Classic Hits

After finally re-launching his long-delayed Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour last week, Elton John has now been forced to postpone two concerts — because he’s tested positive for COVID.

Elton’s two shows in Dallas, TX tonight and Wednesday night are being rescheduled, and tickets for the original shows will be honored. A statement notes, “Fortunately, Elton is fully vaccinated and boosted, and is experiencing only mild symptoms…Elton and the Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour look forward to returning to the stage shortly.”

On his Instagram Stories, Elton wrote, “It’s always a massive disappointment to have to move shows and I’m sorry to anyone who’s been inconvenienced by this but I want to keep myself and my team safe.” Elton adds that he’s “fully expecting to make the Arkansas shows this weekend.”

Ahead of the tour’s launch, Elton’s longtime guitarist and musical director Davey Johnstone told ABC Audio that all COVID-19 precautions were being taken.

“There’s no backstage, there’s no guests. There are no backstage passes. There are no wives or girlfriends or anything,” said Johnstone, adding, “Everybody’s super masked up and getting tested every two days to make sure everybody on the tour stays safe.”

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Neil Young has demanded that Spotify either stop hosting the popular podcast The Joe Rogan Experience or remove his music from the streaming service.

Rolling Stone reports that Young recently posted online a now-deleted letter he sent to his manager and record label in which he explains that he’s giving Spotify this ultimatum because he feels the podcast “is spreading fake information about vaccines — potentially causing death to those who believe the disinformation being spread by them.”

Young then tells his reps in the letter, “Please act on this immediately today and keep me informed of the time schedule.”

Neil continues, “I want you to let Spotify know immediately TODAY that I want all my music off their platform. They can have [Joe] Rogan or Young. Not both.”

Young’s demand comes after, according to Rolling Stone, 270 doctors, physicians, and science educators signed an open letter last month asking Spotify to stop spreading what they consider Rogan’s misinformed and baseless claims regarding the COVID-19 pandemic.

Neil adds in his letter, “With an estimated 11 million listeners per episode, JRE, which is hosted exclusively on Spotify, is the world’s largest podcast and has tremendous influence. Spotify has a responsibility to mitigate the spread of misinformation on its platform, though the company presently has no misinformation policy.”

At the time Rolling Stone published its article, it says Spotify hadn’t responded to the magazine’s question about whether they intended to remove Young’s music from the service. You could still stream Neil’s recordings on Spotify as of this morning.

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As The Zombies prepare to launch the previously announced spring U.S. leg of their Life Is a Merry-Go-Round Tour, the British Invasion legends have now added a series of North America summer dates to the trek.

The summer portion of the tour begins with a June 21 concert in Belleville, Ontario, Canada, and is plotted out through an already-scheduled July 28-30 engagement in Park City, Utah. The outing also includes shows in the Midwest, Pennsylvania, the Pacific Northwest, California and Arizona.

Tickets for many of the newly announced dates will go on sale to the general public this Friday, January 28, at 10 a.m. local time. Visit TheZombiesMusic.com/live for more information.

Canadian pop-rock duo Altameda will open 11 of the new shows.

As previously reported, The Zombies’ spring U.S. tour leg kicks off on April 1 in Orlando, Florida, and runs through a May 1 concert in Fall River, Massachusetts.

Veteran singer-songwriter Bruce Sudano, who is the widower of late disco great Donna Summer, will be The Zombies’ special guest through an April 14 show in Knoxville, Tennessee, while singer-songwriter-pianist Jesse Lynn Madera will serve as the opening act for the rest of the leg.

Just prior to the start of the spring trek, the band will take part in the Flower Power Cruise, which sets sail from Miami on March 28.

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Following Meat Loaf‘s death this past Thursday at age 74, his fans began consuming sizable amounts of the singer’s music via streaming and download, Variety reports.

According to MRC Data, on Friday, when the news of Meat Loaf’s passing began to circulate, on-demand streaming of his recordings increased by 4,650% from its average during the beginning of 2022, while his album sales jumped a whopping 18,684%, and his individual digital track sales surged by an even more impressive 33,793%.

Variety points out that the increase in sales and streams of Meat Loaf’s music is particularly noteworthy because many of his songs were being bought and streamed regularly before his death.

