Led Zeppelin Reunion And Tour: “Never Mind”

Robert Plant will not be reuniting with Led Zeppelin for a 2009 tour.  In fact, he “has no intention whatsoever of touring with anyone for at least the next two years” after the current tour with Alison Krauss ends on October 5th.   As Emily Litella would have said:  ”Oh, That’s Very Different” from the many recent reports circulating the U.K. about the band getting together again. However, Plant makes it perfectly clear that he won’t be along for the ride if the rest of the band hits the road - or the recording studio.  READ ALL ABOUT IT HERE

ClassicRockForever Presidential Debate Prep: Have Conditions Improved In The Past Four Years? Just Ask Kenny.

Presidential Debate Prep: Have Conditions Improved In The Past Four Years? Just Ask Kenny.

Actually, it’s been forty years since he dropped in to see — surely he must know by now.

Kenny Rogers - Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In) 1968

That’s Entertainment Vol. XLIII: Bruce Springsteen Will Headline Halftime At Superbowl

Both the NFL and NBC have confirmed this season’s buzz that Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band will indeed perform at the Super Bowl XLIII Halftime Show on February 1 in Tampa.  READ THE ENTIRE NFL STORY HERE

The 700 Billion Dollar Song

Just In Time! A Message From The ClassicRockForever Time Capsule

To The Bipartisan 700 Billion Dollar Bailout Team:

The Outsiders - Time Won’t Let Me (1966)

Ray Davies Says “You Really Got Me” For Possible Kinks Reunion

For those tired of waiting since 1996 for The Kinks to get back together, Ray Davies says they are “three quarters of the way there”.  Hopefully, his brother Dave will be up to it after suffering a stroke in 2004. Imagine how enlightening this could be for the crowd that is clueless to the fact that one of the greatest covers ever - Van Halen’s version of “You Really Got Me” - is not the original. If in doubt, consider the number of young adults who are consistently stunned to learn that Paul McCartney’s first band wasn’t Wings.  Better yet, a Kinks reunion could bring new Kinks tunes.  Ray Davies: “My pitch to the other guys in the band - because I’m really for it - was what would we have written if we hadn’t have had our first hit, You Really Got Me?”.  READ ALL ABOUT IT HERE

“Disappointed and Very Disrespected …This Is Not YES On Tour”

Ouch.  Jon Anderson comments on being replaced by a YES tribute band singer for the current tour — originally planned to celebrate the band’s 40th Anniversary. In his own words:   “Disappointed, and very Disrespected. Disappointed that, with the exception of one phone call from Alan, none of the guys have been in touch since my illness, just to find out how I am doing, and how we will foresee the future for YES. And disappointed that they were not willing to wait till 2009 when I’m fully recovered.

And I feel very disrespected, having spent most of this year creating songs and constant ideas for the band, spending time with Roger Dean creating a stage design, also working with VH1 and Sirius and XM Radio to help promote the welfare of YES.

Getting sick was not “on my radar”, and I thank my own angel Janeee and my family for helping me through this difficult time, and the many well wishers, friends and fans alike, for understanding that ”things happen”.

Of course I wish the guys all the best in their ’solo’ work, but I just wish this could have been done in a more gentlemanly fashion. After all YES is a precious musical band.

This is not YES on tour…

I send best wishes to one and all,

Jon Anderson
September 2008

From Jon Anderson’s Personal Website

Sometimes Hipness Is What It Ain’t

“You done went and found you a guru,
In an effort to find you a new you.
And maybe even managed to raise your concious level.

While you’re striving to find the right road,
There’s one thing you should know:
What’s hip today might become passe’.

Tower Of Power:  What Is Hip?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ahhhh, Freak Out! Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Announces Nominees for 2009 Induction

It’s only Rock and Roll… or is it?  Disco band Chic (”Le Freak”) joins Jeff Beck, Wanda Jackson, Little Anthony and the Imperials, Metallica, Run-D.M.C., the Stooges, War, and Bobby Womack on a nominee list that’s got some rockers scratching their heads.  Here’s the official press release:

 

THE ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME FOUNDATION 

ANNOUNCES NOMINEES FOR 2009 INDUCTION 

New York (September 22, 2008) — The nominations for induction into the Rock and Roll 

Hall of Fame and Museum were announced today. The nine nominees are: Jeff Beck, 

Chic, Wanda Jackson, Little Anthony and the Imperials, Metallica, Run-D.M.C., 

the Stooges, War, and Bobby Womack. Ballots will be sent to more than 500 voters, 

who will select artists to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at the 24th 

Annual Induction Ceremony on April 4 at historic Public Hall in Cleveland. For the first 

time, tickets to the ceremony will be made available to the public.  

