Mike Love has been The Beach Boys frontman for 55 of his 75 years. Since 1961, he’s been on countless stages around the world singing hits the whole world knows and sings along to.
It was “Fun, Fun, Fun” on June 26 on the main lawn at the Los Angeles County Arboretum in Arcadia, Love was at it again.
He and his band includes fellow Beach Boy Bruce Johnston (who left another surf band, The Rip Chords, to join Love in 1965), longtime lead guitarist Jeffrey Foskett (he came on board in 1979) and for this show, actor John Stamos on drums (he’s been sitting in on and off since 1981).
Love et al, delivered one all-time classic after another to the delight of the 5,000 picnickers who braved the near-100-degree heat to joyously dance and sing along to “Do It Again,” “I Get Around,” “Surfin’ U.S.A,” and a couple dozen other timeless gems that epitomize the initial Southern California sound, followed a decade later by The Eagles, Linda Ronstadt, Crosby Stills and Nash and others.
At 75, Love still has a fine time — he still loves it. He commands the stage with his slight-but-somehow magnetic dance moves, leading the throng in chorus after chorus, pointing and smiling to fans, and perpetuating that endless summer legacy of his band and his music.
Some fairly recent shows have seen him intersperse a number of rare cuts. The crowd wanted Beach Boys classics and he gave it to them. This afternoon beach party 50 miles inland ended with a ton of friends and family members, including band members grandkids all rocking and dancing to “Fun, Fun, Fun” and one of the great party songs of all time, “Barbara Ann.”
Aerosmith’s farewell tour
Steven Tyler announced that his band is planning a farewell tour set for next year, he told radio host Howard Stern on his Sirius XM show.
The 68-year-old Tyler said: “We’re doing a farewell tour, but only because it’s time … I love this band, I really do — and I want to squash every thought that anybody might have about this: The band’s over.”
When asked how long the tour would last, Tyler joked, “Probably forever.”
The 2001 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees, aka “Those Bad Boys from Boston,” are the biggest selling American hard rock band of all time, with worldwide record sales that exceed 150 million.
The band has 25 gold albums, 18 platinum and 12 multi-platinum albums to their credit as well as 21 Top 40 singles. In 2013, Tyler and his composing partner, guitarist Steve Perry, were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Tyler’s debut solo album, a mostly country album, “We’re All Somebody from Somewhere,” will be released on July 15 on the revitalized Dot Records label.
The only U.S. concert date on Aerosmith’s schedule is an appearance at the Kaaboo Festival at the Del Mar Racetrack and fairgrounds, Sep. 16-18 (the exact date TBD).
Iggy Pop talks retirement
The father of punk rock, Iggy Pop, known for his often wild, always shirtless performances, told British TV host Graham Norton on his BBC TV show that, “I will step back at some point.”
The 69-year-old, who fronted the pioneer punk outfit The Stooges from 1967-1974 (and again occasionally since 2003), whose latest album, “Post Pop Depression,” came out in March, continued, saying, “Another album would be a big undertaking for an old git like me.”
Last week, during a discussion at a festival in Cannes, France, he said, “There’s a lot of things I can’t do now that I could do when I was 25. But I can do a music show, and I enjoy that. And I can do an advert, or a part in a film, or a radio show. I really enjoy those things.”
Barry Gibb joins Coldplay, sets first album in 15 years
Barry Gibb, the last surviving member of The Bee Gees, will release his second-ever solo album and his first in 15 years, reports NME. The new album will come out this fall will be his first album since the final Bee Gees studio album, “This Is Where I Come From,” in 2001, that hit No. 16 here.
Last week, the 69-year-old Gibb was the hit of Britain’s huge Glastonbury festival when Coldplay brought him out as their special guest. The band, led by singer Chris Martin, backed Gibb on a pair of Bee Gees hits, one from their initial ‘60s Beatlesque period, “To Love Somebody,” and “Stayin’ Alive,” from their hugely successful ‘70s disco period.
Farm Aid 2016 set
Farm Aid board members Neil Young Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp and Dave Matthews will headline this year’s Farm Aid benefit concert, as they do each year. This year’s day-long music fest will be held Sept. 17 at the 25,000-seat Jiffy Lube Live amphitheatre in Bristow, Virginia, 35 miles north of Washington, DC., according to the non-profit’s website.
Additional performers include country vet Carlene Carter, The Alabama Shakes, Jamie Johnson, Margo Price, Lucas Nelson and The Promise of the Real, and Dave Matthews Band lead guitarist Tim Reynolds.
Since 1985, Farm Aid, with the support of the artists who contribute their performances each year, has raised more than $50 million to support programs that help farmers thrive, expand the reach of the Good Food Movement, take action to change the dominant system of industrial agriculture and promote food from family farms, according to Farm Aid.