According to MRC Data, Meat Loaf amassed 205,666 on-demand audio streams last Thursday, the day he died, while on Friday, that figure increased to 9,344,181. As for his sales, Meat Loaf’s albums surged from 54 to 12,675 and individuals tracks jumped from 95 to 36,346 from Thursday to Friday.

Thanks to the surge in streams and sales, Meat Loaf’s most popular songs and his classic 1976 album Bat Out of Hell are likely make a big impact on the next Billboard charts, which won’t debut until early next week.

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Last month, Green Day shared an Instagram post which shows the punk trio recording at RAK Studios in London.  That tease featured the year “1972” very prominently.  Now, the band has shared more footage of themselves at the London studio, with “1972” once again cropping up in the imagery.

The footage, posted over the weekend, shows the three band members jamming out, and Mike Dirnt spray-painting “1972” on a wall. That happens to be the birth year of all three members of the group.

Green Day, along with Machine Gun Kelly, Miley Cyrus, Halsey and Gwen Stefani, are set to headline the 2022 Bud Light Super Bowl Music Fest, a three-day event taking place February 10-12 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles ahead of Super Bowl LVI on February 13. Perhaps the group will introduce some new music in that performance.

Green Day released three new singles in 2021: “Here Comes the Shock,” “Pollyanna” and “Holy Toledo!” The band’s most recent album is 2020’s Father of All…

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Sammy Hagar and his current group The Circle have unveiled plans for a 14-show U.S. trek dubbed the Crazy Times tour featuring special guests George Thorogood & The Destroyers that will take place on select dates in June, August and September.

The tour gets underway on June 10 in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and is plotted out through a September 10 show in Irvine, California.

Tickets for the dates go on sale to the general public on Friday, January 28, at 10 a.m. local time via Live Nation. Members of Hagar’s Redhead Fan Club will be able to purchase pre-sale tickets beginning Tuesday, January 25, at 10 a.m. local time. For more information, visit RedRocker.com.

“A tour this size has been a long time coming and it’s definitely going to be worth the wait,” the Red Rocker says in a statement. “The Circle and I are super excited and ready to throw the party of the year with George Thorogood. We’re going to take the music and party to a whole new level — ‘Crazy Times’ is an understatement.”

The Crazy Times trek will follow Hagar’s recently announced 2022 Las Vegas residency at The STRAT Theater. Those shows, which will feature Sammy performing with The Circle and some surprise guests, are scheduled for February 9, 11 and 12, and March 23, 25 and 26.

The Circle features founding Van Halen bassist Michael Anthony, acclaimed rock drummer Jason Bonham and guitarist Vic Johnson of Hagar’s longtime backing group, The Wabos.

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Cyndi Lauper‘s smash hit “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” is officially a billionaire — if you count YouTube views, that is.  The video for her 1983 debut single officially reached the billion-views mark in less than 13 years.

According to an official press release, the clip was first uploaded to YouTube in October 2009 and, to date, is Cyndi’s only video to amass over a billion views.

In reaction to the honor, the pop singer said in a statement on Monday, “A lot of people don’t realize this but ‘Girls’ is really a political song. When I got my feminist hands on it, I knew I wanted to make it into an anthem for all women. Sonically, I wanted the song to be uplifting and joyful.”

Cyndi added that she made sure the music video highlighted “women from every walk of life” so it would empower women and girls everywhere. “I wanted us to be a community,” she said, noting she saw the impact of her song when attending a women’s march years later.

“I saw all types of women and girls carrying signs saying ‘Girls Just Want to Have Fun-damental Rights,'” Cyndi recalled. “And now here we are at a Billion views.”

She closed by noting, “Back when we made the video there was no YouTube, so when you think about it it’s really extraordinary. The reach that this song has. The longevity. That people still purposely seek this video out and press play. Wow. I’m really grateful.”

“Girls Just Want to Have Fun” was released in September 1983, and was the lead single off her debut album, She’s So Unusual. The song peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 and was certified Platinum by the RIAA after selling over a million copies in the U.S.

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Well-known veteran rock acts Foreigner and Grand Funk Railroad, as well as Jason Bonham’s Led Zeppelin Evening, will be opening for Kid Rock on various dates of his just announced 2022 Bad Reputation Tour of the U.S.

The Michigan rocker’s 25-date trek kicks off April 6 in Evansville, Indiana, and is scheduled to run through a September 16-17 stand in the Detroit suburb of Clarkston, Michigan.

