A day after his former Genesis bandmate Steve Hackett turned 70, Peter Gabriel celebrates his 70th birthday on February 13th, 2020. Some speculate the Peter Gabriel song "Solsbury Hill" is an allegory about Gabriel's departure from Genesis. Peter Gabriel announced that he was leaving Genesis in August 1975 and began recording his solo debut in July 1976. Though "Solsbury Hill" has been said to have been inspired by a spiritual experience that occurred at a place by that name in Somerset, England, some also believe it's about his departure from the band. Here's Gabriel.
“I’m sure there was an influence there, but it wasn’t directly pointing at it. But you inevitably reflect what’s going on even if you’re not especially aware of it at the time. So, it was not a song about leaving Genesis, but there were echoes of that.”
Don Henley may be participating in his second straight Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony when it's held on May 2nd in Cleveland. Last year at the ceremony in Brooklyn, New York, he helped former girlfriend Stevie Nicks celebrate her induction by joining her to sing their 1981 hit, "Leather and Lace." This year he may present Irving Azoff, his longtime manager, with the Ahmet Ertegun Award. Here is Don Henley on possible presenting"
"They haven't really talked to me about that yet, but I'm guessing that I'm gonna get a call about that pretty soon, yeah. He very much deserves that award and, you know, if they want me to do the induction speech then I will."
The award is given to “songwriters, producers, disc jockeys, record executives, journalists and other industry professionals who have had a major influence on Rock and Roll."
Bruce Springsteen’s manager, Jon Landau, will also be honored with the same award that night, and it's a safe bet to say that "The Boss" will honor him.
In 1998, when the Eagles were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Henley thanked Azoff by saying, "I'd want to thank Irving Azoff without whom we wouldn't be here today." This led Glenn Frey to interrupt and say, "We might still be here, we just wouldn't have made as much money." Henley then continued with, "As I've said before, he may be Satan, but he's our Satan."
50 years ago today (February 11th), The Magic Christian, a comic film starring Ringo Starr and Peter Sellers, opened in New York City on the same day its soundtrack album, featuring "Come and Get It," was released. The song was recorded by Badfinger written by Paul McCartney about a month before longtime guitarist Joey Molland joined the band, and Sir Paul had told them if they learned it as it was, it would be a hit. He played it throughout his career with them and heard the story of how it was recorded many times.
“It was recorded about a month before I joined the band. The bass player, Ron Griffith, left for some unknown reason — I’ve heard three different stories. But the story that the guys told me about that song was Paul sent a tape round and a note saying, ‘Learn this song just exactly as it is and we’ll go in and record it and it’ll be a big hit for you.’ That’s what they did. They learned Paul’s arrangement from his demo, then they went in the studio and he recorded it. And it was a big hit, just like he said.”
50 years ago today (February 10th), ZZ Top played their very first show, at a Knights of Columbus Hall in Beaumont, Texas.When making their video for "Sharp Dressed Man" Bassist Dusty Hill still remembers a homeless man who stood next to him during the video shoot.
“’Sharp Dressed Man,’ I have a lot of memories of the video, because it was shot all at night in L.A. in a bank rigged up to look like a night club. And it was like three or four in the morning, take number whatever. I wasn’t in the shot, so I was standing there and this homeless man, who’d obviously been drinking, was standing beside me. I didn’t think anything about it, but he started telling me how they had the shot set up wrong, technically. I mean, everybody in Hollywood is in the movies, even the wino.”
Following a three-night test run in Las Vegas last fall, the Eagles will start their Hotel California tour tonight (Friday) with the first of three shows at the State Farm Arena in Atlanta.
Don Henley tells us the show is divided into two sets with all of Hotel California played first. Then, after a 20-minute break, they'll do a two-hour set of hits.
Don Henley on the Eagles doing Hotel California in its entirety on tour:
"We wanted to do something that we'd never done before, and we have the talent now, the personnel, to pull it off. I'm not sure we could have successfully done it before. I mean Vince [Gill] and Deacon [Frey] play a big role in our ability to do that album. And, we also wanted to add the element of the orchestra. And we have the horn section. We added a 22-piece choir just to sing 'Ah' on one song."
The 46-piece orchestra, as well as the choir, are made up of local musicians from each town they play. At one point in the three-hour show there are 77 performers on stage.
Henley says they took note of other artists doing complete albums on tour, most notably Steely Dan and Bruce Springsteen. But, he adds that there was another reason for doing it.