 

To be eligible for nomination into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, an act must have 

released its first single or album at least 25 years prior to the year of nomination. This 

year’s nominees had to release their first single no later than 1983. 

 

One of the most influential guitarists in rock and roll, Jeff Beck, was inducted into the 

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992, as a member of the Yardbirds. After his 18-month 

stint (1965-66) in that band, he formed the first edition of the Jeff Beck Group (1968-69, 

with Rod Stewart and Ron Wood). In the four decades since, Beck’s work has 

encompassed deep explorations into instrumental jazz fusion, blues, a tribute to Gene 

Vincent, and much more, always underpinned by his hard-rock roots.   

 

Chic’s founding partnership of songwriter-producers Nile Rodgers (guitar) and Bernard 

Edwards (bass), abetted by future Power Station drummer Tony Thompson, rescued 

disco in 1977 with a combination of groove, soul and studio smarts. With their out-of- 

the-box chart smashes “Dance, Dance, Dance (Yowsah, Yowsah, Yowsah)” and “Le 

Freak,” Chic raised the bar and hooked a generation. Since then, artists such as Sugar Hill 

Gang and Diddy have turned to Chic for beats and samples. Rodgers and Edwards 

(before his death in 1996) followed their five years in Chic with careers as top-flight 

producers for an A-list of megastars. 

 

When Elvis Presley sang “wear my ring around your neck” – it was Wanda Jackson’s 

neck. And she still has the ring. The “First Lady of Rock and Roll” started recording in 

1954, and was 18 when she graduated high school and played her first package tour with 

Elvis in 1955. He convinced her that rock and roll was the way, and she grabbed onto the 

rhythm like a dynamo. Wanda had the respect of Gene Vincent, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee 

Lewis, Johnny Cash, and every musician who ever shared the stage with the “Queen Of 

Rockabilly.” A perennial star on tour in Europe and Japan, Wanda’s career revived back 

home in the ’90s, thanks to true believers like Elvis Costello.   

 

After singing in high school doo-wop groups, Fort Greene, Brooklyn’s Jerome Anthony 

Gourdine joined a quartet called the Chesters, which included tenor Ernest Wright, Jr. 

and baritone Clarence Collins. The fivesome signed to George Goldner’s End Records in 

1958 as the Imperials featuring Little Anthony. His boyish vocal (redolent of Frankie 

Lymon) clicked with “Tears On My Pillow” and “Shimmy, Shimmy, Ko-Ko-Bop,” 

boosted by one of the most energetic stage shows around. Other hits included “I’m on the 

Outside (Looking In),” “Goin’ Out of My Head,” and “Hurt So Bad” that forever 

immortalized Little Anthony and the Imperials. 

 

Rising from the Los Angeles metal underground in the early 1980s, Metallica quickly 

rose to become the most successful and acclaimed heavy metal band of their era - a 

position they’ve consistently held for over a quarter century. Founded by vocalist James 

Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich, the group discovered a potent formula by combining 

the thrash metal of Motorhead with the industrial sound of Killing Joke.  By the late 

1980s, mainstream tastes were shifting over to metal and Metallica found themselves 

with a string of hit singles and sold-out stadiums across the globe. This month the band 

released Death Magnetic, a metal tour de force in the same vein as their landmark 1980s 

work.  

 

More than any other act, Run-D.M.C. took hip-hop from the streets of New York to the 

national stage. The group gets deserved credit for its combinations of rock and rap ¬from 

their early use of guitars on tracks such as “Rock Box” to their ground-breaking 

collaboration with Aerosmith on their 1986 cover of “Walk this Way.” But even more 

important was how Run-D.M.C. and the late Jam Master Jay set the template for modern 

hip-hop, from their everyday-teenager style to their blazing live shows to a catalogue of 

classic songs that few rappers have matched: “It’s Tricky,” “My Adidas,” “Peter Piper,” 

“It’s Like That,” “Sucker MC’s” and many more. 