Eagles, Taylor, Staples to receive Kennedy Center Honors
This year’s recipients of the prestigious Kennedy Center Honors include The Eagles, singer Mavis Staples and James Taylor, according to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC. Other honorees are Argentine classical pianist Martha Argerich and actor Al Pacino.
The honorees, selected and feted for their influence on American culture through the arts, will be celebrated at a gala on Dec. 4, featuring performances and tributes from top entertainers. The show will be broadcast on Dec. 27 on CBS.
The Eagles postponed this honor by a year because leader Glenn Frey was battling multiple illnesses at the time, including recurring intestinal problems (he died in January at age 67). The band formed in L.A. in 1971 has sold more than 150 million albums. It’s 1976 “best of” collection, “Their Greatest Hits (1971-1975),” has sold more than 42 million copies; while “Hotel California” (also from 1976) has sold more than 32 million copies worldwide.
Mavis Staples, 76, was a member of the famed family gospel group, The Staple Singers, from 1950-1994, scoring a pair of No. 1 hits on Billboard’s Hot 100 pop singles chart, 1972’s “I’ll Take You There,” and “Let’s Do It Again” in 1975.
The Staple Singers, who performed at President Kennedy’s inauguration in 1961, were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1999, and in 2005, they received the Grammy’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
She performed numerous times over the decades with Bob Dylan, who once proposed to her. In February, Staples released her 15th solo album, “Livin’ On A High Note” featuring songs by Neko Case, Ben Harper and Nick Cave.
The soft-voiced five-time Grammy-winning Taylor, 68, who battled heroin addiction in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, has sold more than 100 million albums, and was inducted in 2000 into both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Last year, President Obama presented him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Gaga meets Dalai Lama
Lady Gaga met with the Dalai Lama for 19 minutes to discuss yoga and was promptly banned by China, reports Britain’s Guardian. The 30-year-old singer-songwriter-pianist met with the 80-year-old exiled Tibetan leader, who China, which occupies Tibet, considers an enemy. They discussed issues such as meditation, mental health and how to detoxify humanity. A video of their meeting was posted on Gaga’s Facebook page.
The Dalai Lama fled into exile in India in 1959. He says he wants is greater autonomy from Chinese rule for Tibetans. The Chinese government consider him a separatist.
Hong Kong’s pro-democracy newspaper, Apple Daily, reports that included in the ban is a government edict to Chinese websites and media organizations that ordered them to stop uploading or distributing her songs.
Prince’s Yellow Cloud guitar auctioned
Prince’s distinctive bright custom-built “Yellow Cloud” guitar that he used throughout the ‘90s, has been sold at auction.
The guitar that features gold knobs, whammy bar and tuning keys that was built by Minneapolis’ Knut-Koupee Enterprises was sold for $137,500 by Heritage Auctions of Dallas, Texas, the auction house reports.
“This Yellow Cloud guitar was Prince’s main guitar and used in most of his early videos and touring performances and album recordings. From around 1988-1994,” Prince’s former guitar technician Zeke Clark wrote for Heritage in a letter of authenticity.
The buyer is perhaps American’s greatest collector of rock and pop music memorabilia, Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay. In December, Irsay paid $2.2 million for Ringo Starr’s 1963 Ludwig Oyster Black Pearl three-piece drum kit.
Obit: Bluegrass legend Stanley
Legendary singing and banjo-playing bluegrass performer Ralph Stanley died of skin cancer June 23 at age 89 in Coeburn, Virginia, near McClure, Virginia, in rural western Virginia, where he was born, according to Nashville’s Tennessean.
His no-frills, two-finger banjo picking style influenced countless musicians. He continued to perform until close to the end and his website’s concert schedule lists several show through the rest of the year.
He was 11 years old when he gave his first public performance. It was in church. Growing up in rural western Virginia, his mother gave him an option: he could either have a pig or a banjo.
In 1946, he and his older brother Carter billed as The Stanley Brothers (and later The Clinch Mountain Boys) hosted a daily fifteen-minute radio show on a local radio station, KVNA. The brothers mostly performed together as The Clinch Mountain Boys with a series of other musicians until Carter’s death in 1966 (at one point in the ‘50s, the brothers quit music and worked at a Ford plant in Dearborn, Michigan). After Carter’s death, Ralph continued on his own.
Stanley achieved wide recognition when his performance of “O, Death,” was featured in the Cohen brothers 2000 adventure film, “O Brother, Where Art Thou?,” that starred George Clooney and won him the Grammy for Best Male Country Vocal Performance.
Eight of his solo albums reached the Top 10 on Billboard’s bluegrass chart. He was inducted into the International Bluegrass Hall of Honor in 1992, and the Grand Ole Opry in 2000. In 2006, he was awarded the National Medal of the Arts.
Obit: Keyboardist Worrell
Keyboardist Bernie Worrell, a founding member of trippy, spaced-out, often cartoonish, soulmeisters, Parliament-Funkadelic, died of lung cancer at 72 at his home in Everson, Washington, where he recently relocated after living for years in New Jersey, reports the Associated Press.
