AEROSMITH Members To Reunite At STEVEN TYLER’s “Jam For Janie” Event Next Month; Other Performers Include BILLY IDOL, JOAN JETT And More

AEROSMITH Members To Reunite At STEVEN TYLER's

Billboard is reporting that Steven Tyler’s sixth annual Jam For Janie Grammy Awards Viewing Party has been announced, with the star-studded charity event to kick off on February 2 at the Hollywood Palladium.

Hosted by Grammy-winning comedian Tiffany Haddish, the evening features a powerhouse lineup of performers, including Billy Idol, Joan Jett, Joe Perry, Tom Hamilton, Linda Perry, Matt Sorum, and Nuno Bettencourt. A special highlight will be a reunion performance by members of Aerosmith.

The event supports Janie’s Fund, the rocker’s nonprofit aiding young women and girls who have survived abuse, and expands its philanthropic reach this year to benefit the Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation and the Widows, Orphans, and Disabled Firefighter’s Fund. The event will welcome more than 100 firefighters who have been at the forefront of combating the California wildfires, to celebrate the major night in music.

“What the Los Angeles community has endured with these wildfires is unthinkable. Music has healing powers and we hope to bring a moment of joy and levity to our first-responder firefighters and those most affected by the fires,” Tyler said. “The trauma experienced by the girls we work with is also unthinkable and we will continue to shed light and support the amazing work of Janie’s Fund.”

Read more at Billboard.com.


Watch the trailer for Sly Lives! (aka The Burden of Black Genius), the long-awaited documentary about troubled psychedelic pioneer Sly Stone

A trailer for the highly-anticipated movie about pioneering Sly & The Family Stone founder Sly Stone has been released. Sly Lives! (aka The Burden of Black Genius) was directed by Roots drummer and Tonight Show bandleader Questlove, and will begin streaming via Hulu on February 13.

According to a press release issued by Hulu, the film will examine “the life and legacy of Sly & The Family Stone, the groundbreaking band led by the charismatic and enigmatic Sly Stone. The film captures the band’s rise, reign and subsequent fadeout while shedding light on the unseen burden that comes with success for Black artists in America.”

“It [the film] goes beyond saying that Sly’s creative legacy is in my DNA,” said Questlove in 2021. “It’s a black musician’s blueprint. To be given the honour to explore his history and legacy is beyond a dream for me.”

Sly Stone emerged with 1967‘s Dance To The Music, demolishing socio-cultural boundaries by mixing funk with psychedelia and rock. Triumph at 1969’s Woodstock festival put him on the road to becoming one of the first major rock stars of the early 1970s, but battles with mental health and addiction would slow his trajectory.

Multiple attempts to revive Stone’s musical career faltered and failed. His most recent release, the 2011 solo album I’m Back! Family & Friends, was his first since 1975, and contained just three new songs. The last interview he gave was in 2007, although he surprised many by publishing a memoir, Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin), in 2023.

Sly Lives! (aka The Burden of Black Genius) features interviews with Andre 3000, D’Angelo, Chaka Khan, Q-Tip, Nile Rogers, Jimmy Jam, Terry Lewis, George Clinton, Ruth Copeland and Clive Davis, as well as band and family members.

SLY LIVES! (aka The Burden of Black Genius) | Official Trailer | Hulu – YouTube SLY LIVES! (aka The Burden of Black Genius) | Official Trailer | Hulu - YouTube

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“Some bands would think such an unlikely chart-topping feat would require them to lurch into a new chapter. Instead, Mogwai retreat to their discomfort zone”: The Bad Fire is reassuringly blurry

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A sensitive behemoth, hulking yet graceful, Mogwai’s 11th album arrives with the Glaswegian band bearing a higher profile than at any time during their three decades of delicacy and disruption.

Its predecessor, 2021’s As The Love Continues, became a UK No.1 hit, which they found “totally surreal.” Recent documentary If The Stars Had A Sound wisely chose not to analyse what it is about the band’s noise which moves so many so deeply. Mogwai aren’t the types to pontificate earnestly about creating effervescent rainbows of liminal meaning or somesuch. The key to their alchemy is to not overthink what they do.

Any lyrics are half-heartedly, almost sheepishly, mumbled, all but inaudibly, and the musical structures ebb and flow as they see fit, rather than following conventions. Mogwai’s progressive instincts have always taken an intuitive path. It’s seen them labelled as everything from post-rock to shoegaze to “epic prog rock without the widdly-woo solos.”

