NEW AUTOBIOGRAPHY FROM BOBBY ELLIOTT OF THE HOLLIES!

The Autobiography of Bobby Elliott is available for pre-order. As the influential drummer from iconic rock ‘n’ roll band The Hollies, Bobby Elliott has six decades worth of musical anecdotes.

Continually touring since 1963, his adventures have seen him beating Keith Moon in a drumming audition, being serenaded by Joni Mitchell while she was in bed with Graham Nash and being offered a job by Paul McCartney to work with Wings.

Covering all such stories as well as exploring Bobby's personal highs and lows, It Ain't Heavy, It's My Story is a funny, honest and enlightening account of sixty years on the frontline of rock 'n' roll.

It's Ain't Heavy, It's My Story: My Life in The Hollies

ADAM ANT ANNOUNCES ‘FRIEND OR FOE’ USA TOUR 2019

(LONDON) March 18, 2019 … Pop icon Adam Ant performs his landmark, solo album “Friend or Foe” for the first time, live in its entirety, throughout the USA from September 4 to October 1.

Artist presale tickets are available from Tuesday, March 19 at 10 am local time through Thursday, March 21 at 10 pm local time. General tickets are available from Friday, March 22 at 10 am local time. For more information, visit http://www.adam-ant.com.

Following a world tour to sold-out venues throughout the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, Adam Ant confirms his 2019 “Friend or Foe” USA tour from September 4 to October 1.

Adam Ant will play his landmark “Friend or Foe” album in its entirety as well as classic chart-topping singles and personal favorites.

The “Friend or Foe” album was Adam’s first release as a solo artist and included three hit singles. The massive hit “Goody Two Shoes” reached #1 in the UK, was also #1 in Australia and hit #6 on the USA Billboard Chart.

PURCHASE LP CLICK PIC BELOW

“Friend or Foe”, the single, was another top ten hit in the UK while “Desperate But Not Serious” was the album’s third UK smash.

“Friend or Foe” his most successful solo album to date, made #5 in the UK and was certified gold album status on both sides of the Atlantic after selling over 100,000 copies.

In the USA, the album reached #16 on the Billboard album chart and turned Adam Ant into a household name, resulting in a GRAMMY nomination for Best New Artist and an MTV Award for “Sexiest Man Alive”.

From his early punk days in London to his explosion on the world stage that would lead to him becoming an icon, Adam Ant’s musical career spans the course of nine albums and 22 chart-topping singles worldwide. At one point, Adam had eight singles in the UK Top 40 in one week.

His 1979 debut album “Dirk Wears White Sox” was the first number one album in the UK Independent Albums Chart.

The follow-up album “Kings of the Wild Frontier” that featured his trademark Burundi beat style of African drumming spent 12 weeks at #1 in the UK and was the best-selling album of 1981. The “Kings of the Wild Frontier” album produced three UK chart-topping singles, “Dog Eat Dog” #4, “Antmusic” #2 and “Kings of the Wild Frontier” #2 and won Adam a Brit Award for Best New Artist.

On its day of release, the smash hit single “Stand and Deliver” went straight to #1, and remained at the top spot in the UK singles chart for five weeks, earning Adam two prestigious Ivor Novello Awards for Best Songwriter of the Year and Best British Record.

As “antmania” continued to sweep the nation, his next “Prince Charming” album produced yet another #1 single, “Prince Charming” and firmly established Adam Ant as a global star.