New York Times music writer Jon Pareles once wrote described Worrell as “the kind of sideman who is as influential as some bandleaders.”
The classically-trained Worrell’s synths, particularly his use of the Moog synthesizer, drove such hit ‘70s albums as “One Nation Under a Groove” and hit songs, including “Mothership Connection (Star Child)” and “Give Up the Funk (Tear the Roof Off the Sucker).”
In 1970, Worrell joined George Clinton’s merger of his doo-wop group, The Parliaments, with his new funky R&B-rock outfit, Funkadelic, to form Parliament-Funkadelic or P-Funk. He was also an integral member of Clinton’s and bassist Bootsy Collins’ offshoot groups, The Clones of Funkenstein and Bootsy’s Rubber Band, among others.
Worrell left P-Funk in 1981, but he continued to appear on the band’s albums and made occasional concert appearances with them. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997 with fifteen other members of Parliament-Funkadelic.
Throughout the ‘80s, he was an unofficial member of The Talking Head, both on record and especially in concert until they officially broke up in 1991. When the group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame he rejoined the foursome for their one-off performance reunion.
He also guested on records by Keith Richards, Yoko Ono, and The Pretenders, among many others.
From 2011-2015, he fronted The Bernie Worrell Orchestra, that included special concert guests Collins, Minutemen bassist Mike Watt, Blondie keyboardist Jimmy Destri, Captain Beefheart guitarist-collaborator Gary Lucas and Talking Heads bassist Tina Weymouth and drummer Chris Franz.
Last month, Worrell was accorded an honorary Doctorate of Music degree from the New England Conservatory of Music, where he studied until 1967.
Obit: Elvis’ guitarist Moore
Pioneering rock and roll and rockabilly guitarist Scotty Moore, who played on Elvis Presley’s historic early recordings at Memphis’ Sun Records, died in Memphis at age 84 after being ill for several months, reports Memphis newspaper, the Commercial Appeal.
Moore, a fan of legendary country guitarist Chet Atkins, was playing with a local combo called The Starlight Wranglers that also included standup bass player Bill Black when Sun Records owner Sam Phillips drafted them both to back up a novice singer, a teenage truck driver named Elvis Presley.
On July 5, 1954, the threesome recorded together for the first time, with Phillips producing the session. At first, nothing of any consequence was recorded. Just before everyone was ready to give up and go home, Elvis grabbed his guitar and stared singing a jumping rockabilly song from 1946, Arthur Crudup’s “That’s All Right.” The other two joined in, Phillips recorded it, realizing that he had the new sound he’d been searching for.
Only three days later, Phillips got popular local Memphis DJ Dewey Phillips (no relation) to play it. The radio stations phone lines immediately lit up to the point where Phillips played the song almost constantly during the last two hours of his show.
The trio then went back into the Sun Records studio and cut Bill Monroe’s bluegrass hit, “Blue Moon of Kentucky,” as a faster rockabilly number. Phillips and Elvis had their first single and first hits.
Moore and Blacked, joined by drummer D.J. Fontana, backed Elvis, who played rhythm guitar, in the studio and live in concert. Moore played on all the early biggies, including “Heartbreak Hotel,” “Blue Suede Shoes,” “Mystery Train,” “Jailhouse Rock,” “Hound Dog,” and so many others. Moore, Black and Fontana also appeared with the King in four of his musicals from 1957-1960, “Loving You,” “Jailhouse Rock,” “King Creole” and the first film he made after his discharge from the Army, “G.I. Blues”).
Early in 1958, Elvis was drafted into the Army, so Moore branched out, producing acts (Elvis and his band pre-recorded a slew of songs for later release during his Army time).
Upon Elvis’ discharge, Moore returned to Elvis and also became production manager of Phillips’ Sun Records Studios. In 1964, Moore released a solo album, “The Guitar That Changed the World.” For this demonstration of independence, Phillips fired him.
He was with Elvis in 1968 for his NBC-TV comeback special that again returned Elvis to the top of the rock and pop worlds, where he remained until his death on Aug. 16, 1977.
He continued to perform until retiring in 2009. In 1997, an Elvis tribute album, “All the King’s Men,” saw him reunited with Fontana when they backed up, among others, Rolling Stones Keith Richards and Ron Wood, former Yardbird guitarist Jeff Beck and Levon Helm of The Band.
In 2011, Moore was ranked No. 29 on Rolling Stones’ 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time. He was recognized by the Rockabilly Hall of Fame. In 2000, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and into the Memphis Music Hall of Fame in 2015.
Steve Smith writes a new Classic Pop, Rock and Country Music News column every week. It can be read in its entirety on www.presstelegram.com. Like, recommend or share the column on Facebook. Contact him by email at Classicpopmusicnews@gmail.com.