Ironically, there’s actually one rather startling widdly-woo guitar solo here, on the atypical track Lion Rumpus; but it’s tackled with such mischievous venom that it enters another dimension, conveying something between a cry for help and a feral cat clawing its way out of the speakers.Truth is, the sound of the quartet is progressive in a primal way – a healthy counterpoint to mainstream conservatism.

Mogwai – Fanzine made of Flesh (Official video) – YouTube Mogwai - Fanzine made of Flesh (Official video) - YouTube

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They’ve also developed a side hustle with soundtracks, scoring off-centre films and TV series. The experience gained on those projects informs the fuming, fluttering The Bad Fire, which, like them, swings between the sinister and the sanguine. Their 2024 remix of The Harmony Codex for Steven Wilson’s Harmonic Divergence experiment us the most intense thing on there, and hosts a similar seriousness of DNA to spells herein.

American producer John Congleton doesn’t fix anything that isn’t broken

This album doesn’t try to “reinvent” Mogwai at all; it very much does what they do. Where other bands may have thought an unlikely chart-topping feat required lurching into a new chapter to prove some kind of point, or throwing their curtains wide to the daylight and welcoming the world in, Mogwai double down on their curiously uplifting dourness. They retreat, here, to their discomfort zone.

Neither does American producer John Congleton – who’s worked with everyone from The War On Drugs to Explosions In The Sky to Blondie – fix anything that isn’t broken. As the opening track God Gets You Back confidently builds as only Mogwai build – one can never quite predict what’s coming – it moves a keyboard motif reminiscent of Ryuichi Sakamoto’s Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence theme into a forceful rumble of what’s undeniably shoegaze. These flavours of My Bloody Valentine or Slowdive resolve, up to a point, in sludgy bass nuances.

Mogwai – Lion Rumpus (Official video) – YouTube Mogwai - Lion Rumpus (Official video) - YouTube

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“The bad fire” is a Glaswegian expression for Hell, and the band have spoken of tough personal times since Covid. William Blake was apparently an inspiration. Mogwai’s music, much as it strives for otherworldly transcendence – whether they’d admit it or not – doesn’t attain the states of rapture found in the work of Sigur Rós, a group with whom they’re often aligned. But there is relief amid the gravitas.

As an actual song threatens to materialise, it’s deliberately buried in the mix… the background, for Mogwai, is the foreground

Hi Chaos hugs Banshees-style goth, with John McGeoch-style guitar lines, though they become shrill and excitable as the track scorches to its climax. What Kind Of Mix Is This? marches steadily into gloom until a two- note piano motif chirrups like a small bird traversing its cloudy skies.

There’s a blast of buzz-saw guitar as Fanzine Made Of Flesh kicks in, but then as an actual song threatens to materialise, it’s deliberately buried in the mix, with emphases placed instead on the entrance or exit of various guitars or keyboards. The background, for Mogwai, is the foreground.

Mogwai – God Gets You Back (Official video) – YouTube Mogwai - God Gets You Back (Official video) - YouTube

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There may be a lick of PFM or Tangerine Dream in the pensive washes of Pale Vegan Hip Pain, but the lengthy If You Find This World Bad, You Should See Some Of The Others shifts from gentleness evoking The Durutti Column or Steve Hackett’s pastoral side into an abrasive eruption more akin to King Crimson at their most aggressive, before settling into a folky respite.

The last phase of 18 Volcanoes is within touching distance of a white noise drone, while Hammer Room – one of the upbeat detours – channels John Carpenter after too much fizzy pop. Lion Rumpus, though, is the real tempo-raising barnstormer, roaring until it skids off into a reconstruction of a car crash.

Fact Boy, the finale, is the band’s doggedly nebulous sound at its most shapeshifting – committed to not committing, a distant descendant perhaps of Floyd’s Echoes. As it unfolds, a high voice can be heard among the crunching ice floes, possibly an angel emerging from the rubble. Heaven or Hell, the bad fire, as lit by Mogwai, always offers a flame of hope.

The Bad Fire is on sale now via Rock Action.

Chris Roberts has written about music, films, and art for innumerable outlets. His new book The Velvet Underground is out April 4. He has also published books on Lou Reed, Elton John, the Gothic arts, Talk Talk, Kate Moss, Scarlett Johansson, Abba, Tom Jones and others. Among his interviewees over the years have been David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Patti Smith, Debbie Harry, Bryan Ferry, Al Green, Tom Waits & Lou Reed. Born in North Wales, he lives in London.

Aerosmith are heading back to the stage – but it’s for one night only

Aerosmith are returning to the stage, but it’s for one night only.