Adam Ant “Friend or Foe” USA tour 2019

Wednesday, September 4, Milwaukee, WI, Pabst Theatre

Friday, September 6, St. Louis MO, The Pageant

Saturday, September 7, Chicago, IL, Riviera Theatre

Sunday, September 8, Minneapolis, MN, Pantages Theatre

Wednesday, September 11, Cincinnati, OH, Taft Theatre

Friday, September 13, 

Detroit, Royal Oak Music Theatre

Saturday, September 14, Cleveland, OH, Masonic Auditorium

Sunday, September 15, Toronto, ON, The Danforth Music Hall

Tuesday, September 17, Boston, MA, Boch Center Shubert Theatre

Thursday, September 19, New York NY, Beacon Theatre

Friday, September 20, Philadelphia, PA, Merriam Theater

Saturday, September 21, Mashantucket, CT, Fox Theatre

Monday, September 23, Washington, DC, Lincoln Theatre

Wednesday, September 25, Greensboro, NC, Carolina Theatre

Friday, September 27, Atlanta, GA, Symphony Hall

Saturday, September 28, Clearwater, FL, Capitol Theatre

Sunday, September 29, Orlando, FL, Hard Rock

Tuesday, October 1, Miami, FL, The Fillmore

DAVE DAVIES: LEGENDARY GUITARIST OF THE KINKS ANNOUNCES NEW LP DECADE

Photo by Kevin Harmon

Founding member of The Kinks, Dave Davies has announced the upcoming release of Decade, a new collection of unreleased songs recorded in the 1970's. Davies has also shared the lead track from the record, "Cradle To The Grave," which was recorded in 1973. Decade will be released on October 12th via Red River Entertainment and Green Amp Records, and Davies will be on tour in early 2019.

Listen: Dave Davies - "Cradle To The Grave"

In what may be considered the sequel to 2011’s Hidden Treasures, which chronicled Davies' solo recordings from the 1960's, Decade pulls back the curtain on the legendary guitarist and songwriter's unreleased works spanning 1971 to 1979.

Davies writes, "I am so pleased that after all this time these tracks are being released to see the light of day. These songs have been silently nagging at me to be recognised all these years. At last I can proudly present this album Decade to the world. I do hope you all enjoy the music."

Decade is currently available for pre-order.

Decade

Years prior to the issue of his first “proper” solo album, 1980’s AFL1-3603, Davies was working on the fascinating tracks that make up Decade. The tapes were unearthed by his sons Simon and Martin from “under beds, in attics, in storage,” and properly mixed and mastered in a way that lets these songs shimmer and shine even brighter than they did at inception.

Any album recorded over the span of 10 years runs the risk of ending up wildly erratic in tone and style, and yet, Dave’s Decade is surprisingly cohesive, the songs working together beautifully as songs on great albums do.

The period 1973 to 1975 saw The Kinks make the move into their own recording studio, Konk, which Davies took a major role in setting up and developing. “I’m always really into the sound, and the mixes, and gadgets..." writes Davies. "I was able to go in, and make what I thought were demos—these recordings."

Listening to the contemporary, FM radio-friendly quality of these songs, it’s hard to fathom that these solo tracks remained under wraps, particularly as these were born in the aftermath of clear Dave Davies triumphs such as “Strangers” and “You Don’t Know My Name,” change-of-pace songs that added considerable value to the early ‘70s Kinks albums they appeared on.

Photo: Steve Hockstein

But with brother Ray deep into the creation of a series of high-concept albums on which Dave’s songs had no apparent place, these Dave Davies gems remained unissued on both the solo and band fronts. Davies explains, "We were busy, and we were touring,

The Kinks were very vibrant that whole period of time. It wasn’t really until the end of the ‘70s that I started to really take my writing seriously. I should have done it anyway—because what’s ‘serious’ and ‘not serious’? Just get stuff out, you know?” In 1978, a song contemporaneous with these sessions, “Trust Your Heart”, was chosen to appear on The Kinks’ Misfits album, and Davies became very active as a solo artist at last, with a series of well-regarded albums in the 1980s and beyond.

A long-time inductee of the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame, Dave Davies helped shape the landscape of rock and pop music across generations. A seasoned yet spontaneous rock-n-roll visionary, Davies was named one of Rolling Stone Magazine’s 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.

Dave has released several critical acclaimed albums on Red River Entertainment including his most recent album Open Road, a collaborative project with his son Russ, released in March 2017 and acclaimed by Rolling Stone, Consequence of Sound, Paste, Spin, The Washington Post, and many more.

