Classic Hits

U2 and the upcoming animated film Sing 2 have teamed up with the Education Through Music nonprofit to create a special music video for the Irish rockers’ new tune “Your Song Saved My Life” to promote the organization, which provides music classes to children in under-resourced schools throughout North America.

The video, which premiered today on U2’s YouTube channel, features several students and teachers from the Education Through Music (ETM) program, who, through interviews, voice-overs and subtitles, share why music has had such an important positive impact on their lives. The clip seeks to demonstrate the importance of ETM’s goal of making high-quality music education available to more young people across America.

You can support ETM and find out more about the program by visiting YourSongSavedMyLife.com and www.national.etmonline.org.

As previously reported, “Your Song Saved My Life,” which was released last week, will appear on the soundtrack album for Sing 2, which features Bono making his animated film debut as the voice of a rock-star lion character named Clay Calloway. The flick is scheduled to get its U.S. premiere on December 22.

The album, which will be released on December 17, also features Bono duetting with Sing 2 co-star Scarlett Johansson on a version of U2’s “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,” as well as Johansson performing renditions of the band’s “Stuck in a Moment You Can’t Get Out Of” and “Where the Streets Have No Name.” On the latter tune, Scarlett is joined by Sing 2 cast members Reese Witherspoon, Nick Kroll and Taron Egerton.

The 21-song soundtrack also includes tunes by Elton John, Whitney Houston, Billie Eilish, Pharrell Williams and more. You can pre-order the album now.

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A house in the Liverpool, U.K., suburb of Speke where George Harrison lived while growing up will be auctioned off on November 30 by the Omega Auctions company.

The residence, a three-bedroom council house where Harrison and his family resided from 1950 to 1962, is estimated to sell for between 160,000 and 200,000 pounds, or from about $217,000 to $271,000.

While living at the house, George met Paul McCartney and John Lennon and was asked to join their band The Quarrymen. That group and, later, The Beatles, frequently rehearsed at Harrison’s home.

A number of features dating back to when Harrison lived at the house remain intact, including a bath, a sink, some of the original doors and hanging rails in wardrobes, as well as a kitchen dresser unit found in one of the outbuildings in the property’s backyard.

Omega Auctions points out that the buyer would be able to apply for a blue plaque, which acknowledges that a site is of historic U.K. significance, starting this month.

The home will be available for viewing by appointment during the two weeks leading up to the auction.

A video featuring photos of the house, as well as vintage pics of Harrison taken in and around the home, has been posted on the Omega Auctions’ official YouTube channel.

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Sammy Hagar & The Circle will team up with REO Speedwagon next year for a May 7 concert in Laughlin, Nevada, at the Laughlin Event Center.

Opening the show will be Sir, Please, a band featuring REO Speedwagon frontman Kevin Cronin‘s twin sons Josh and Shane.

Tickets go on sale to the general public on Wednesday, November 10, at 10 a.m. PT, while pre-sale tickets will be available starting today at 10 a.m. PT via Ticketmaster.com.

The concert is one of two performances Hagar and his current band have confirmed for 2022, along with a headlining appearance on July 8 at the Lakefront Music Fest in Prior Lake, Minnesota.

First up for Hagar, the Red Rocker will wrap up his 2021 “Sammy Hagar and Friends” residency at The Strat hotel and casino in Las Vegas with concerts this Friday, November 12, and Saturday, November 13.

Sammy’s Vegas gigs have featured various guest musicians joining him, including his friend Bob Weir of The Grateful Dead, who hit the stage with Hagar and his longtime backing group The Wabos this past Friday. They played three songs — covers of Buddy Holly‘s “Not Fade Away,” The Rascals‘ “Good Lovin’,” and Depeche Mode‘s “Personal Jesus.”

Meanwhile, Hagar and The Circle will head to the Lone Star State in December for the “A Toast to Texas” tour, a four-show outing that also will celebrate the recent launch of Sammy’s Beach Bar Cocktail Co., the Red Rocker’s new line of canned sparkling rum cocktails.

The tour will visit Fort Worth on December 3, San Antonio on December 4, Austin on December 6 and Houston on December 8.

Visit RedRocker.com for more details about Hagar’s itinerary.

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As Graham Nash prepares for the November 16 release of his new photo book A Life in Focus, which offers a career-spanning look at his photography, the 79-year-old folk-rock legend also has some interesting music projects on the horizon.