The band, who announced their retirement from touring in August last year and cancelled their Peace Out: Farewell Tour dates, have been confirmed as one of the acts to play at this year’s Jam For Janie Grammys Benefit, the annual show frontman Steven Tyler puts together to raise money for Janie’s Fund. The charity, which was named after Aerosmith’s 1989 hit Janie’s Got A Gun, was founded by Tyler in 2015 and supports vulnerable girls who’ve suffered abuse and neglect.

This year, the event will also raise money to support the Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation and the Widows, Orphans, and Disabled Firefighters Fund, as wildfires continue to rage in Southern California.

“What the Los Angeles community has endured with these wildfires is unthinkable,” says Tyler. “Music has healing powers and we hope to bring a moment of joy and levity to our first-responder firefighters and those most affected by the fires. The trauma experienced by the girls we work with is also unthinkable and we will continue to shed light and support the amazing work of Janie’s Fund.”

Joining Aerosmith at the show, which will be held at the Hollywood Palladium on February 2, will be Billy Idol and Joan Jett – who’ve just announced a tour together – as well as Linda Perry, Matt Sorum and Nuno Bettencourt. Tickets for the event range from $3000 for an individual seat to $100,000 for a VIP table for 10 guests.

It’s unclear whether Aerosmith drummer Joey Kramer, who hasn’t played with the band since 2019’s Deuces Are Wild residency in Las Vegas, will be appearing at the Jam For Janie event.

Aerosmith made the decision to halt touring after it became clear that Tyler was unlikely to fully recover from the injury sustained to his vocal cord in 2023.

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“I woke up three days later, in France, in this stupid castle, and I’m thinking: ‘What just happened?'”: How Stevie Nicks escaped the chaos of Fleetwood Mac and soared solo

“I woke up three days later, in France, in this stupid castle, and I’m thinking: ‘What just happened?'”: How Stevie Nicks escaped the chaos of Fleetwood Mac and soared solo

Stevie Nicks studio portrait
(Image credit: Fin Costello/Redferns)

It’s September 1980. From the deck of the Pacific Palisades home that Stevie Nicks was sharing with her new boyfriend, producer Jimmy Iovine, you could hear the hypnotic push and pull of the ocean.

Inside, among the tropical plants, Persian rugs and paintings of dragons and gypsies, there was the even more alluring sound of three siren voices dovetailing in perfect harmony. Stevie and Lori Perry and Sharon Celani, her two closest friends, would spend hours around the upright piano, singing everything from old country and western covers to Stevie’s new songs.

It was here that the seeds took root for Bella Donna, the breakout solo record that forever changed both the dynamic in Fleetwood Mac and Nicks’s life as an artist. Exhausted from the previous two years of high-stakes drama around the recording and touring of Fleetwood Mac’s epic double album Tusk, the 32-year-old singer welcomed the laid-back setting and easy camaraderie with her girlfriends.

“In Fleetwood Mac there’s always a chaos,” Nicks told me in 2003. “It’s not easy for us. It never will be. It hasn’t ever been. Whenever we get back into a room together and start working, we don’t agree on a lot of stuff. And we’ve fought through every single record we have ever made.”

Part of that fight was getting songs on a record. Having three songwriters in Mac meant that after six years in the band Nicks had built up a backlog of unused top-drawer material.

“When we’d do an album, they’d hear fifteen of my songs and invariably pick the two that were my least favourite,” she complained. “Some of my favourite songs wouldn’t get used.”

Iovine agreed to work with her on a solo project with an approach that would replace the Mac’s careful deliberations with a more live sound. His previous credits included John Lennon, Meat Loaf and Bruce Springsteen. But it was Iovine’s records with Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers that really grabbed Nicks. She told him she wanted a “girl version” of Petty’s sound.

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Fleetwood Mac backstage

Fleetwood Mac backstage at Wembley Arena, London, June 1980, with sales awards for Rumours and Tusk. L-R: John McVie, Mick Fleetwood, Christine McVie, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks (Image credit: Michael Putland/Getty Images)

Outside of Fleetwood Mac, Nicks had been flirting with a few projects. She wrote a song cycle around the Welsh mythological goddess Rhiannon for a film (despite having the screenwriter for The Man Who Fell To Earth attached, it never got made). She also sang on Kenny Loggins’s Whenever I Call You Friend and Walter Egan’s Magnet And Steel, both hits. But the idea of releasing an album under her name was still somewhat scary.

“It’s a big deal the first time you do a solo record,” Benmont Tench tells Classic Rock. The Heartbreakers’ keyboard player was tapped by Iovine to act as “musical director” for Bella Donna. “And remember, back then, if somebody in a huge band made a solo record, your first thought was: ‘Wow, is the band breaking up?’ It was really unusual and risky to step away.

