Innehållsförteckning för November 2020 från Classic Rock

Toots Hibbert December 8, 1942 – September 11, 2020 MICK JAGGER AND Bonnie Raitt are among those who have paid tribute to reggae musician Toots Hibbert. The Rolling Stones frontman lamented the passing of the 77-year-old as “a great loss to the whole music world”. Raitt said: “He’s a fireball, you know. He was just a force.” Frederick Nathaniel ‘Toots’ Hibbert was born in Kingston, Jamaica. As the leader of Toots And The Maytals he was a pioneering figure in ska and reggae music, credited with inventing the very word ‘reggae’, and a songwriter whose compositions were covered by The Clash, The Specials, Keith Richards, Izzy Stradlin, Gov’t Mule, Robert Palmer, Willie Nelson, Amy Winehouse and more. Hibbert fronted The Maytals (later going by the name Toots And The Maytals)…

JOE BONAMASSA LONDON CALLING Fired up by the idea of making a blues-rock album in the city where many of his heroes did in the 60s, Joe Bonamassa beetled into Abbey Road to record, with a little help from his friends. Words: Grant Moon Photos: James Sharrock “Ihave the coronavirus,” Joe Bonamassa announces as he shakes hands and sits down barely three feet away. But this is early January; ‘Covid-19’ sounds like the name of a bad prog band, and that whole ‘thing’ seems far, far away, and will probably blow over. We’re oblivious to even the concept of ‘social distancing’, and nobody could anticipate the utter havoc that the C-word is about to wreak across the world. We’re in the upstairs observation room at Abbey Road’s cavernous, breathtaking Studio…

THE HARD STUFF ALBUMS Joe Bonamassa Meaty, beaty, big and bouncy. Royal Tea PROVOGUE JIM HERRINGTON/PRESS Joe Bonamassa puts out a new studio album every two years, although he has been releasing an average of two albums a year for the past decade. These include live albums, collaborations with the likes of Beth Hart and sundry side projects, the latest being his instrumental outfit the Sleep Eazys. But it’s the studio albums that feed into his live shows, and lately Bonamassa has become more astute at finding a peg on which to hang. His 2018 album Redemption focused on salvation in various forms. Royal Tea was recorded at EMI’s prestigious Abbey Road Studios, something that apparently was always on his bucket list. He co-wrote the songs with his new best…

THE HARD STUFF Jimmy Page: The Anthology Sonic sorcerer opens Zeppelin archive to reveal how magic was made. Jimmy Page GENESIS PUBLICATIONS It all started with Bill Wyman. It was common knowledge that the erstwhile Rolling Stones bassist, always an assiduous collector of memorabilia and a meticulous archivist, had been working on ‘the book’ for years (decades even), so when his paving slab memoir Rolling With The Stones finally arrived in 2002, fans were impressed but not exactly surprised. “A shame all bands aren’t so ‘respectful of their legacy’,” we thought. Others of us thought ‘anal’, but both amount to the same thing. Of course the intervening years have revealed that a surprising number of rock stars have also gathered comprehensive personal archives with which to dazzle us, either via…

Glen Matlock London Camden Electric Ballroom GETTY A cautious yet welcome return to live music with an original Sex Pistol. A double sense of history hangs over the Electric Ballroom tonight. The last time Glen Matlock played here was in 1978 as part of The Vicious White Kids – that’ll be The Damned’s Rat Scabies, the Rich Kids’ Steve New, Sid Vicious and a mercifully unplugged Nancy Spungen – in an effort to raise the transatlantic airfare for punk’s star-crossed lovers. Just over 42 years to the day, the original Sex Pistols bassist is back here with Sigue Sigue Sputnik guitarist Neal X, bassist Jim Lowe and Johnny Thunders’ erstwhile drummer Chris Musto to play one of the pandemic’s first socially distanced gigs that sees the venue’s 1,500-capacity reduced to…