Nash tells ABC Audio that one project reunites him with his childhood friend and Hollies co-founder Allan Clarke.

“I’m actually working on an album with Allan Clarke, my friend since I was six years old,” he reveals. “We’ve been remotely recording. We’ve got eight tracks, and it’ll be a really fun album.”

Clarke, who was The Hollies’ lead singer, retired from the group in 1999, partly due to vocal-cord issues, but he returned to the music in 2019 with a new solo album, Resurgence.

“[Allan’s] singing…really, really well,” Nash says. “He’s a very underrated singer. He’s one of the most underrated lead singers in a pop band ever…He’s got a great voice, and it’s back.”

Meanwhile, Graham also reports that he’s continuing to work on a follow-up to his most recent solo album, 2016’s This Path Tonight.

Nash already had reported that he had seven songs left over from writing sessions for This Path Tonight that he plans to include on his next album, and now he tells ABC Audio that he’s continued to write during the COVID-19 pandemic, and has recorded five tracks remotely with his touring musicians.

As Graham explains, he records acoustic guitar and vocal tracks, which he sends to Shane Fontayne, who adds guitar and bass. The recordings are then sent to drummer Toby Caldwell and then Toby’s brother, keyboardist Todd Caldwell. After Todd records keys, he sends all the tracks back to Nash for mixing.

Graham says the process is “an interesting sonic journey.”

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KISS‘ Paul Stanley is mourning the death of his father, William Eisen, who has passed away at 101 years old.

“My dad William Eisen has left this earth after 101 years & 7 months,” Stanley tweeted Sunday alongside a photo of him and his dad.

“His thirst for knowledge never [waned],” the Rock & Roll Hall of Famer added. “He could speak on virtually any subject. His pride in my accomplishments was heartwarming as was seeing his love of my family. He said he’d always be with me and he will.”

Stanley, 69, and KISS are currently off the road after playing the KISS Kruise earlier this month. Their planned Las Vegas residency, which was scheduled to kick off in December, was recently canceled.

My dad William Eisen has left this earth after 101 years & 7 months. His thirst for knowledge never wained. He could speak on virtually any subject. His pride in my accomplishments was heartwarming as was seeing his love of my family. He said he’d always be with me and he will. pic.twitter.com/uKWHP9Okax

— Paul Stanley (@PaulStanleyLive) November 8, 2021

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While some of the things that Alanis Morissette has experienced in her career seem like no laughing matter, she’s teaming with ABC to develop a comedy based on her life, Deadline reports.

Alanis is serving as an executive producer for the show, which called Relatable, and she’ll also write original music for it. The show focuses on a 40-something married woman with three kids who spent her early years as a rock star famous for her “anthems of female rage and teen angst” — sound like anyone you know?  The comedy will apparently arise from her inability to get her children to listen to her.

The characters, according to Deadline, are “fictional and non-biographical,” though Alanis’ life will “loosely inform” the show.

A documentary on Alanis will also air later this month on HBO, though the singer has publicly denounced the film.

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Billy Joel announced last week that tickets for his show on September 23, 2022, at Houston’s Minute Maid Park would go on sale this Friday. However, those plans have now been put on hold following the tragedy at this weekend’s Astroworld festival, which left eight people dead and hundreds more injured.

“Out of respect for the Houston community after the events at Astroworld on Friday, organizers for the upcoming Billy Joel concert scheduled for Minute Maid Park in Houston…announced they are delaying the on sale until further notice,” reads a statement on Billy’s website. “Organizers will provide an update shortly on when ticket sales will begin.”

On Friday night in Houston, the Astroworld festival, organized by and featuring rap superstar Travis Scott, ended in disaster when the crowd of 50,000 surged forward; many fans were crushed or trampled and multiple people collapsed. 

The concert’s promoter reportedly agreed to halt the show, but Scott continued to play. Two concertgoers have already filed lawsuits in the festival’s aftermath as of early Monday. 

Scott has said he’ll pay funeral costs for the victims, and will provide refunds for anyone who bought tickets to the event.  He described himself as “absolutely devastated” by the tragedy, and said he is “working closely with everybody to get to the bottom of this.”

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So, The Beatles are the greatest band of all time, right? Not if you ask Paul McCartney.