“But Stevie may have just gone: ‘Look, I’ve got these songs, let’s do a record without the family baggage there was around Fleetwood Mac.’ Stevie, Christine [McVie] and Lindsey [Buckingham] only got three songs per record. That’s why Silver Springs didn’t make it on to Rumours. Give the woman a fourth song, for God’s sake! [laughs]”

Tench had met Nicks briefly when the Heartbreakers backed her on a recording of Outside The Rain the year before (the track ended up on Bella Donna). But he admits he revised his first impression of her.

“I had seen Fleetwood Mac play, and with Stevie I just didn’t get it,” he says. “She could sing, oh hell yes. But I didn’t know what was going on with the top hat and the twirling and the witchy stuff. But then I bought the single to Go Your Own Way and flipped it over, and there’s Silver Springs. Good Lord, what a song. The second I heard that, I went: ‘Now I get it. That’s Stevie. She’s not faking. She’s for real. She’s not a poser in the least. She’s a creative perpetual-motion machine. This is somebody I’d really love to play music with.’”

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For two months, Tench, Nicks and her girlfriends rehearsed five days a week. “We were like Joni Mitchell and Crosby, Stills And Nash, living in this great house and making music,” Nicks remembers. “It was one of those real rock’n’roll experiences that you can never forget.”

“It was song after song after great song,” Tench recalls. “I think she had enough for her first three solo albums and beyond. Lori and Sharon were so instinctive and so intuitive. They were all so tuned in to each other. At the drop of a hat they’d break into a cappella versions of old songs like Chapel Of Love. They loved each other and loved to harmonise. They stood behind me at the piano, and when I heard their three voices together it was just: ‘Wow’, goosebumps.”

With most of the songs chosen, recording sessions started in November at Studio 55 in Los Angeles. Built in the 1940s by Decca Records, it was the studio where Bing Crosby recorded White Christmas. Working from late afternoons into the small hours, Tench settled in with the all-star team that Iovine had assembled, full of what Iovine called “band guys” rather than session players: E Street Band pianist Roy Bittan, Elton John’s guitarist Davey Johnstone, and Linda Ronstadt’s drummer Russ Kunkel, bassist Lee Sklar and guitarist Waddy Wachtel.

“Jimmy pulled members from all these iconic bands to come and make music for Stevie,” Russ Kunkel tells Classic Rock. “What a genius idea. He was the first producer I ever worked with who came out on the floor with the musicians during the rehearsals, sat there with headphones, dialling in a great mix for us. That inspired us and brought us to the take quicker.

“Even during the take he stayed in the room with us, dancing around. He was part of the vibe. So there was never that pregnant pause after a take, where you wait for the producer’s voice from the other side of the glass, saying: ‘Let’s do another one,’ and you’re immediately rejected [laughs]. Jimmy was out there with us. That’s a huge thing.”

“Jimmy knew how to run sessions, and make things happen quickly,” Waddy Wachtel adds. “The luxuriant approach of taking a year to make a record like Tusk is kind of an aberration. And I think Stevie was glad to be working in a more spontaneous way. Jimmy was great at getting performances out of the band and out of Stevie. He had a really intuitive sense about songs, lots of enthusiasm and energy.”

“We recorded all the songs essentially live,” Tench says, “with the whole band cutting at the same time, and Stevie, Lori and Sharon singing with us on the floor. We captured a beautiful feel. The ambience of the studio was gorgeous, aesthetically pleasing. Stevie brought the ambience, not necessarily in items from her house, but just the spirit. The same mood that was in her house made it to the vocal booth.”

At the heart of the sessions was the flowering personal relationship between artist and producer. “Jimmy and I were totally in love,” Nicks wrote in the sleeve-notes for the Bella Donna reissue. “The record was our love story unfolding.”

The feeling and camaraderie came through on the title track’s moody, ribbon-like reverie, the top-down West Coast pop of Think About It, the Nashville twang of After The Glitter Fades, and Leather And Lace, a chart-topping tender-but-tough romantic duet with the Eagles’ Don Henley (Nicks originally wrote it for Waylon Jennings and Jessi Colter).

And throughout, Perry and Celani’s voices were there, weaving counterpoint and harmony around Nicks. The strength they gave their friend is reflected in the album’s lyrics, which never tip towards wallowing or weakness. The solo Nicks refuses to play a victim of anything, be it love or interpersonal power struggles. She’s less witchy woman, more warrior.