Grand Funk Railroad will be Kid Rock’s special guest at nearly all of the concerts during the first portion of the tour, spanning from April 6 through a June 18 show in Raleigh, North Carolina, with the exception of gigs on May 20 in Louisville, Kentucky, and May 21 in Nashville, which will feature Jason Bonham‘s Led Zeppelin tribute group as the support act.

Starting at a June 24 concert in The Woodlands, Texas, Foreigner will take over as the special guest for the remainder of the tour.

Foreigner guitarist/songwriter Mick Jones, whose band previously hit the road with Kid Rock in 2015, says, “We are so looking forward to touring again with our good friend Kid Rock. Our 2015 tour across the US introduced Foreigner to a whole new audience and I will never forget the wonderful times we had with him on his ten show sold out run in Detroit.”

He adds, “I wrote ‘Dirty White Boy’ as a tribute to Elvis, but it also serves as a tribute to Kid Rock. I look forward to dedicating that song to him every night during the tour.”

The launch of the trek will coincide with the release of a new Kid Rock album called Bad Reputation. Tickets for the shows go on sale to the general public this Friday, January 28, at 10 a.m. ET local time via Ticketmaster.

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Sony Music Entertainment announced today that it’s acquired Bob Dylan‘s entire recorded-music catalog, as well as the rights to various future releases.

The 80-year-old folk-rock legend’s longtime label notes that the agreement, which was reached in July 2021, is a major expansion of its 60-year relationship with the influential singer/songwriter.

The deal spans Dylan’s entire career, from his 1962 self-titled debut album through 2020’s Rough and Rowdy Ways.

Via the agreement, Dylan and Sony Music Entertainment, which is Columbia Records’ parent company, will continue to work together on archival releases for Bob’s Bootleg Series, as well as other projects.

“Columbia Records and [Sony Music Group chairman] Rob Stringer have been nothing but good to me for many, many years and a whole lot of records,” says Dylan. “I’m glad that all my recordings can stay where they belong.”

Adds Stringer, “The essential impact [Dylan] and his recordings continue to have on popular culture is second to none and we’re thrilled he will now be a permanent member of the Sony Music family. We are excited to work with Bob and his team to find new ways to make his music available to his many fans today and to future generations.”

Sources tell Variety that the deal is worth between $150 million and $200 million, although that figure is unconfirmed.

In late 2020, Dylan sold the publishing rights to his songs to Universal Music Group for an amount estimated to be nearly $400 million, according to Variety.

In other news, Dylan has scheduled a spring U.S. tour that runs from a March 3 concert in Phoenix through an April 14 show in Oklahoma City. Tickets for most dates go on sale this Friday, January 28. Visit BobDylan.com for more details.

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Ringo Starr plays drums on a brand-new song by Men at Work frontman Colin Hay called “Now and the Evermore,” which is the title track of Hay’s forthcoming solo album.

Hay, who happens to be a current member of Ringo’s All Starr Band, will release the new album on March 18, while the song is available now as a digital single.

“‘Now and the Evermore’ is a reminder to myself, to make the most of what time I have left walking around on top of the planet,” Colin says about the tune. “When I listen to it, it transports me back to when I thought I had all the time in the world. It is a song which is unashamedly inspired by the majesty of The Beatles, and the gift they gave us all. Having Ringo Starr play on the track, is more than icing on the cake.”

Hay wrote and recorded the Now and the Evermore album in his adopted hometown of Los Angeles. A press statement describes the 10-track collection as “a defiantly joyful celebration of life and love, one that insists on finding silver linings and reasons to smile.” The record finds the 68-year-old singer-songwriter reflecting on loss and mortality, while exploring such genres as vintage pop, pub rock and folk.

You can pre-order Now and the Evermore now. Hay will support the album with a solo U.S. tour that’s mapped out from a March 18 concert in Fort Collins, Colorado, through a May 12 show in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Colin also will be hitting the road this year with Ringo’s All Starr Band, which kicks off a U.S. trek on June 2 in Boston.

Here’s the album’s full track list:

“Now and the Evermore”
“Love Is Everywhere”
“Into the Bright Lights”
“The Sea of Always”
“Starfish and Unicorns”
“A Man Without a Name”
“Undertow”
“All I See Is You”
“Agatha Bell”
“When Does the End Begin?”

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