REVIEWS Joe Bonamassa Nashville The Ryman Auditorium ANDY FAIRWEATHER: © JUDY TOTTON; JOE BONAMASSA: KIT WOOD A first taste of new Royal Tea album. With a dollar from each stream ticket sale going to Bonamassa’s Keeping The Blues Alive Foundation, this one-off show gives publicity to a good cause and a new studio album. A 9pm UK start-time is fitting too, because Royal Tea’s punning title illustrates Bonamassa’s assertion that he’s honouring the British bluesmen of his childhood. He plays 90 per cent of it, slightly re-sequenced, to an audience of cardboard cutouts. On Lookout Man the band – Reese Wynans on organ, drummer Greg Morrow, bassist Michael Rhodes and guitarist Rob McNelley – are joined by Wet Willie’s Jimmy Hall on harmonica. But the show really takes off with…

RIP Thank you and good night. Gerry McGee August 15, 1962 – August 25, 2020 The Canadian melodic hard rock community is mourning the passing of the Brighton Rock frontman at the age of 58. Glasgow-born McGee sang on each of the group’s three full-length albums and appeared with them at the UK’s Firefest in 2012 and ’13. He had been battling cancer. John Meyer Died September 1, 2020 Antipodean brawlers Rose Tattoo broke the news of the passing of their slide guitarist from 1983 to ’85. Meyer appeared on the albums Southern Stars and Beats From A Single Drum. The Perth-born musician, writer and producer also played with the Australian bands Saracen, Swanee and Chain. He was 64. Simeon Coxe June 4, 1938 – September 4, 2020 Tennessee-born Simeon…

NEWS A deluxe edition of UFO’s live double album Strangers In The Night is released on November 20. The eight-CD boxed set collates all six shows recorded by the band on their 1978 US tour, which have been remixed and remastered, and includes a 24-page booklet featuring new interviews with Phil Mogg, Andy Parker and Michael Schenker. A clear-vinyl double LP version of UFO’s show in Youngstown will also be made available. Todd Rundgren has previewed his forthcoming album Space Force with the release of a single, Espionage, made in collaboration with the Iraqi/Canadian hiphop artist Narcy. Space Force, which features feature Sparks and Rivers Cuomo of Weezer, will be released in early 2021 via Cleopatra Records. Although there has not yet been any official comment, it looks as though…

BLACK SABBATH THE DARK AGES With themes of war, madness and nuclear holocaust, Black Sabbath’s Paranoid remains the ultimate difficult second album. Fifty years on, we remember how it razed the rock’n’roll landscape. Words: Henry Yates “I went to the love-ins at Woburn Abbey, with kaftan, beads, and flowers in my hair. But by the time we wrote the Paranoid album reality had set in.”Geezer Butler Summer 1970, and paranoia is in the air. In less than a year, Woodstock’s vision of a kinder society has turned to ashes. The carnations placed in rifle barrels by Vietnam protesters have not slowed the shipment of body bags. The Cold War’s adversaries edge closer to their nuclear buttons. Meanwhile, amid the craters, rubble and roaming gangs of Birmingham’s Blitz-scarred Aston, the members…

THE HARD STUFF ALBUMS The Struts An instant rock-down classic (as long as you ignore the title track and Robbie Williams). Strange Days INTERSCOPE In the realm of classic rock, authenticity is everything. There’s a very thin line between homage and pastiche, particularly when it comes to pomp-rock and glam-metal, to which our cultural radars are laser-tuned. The likes of Queen, Def Leppard and AC/DC might be struck through with a rich seam of humour, but when emulating them any hint of tongue approaching cheek sets off The Darkness alarms. This genre is appreciative of tribute, but wary of mockery. Derby’s The Struts judged the balance sufficiently well to become a minor US rock sensation with their first two albums, Everybody Wants and Young & Dangerous. Their hints of a…

REVIEWS ROUND-UP: MELODIC By Dave Ling Perfect Plan Time For A Miracle FRONTIERS In 2018, Perfect Plan introduced themselves with one of the most promising debut albums in recent memory. Their fusion of Scandi-AOR and North American sounds from the 80s was seamless, and All Rise saw the Swedish quintet explode on to the melodic scene abruptly, thanks largely to the exceptional YouTube track In And Out Of Love. The fact that these men with greying temples had no serious pedigree made their emergence all the more remarkable. Time For A Miracle is a little bluesier and harder hitting than its predecessor, though once again the focus is on great singalong tunes and a smiley-faced delivery, and again frontman Kent Hilli is Perfect Plan’s secret weapon. When it comes to…