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The two monster hits that made Bella Donna a juggernaut arrived late in the sessions. And one almost didn’t make the album. It was no secret that Nicks was a Heartbreakers fan. She’d even fantasised in the press about quitting Fleetwood Mac and joining them. Short of being in the band, Nicks convinced Petty to write her a song. He came up with Insider. But after they recorded it together, Petty liked it so much he decided he didn’t want to give it away. Nicks understood. Out of what Petty called “terrible guilt”, he played her a few cast-offs from the album he was making, Hard Promises, and she jumped at Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around.

“Jimmy knew that that song could be a hit for Stevie and could help launch her album,” Tench recalls. “But I think Tom assumed they’d re-cut it rather than keeping our original track.” The song’s irresistible swampy groove, punctuated by Mike Campbell’s searing guitar stabs and Tench’s Booker T-like organ fills, brought out a sassy repartee between the singers, even if their virtual duet was concocted in secret by Iovine.

Petty’s initial reaction was not enthusiastic. “He plays me Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around, the same track, with her singing,” Petty said in the documentary Runnin’ Down A Dream. “I go: ‘Jimmy, you just took the song?’… His comeback was, like: ‘This is gonna buy you a house.’ But it pissed me off because it came out at the same time as our single [A Woman In Love], and I think ours suffered.”

Strangely enough, Nicks was also against the song, because she wanted all the material on the album to be her own. When Iovine suggested she record a duet, she stormed out of the studio. “Then I stormed back in and said: ‘Okay, you’re absolutely right. I’m sorry for being so bitchy about this, it’s just that I’m so protective of my songs.’ And because of that song, I have a solo career to this day.”

Equally as important was Edge Of Seventeen. The evocative title came from a misheard comment. Nicks had asked Petty’s then-wife Jane when they met, and she replied: “At the age of Seventeen.”

“Jane had a southern accent, and I heard ‘edge’,” Nicks told me. “I wrote the title down. And the song was written right after John Lennon died. A week later, my dear uncle John died. My cousin and I were with him when he passed. Between John Lennon and my uncle, the song came out of that. ‘Oh I went searching for an answer, up the stairs and down the hall/Not to find an answer, just to hear the call of a nightbird singing… And the nightbird is the bird of death, really.

“So I can get up on stage and sing Edge Of Seventeen and still feel just as traumatised today as I did then, when I first sang it at my piano. It’s just so heavy. I use that word a lot. I know that it’s an old hippie word, but it just really seems to be the right word. Some of the songs are so heavy.”

And ‘heavy’ was the feeling Wachtel wanted on guitar when he heard the demo. Iovine asked him to play the part using an echo effect.

“I said: ‘No way, I’m not doing that.’” Wachtel says. “He said: ‘What do you mean?!’ I said: ‘It’s too light with the echo effect. It needs some muscle behind it.’ I played them that rhythm with a pick, and they said: ‘Yeah, let’s do it that way!’”

“Waddy’s part is like a steel hammer driving the song,” Kunkel says of the line that would later be sampled for the Destiny’s Child hit Bootylicious. “And it allowed me to play around it. I remember [engineer] Chuck Plotkin coming out, standing in front of my drums and stomping his foot on these off-beats. I was thinking: ‘Are you having a coronary?’ [laughs]. It took me a minute to get used to his suggestion, but it’s one of the things that makes the song so unique.”

With the recording finished, Nicks tapped photographer Herbert Worthington III (who’d done Rumours) for the cover. His photos forever crystallised Nicks as the mystical woman in chiffon.

“What I’m wearing is the exact opposite of my black outfit on Rumours,” she told Rolling Stone. “Over that it says: ‘Come in from the darkness…’, which is the dark side of anyone, the side that isn’t optimistic, that isn’t strong.”

Of the shaded meanings of the album title, Nicks wrote: “It meant beautiful woman, but also poisonous root. People use it [the belladonna plant, aka deadly nightshade] for healing, but if you take too much you can die. I thought: ‘This is the perfect double-edged sword title for the record.’ And there was another double-edged sword: would I have a successful solo career and would that make Fleetwood Mac look good, or would I have an unsuccessful solo career and would that make them look bad? Or would they be petty enough to want it to not go well so they’d know they’d always have me?”

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Bella Donna was released in July 1981 on Nicks’s own imprint Modern Records, via Atlantic (set up by her manager Irving Azoff, it was a forward-thinking move), to mostly positive reviews and tons of airplay. Within three months it was a platinum-selling No.1 album. With Tench and Wachtel in her band, Nicks did a 14-date tour full of what she called “spectacular moments”, but then was yanked back into Fleetwood Mac world when they started recording Mirage in France.

