Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul, who turns 75 in March, announced that she’ll record one more album for release in September, and then hang up her six decade-long career. The upcoming album will be a tribute to her beloved hometown of Detroit and will be produced by her lifelong friend Stevie Wonder.
Aretha, the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the woman whose version of Otis Redding’s “Respect” in 1967 became an anthem for women’s rights that is as popular and inspirational today, 50 years later, made the historic announcement during an interview with Detroit TV station, WDIV-4.
She said, “This will be my last year. I will be recording but this will be my last year in concert. This is it.”
She believes it’s the right thing to do. “I feel very, very enriched and satisfied with respect to where my career came from and where it is now.” By the end of the year when she’ll quit the music biz, she said, “I’ll be pretty much satisfied, but I’m not going to go anywhere and just sit down and do nothing. That wouldn’t be good either.”
However, she did add that she’ll be open to “some select things, maybe one a month, for six months out of the year.”
The 18-time Grammy winner currently has six concerts on her slate between mid-March and the end of June, including on Apr. 13 at the 2,400-seat DeVos Performance Hall in Grand Rapids, Michigan, about 100 miles west of her home in the upscale Detroit suburb of Bloomfield Hills.
She sold more than 75 million records worldwide, and owns 17 Top 10 pop hits as well as 21 No. 1 R&B singles.
She is on two Rolling Stone lists: She No. 9 on its 100 Greatest Artists of all Time, and on its 100 Greatest Singers of All Time, the Queen reigns supreme at No. 1.
She is also a member of the UK Music Hall of Fame and the GMA Gospel Hall of Fame, received her star on the Hollywood walk of Fame in 1981. In 1994, she received a Kennedy Center Honor, and in 2005, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President George W. Bush.
AC/DC TO CARRY ON WITH AXL ROSE AND RECORD NEW ALBUM
Guns N’ Roses is Down Under, touring Australia on its lengthy Not In This Lifetime reunion tour.
Since last year, Guns singer Axl Rose has also been fronting legendary Aussie rock band AC/DC, ever since that band’s lead guitarist unceremoniously fired popular singer Brian Johnson after 36 years with the group (Johnson developed severe hearing problems and Young opted not to wait for Johnson’s treatment to succeed).
Last weekend, Young joined Rose and Guns N’ Roses onstage at a trio of Guns gigs, two in Sydney and one in Melbourne. At each show, Young, Rose and Guns showcased a pair of early AC/DC rockers, “Whole Lotta Rosie” and “Riff Raff.”
This comes after Young has vowed to continue not only performing with Rose, but Noise11 reports that a new AC/DC album will be recorded with Rose handling the vocals.
MITCHELL RE-EMERGES AT GRAMMY PARTY
Folk-jazz and pop icon Joni Mitchell, who suffered a debilitating, near-fatal brain aneurism two years ago, made her second public appearance since then, reports USA Today.
She was a surprise guest of honor on Saturday night at music industry bigwig Clive Davis’ annual pre-Grammy awards benefit bash at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills.
Davis introduced the 73-year-old Mitchell, who was seated a table near the stage and the shocked star-filled audience that included Ringo Starr Stevie Wonder, Herbie Hancock, Berry Gordy and Barry Gibb, gave her a prolonged standing ovation that drew a smile from the recovering singer.
Davis then brought out another folk icon, Judy Collins, 77, who spoke passionately about politics and her friend Mitchell. Collins began, “Joni Mitchell and I met many years ago. This was a time when we were all struggling. We were out on the street, we were fighting. We were against what was happening in our country and we showed it, we sang about it, we thought about it, we talked about it.”
She continued, “Joni’s music lifted us in the ‘60s, and it has and will continue to do so as we continue being active and aware and doing everything we can to bring us back to our senses – and to never, ever let tyrants and bullies anywhere in or out of the government.”
With that, to thunderous applause, Collins delivered an acoustic version of Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now,” that was her first hit single in 1968.
Mitchell is still recovering from the aneurism and continues to undergo various therapies. Her last full concert was in 2000. Collins, who continues a full touring schedule, will perform at the La Mirada Theatre on Mar. 18.
MUSICARES HONORS PETTY
MusiCares, the charitable arm of the Grammys, honored Tom Petty at its huge annual gala concert at the L.A. Convention Center the night before the Grammys, netting an estimated $8.5 million to assist musicians in need.
In his remarks after the evening’s concert, the 66-year-old Petty expressed pride at receiving the honor, and wondered at the power of his band, The Heartbreakers, that formed in Gainesville, Florida, in 1976. He noted that until he and his band gathered to rehearse for the event, it had been two years since they last played together.