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THE HARD STUFF REISSUES Thin Lizzy Seven-disc box set with all the hits and 74 – yes, 74 – previously unreleased tracks. Rock Legends UMC The bootlegs have been out there for years, YouTube clips too. Thin Lizzy recordings that were never officially released. Demos of classic songs, rough takes of other tracks that missed the cut for albums. Now, in this box set 10 years in the making, the best of this stuff is collected, along with some material never previously heard outside of the band’s inner circle. Thirty-four years after the death of Lizzy’s legendary frontman and leader Phil Lynott, this project has been co-curated by Scott Gorham, the guitarist who served alongside Lynott in Lizzy’s glory days of the 70s and has continued to steer the modern…

THE HARD STUFF BUYERS GUIDE Power-pop The cheeky little cousin of pop-rock, it’s one of rock’s most accessible genres, but it’s not so easy to define. Crow-barred in somewhere between pop-rock and post-punk, you’ll have the devil’s own job trying to nail power-pop down. Was it present in the early 70s cheery cheese of Raspberries and The Shoes? Did it begin with the glorious Big Star? Or perhaps Cheap Trick cooked it up in a toetapping moment of cheeky hilarity? Maybe it only really started with the new wave of big bang, heralded in by thos clever-dick college boys with severe side partings and too-tight jackets, The Cars? For the ‘power’ bit, do you include the Buzzcocks? Does the ‘pop’ part reach as far as Blondie? It’s all anybody’s guess.…

INSIDE THE WORLD OF ROCK AC/DC PLUG IN! Brand new album released on November 13. FOR MORE NEWS: WWW.CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM THE SPECULATION IS over: AC/DC are about to release their first new album in six years. And – just as we suspected and hoped – it has Brian Johnson on vocals, Cliff Williams on bass and Phil Rudd on drums. Classic Rock can reveal that PWR / UP, the group’s long-awaited seventeenth studio album, is released on November 13. It’s preceded by the single Shot In The Dark, which was rush-released on October 7. Stills from a video for Shot In The Dark were mistakenly posted on the band’s website. They were quickly removed, but by then the cat was out of the bag. Johnson, Williams and Rudd have all returned…

Lee Kerslake April 16, 1947 – September 19, 2020 GETTY FORMER URIAH HEEP and Ozzy Osbourne drummer Lee Kerslake has died at the age of 77 following a longrunning battle with cancer. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2014 and the disease spread through his body. Five years later doctors advised him to arrange his affairs over the following eight months. Lee never gave up the fight, recording a final album, Eleventeen to be released posthumously and setting up the ongoing filming of an autobiographical documentary, Not On The Heep, that examines the unique bonds of friendship between musicians. Def Leppard’s Joe Elliott, Ian Paice of Deep Purple and Kiss’s Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons are among those to appear in his film. Kerslake was born in Winton, near…

NEWS Diamond Head used lockdown to record a fortieth-anniversary remake of their celebrated debut album. Lightning To The Nations 2020 includes bonus covers of Judas Priest’s Sinner, Deep Purple’s Rat Bat Blue, Led Zeppelin’s Immigrant Song and Metallica’s No Remorse. It’s released on November 20 Smashing Pumpkins release Cyr, their eleventh studio album, on November 27 via Sumerian Records. Despite the recent death of drummer Frankie Banali, Quiet Riot say they will not be splitting up. “It was Frankie’s wish that the band continue and we keep the music and the legacy alive into 2021 and beyond,” said a statement. Banali succumbed to pancreatic cancer on August 20. Eric Burdon has responded with a mixture of resignation and amusement to Donald Trump’s adoption of his former band The Animals’ 1964…

MY FIRST LOVE Free TONS OF SOBS By Alan Nimmo The King King singer/guitarist on a British blues-rock classic. I first heard Free when I was about ten. My mother was a massive music fan, and she always used to play music in the house. The first Free song I heard was Fire And Water. I remember hearing the guitar tone and thinking: “I don’t know what it is, but I love it.” And then the voice came in and I was like: “Wow!” Free’s first album was a massive influence on me in terms of wanting to play and start a band. I was discovering blues music, and Tons Of Sobs is a very bluesy-styled rock album. There’s a song on there, Going Down Slow, an old blues song,…