“I woke up three days later, in France, with no ice, no air-conditioning, in this stupid castle, and I’m thinking: ‘What just happened? Did I dream the entirety of that record?’” Nicks wrote. “And Lindsey was not in a very good humour because I’d just made this solo record and I’ve brought my new producer boyfriend with me. They almost got in a fight. Jimmy was meant to be there for ten days but he left the next morning, he was so pissed off.”

The first of Nicks’s seven solo albums, Bella Donna remains the most influential and resonant. Its ripples can be felt in records by Lana Del Rey, Florence And The Machine and Belle Brigade. And whenever female musicians fight for creative independence – think Kelly Clarkson overruling Clive Davis to make My December, or Taylor Swift breaking out of her country box with 1989 – Nicks is there as a guiding light.

She worked with Jimmy Iovine on two more records before they split as a couple. Both Sharon Celani and Lori Perry (the latter now married to Nicks’s brother) have stuck with Nicks (they even toured with Fleetwood Mac in 2019). Ironically, Nicks’s solo flight probably helped keep her in Mac (she left briefly in the early 90s), if only because it gave her another means of expression and put a kind of ‘get out of jail’ card in her back pocket.

In 1981 she told US magazine: “It’s difficult to be a girl in a big rock’n’roll group for six years. You’re very protected and dependent. For so long you’re not allowed to make your own decisions, that suddenly you don’t want to any more. Doing my solo album was the only step I could take to show I still had control.”

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Twenty years later, Nicks told me: “My solo career is very precious to me. But it can never be like Fleetwood Mac. For each of the members of the band and everyone surrounding us, it’s so much more heavy. There’s that word again. When I’m working by myself, it is by myself. I’m very inward and very much a loner, but Fleetwood Mac just overwhelms everything, takes everything. Everybody in the band is possessive and jealous. I don’t know what else to say about it. It makes my whole face turn red. I get a fever.”

Waddy Wachtel, who’s been in Nicks’s touring band since Bella Donna, and is working on an album with his group the Immediate Family, says: “The fire that was in Stevie at that time was remarkable. She and I always got along, but she had this thing where she’d say: ‘I know you don’t like what I do’ and laugh.

“Early on I didn’t really get her. When we went out on the road to tour Bella Donna, I remember we had a great first night, and we were all sitting around and toasting. I said: ‘I’ve got to tell you that I’m really impressed by what you did tonight. I don’t use this term lightly, but you are a fucking rock’n’roller, girl.’”

“I’m amazed by how contemporary the album still sounds,” says Russ Kunkel, who is also in the Immediate Family. “That’s really the true test, isn’t it? If it still sounds contemporary forty years later, then you did something right.”

Benmont Tench, who is finishing his second solo album, says: “Stevie had never made an album where it was all on her shoulders, with the pressure that comes with that. Also with the freedom that comes with that. And she just nailed it. Her vocals are incredible. If you were a singer in a group with harmony, like the trio she had with Lori and Sharon, then you have got to have great pitch. You couldn’t do anything back then about fixing pitch.

“You might be able to punch in a line, but you couldn’t mess with it electronically. So when I listen to Bella Donna now, I think: ‘Yeah, Stevie is a total badass.’”

Bill DeMain is a correspondent for BBC Glasgow, a regular contributor to MOJO, Classic Rock and Mental Floss, and the author of six books, including the best-selling Sgt. Pepper At 50. He is also an acclaimed musician and songwriter who’s written for artists including Marshall Crenshaw, Teddy Thompson and Kim Richey. His songs have appeared in TV shows such as Private Practice and Sons of Anarchy. In 2013, he started Walkin’ Nashville, a music history tour that’s been the #1 rated activity on Trip Advisor. An avid bird-watcher, he also makes bird cards and prints.

Aerosmith Members to Reunite at Steven Tyler’s Grammys Party

Members of Aerosmith will reunite for a performance at Steven Tyler‘s sixth annual Jam for Janie Grammy Awards Viewing Party next month, Billboard reports.

The high-profile charity event will take place on Feb. 2 at the Hollywood Palladium, with comedian Tiffany Haddish hosting. The party will feature performances from several rock heavyweights, including Billy Idol, Joan Jett, Joe Perry, Tom Hamilton, Linda Perry, Matt Sorum and Nuno Bettencourt.

Details of the reported Aerosmith reunion are unclear, but Billboard singles out Perry, Hamilton and Tyler, with no mention of guitarist Brad Whitford or drummer Joey Kramer. The latter had not performed with Aerosmith full-time since 2019, with John Douglas filling in during the band’s Las Vegas residency and short-lived farewell tour.