Decade Tracklist:

1. Cradle to the Grave
2. Midnight Sun
3. Islands
4. If You Are Leaving
5. Web of Time
6. Mystic Woman
7. Give You All My Love
8. The Journey
9. Within Each Day
10. Same Old Blues
11. Mr. Moon
12. Shadows
13. This Precious Time (Long Lonely Road)

DAVE DAVIES ONLINE
http://www.davedavies.com/
https://www.facebook.com/davedaviesofficial/
https://twitter.com/davedavieskinks

PAUL MCCARTNEY ANNOUNCES BREAK UP OF BEATLES APRIL 10 1970

The legendary rock band the Beatles spent the better part of three years breaking up in the late 1960s, and even longer than that hashing out who did what and why. And by the spring of 1970, there was little more than a tangled set of business relationships keeping the group together.

  

Each of the Beatles was pursuing his musical interests outside of the band, and there were no plans in place to record together as a group. But as far as the public knew, this was just a temporary state of affairs. That all changed on April 10, 1970, when an ambiguous Paul McCartney “self-interview” was seized upon by the international media as an official announcement of a Beatles breakup.

The occasion for the statements Paul released to the press that day was the upcoming release of his debut solo album, McCartney

DYLAN GARDNER: ADVENTURES IN TIME

I really love this cd...Dylan at age 17, has his own sound but he definitely is a fan of Retro. He likes the Beatles, Hollies and British Invasion... you can hear that influence in his music. Listen to his entire CD HERE

Dylan Gardner has arrived in grand fashion with Adventures in Real Time, an effortlessly joyous debut album blazing bright with melodic flair, forward-thinking fervor, and a 21^st century grasp of musical history.  Having come of age with the entirety of the pop continuum at his fingertips, the 17-year-old singer/songwriter/producer has been able to inhale and process the rock canon in the same time it took previous generations to peruse the D-G bin in their local record store.  Animated by brisk hooks, breezy melodies, and big, big dreams, Adventures will be released on May 13th.

Adventures in Real Time Track List:

1) Let's Get Started

2) Heroes Tonight

3) I'm Nothing Without You

4) Too Afraid To Love You

5) I Think I'm Falling For Something

6) The Actor

7) Sing For The Stars

8) Feeling Of Love

9) With A Kiss

10) Invincible

ERIC BURDON: TILL YOUR RIVER RUNS DRY

Just saw Eric's show last week in Ann Arbor and he debuted some of his new cd 'Til Your River Runs Dry.  We just loved the sound of Eric's amazing voice with an amalgam of seriously talented musicians behind him. I loved "Water" the most.. Get a copy, Eric Burdon is one of the very few stars who remains totally cool to this day...he wears it well...very well indeed....

Eric Burdon "Some people are squandering the world's most precious resource while others have too little clean water to drink," said Burdon. "At the same time, we have tsunamis and cities under water. And yet, we still ignore Mother Nature's warnings. I sing this song in the hope that I can bring some balance to the issue, to bring some awareness of the importance of water to our future on the planet."

Track Listings

1. Water

2. Memorial Day

3. Devil And Jesus

4. Wait

5. Old Habits Die Hard

6. Bo Diddley Special

7. In The Ground

8. 27 Forever

9. River Is Rising

10. Medicine Man

11. Invitation To The White House

12. Before You Accuse Me 

ERIC BURDON & THE ANIMALS IN ANN ARBOR!

Eric Burdon

Wow what a fantastic show last night at the beautiful Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor! Eric Burdon and The Animals with Special Guests, The Howling Diablos were just fantastic. The whole night was so inspiring..

Hadn't gone to see a show in almost a year..I had seen so many in the past few years that I really just needed a break. But when my friend Tino Gross announced that the Howling Diablos were opening for rock legend Eric Burdon in my town..I had to go to this gig.

