Former Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman has made a big donation to MusiCares to aid music professionals who have been affected by the coronavirus pandemic. He says:
“When MusiCares reached out to me about providing something for their COVID-19 Relief Fund, I decided to help by offering my original bass rig that I used on the Steel Wheels U.S. tour of 1989, which I consider to be an important part of the Stones and music’s history. Nothing would please me more than to know that the proceeds from the sale of this will go to support my fellow musicians during this time of need, and to also know that my bass rig will find a new home where it will be appreciated for years to come.”
Appraised at $2 million, it is being sold with no reserve and it has a pre-auction estimate of $200,000 to $300,000. It will be sold by Julien's Auctions on September 16th, four days after the auction house holds its auction of items from Wyman's archives. Others donating memorabilia to this auction include Robert Plant and Ozzy Osbourne.
The rig was the last one Wyman used as a member of the Stones -- he retired from the band after that tour.
Former Kansas singer-organist Steve Walsh celebrates his 69th birthday today (June 15th). The Kansas "Point of Know Return" was written after being inspired by an album title suggestion and a National Geographic show about the voyages of Columbus. It peaked at number-28 on the Billboard Hot 100. Steve Walsh wrote most of "Point of Know Return," with violinist Robby Steinhardt and drummer Phil Ehart contributing as well. Walsh tells how the song came about.
”Phil Ehart, the drummer, really initiated my writing of that song. He said I think I’ve got a good album name, this was early in the project, Point of Know Return. And I said, ‘Wow, that is pretty cool, y’know,’ and I started thinking about that more and more. So I went home one night and National Geographic was on. It was a story about Columbus discovering America, and how they used to think that there were dragons and stuff out on the water and you were going to fall over the edge and stuff. So that’s exactly what I wrote the song about.”
Cindy Kozak is a health program associate for the State Department of Public Health, and she joined Suzi Klonk on air to talk about all things diabetes and how to look for the signs, avoiding it, and health tips!
Billy Joel and his longtime-now-ex-drummer, Liberty DeVitto, have buried the hatchet.
15 years after leaving Billy's band, Liberty got him to write the foreword for his memoir, LIBERTY: Life, Billy and the Pursuit of Happiness. It tells the story of his 30-year run with Long Island, New York's most famous musician.
Liberty says "I needed to get over the bitterness and hurt that I still had for Billy -- not keep harboring it. I was concentrating on the loss all the time, but I needed to think about the great times we had, the legendary music we made together, and all the lives we touched together." -- and so the rest was history.
The memoir will drop on July 14th. From 2012, Liberty DeVitto recalls when his friendship with Billy Joel began to fade, despite his three decades in the band.
"I came in on Turnstiles, when he made it big. I was still the only original guy from the records, let's put it that way. And the new people that came in, some of them were very jealous that I was the guy -- one in particular, a certain guitar player, won't mention his name, but he was very jealous of it. He used to socialize with Billy a lot. When we were told to leave Billy alone because he's got to sing that night, the guitar player would go over there and hang out and, you know, Billy would lose his voice. Let's put it that way. I'm not going to say what he did, but..."
Also from 2012, Liberty DeVitto when he realized his friendship and time in Billy's band were over.
"Had it out with the guitar play one day, and I just didn't like him anymore. I didn't like what was happening with Billy, I saw him just going downhill. Just was going 'lounge' kinda music. He liked that better, I still wanted to rock and roll. So, one day, when I wasn't invited to his wedding, his third wedding, I kinda got the hint that, 'OK, he's not my friend anymore.' And that's how I actually found out that it was over."
Z Z Top's Frank Beard (the one without the beard) turns 71 today (June 11) By the time ZZ Top's Eliminator album rolled around, the MTV era was in full swing and visuals were nearly as important as the songs. Aside from the Eliminator car, the video for "Legs" featured the debut of the band's spinning furry guitars. Billy Gibbons says they have one of rock's early guitar pioneers to thank for that idea.
“The furry guitar was definitely an inspiration from Bo Diddley. He had chopped and channeled his own versions of the electric Spanish six-string for years and years, and one made an appearance covered in kind of like a shag carpet. Having made friends with Mr. Bo Diddley, ‘Well,’ he said, ‘go get yourself a sheepskin.’ He said, ‘It’ll probably work for ya.’”
Dennis DeYoung applauds the efforts of the actors and musicians from the Columbia Gorge in Oregon and Washington who came together to perform a positive parody of his Styx song, "The Best of Times," which they've renamed, "The Best of Corona Times."
