Classic Hits

Chicago, Billy Idol and The Zombies are among a variety of artists that are taking part in a new charity initiative called F-COVID.

Created by the Sweet Relief Musicians Fund charity organization in partnership with fundraising platform Fandiem and concert database Bandsintown, F-COVID seeks to raise money for musicians and music industry professionals that continue to be impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The campaign is raffling off a number of unique prizes, including an electric guitar autographed by Chicago and two tickets to an upcoming U.S. show by the band; a set list signed by Idol from a September 2021 concert he played in Port Chester New York; and a pair of tickets to one of The Zombies’ 2022 stateside concerts, plus a virtual hang with founding members Rod Argent and Colin Blunstone.

The more you donate to the initiative, the more entries you’ll receive in the raffle.

Other artists participating in the initiative include Metallica, Darius Rucker, Nine Inch Nails, Social Distortion, Martina McBride, Kesha and Imagine Dragons.

“The pandemic continues to wreak havoc on the music industry, shutting down touring, festivals, and live performances,” a press release reads. “Though we are finally seeing a light at the end of the tunnel, the financial damage from missing two years of touring and work is unprecedented. Sweet Relief created the F-COVID fundraising campaign to help provide immediate assistance to artists and crews who have been financially devastated by the pandemic.”

For more info, visit Fandiem.com.

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Earth, Wind & Fire was among the winners at Tuesday’s Pollstar Awards, hosted by the concert industry publication Pollstar.

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees’ Miraculous Supernatural Tour was honored with the Best R&B Tour prize at the ceremony, which celebrated the return of live music in 2021 amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Harry Styles took home the night’s top prize: Major Tour of the Year.

Other winners included Garbage, who opened for Alanis Morissette‘s 25th anniversary Jagged Little Pill tour, for Best Support/Special Guest Act and Tour; Foo Fighters for Best Rock Tour; Maroon 5 for Best Pop Tour; Chris Stapleton for Best Country Tour; J. Cole for Best Hip-Hop Tour; Enrique Iglesias for Best Latin Tour; Lady Gaga for Best Residency; and Sebastian Maniscalco for Comedy Tour of the Year.

Texas’ Austin City Limits festival won Music Festival of the Year for events over 30,000 attendance, while Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder‘s Ohana Festival won for Music Festival of the Year in the under 30,000 attendance category.

For the full list of winners and a recap of the ceremony, visit Pollstar.com.

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Paul Simon, Cyndi Lauper and Late Show host Stephen Colbert have joined the bill of the 2022 Tibet House US virtual benefit concert, which is scheduled for March 3.

Simon and Colbert will be providing “special greetings” during the event, while Lauper is part of the lineup of performers.

Previously announced performers include Patti Smith, Phish‘s Trey Anastasio, Nathaniel Rateliff, Laurie Anderson, Angélique Kidjo, actor Keanu Reeves, and country/Americana artists Jason Isbell and Margo Price, while Iggy Pop and New Order frontman Bernard Sumner will be delivering special greetings.

Influential composer Philip Glass is the event’s artistic director.

Now in its 35th year, the annual concert raises money for Tibet House US, a non-profit organization that works to preserve Tibetan culture. It’s usually held in-person at New York City’s Carnegie Hall but is taking place online for the second straight year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

You can watch the 2022 Tibet House US concert via the streaming platform Mandolin. The show starts at 8 p.m. ET. For more info and to purchase tickets, visit Mandolin.com.

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Lionel Richie is one of pop music’s legendary artists, but there was time when critics were more focused on his race than his talent.

The recent Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominee opened up to People about his complicated transition from fronting the hit-making 1970s R&B/funk band The Commodores to becoming a solo act. “It was really a great period in my life, but it was confusing,” the Grammy winner admitted. 

Lionel’s 1982 eponymous solo debut produced the hit “Truly,” while his Grammy winning 1983 follow-up, Can’t Slow Down, produced five top-10 singles and the #1 hits “Hello” and “All Night Long (All Night).” Yet despite his success, Lionel said his Black identity was questioned.

“Hey man, the music’s not Black enough. Lionel’s not Black enough. What’s a Black guy doing writing a waltz?” Richie recalled being told. “No one had ever questioned my Blackness before. Like, do you know who you’re talking to?”

Richie says he grew up “around amazing people” in Tuskegee, Alabama, nearby the HBCU Tuskegee University. “William L. Dawson, who wrote the Negro Folk Symphony, would stop by the house. Alfred ‘Chief’ Anderson was one of the dads in the community. He’s the one who took Eleanor Roosevelt up in a plane to prove that Black folks could fly,” says Richie. “They wanted us to be better. There was that saying, ‘Failure is not an option.'”