He also told the tale of how he, George Harrison and Jeff Lynne were hanging out at record company exec Mo Ostin’s house in L.A., when their supergroup, The Traveling Wilburys, were formed (they later brought Bob Dylan and Roy Orbison into the group). He told of how Harrison’s “other” group, The Beatles, opened his eye to music.
Highlights of the evening’s 27-song concert set of Petty’s songs included Randy Newman’s show-opening take on The Heartbreaker’s 1980 hit, “Refugee,” semi-retired country giant George Strait’s take on “You Wreck Me,” Jackson Browne’s “The Waiting” and “Learning to Fly,” former Eagle Don Henley’s “Free Fallin’,” and former Byrd Chris Hillman and Herb Pedersen’s “Wildflowers.”
Petty and his Heartbreakers closed the show with six songs, including “Waiting for Tonight” that saw them joined by The Bangles, “Stop Dragging My Heart Around” with Stevie Nicks, “I Won’t Back Down” with Lynne, and the show closer, “Runnin’ Down a Dream.”
PETER AND PAUL, MINUS MARY, HIT THE ROAD AGAIN
Peter Yarrow, Paul Stookey and Mary Travers, known simply as Peter, Paul and Mary, are genuine folk music legends.
Their versions of Weavers’ Pete Seeger and Lee Hays’ “If I Had a Hammer,” Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind,” Seeger’s McCarthy-era ode, “Where Have All the Flowers Gone,” Papa John Phillips’ “500 Miles” and Yarrow’s children’s song, “Puff, the Magic Dragon,” that may or may not be about pot, are considered national treasures.
The trio was also heroic peace and civil rights activists. They performed at Martin Luther King’s historic 1963 March on Washington. They performed for and marched with the civil rights activists in the Deep South at the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery March. They were with Cesar Chavez and his United Farm Workers, and supported Bishop Desmond Tutu’s fight to end apartheid in South Africa and participated in countless anti-Vietnam War demonstrations.
Travers died of leukemia in 2009 when she was 72. Yarrow is 78 now and still active as is 79-year-old Stookey.
Peter and Paul are reuniting for a few special local concerts. Next month, they’ll play shows up in northern California, in Redding and Arcata. See Yarrow’s website, http://www.peteryarrow.net/, for tickets.
FLOCK OF SEAGULL’S FIRST HIT IN 33 YEARS
In the mid-80s, Liverpool’s synthesizer-powered new wave group, A Flock of Seagulls scored over here with a handful of hit pop singles, including their biggie, “I Ran (So Far Away).” The group, still led by singer-keyboardist Mike Score, finds itself back on the charts with its first hit in 33 years. “Ageless Prince,” a collaboration with Florida producer-lyricist and poet Jimmy D. Robinson, has cracked the Top 40 on Billboard’s dance singles chart.
The song will appear on the upcoming Seagulls’-Robinson album, “Living in Time,” that will feature Robinson’s poetry interwoven with Seagulls music.
OBIT: JAZZ LEGEND JARREAU
Legendary Grammy-winning jazz singer Al Jarreau died in a Los Angeles hospital at age 76 of respiratory failure, reports the Associated Press. His death came only two days after he announced his retirement because of exhaustion.
Over the course of his half-century career, Jarreau won seven Grammys and was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2001. He is the only singer to win Grammys in three separate genres: Pop, R&B the genre for which he is best known, jazz.
He didn’t record his first album until he was 35. Since then, six of his 17 studio albums topped Billboard’s jazz album chart. His final album, released in 2014, was a tribute to a lifelong friend and musical collaborator, “My Old Friend: Celebrating George Duke.”
The Milwaukee native’s biggest hit was the gently up-tempo romantic light pop hit, “We’re in This Love Together,” that spent 24 weeks on the Billboard’s Hot 100 pop singles chart in 1981, peaking at No. 15.
Four years later, in 1985, he joined Michael Jackson and the rest of The Jackson Five, Lionel Ritchie, Stevie Wonder, Paul Simon, Diana Ross, Dionne Warwick, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan and may others on the historic, 10-million-selling “We Are the World” charity single for USA for Africa.
A couple years after “We Are the World,” his fame grew as his theme song to the Bruce Willis-Cybill Shepherd comedy-crime drama, “Moonlighting,” went to No. 1 on the adult contemporary chart (it also hit No. 8 in Britain).
Steve Smith writes a new Classic Pop, Rock and Country Music News column every week. Like, recommend or share the column on Facebook. Contact him by email at Classicpopmusicnews@gmail.com.
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