THE CLASSIC INTERVIEW JIMMY PAGE From his ‘Excalibur moment’ with the guitar to The Yardbirds to (re)inventing hard rock with Led Zeppelin and beyond, Jimmy Page’s journey has seen good times, bad times and everything in between. Stand by for an intimate conversation with the man who shaped music as we know it. Interview: Ian Fortnam Portrait: Ross Halfin INSET: © JIMMY PAGE ARCHIVE 2019 Thanks to the unexpected intervention of a discarded acoustic guitar, James Patrick Page found himself perfectly equipped to deal with rock’n’roll’s ‘youth explosion’ as it irresistibly infected his formative 1950s. Graduating from skiffle through rockabilly to blues by duplicating riffs on records, he taught himself to improvise, honing his craft with The Paramounts and Red E Lewis and The Redcaps, before becoming the hottest young…

BROTHERS OSBORNE WHAT WE LEARNED FROM… Brothers TJ and John Osborne wouldn’t be who they are without the original country greats, grunge, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Nashville’s music community, among many others. Words: Polly Glass The Brothers Osborne are full of contradictions. They’re proud country fans who play a full-throttle rock show. They’re part of a world with deep conservative roots, but have spoken out about gun control, featured same-sex kissing in a music video (for single Stay A Little Longer), and were the first major-label country artist to publicly support a Democrat (2018 Tennessee gubernatorial candidate Karl Dean). They adore the old-school heroes of rock and country, but also draw from pop, funk, grunge, jazz, jam bands and more. All this comes to the fore on album number three,…

REVIEWS ROUND-UP: SLEAZE By Sleazegrinder Dangereens Tough Luck ALIEN SNATCH Montreal’s premier glam-slammers return with another dose of classic honky-tonkin’, blouse-wearing, footstomping late-night action. Influences and inspirations are fairly simple and thoroughly classic – Stones, T.Rex, Kiss, Thin Lizzy, Hanoi Rocks, The Kinks, you get the drill pretty quick – but it’s all in the delivery. Dangereens swivel their hips and wet their lips with such effortless style that it’s kinda jawdropping, really. They sound like they were fucking born playing Chuck Berry riffs and wrapping scarves around their mic stands. The songwriting chops are on full glorious display as well, with easy-driving jivers like Hearse Driving Blonde and Booboo perfectly complimenting full-on Dolls-y stompers like Streets Of Doom and 1003. If rock’n’roll’s glory days are behind us, nobody told…

THE HARD STUFF ALBUMS Blue Öyster Cult First new album in 19 years from the ultimate cult rockers. The Symbol Remains FRONTIERS There’s something deliciously mysterious about the prospect of a new Blue Öyster Cult album. Literally anything could happen. Here’s a band that went from psychedelic protoart-metal to hard-core, radio-baiting AOR seemingly overnight, from playing enormodomes to headlining state fairs (and more recently drive-ins) without flinching. They’ve gone from platinumselling albums in the 70s to creating lowbudget soundtracks for Z-grade sci-fi movies two decades later. And while all of this seems sorta flailing and maybe even a little desperate at times, they have somehow taken it all not only in their stride but also with a sense of epic adventure, like all this crazy shit was part of some…

THE HARD STUFF REISSUES Black Sabbath Fiftieth-anniversary five-LP/four-CD edition of metal landmark, expanded with live recordings. Paranoid Super Deluxe BMG GETTY/PRESS There’s a persuasive argument that complication is the enemy of great rock’n’roll. And in some ways the hard rock template that Black Sabbath moulded with their breakthrough second album Paranoid in 1970 backs up that notion. After all, the title track – which will still emerge first from your speaker if you ask: “Alexa, play me Black Sabbath” – was dashed off in half an hour or so. But this was never a band relying solely on bludgeoning riffs and Beelzebub. Contrary to stereotype, Sabbath always displayed intriguing prog tendencies and an ear for the atmospheric. It’s evident in the air-raid siren accompanying the funereal intro of War Pigs,…