Because of his upbringing, Richie refused to be pigeon-holed. “I said, ‘I’m not trying to be the greatest Black writer of all time. I’m trying to be the greatest writer of all time that happens to be Black,'” he remarked. “I passed my goal a long time ago when someone said to me, ‘You have 40 years of records that will survive you.'”

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Longtime Moody Blues frontman Justin Hayward has joined the lineup of this year’s edition of the prog-rock-themed Cruise to the Edge, which is scheduled to take place during the first week of May.

According to the cruise’s official site and social media pages, the Rock & Roll Hall of Famer will be giving a special performance at some point during the nautical music extravaganza, which sets sail from Port Canaveral, Florida, on May 2 and stops on the Haitian island of Labadee and at CocoCay in the Bahamas before returning to port on May 7.

As previously reported, Cruise to the Edge is returning this year after being grounded in 2020 and 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.  For the first time, it won’t be featuring its traditional headlining act, Yes.

The lineup does feature Alan Parsons, Marillion, lauded jazz guitarist Al DiMeola, Al Stewart, ex-Jethro Tull guitarist Martin Barre, Saga, former King Crimson guitarist Adrian Belew, current King Crimson guitarist Jakko Jakszyk, prog-rock supergroup Transatlantic, Wishbone Ash, Nektar, King’s X, and Moody Blues touring keyboardist Alan Hewitt.

For more details about the cruise and to book a cabin, visit CruisetotheEdge.com.

In other news, Hayward recently released a digital album titled Tuesday Afternoons — The Audio Files that features audio of performances from Justin’s “Tuesday Afternoons” YouTube video series. The nine-song track list features mainly deep cuts from The Moody Blues and from Hayward’s solo career. You can order the album at JustinHayward.com.

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Carole King, the acclaimed singer/songwriter who first found fame in the 1960s as a composer of hits for others before becoming a top-selling solo artist in the early ’70s, celebrates her 80th birthday today.

The Brooklyn, New York, native has enjoyed two distinct chapters to her career. The first began when, as a teenager, Carole started writing songs with her first husband, lyricist Gerry Goffin.

The couple became part of the famed Brill Building songwriting collective that churned out hits for artists in the 1960s. Their breakthrough song was “Will You Love Me Tomorrow,” a #1 hit for The Shirelles in 1960.

Many more hits followed, including Bobby Vee‘s “Take Good Care of My Baby,” Little Eva‘s “The Loco-Motion,” The Drifters‘ “Up on the Roof,” The Chiffons‘ “One Fine Day,” The Animals‘ “Don’t Bring Me Down,” The Monkees‘ “Pleasant Valley Sunday,” and Aretha Franklin‘s “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman.”

King and Goffin divorced in 1968 and Carole moved to Los Angeles, where she began the next chapter of her career, writing and recording her own songs. Things exploded for her in 1971, when she released her second solo album, Tapestry.

Tapestry spent 15 straight weeks at #1 on the Billboard 200. The album included the chart-topping hits “It’s Too Late” and “I Feel the Earth Move,” the top-20 single “So Far Away,” and her own versions of “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” and “A Natural Woman.” It also featured “You’ve Got a Friend,” with which James Taylor scored a #1 hit with in ’71.

Tapestry won four Grammy Awards and has gone on to sell over 13 million copies in the U.S.

Carole’s other solo hits include “Sweet Seasons,” “Jazzman” and “Nightingale.”

King is one of only three women to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame twice — in 1990 with Goffin for their songwriting achievements, and as a solo artist in 2021.  Her many other accolades include induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, a Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, and recognition at the Kennedy Center Honors.

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Last month, Asia revealed that it planned to mark its 40th anniversary with a new tour this summer, and now the Asia spinoff group Asia Featuring John Payne has announced that it’s plotting a special 2022 trek that will celebrate two milestone anniversaries for the supergroup.

Payne was Asia’s lead singer and bassist from 1991 to 2006, and he formed his own version of the band in 2007, after the group’s full original lineup reunited in ’06.

The 2022 Asia Featuring John Payne tour will not only mark the 40th anniversary of the release of Asia’s chart-topping 1982 self-titled debut album, but the 30th anniversary of Aqua, the band’s first studio effort to feature Payne.

Asia Featuring John Payne is preparing a 90-minute show that will focuses on those two albums, featuring a set list that includes “Heat of the Moment,” “Only Time Will Tell,” “Sole Survivor,” “Wildest Dreams,” “Who Will Stop the Rain” and many more.

“This is going to be very nostalgic for me,” says Payne. “I haven’t played some of these songs in 30 years and I’m extremely excited to do this tour with our band. We want the shows to sound as close to the original recordings as possible.”