READ MORE: Aerosmith’s 10 Most Memorable Concerts

This Year’s ‘Jam for Janie’ Will Benefit Those Affected by Los Angeles Wildfires

Tyler launched Janie’s Fund — named after Aerosmith’s hit song “Janie’s Got a Gun” — in 2015 to provide care to girls and young women who have suffered abuse. In addition to its primary goal, this year’s Jam for Janie will also benefit the Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation and the Widows, Orphans, and Disabled Firefighter’s Fund in the wake of the Southern California wildfires, with more than 100 firefighters welcomed to the event.

“What the Los Angeles community has endured with these wildfires is unthinkable. Music has healing powers and we hope to bring a moment of joy and levity to our first-responder firefighters and those most affected by the fires,” Tyler said. “The trauma experienced by the girls we work with is also unthinkable and we will continue to shed light and support the amazing work of Janie’s Fund.”

When Did Aerosmith Retire?

Aerosmith announced their retirement from touring last summer, citing Tyler’s insurmountable vocal injury, which initially forced them to postpone their Peace Out farewell tour after just three dates in 2023. The trek was ultimately canceled before the band could relaunch it. Hamilton recently offered an update on Tyler’s recovery, saying it was “going really, really well,” albeit “at its own pace.”

“Maybe Aerosmith will do something in the future, but it’s a big ‘if’, and the last thing I want to be doing is to try and push Steven in that direction,” added Hamilton, who’s been busy with his new band, Close Enemies. “If we do anything in the future, it would come from him.”

Aerosmith Albums Ranked

Any worst-to-best ranking of Aerosmith must deal with two distinct eras: their sleazy ’70s work and the slicker, more successful ’80s comeback. But which one was better?

Gallery Credit: Ultimate Classic Rock Staff

In Memoriam: 2025 Deaths

In Memoriam: 2025 Deaths

2025 has seen the loss of a number of key figures in both rock ‘n’ roll, and the greater tapestry of entertainment history.

On the musical side of things, guitarist John Sykes, a former member of both Thin Lizzy and Whitesnake, died at the age of 65 after a battle with cancer. “I’m shocked about his passing,” drummer Carmine Appice, who played with Sykes in the ’90s group Blue Murder, said following his passing. “We played such great music and had such great times together. John’s playing, writing and singing were amazing. … I loved him like a brother. We lived close to each other when we were in Blue Murder, we hung out everyday. He was an amazing guitarist and together with Tony Franklin on bass we had a great rock trio. He will be missed.”

Garth Hudson also passed way, meaning there are no longer any living members of the Band. Elsewhere, we lost Peter Yarrow of the influential folk trio Peter, Paul & Mary, and Sam Moore, acclaimed soul singer and one half of the duo Sam and Dave.

In the world of film and television, director David Lynch died at the age of 78. He was responsible for classics such as Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks and he also recorded several albums of music. “There’s a big hole in the world now that he’s no longer with us,” his family wrote on social media. “But, as he would say, ‘Keep your eye on the donut and not on the hole.'”

In the below gallery, you’ll find a collection of those we’ve lost in 2025.

In Memoriam: 2025 Deaths

A look at those we’ve lost.

Gallery Credit: Ultimate Classic Rock Staff

More From Ultimate Classic Rock

10cc celebrate 50th anniversary of I’m Not In Love with new single release

10cc will celebrate the 50th anniversary of their huge hit I’m Not In Love with the release of a new seven-inch single through Universal Music on February 14.

The classic weepie will be backed by Don’t Want To Go To Heaven, the first new song from Graham Gouldman and Kevin Godley in nearly 20 years. The pair will also reunite for a performance on BBC Radio 2’s Piano Room on Thursday February 13 where they will perform I’m Not In Love live, as well as a very special cover and Don’t Want To Go To Heaven.

I’m Not In Love featured on 10cc’s third studio album, Original Soundtrack, which was released in March 1975. It was the second single to be released from the album, following Life Is A Minestrone, and reached No. 1 in the UK, the second of the band’s three number-one singles, and No. 2 in the US charts.

The song was largely written by Eric Stewart as a response to his wife asking why he didn’t tell her he loved her very often, and is notable for its use of extensive stacked backing vocals, which form the bulk of the track. The song nearly never made the final cut of the album, having originally been conceived as a bossa nova-style piece which the band members abandoned as none of them really liked it. It was only when Stewart noticed employees at the band’s Strawberry Studios in Stockport were still humming the refrain that forced the band to reconsider.

Pre-order I’m Not In Love.