Rob King the great drummer from Destroy All Monsters was my partner for the show..I thought of Rob immediately as the perfect person to go with me to this show.  Rob's Dad owned King's Music in Ann Arbor for decades and Rob grew up around the finest musicians that came and played in A2.  Rob is like having a personal music professor.. he explained the techniques and the instruments in detail to me. Really interesting...

Eric Burdon

Eric is in his early 70s now and in great form..he was so adorable..I loved the way he just sauntered onto the stage with no introduction or fanfare. Kind of surprised the audience! His manner was so casual..as if we were in his living room watching him play.

It seems to be so difficult for legendary rock players to transition into playing their music as they get older.  Eric made this transition perfectly.

Eric Burdon

If you have kept up with Eric Burdon over the decades, you know how he evolved so beautifully with the highly talented bands he assembled after The Animals blew up in 1966. The Animals went from guitar, bass,drums, to an orchestra.

His band was over the top fantastic...

Billy Watts: Guitar

Eric McFadden: Guitar

Terry Wilson: Bass

Teresa James: Keyboards

Wally Ingram: Percussions 

Tony Braunagel: Drums

Red Young: Hammond B3 and Keyboards.

Eric's band was so clean and clear,  magically it was music...I apologize for not knowing the names of the players as they were not listed in the program or announced anywhere. So all I can refer to is is the guy on the Hammond B3, the girl on keyboard/strings, flute and back up vocals, the lead guitarist stage left and the lead guitarist with bowler hat stage right, the drummer, and percussionist/conga/bongo player..and the amazingly quiet but steady bass player in the left side of the drummer.

THEY ALL PLAYED SO WELL..

Tino Gross Eric Burdon and Johnny Bee Badanjek photo: Marianna Burdon

It was so much fun for me to see my friends The Howling Diablos, play in A2 and at the Michigan. It is such a lovely venue with a great stage and acoustics. I had never seen the Diablos play in a theater before.

The audience was packed with the happiest crowd of folks! It felt like 2 thousand people with cabin fever who finally escaped! Everyone was so friendly and excited to see Eric Burdon. Rob and I had such great seats too! 11th row dead center. Really great few and perfect for sound..Eric Burdon's large diamond earring in his left ear kept blinding me! LOL

My program and ticket 

Haven't seen the Diablos in quite awhile so I really came to see them as much as Eric Burdon. Let's share a little BIO.....

The Howling Diablos rockin, funky, blues jam style is well known in Detroit, and everywhere they have toured, as a great live music experience. Since their formation in the 90’s they have toured with and opened for acts including George Clinton’s Parliament Funkadelic, Alice Cooper, Albert Collins, Ben Harper, Hank Williams Jr, NRBQ, Incubus and The James Gang as well as headlining their own shows.

Tino Gross Johnny Bee Badanjek, Johnny Evans and Mo Hollis back turned

Really fun moment was watching Rob King witness the Howling Diablos playing their signature piece "Go Gene (Krupa) Go".  It is over 11 minutes long and a drum tribute to Gene Krupa and Johnny Bee. Had to keep an eye on Rob and he was about to go into a drummer's coma! Don't think he blinked for the entire 11 minutes!!

Rock Legend Mr. Johnny Bee Badanjek....♥

Rob and I both just loved the girl who played flute on Spill the Wine...she was dancing around the stage while playing and we haven't seen anything like that since Jethro Tull at Olympia a hundred years ago....She sang, played the keyboard with all the other instruments programed into it...I swear I will find these young band members name and add them as soon as I get a message back from Eric's team....

Erik Gustafson

Mo, Erik, and Johnny Evans were smokin that stage....Mo! what moves that man has!

Mo Hollis

There was a young guy sitting in front of me last night at the Michigan Theater. He was frantically scrolling his Smart Phone trying to find out whether or not Eric had the rights to use the name "The Animals"... the answer is YES he does...Read about that here..