Sir Paul himself feels that The Everly Brothers deserve the honor.

British newspaper the Daily Mail reports that, according to a passage in his new book The Lyrics, the former Beatle says he and band mate John Lennon were plenty inspired by the pioneering American rock ‘n’ roll duo.

“The biggest influence on John and me was The Everly Brothers. To this day, I just think they’re the greatest,” McCartney expressed. “And they were different.”

“You’d heard barbershop quartets, you’d heard [British pop trio] the Beverley Sisters — three girls — you’d all heard that. But just two guys, two good-looking guys? So we idolized them. We wanted to be them,” he remarked.

The Everly Brothers, comprised of brothers Don and Phil Everly, are credited for pioneering the country-rock genre.  The duo also experimented with infusing pop elements into their music, which include the hit singles “Bye Bye Love,” “Wake Up Little Susie” and many more. Other artists influenced by the duo included Simon & Garfunkel, The Beach Boys, The Bee Gees and The Hollies.

Don passed away in August of this year.  He was predeceased by Phil, who died on January 3, 2014.

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With Led Zeppelin celebrating the 50th anniversary today of the release of its classic 1971 untitled studio album, better known as Led Zeppelin IV, comes news that the record has just been certified 24 times Platinum by the RIAA for notching 24 million equivalent album unit sales in the U.S.

This moves Led Zeppelin IV into a tie with The Beatles‘ White Album for the fifth-best-selling album ever in the States.

The only albums ahead of Zeppelin IV are the Eagles‘ Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975, at 38-times platinum; Michael Jackson‘s Thriller, at 34-times platinum; the Eagles’ Hotel California, at 26-times platinum; and AC/DC‘s Back in Black, at 25-times platinum.

Led Zeppelin recorded most of Led Zeppelin IV‘s basic tracks while staying at a country house called Headley Grange in Hampshire, England, using The Rolling Stones‘ mobile studio.

Led Zeppelin IV featured several of the band’s best-known tunes, including perhaps their most famous song of all, the epic rock anthem “Stairway to Heaven.”

Robert Plant recalls that he was at Headley Grange when he began writing the lyrics for “Stairway to Heaven.”

“I was sitting next to Jimmy [Page] in front of the fire…He’d written this chord sequence and was playing it to me,” Plant remembers. “I was holding a pencil and paper and suddenly my hand is writing the words ‘There’s a lady who’s sure all that glitters is gold…’ I sat there, looked at the words and almost leaped out from my seat. Looking back, I suppose I sat down at the right moment.”

Late drummer John Bonham said around the time of Led Zeppelin IV‘s release that he felt it was the best album the band had made up till that time.

“I love it,” he added.

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Van Morrison is being sued for libel by Northern Ireland Health Minister Robin Swann after the singer called the politician “dangerous” in a series of recent outbursts criticizing Swann over his policies related to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Sunday Life newspaper reports.

According to the paper, Swann has hired libel lawyer Paul Tweed, who has represented such high-profile clients as Harrison Ford, Justin Timberlake and Jennifer Lopez, and is preparing for a High Court showdown with Morrison this coming February, unless the case can be settled before that.

Swann’s lawyers claim that Van’s public comments were equivalent to accusing the minister of misusing his office and endangering the public, and maintain that the singer falsely suggested that Swann had misrepresented facts regarding the pandemic.

The lawsuit stems from three separate incidents where Morrison verbally attacked Swann. The first occurred at a June concert in Belfast where Morrison, angered that some of his upcoming concerts had been canceled because of the pandemic, attempted to lead the audience in a chant of “Robin Swann is very dangerous.”

The second incident occurred when a Sunday Life reporter asked Van to comment about whether he regretted his remarks about Swann at his Belfast show and Morrison responded, “No, no I don’t regret it…Of course he’s dangerous.”

The third instance cited was a pair of videos Van posted on his YouTube channel in which he explains why he feels Swann is dangerous, while also expressing disdain for the politician over a then-recent op-ed piece Swann wrote for Rolling Stone in which he criticized Van’s anti-lockdown views and his series of recent protest songs he’d released in which he expressed those views.

Starting last year, Morrison began releasing songs protesting U.K.-imposed regulations meant to curtail the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in the country. Van believes the regulations are taking away people’s freedoms and destroying musicians’ livelihoods.

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