Asia Featuring John Payne currently has three confirmed upcoming concerts on its schedule — a February 26 performance in Orlando, Florida; a May 21 show in Lynn, Massachusetts, that also will feature founding Foreigner lead singer Lou Gramm; and a July 14 gig in Cleveland.

Visit AsiaFeaturingJohnPayne.com for more info.

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Carlos Santana‘s reunion single with “Smooth” collaborator Rob Thomas, “Move,” was released back in August of 2021, but now the song has made it into the top 10 on the Adult Contemporary airplay chart. The Matchbox Twenty frontman says he’s happy about the success of the single — which also features American Authors — simply because he would’ve hated to see something he likes so much get ignored.

“At some point you get old enough where…you don’t live and die by things doing well,” he tells ABC Audio. “But obviously, when you write music, you want to know that people are getting to hear it.”

He adds, “That’s the worst thing ever…when you put out something and them for some reason or another, signals get crossed, it just doesn’t quite land and you realize that it just means that a lot of people don’t get to hear something you worked really hard on.”

Thomas goes on to say that in that respect, the success of “Move” is “kind of amazing.”

He explains, “It’s great that something that Carlos and I really love and care about and…all the American Authors guys, we did something that meant a lot to us, and it can mean something to somebody else.”

“Move” is on Santana‘s album Blessings and Miracles. Rob plans to put out new music with Matchbox Twenty ahead of their upcoming tour, and he also has a solo album ready to go at some future date.

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Heart frontwoman Ann Wilson will release a new solo album titled Fierce Bliss on April 29.

The 11-track collection was recorded at various sessions in Nashville, Seattle, Connecticut and Muscle Shoals, Alabama. The album features mostly new originals co-written by Wilson, while also including covers of Queen‘s “Love of My Life” and Robin Trower‘s “Bridge of Sighs.” “Love of My Life” features guest vocals by country star and current Eagles touring member Vince Gill, while acclaimed blues-rocker Kenny Wayne Shepherd plays guitar on “Bridge of Sighs” and an original song called “Missionary Man.”

Wilson recorded two tracks — “Gladiator” and “Angel’s Blues” — with Gov’t Mule, the group led by former Allman Brothers Band singer/guitarist Warren Haynes, who also co-wrote the tunes with Ann.

Wilson was accompanied on most tracks by a group of session musicians who now serve as her solo touring band, The Amazing Dawgs.

Fierce Bliss also includes Ann’s 2021 single “Black Wing,” which she recorded with some Seattle-based musicians, including recent Heart touring bassist Andy Stoller and keyboardist Dan Walker.

Ann has released the album’s first track, “Greed,” as an advance digital single, while a music video for the tune has debuted at her official YouTube channel.

“‘Greed’ is that thing in our animal nature that makes us want MORE,” Wilson explains about the song’s theme. “Whether it be money, sex, power or ecstasy, it fires our craving! It happens with all of us. When you turn around and catch yourself making decisions because you want the money, or because you’re caught in the headlights of glory, well, those are greedy moments.”

Wilson is lining up 2022 tour dates with The Amazing Dawgs. Visit AnnWilson.com for her current schedule.

You can pre-order Fierce Bliss now. Here’s the full track list:

“Greed”
“Black Wing”
“Bridge of Sighs”
“Fighten for Life”
“Love of My Life” — featuring Vince Gill
“Missionary Man”
“Gladiator”
“Forget Her”
“A Moment in Heaven”
“Angel’s Blues”*
“As the World Turns”

* = on CD and digital formats only.

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Nearly 13 years following the passing of Michael Jackson, a biopic about the King of Pop is coming to the big screen.

Lionsgate announced it will distribute the film now being developed by Oscar-winning producer Graham King, according to Deadline. 

The movie is being co-produced by John Branca and John McClain, the co-executors of the Michael Jackson estate, and has the blessing of the Jackson family. Michael’s mother, Katherine Jackson, said in a statement, “Ever since Michael was little, as a member of The Jackson 5, he loved the magic of cinema. As a family, we are honored to have our life story come alive on the big screen.”

Simply titled Michael, the biopic is described as “an in-depth portrayal of a complicated man who became the King of Pop. It will bring to life Jackson’s most iconic performances as it gives an informed insight into the entertainer’s artistic process and personal life.”

“I first met the Jackson family in 1981 and I’m humbled to bring their legacy to the big screen,” says King, who won the Best Picture Oscar in 2009 for The Departed. “Sitting at Dodger Stadium watching the Victory Tour, I could never have imagined that nearly 38 years later I would get the privilege to be a part of this film.”

The Michael Jackson Broadway production MJ: The Musical opened February 1 in New York City. Michael’s children — Paris, Prince and Bigi, aka Blanket, attended the opening night performance, as well as TJ Jackson, son of Michael’s brother, Tito Jackson.

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