by WDNY Radio

Queen‘s Brian May and ex-Yes keyboardist Rick Wakeman are among the musicians who will participate in the 2022 Starmus festival, which is scheduled to take place in Yerevan, Armenia, from September 5 to September 10.

May co-founded the festival in 2011 with Dr. Garik Israelian, one of the world’s leading astrophysicists, who had helped Brian complete his PhD thesis in astrophysics in 2007. The event promotes science communication and music. It features speeches from Nobel laureates, astronauts, scientists and authors, as well as musical performances.

The festival seeks to inspire and educate a new generation of explorers and spark their interest in making new discoveries.

The sixth annual Starmus festival will mark May’s first visit to Armenia. In 1988, May participated in the Rock Aid Armenia campaign, a humanitarian project organized to help those affected by a devastating earthquake that hit the country.

Wakeman, who has taken part in several previous Starmus festivals, joins May on this year’s lineup of performers, which also includes contemporary prog-rock group Sons of Apollo and Armenian-American rock singer Serj Tankian of the band System of a Down.

For more information about the festival, visit Starmus.com.

Ex-Yes singer Jon Anderson says he’s considering potential tour with Yes cover group The Band Geeks

August 10, 2022 by WDNY Radio

Former Yes frontman Jon Anderson just finished a U.S. tour with the Paul Green Rock Academy celebrating the 50th anniversary of his old band’s classic album Close to the Edge. Now the 77-year-old singer has revealed he’s got potential plans for a new trek with a different group of musicians.

Anderson tells ABC Audio that he recently discovered a group called The Band Geeks that he says “do very, very good interpretation[s] of Yes music.” The group is led by Richie Castellano, who’s been Blue Öyster Cult‘s bassist since 2004.

“It kind of freaked me out how good they were,” Anderson notes. “So last November, I got in touch with the bass player, and I said, ‘Guys, would you be interested in going out and doing epics and classics?’ And they said, ‘Yes! We would!'”

The Rock & Roll Hall of Famer continues, “They actually sound just like Yes. It’s kind of wonderful and frightening at the same time. The bass player, perfect Chris Squire sound … [The] guitarist, perfect Steve Howe. And [the drummer sounds like] Alan White, Bill Bruford-y Alan White.”

Anderson says he’s hoping to put together a set that includes the epic “Close to the Edge,” as well as some lesser-known Yes songs, among them “The Ritual,” “The Gates of Delirium” and “Mind Drive.”

“These are really, to me, very special Yes pieces of music that got lost in the quagmire of life,” Anderson maintains. “And I think they’re brilliant.”

Anderson says he recently shot a video of him singing some Yes material with The Band Geeks that he’s planning to use “to promote the idea” of the tour. However, no official plans for the trek have been confirmed.

Find out more about The Band Geeks at RichieCastellano.com.

Blondie premieres unreleased 1978 song “Mr. Sightseer” from upcoming ‘Against the Odds’ box set

August 9, 2022 by WDNY Radio

Blondie has debuted a 1978 home recording of a previously unreleased song called “Mr. Sightseer” as the latest advance track from the band’s expansive forthcoming box set, Blondie: Against the Odds 1974-1982, which is due out August 26.

The song was recorded on a four-track reel-to-reel machine in the bedroom of singer Debbie Harry and guitarist Chris Stein. It will be featured on the B-side of a 7-inch vinyl single that boasts Blondie’s recently rediscovered rendition of The Doors‘ “Moonlight Drive,” which previously was made available as an advance track.

Reflecting on “Mr. Sightseer,” Harry says, “The lyric is not good at all … The song’s not too bad. It’s just a little simplistic. It didn’t ever get really developed or finished.”

As previously reported, Against the Odds focuses on the influential New Wave band’s original heyday and is fully authorized by the group.

The retrospective, which can be preordered now, will be available in multiple formats and configurations, including an eight-CD set and a Super Deluxe Collectors’ Edition that features 10 12-inch vinyl LPs, a 10-inch LP and the aforementioned vinyl single.

The vinyl box set features 124 tracks, 36 of which are previously unreleased. The collection contains remastered versions of Blondie’s first six studio albums — 1976’s Blondie, 1977’s Plastic Letters, 1978’s Parallel Lines, 1979’s Eat to the Beat, 1980’s Autoamerican and 1982’s The Hunter — and four LPs of outtakes, demos, remixes, alternate versions, home recordings and other rarities.

The box set also includes extensive liner notes and track-by-track commentary from current and former Blondie members.

Blondie: Against the Odds will also be available as a four-LP package, a three-CD set and digitally.

Jon Bon Jovi gives Notre Dame players a pep talk: “Thank your parents”

August 9, 2022 by WDNY Radio

Jon Bon Jovi and football have long gone hand in hand: He once owned Arena Football League champions Philadelphia Soul; he and others unsuccessfully tried to buy the Buffalo Bills in 2014; and he’s also a pal of Patriots owner Robert Kraft. So maybe it wasn’t so odd that he was seen at Notre Dame football training camp Sunday giving the first team a pep talk.

Jon, whose son Jesse Bongiovi once played for the Irish, gave the team some good advice, reports Notre Dame Insider. Senior lineback Jack Kiser told the publication, “Him being a Notre Dame parent, the first thing he said was, ‘Thank your parents.’ But then he just talked about, ‘Live in the moment. Don’t take this for granted. So, just enjoy every day, and the dog days of camp are not too bad.’”

Kiser also said that Jon reminded the players that never again will they “be around a group of 100 … guys that we consider our brothers, our closest friends.” Jesse, who was also there, echoed what his dad said and told the players, “Just keep those relationships going,” according to Kiser.

