Search Results for: rock and roll hall of fame

After a 25-year absence from the #1 album spot, J Records artist Rod Stewart with his album Stardust… The Great American Songbook: Volume III enters the Billboard 200 Album chart at #1 on a first week Soundscan total of 240,043 copies sold. The Songbook albums are a musical and cultural phenomenon, and are now the biggest-selling ongoing series of new music recordings in history. This is also Rod Stewart’s first ever #1 debut on the Billboard Top 200 chart. Stardust is the follow-up to 2002’s It Had To Be You… The Great American Songbook (which spent 85 weeks on the… Read more »

Johnny Ramone, guitarist and co-founder of the seminal punk band “The Ramones” that influenced a generation of rockers, has died. He was 55. Ramone, who had been fighting a five-year battle with prostate cancer, died in his sleep Wednesday afternoon at his Los Angeles home surrounded by friends and family, said the band’s longtime artistic director Arturo Vega. “He was the guy with a strategy. He was the guy who not only looked after the band’s interest but he also was their defender,” Vega said in a telephone interview from New York. Ramone, whose birth name is John Cummings, had… Read more »

The diminutive funk rocker will take over five channels at once Wednesday, when MTV, MTV2, BET, VH1 and VH1 Classic simultaneously broadcast a 30-minute concert special taped live last week before an audience in New York. The concert features songs from Prince’s latest album, Musicology, plus some of his classic hits. “This historic broadcast, going out simultaneously over the five most influential music networks, is a tribute to the music and artistry of one of the most singular talents of our time,” said Columbia Records exec Will Botwin. “With a fast-paced combination of brilliant performances and compelling interviews, this show… Read more »

An antique piano formerly used by Elton John and pictured on an album cover, was auctioned off over the weekend for $164,500, well below the minimum estimate of $300,000, organizers said on Sunday. The other big seller at Heritage Galleries’ auction in Dallas on Saturday was a guitar used by late Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain. It sold for $117,500, down from a minimum estimate of $250,000. (All sale prices include a 17.5 percent buyer’s fee.) The instrument with the highest estimate, the upright bass used by late Motown session musician James Jamerson on such early ’60s tunes as “My Guy”… Read more »

Twenty years after he first appeared on the big screen in “Purple Rain,” Prince returns to movie theaters for one night only March 29. The Minnesota rock star plans to broadcast his concert in Los Angeles live via satellite to 32 Regal Cinema theaters around the country. Tickets are on sale at the theaters for $15 and online starting Tuesday at http://www.RegalCM.com. The Los Angeles concert is the first major show on Prince’s Musicology tour, on which he pledges to perform many of his old hits for the last time. He plans to hit at least 38 cities. Prince will… Read more »

Prince is taking that little red Corvette out of the garage again. On the heels of his blistering Grammy “Purple Rain” performance, the ’80s funk legend has announced he will hit the road with the New Power Generation for his first major arena tour in six years in support of his new CD, Musicology. To help hype the tour, Prince says the upcoming gigs may be the last time fans get to see him jam out some of the best-known hits live. That presumably means that tunes like “Little Red Corvette,” “1999” “Purple Rain,” When Doves Cry” and “Let’s Go… Read more »

Aerosmith, will headline the Super Bowl XXXVIII pre-game show at Reliant Stadium in Houston on Sunday, Feb. 1, the NFL announced today. Super Bowl XXXVIII will be televised by CBS to an expected 130 million viewers in the United States and a potential worldwide audience of 1 billion viewers. The Super Bowl is annually the nation’s highest-rated TV program and the most-watched single-day sporting event. Game time is 6 p.m. EST/5 p.m. CST/3 p.m. PST. Said Steven Tyler, “The Super Bowl is Rock and Roll! It’s sexy, it’s slammin’, it’s precision, it’s passion and pure energy. That’s Sweet Emotion to… Read more »

Johnny Cash, “The Man in Black” who became a towering figure in American music with such hits as “Folsom Prison Blues,” “I Walk the Line,” and “A Boy Named Sue,” died Friday. He was 71. “Johnny died due to complications from diabetes, which resulted in respiratory failure,” Cash’s manager, Lou Robin, said in a statement issued by Baptist Hospital in Nashville. He said Cash died at the hospital at 1 a.m. EDT. “I hope that friends and fans of Johnny will pray for the Cash family to find comfort during this very difficult time,” Robin said. Cash had been released… Read more »

It looks like Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel are reuniting for a concert tour. The former duo has reserved dates at concert arenas across the country, said Gary Bongiovanni, editor of Pollstar, a concert industry trade publication. And they were scheduled to make a “very special announcement” at a New York nightclub on Tuesday, publicists said. There has been talk of a tour since Simon & Garfunkel performed together to open the Grammy Awards ceremony in February, and they’ve done the logistical groundwork, Bongiovanni said. “Everyone’s been expecting it,” he said. “It was still in the speculative stages, because you… Read more »

The 21st Century Doors have lit a fire under the estate of the late Jim Morrison. Seeing red are George and Clara Morrison, the octogenarian parents of the group’s legendary frontman, who filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against surviving members Ray Manzarek and Robbie Krieger on Wednesday. They claim the rockers swiped their son’s poetry and image and used them in a revamped version of the Doors currently touring the U.S., featuring the Cult’s former frontman, Ian Astbury, as a fill-in for Morrison. The complaint, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, also names Astbury as a defendant. According to court… Read more »