 

The “Big Bang” that became punk, alternative, heavy metal, new wave, grunge, hardcore 

and industrial music, could very well have been the advent of Iggy and the Stooges in 

Ann Arbor in the late 1960’s. Immediately embraced in New York, London and Los 

Angeles for the nuclear-powered simplicity of their music, the ironic nihilism of their 

lyrics, and the persona of Iggy himself, the Stooges have become icons in the history of 

modern music. And if there is a national anthem for the far side (the underside?) of our 

rock and roll universe, it is certainly “I Wanna Be Your Dog.”  

 

The six founding members of War – the late Papa Dee Allen and Charles Miller, 

survivors Harold Brown, B.B. Dickerson, Lonnie Jordan, and Howard Scott – were 

gigging around L.A. for nearly a decade before hooking up with Eric Burdon (ex- 

Animals) and Danish harmonica player Lee Oskar in 1969. Burdon and producer Jerry 

Goldstein named them War and they backed it up with a steamy Afro-Latin R&B groove 

that rocked their debut hit “Spill The Wine.” Less than two years later, Burdon dropped 

out and War went their own way in 1971. A long string of Top 10 pop/R&B crossover 

hits established War’s status through the ’70s, always with a social message grounded by 

their distinctively breezy Southern California vibe. 

 

In a class with Sam Cooke and James Brown, his two older mentors, Bobby Womack’s 

career spans over 55 years, back to sibling group the Womack Brothers.  Cooke signed 

and renamed them the Valentinos, whose first two Womack-penned R&B hits became 

signatures for the Rolling Stones (“It’s All Over Now,” their first #1 UK hit) and J. Geils 

Band (“Lookin’ For A Love”).  Womack is a triple-threat: prolific solo artist, landmark 

session guitarist (Sam Cooke At the Copa, Aretha Now, Lady Soul, Elvis Presley’s 

“Suspicious Minds,” Sly’s There’s A Riot Goin’ On, the Rolling Stones’ “Harlem 

Shuffle,” and many more), and master songwriter (Aretha’s “Chain Of Fools,” Wilson 

Picket’s “I’m a Midnight Mover,” Janis Joplin’s “Trust Me,” and countless others. 

 

Five of the nine nominees will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The 

inductees will be announced in January 2009. 

 

The 2009 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction program will include a weeklong series 

of events culminating with the Induction Ceremony on Saturday, April 4 at historic 

Public Hall in Cleveland.  Advance ticket sales for the events will be made available to 

the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum members and then to the public.  For the 

latest information on inductee announcements, ticket packages, events, and other 

programs, fans can sign up for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame newsletter at 

www.rockhall.com/induction2009. 

 

All inductees are ultimately represented in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum 

in Cleveland, Ohio. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum is a nonprofit 

organization that exists to educate visitors, fans and scholars from around the world about 

the history and continuing significance of rock and roll music. It carries out this mission 

both through its operation of a world-class museum that collects, preserves, exhibits and 

interprets this art form and through its library and archives as well as its educational 

programs. 

 

For more information, visit www.rockhall.com. 

 

### 

Election 2008 Tune Of The Week

Election 2008 Tune Of The Week

Rage Against The Machine’s predecessors? Nope… too ”clean cut”.

Lies - The Knickerbockers (1965)

Was That Howard Beale Anchoring The News This Morning?

“Everybody’s out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel’s worth; banks are going bust …. I’m mad as hell — and I’m not going to take this anymore”.   Here are some visual aids to help you distinguish between Howard’s on-air meltdown in the 1976 movie Network and soundbites from today’s average newscast.  You’ll find the complete text below. Just don’t try this yourself without proper supervision.

 

 

 

“I don’t have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It’s a depression. Everybody’s out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel’s worth; banks are going bust; shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter; punks are running wild in the street, and there’s nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there’s no end to it.

We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat. And we sit watching our TVs while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that’s the way it’s supposed to be!

We all know things are bad — worse than bad – they’re crazy.

It’s like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don’t go out any more. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we’re living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, “Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials, and I won’t say anything. Just leave us alone.”

Well, I’m not going to leave you alone.

I want you to get mad!

I don’t want you to protest. I don’t want you to riot. I don’t want you to write to your Congressman, because I wouldn’t know what to tell you to write. I don’t know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street.

All I know is that first, you’ve got to get mad.

You’ve gotta say, “I’m a human being, goddammit! My life has value!”

So, I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window, open it, and stick your head out and yell,

“I’m as mad as hell,

and I’m not going to take this anymore!!”

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