Jon also made a cameo in the video the team tweeted out, featuring the team attempting to sing “Livin’ on a Prayer.”

“The saddest of news:” Elton, John, Mariah Carey & more stars mourn Olivia Newton-John

August 9, 2022 by WDNY Radio

Tributes continue to pour in for singer, actress and activist Olivia Newton-John, who diedMonday at age 73 after a years-long battle with cancer.

Fellow 1970s icon Elton John posted several photos of himself with Olivia, including one from the mid-’70s of him with Olivia and Stevie Wonder. “The saddest of news to wake up to,” he captioned the post. “Olivia was a beautiful and courageous woman, who I never heard complain about her illness. A beautiful voice and a warm and loving friend. I will miss her so much. Condolences to her family and loved ones.”

Elton co-wrote the title track of Olivia’s 1988 album The Rumour.

Mariah Carey also posted several photos of herself with Olivia and wrote a heartfelt message about how much the star meant to her as a kid.

“I first fell in love with Olivia’s voice when I was a little girl and heard ‘I Honestly Love You,'” Mariah wrote. “Songs like ‘Magic,’ ‘Suddenly’ and ‘Have You Never Been Mellow’ showcased her beautiful airy tone and signature sound. And THEN there was GREASE. I was obsessed.”

She continued, “I dressed up as Bad Sandy for Halloween in 5th grade and thought I was everything. Years later, THE one and only Olivia Newton-John actually walked out onto my stage in Melbourne, Australia and we sang our hearts out together to ‘Hopelessly Devoted To You.’ This is a moment I will never ever forget.”

Mariah goes on to praise Olivia as “one of the kindest, most generous and lovely people I’ve ever met,” adding, “She will be missed. She will be remembered. She will be loved.”

Barbara Streisand, Peter Frampton, ABBA‘s Agnetha Faltskog and Frida Lyngstad, Sheryl Crow, Kylie Minogue, and Cliff Richard also posted tributes to Olivia.

‘Variety’ chides Elton John for “fairly dull songs” in new musical ‘The Devil Wears Prada’

August 9, 2022 by WDNY Radio

A few days ago, Elton John attended a preview performance of his new musical, The Devil Wears Prada, which is currently playing in Chicago on its way to Broadway. On Instagram, Elton told the cast and crew, “You’ve created something truly wonderful!” But at least one review doesn’t agree with him.

In its review of the show, Variety writes that the show needs to “get meaner,” calling it “an overly respectful and frankly miscalculated approach to its source materials.” According to Variety, the show, based on the book by Lauren Weisberger and the hit movie starring Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway, “provides some serviceable entertainment but needs a hefty dose of guilty, edgy fun to boost its mild pleasures.”

In Variety’s opinion, the show “just never lets loose,” and in particular doesn’t give us enough of Prada’s iconic boss-from-hell Miranda Priestly, who in the movie and book treats her assistant Andy so terribly that we’re rooting for her to get out from under her thumb.

And while Elton’s score and its “pleasing, peppy pop sound” has “its moments,” Variety reports, “There’s a lot of work needed to replace the sincere and fairly dull songs … with songs that express the naked ambition, social irresponsibility and joyful artifice of the fashion industry.”

Variety suggests that Elton and the rest of the creative team need to “set niceness aside, and channel their inner Miranda Priestlys.”

Of course, Elton has written numerous hit musicals — The Lion King, Billy Elliott and Aida — so it’s unlikely one middling review will make much of a difference to him, though The New York Times isn’t thrilled with the show either. The musical is playing at Chicago’s James M. Nederlander Theatre through August 21.

Motown songwriting legend Lamont Dozier dead at 81

August 9, 2022 by WDNY Radio

Lamont Dozier, one-third of the legendary Motown songwriting team of Holland-Dozier-Holland, has died, his son announced on Instagram Tuesday. He was 81.

Lamont Dozier Jr. posted a photo of himself with his famous father and wrote, “Rest in Heavenly Peace, Dad!” Details of his death are not known at this time.

Dozier and brothers Eddie Holland and Brian Holland joined Motown in 1962 and wrote more than 200 songs for the label’s acts, helping to create the “Motown Sound.” Dozier and Brian worked as musical arrangers and producers, while Eddie focused on lyrics and vocal production.

Together, the trio wrote 10 #1 hits, including The Supremes‘ “Where Did Our Love Go,” “You Can’t Hurry Love,” “Baby Love” and “Stop! In the Name of Love” and The Four Tops‘ “I Can’t Help Myself” and “Reach Out I’ll Be There.” They also penned classic hits for Martha & The Vandellas, The Miracles, Marvin Gaye and The Isley Brothers.

In 1988 and 1990, Holland-Dozier-Holland were inducted, respectively, into the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

The trio left Motown in 1968 to form the labels Invictus and Hot Wax. In 1973, Dozier left the trio, recording albums as a solo artist and penning songs for others. Some of his later co-writes included the Phil Collins‘ smash “Two Hearts,” Alison Moyet‘s “Invisible,” Debbie Gibson‘s “Anything Is Possible,” and “Without You” by Peabo Bryson and Regina Belle.

In a 2015 interview with The Guardian, Dozier explained why the songs the trio wrote were mostly empathetic toward women. “Women bought the records, to put it bluntly,” Dozier said. “They wanted music that talked about their feelings, but also … women raised me … I trusted women, and I still do.”

Fellow hitmaking songwriter of the ’60s Carole King tweeted, “Gerry [Goffin] & I respected Holland Dozier Holland over at Motown. Striving to keep up with them made us better songwriters. Rest In Peace and power Lamont Dozier.”

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