DeYoung says, "What a beautiful job you did on my song. Seeing all the different ages is the best part because music is the universal language and transcends time, for sure...
"I never take it for granted when people do heartfelt renditions of my songs, never. Whether it’s cover bands, college marching bands, characters in TV shows or movies, or the guy or gal in their bedroom pouring their hearts out trying to make a connection.
"When I was in Styx I preached the value of the song day and night to the guys and made the case that the songs will live on longer then our long hair and platform shoes and ability to perform them...
"Tommy [Shaw] and JY [James Young] haven’t played 'The Best of Times' since I was replaced. Shame really, although you’d need me there to sing it properly but everybody knows that. I suspect they know it as well..."
Here is former Styx singer-keyboardist Dennis DeYoung on why he wrote “The Best of Times.”
“In 1980, when the album was constructed, we’d just come through the Iranian crisis — remember when they held the hostages. We’d just come through, really, in my mind, the end of the Vietnam War, Watergate, the oil embargo, and now we had taking hostages. And ‘The Best of Times’ was a song about trying to rationalize in my own mind, having grown up, really, in the late ‘50s-early ‘60s in probably the greatest time to be alive in the history of mankind — to be in this country at that time -- and then to go through the turmoil of the late ‘60s and all through the ‘70s.”
Robert Plant is reportedly working with Alison Krauss on a follow-up to their 2007 album, Raising Sand, which won the Grammy for Album of the Year in 2008.
In an interview with Uncut magazine, Lucinda Williams says she joined them in a Nashville studio along with their producer, T-Bone Burnett, to sing on a Pops Staples song.
Plant has been hinting at a second album with Alison for quite some time, even saying in 2017 that he was compiling a list of songs for them to record.
In 2015, Robert and Alison released “Light of Christmas Day,” which was on the soundtrack to the film Love the Coopers.
Derek Trucks turns 41 today. Nephew of original Allman Brothers member Butch Trucks and eventually guitarist with the Allman Brothers. The Allman Brothers song: "Melissa" written by Gregg Allman was named after a little girl he never knew. After something like 300 attempts, "Melissa" was one of the first songs the late Gregg Allman wrote that he felt was good enough to record. He wrote it on his brother Duane's guitar in 1967, and Duane loved it. But the Allmans didn't put it on their first few studio albums. It wasn't until Gregg played it at Duane's funeral that he decided to include it on Eat a Peach. Gregg talked about how the song got its name.
"It was a pipe dream. I was on the road, I was pretty lonely, and I made up this perfect lady. And I didn't know what really to call her, and I was in the grocery store one day, which is a place I don't really frequent, you know. And there was this cute little girl, she was running away from her mother, and her mother called out, 'Melissa, come back here.' And I thought, 'That's a pretty name.' So that's what I called it.”
On June 5th, 1975, Talking Heads played their first show, beginning a four-night stand opening for the Ramones at New York's CBGB. They performed "Psycho Killer" which was written before they were a band. The original three members of Talking Heads -- David Byrne, Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth -- met in college at the Rhode Island School of Design and started writing songs together even before they formed their first band, The Artistics. Weymouth recalls "Psycho Killer" being one of them.
“That song was written before we ever had a band, when we were in school. So to us it means something about our past when we were sort of young prototypical punks back in art school and we wanted to do something good and yet thumb our nose at the same time -- classic structure, but weird vocals.”
Tommy Shaw says all that's left for Styx to do on their new album is to record it.
"Since the lockdown, we've completed writing. It's all demoed and, you know, if we keep going it's gonna be a double album, which, we don't want to do a double album. But, you know, if you're a writer you write. So, maybe something will bump something else off of it. But, as soon as we can find a comfortable way to get everybody here (Nashville), we will be going over to Blackbird [Studios] and start tracking."
And drummer Todd Sucherman adds,
"I can say the music on this upcoming record is absolutely killer... There is a song called 'Sound the Alarm', and when I first heard it, I stopped playing and damn near burst into tears because the lyrics were so in tune with what is happening now. It sounds like they were written today."
When completed, it will be the first studio album since 2017's The Mission.
Meanwhile, the band's former singer and keyboardist Dennis DeYoung just released what he says is his last album, 26 East: Volume One, but it's not.
"We wrote so many songs, Jim Peterik and I -- we have 18 songs and the record company said they wanted them all. It was idea to split them into two records -- Volume One and Volume Two. Seems a little pretentious to me. I wanted to call them This One and That One, but they didn't like that idea. So yeah, there will be two. But this one here (26 East), this is really my goodbye album as far as I'm concerned."