**Special Thanks** to Lee Berry  and all the staff at the Michigan Theater, Event Photographer Julian Konwinski (so great to meet you!), Tino Gross, and Rob King xK

CNN/TOM HANKS: THE SIXTIES BRITISH INVASION!

‘THE SIXTIES - The British Invasion’ 

Executive Produced by 

Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman 

Premieres Jan. 30

Extraordinary series THE SIXTIES from Playtone, Herzog & Company begins May 2014

Multiple Emmy® Award-winning executive producers Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman (HBO’s John Adams and The Pacific), and Emmy® Award-winning producer Mark Herzog (History’s Gettysburg) of Herzog & Company (HCO), will reignite the landmark musical revolution of 1964 in this special presentation from their CNN Original Series. The one-hour special, THE SIXTIES: The British Invasion will premiere on CNN/U.S. on Thursday, Jan. 30 at 9:00pmET and PT. The full 10-part episode CNN Original Series THE SIXTIES will begin in May 2014.

The British Invasion begins with the breakthrough performance of The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show, which was watched by a record-setting 73 million viewers, blazing a culture-changing path through America fifty years ago next month. The Beatles’ success was quickly followed by other British bands hoping to conquer the hearts of American teens. Those siren calls of The Animals, The Kinks, The Hollies, The Dave Clarke 5, The Who, and The Rolling Stones are all revisited in this paean to the power of the music that defined a generation – and remain vital and relevant today.

1960's DIVA DUSTY SPRINGFIELD!!!

Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O'Brien OBE (16 April 1939 - 2 March 1999), known professionally as Dusty Springfield, was an English pop singer and record producer whose career extended from the late 1950s to the 1990s.
 

With her distinctive sensual sound, she was an important blue-eyed soul singer and at her peak was one of the most successful British female performers, with six top 20 singles on the United States Billboard Hot 100 and sixteen on the United Kingdom Singles Chart from 1963 to 1989.

She is a member of both the US Rock and Roll and UK Music Halls of Fame. International polls have named Springfield among the best female rock artists of all time. Her image, supported by a peroxide blonde bouffant hairstyle, evening gowns, and heavy make-up, made her an icon of the Swinging Sixties.

Born in West Hampstead, London to a family that enjoyed music, Springfield learned to sing at home. In 1958 she joined her first professional group, The Lana Sisters, and two years later formed a pop-folk vocal trio, The Springfields, with her brother Tom.

Her solo career began in 1963 with the upbeat pop hit, "I Only Want to Be with You". Among the hits that followed were "Wishin' and Hopin'" (1964), "I Just Don't Know What to Do with Myself" (1964), "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me" (1966), and "Son of a Preacher Man" (1968).

As a fan of US pop music, she brought many little-known soul singers to the attention of a wider UK record-buying audience by hosting the first national TV performance of many top-selling Motown artists beginning in 1965. Although never considered a Northern Soul artist in her own right, Springfield's efforts contributed a great deal to the formation of the genre as a result.

Partly owing to these efforts, a year later she eventually became the best-selling female singer in the world and topped a number of popularity polls, including Melody Maker's Best International Vocalist. She was the first UK singer to top the New Musical Express readers' poll for Female Singer.

To boost her credibility as a soul artist, Springfield went to Memphis, Tennessee to record Dusty in Memphis, an album of pop and soul music with the Atlantic Records main production team. Released in 1969, it has been ranked among the greatest albums of all time by the US magazine Rolling Stone and in polls by VH1 artists, New Musical Express readers, and Channel 4 viewers.The album was also awarded a spot in the Grammy Hall of Fame.

In January 1994 while recording her final album, A Very Fine Love, in Nashville, Dusty Springfield felt ill. When she returned to England a few months later, her physicians diagnosed breast cancer.

She received months of radiation treatment and the cancer was in temporary remission.

In 1995, in apparent good health, Springfield set about promoting the album. In mid-1996 the cancer had returned, and in spite of vigorous treatments, she died in Henley-on-Thames on 2 March 1999.