"People are buying vinyl records again and getting into it and buying turntables and going back to the old way of playing and listening to records and we like that. We think that's a good thing. So, we incorporated that into the show as well."
Today (February 6th) would have been the late Bob Marley's 75th birthday. The Eric Clapton song "I Shot the Sheriff" is a Bob Marley song on 461 Ocean Boulevard in 1974 Two music industry legends knew it was a major hit the minute they heard it. And they were right, it made it to # 1.
The late Tom Dowd, who produced Eric Clapton's 461 Ocean Boulevard, recalled the session for "I Shot the Sheriff" as happening really fast, with Eric, singer Yvonne Elliman and rhythm guitarist George Terry doing their thing as the tape rolled. What made an even bigger impression on him was the reaction of two legendary executives from Atlantic and RSO Records who were working with Eric at the time. Here is Tom Dowd on recording Eric Clapton’s “I Shot the Sheriff” and the reaction of legendary record executives Ahmet Ertegun and Robert Stigwood when he played for them.
“Among the musicians that I had there, somebody played the Marley record and they jumped all over it and they had a good time doing it. And Yvonne [Elliman] picked and George [Terry] sang the harmonies, I mean, we flew the vocal live and the thing just went baloom, like that, it was done. And I remember Ahmet and Robert Stigwood coming down to see how things were going. And I played them “I Shot the Sheriff” and Ahmet’s eyes just lit up, like, you could just see. He says, ‘That’s it,’ and Stigwood says, ‘It’s a hit!’ and the two of them levitated out of the studio.”
Alice Cooper celebrates his 72nd birthday today (February 4th). Once Alice Cooper got the idea to write a song about the end of the school year, he had a dilemma. How do you capture the exhilaration of that moment? He obviously did it School's Out peaked at number-seven on the Billboard Hot 100. Here he explains his dilemma:
“I said, ‘How do you capture that on a record? And how do you get that ‘School’s Out’ and the nah-nah-nah nah-nah thing in there — you know, no more pencils, no more books?’ And then school’s out for summer! I mean, just the release of it is ‘the school’s out.’ That was the idea. Get the release of the school and the release of the chorus at the same time.”
A year ago today (Friday), January 31st, KISS began their End of the Road tour in Vancouver, Canada.
Tomorrow (Saturday) they start the third U.S. leg, this time in Manchester, New Hampshire at the SNHU Arena. With David Lee Roth opening, this leg runs through March 15th in Biloxi, Mississippi.
Promising to change the set list, Paul Stanley says the show features their biggest production ever.
"We really started from the ground up. The last 10 years the stages have all basically been elaborations of a certain structure. This time we threw everything away and came up with something that is really top cutting edge technology, but very much with the heart and soul -- and balls shall I say -- of what we've done before, but magnified so greatly. Again, it's ultimate KISS like you've never seen."
Following this U.S. leg, the tour heads to Central and South America, Europe and South Africa before coming back to the U.S. on August 28th in Burgettstown, Pennsylvania, just outside Pittsburgh. The tour stops in Hartford at Xfinity Theater Saturday night Sept. 5
Phil Collins celebrates his 69th birthday today (January 30th). he was asked about his song "Take Me Home" from No Jacket Required in 1985 It peaked at number-seven on the Billboard Hot 100 . he went right to the video:
“The video was good fun to make. It’s the most expensive video ever made in theory and, in fact, didn’t cost us anything, because we had a film crew along for the whole tour. And every time we’d get to a city, they’d set up and they’d play a couple of the lines into the tape and I’d just go out there in the freezing cold, or whatever, and just sing a couple of lines and then they put it together at the end of the tour and it looked like we spent millions of dollars on it. Doesn’t say much about the song, does it? But it’s one of my favorite songs that I’ve written.”
Ten years ago today (January 29th), Neil Young was honored as MusiCares Person of the Year during Grammy Week. The Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young song "Helpless" on Deja Vu was written by Neil Young and begins with the line "There is a town in North Ontario." Neil was asked if he'd written it in Canada or was just thinking about Canada when he wrote it, and whether there was anything in particular that had inspired him to write it. Here's what he had to say.
“A lot of it is about Canada. I think there was a girl named Jean Monterey. I think I was with her when I wrote it, but I’m not sure. I can’t remember. It was a long time ago. She had something to do with it -- in my own hometown, y’know. It’s pretty straightforward in the song what it is.”