Her induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, had been scheduled two weeks after her death. Her friend Elton John helped induct her into the Hall of Fame, declaring, "I'm biased but I just think she was the greatest white singer there ever has been ... Every song she sang, she claimed as her own."

Springfield's funeral service was attended by hundreds of fans and people from the music business, including Elvis Costello, Lulu, and Pet Shop Boys. It took place in Oxfordshire, at the ancient parish church of St. Mary the Virgin, in Henley-on-Thames, where Springfield had lived during her last years.

ROCK TV BEGAN IN THE 1960'S: SHINDIG★ HULLABALOO★ AND WHERE THE ACTION IS

Shindig! was the first of a kind in the US- a prime-time rock music TV show that featured live... maybe rehearsed and then taped live... performances by the top acts of the early Sixties.

The Studio band for Shindig were called The Shindogs.. the band lineup was Glen D Hardin Delaney Bramlett Joey Cooper James Burton and Chuck Blackwell. Never knew Delaney was in this group!

Patty Duke on Shindig!

Rolling Stones on Shindig!

The Shindig show, hosted Jimmy O'Neill, was broadcast live on ABC September 16, 1964, with house band the Shin-diggers (later the Shindogs) and the Shindigger dancers (the reason anyone over twenty-five might be watching the show). Most of the 'Shindig' shows were broadcast in glorious black and white.

On January of 1966, a year and a half after the series debuted, it was canceled to make room on ABC's schedule for 'Batman', which was also scheduled to run on two nights a week. Sigh... Oh well, we liked Batman too for a time.

Shindig was an American version of Britain's rock/pop show Ready Steady Go. They featured a lot of British Invasion bands and lots of American music too like Motown, The Birds, Fontella Bass and more. Here is a video of one of my favorite singers Gerry Marsden and Gerry and the Pacemakers "Ferry Cross the Mersey" I got to meet Gerry at the Premiere Center in Sterling Heights in the late 80's. Loved him.

Paul Revere and The Raiders with Mark Lindsay Where The Action Is In 1963, AMERICAN BANDSTAND left the weekday shift for Saturday afternoons. Two years later (1965), Dick Clark created a new spin-off for ABC called Where The Action Is, a half-hour rock 'n' roll show featuring the…

More hits of the day. Buffalo Springfield on Where the Action Is Where The Action Is took viewers to various locations across the US. In addition to Stateside locations, segments were also taped in Canada, Britain and Japan.

One frequent location was Malibu Beach in Malibu, CA, where many of the summer shows were shot. Bear Mountain Ski Resort in Bear Mountain, CA was the frequent site for the winter and holiday shows. Steve Alaimo and Linda Scott were the original hosts.

By 1966, Paul Revere and the Raiders, the house band, took over the hosting duties. That's when the show was it's best. Other series regulars included Keith Allison, Tina Mason, and Jimmy Hubbard. The Action Kids was the series' dance troupe. Where The Action Is was in black and white during its original ABC run.

 

Hullabaloo was a lot like Shindig, and lasted only a year and a half as well, debuting in January of 1965, and continuing until the Fall of 1966. Hullabaloo! in the fall of 1965 was a pretty cool show. It was in color and a bit over produced.

Not as cool as Shindig but we watched our favorite bands anywhere we could find them.  These shows and transistor am radio was all we had to discover new music. No FM, No MTV, VH1 or the internet. Now days the only way I discover new music is on film soundtracks. They rarely announce the names of the bands on the radio.

So if I hear something I really like in a movie I look it up on Amazon for the samplers to listen to. I also really love Playlist.com. It is not a download site it is more of a free jukebox for your favorite tunes. I have lots of playlists for this blog ala the Christmas tunes playing now.

 All of these shows, especially Shindig, captured some of the coolest live songs by the best rock, pop and soul stars, The Supremes, Otis Redding, Beach Boys, and James Brown.

 Read more on RK Florence Ballard and The Supremes Dave Wakeling The English Beat Darlene Love