10cc

(Image credit: Universal Music)

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Winter warmers! You can stay warm and still rock out with up to 60% off jackets and coats at EMP’s winter sale

The weather, at least in the UK at the moment, is pretty awful. Wind, rain, and freezing temperatures are getting a lot of us down this January. Thankfully, EMP are holding a winter sale with up to 60% off a massive range of jackets and coats which are guaranteed to keep the chill at bay in the early months of 2025.

Almost 300 items have been discounted, with a wide variety of styles, sizes and colours up for grabs and below you’ll find my top picks you can grab right now.

My first pick from the EMP sale is the Slayer winter jacket which has been reduced from £120.99 to £82.99. It features the Slayer logo on the upper left-hand side, while the zip puller also has the band logo. The back includes a striking skull design which looks the business.

If metal isn’t quite your thing, then perhaps this olive Marsh Lake Teddyparka is more in-tune with your musical tastes. It’s down from £95.99 to £69.74 and could be just the ticket for the upcoming Oasis tour.

This next pick is for fans of The Lord Of The Rings and the awesome black and brown Elven Warriors winter jacket which is down from £149.99 to £111.19.

Other favourites include the Saving The Best For Last jacket by Rock Rebel (down from £129.99, now £92.79. With its casual look and rugged styling, this zip-up hoodie would look equally cool at the skate park or inside a concert venue.

There’s even more money to be saved on the I Am Groot winter coat, down from £120, now £71.99 – a saving of 40%. Inspired by the iconic Marvel movie series Guardians Of The Galaxy, this beige coat features a detachable sweatshirt hood, decorative chest pockets and a patch on the right sleeve.

And it’s not just coats and jackets that are available in this winter sale – a quick browse reveals that there’s everything from band t-shirts to badges up for grabs at a bargain price.

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Tina Turner’s ‘Private Dancer’ Celebrates 40 Years With New Box

A 40th-anniversary edition of Tina Turner‘s Grammy-winning comeback album Private Dancer will be released on March 21.

The five CD and one Blu-ray set will include B-sides, live tracks and previously unreleased songs from the era.

One of those unreleased cuts, “Hot for You Baby,” has been issued with the box’s announcement. You can listen to the song, originally recorded for the album but left off, below.

In addition to the music included on the upcoming set, Private Dancer (40th Anniversary Edtion) features a Blu-ray with 4K versions of the album’s videos for the hit singles “What’s Love Got to Do With It,” “Better Be Good to Me,” the title track and more.

READ MORE: Top 50 Songs of 1984

Private Dancer was Turner’s fifth solo album after leaving husband and musical partner Ike Turner in the late ’70s. Her abuse during the marriage led to one of music’s greatest comeback stories, as Turner remade her career and became one of the ’80s’ biggest acts.

After a five-year break from recording an album, Turner scored a U.K. hit in 1983 with a cover of Al Green‘s “Let’s Stay Together.” That led to work on Private Dancer, released in May 1984 and which went to No. 1 worldwide, won several Grammy Awards and turned the singer, now in her mid-’40s, into one of the era’s hugest stars.

The multiplatinum record was followed by sold-out world tours and other hit albums over the next couple of decades. Turner died in 2023 at age 83.

What’s on Tina Turner’s ‘Private Dancer’ Box Set?

The upcoming box set edition of Private Dancer features the 2015 remaster of the original album – which included the hit singles “What’s Love Got to Do With It,” a No. 1 song, “Better Be Good to Me” and the title track, all U.S. Top 10 hits.

There are also discs of B-sides, single edits and extended versions of the singles, and previously unreleased tracks and non-album singles, such as Turner’s cover of the Temptations‘ “Ball of Confusion” that helped launch her comeback.

Two CDs of live performances – from Chicago and Birmingham in 1984 – round out the music sets. The track listing for Turner’s Private Dancer (40th Anniversary Edition) is below.

Tina Turner, ‘Private Dancer (40th Anniversary Edition)’ Track Listing
CD1 – Private Dancer (2015 Remaster)
I Might Have Been Queen
What’s Love Got To Do With It
Show Some Respect
I Can’t Stand The Rain
Private Dancer
Let’s Stay Together
Better Be Good To Me
Steel Claw
Help
1984

CD2 – B-Sides, Single Edits And Extended Versions
B-sides:
I Wrote A Letter
Rock ‘n’ Roll Widow
Don’t Rush the Good Things
When I Was Young
Keep Your Hands Off My Baby
Single edits:
Let’s Stay Together
Help
Better Be Good To Me
Private Dancer
Extended versions:
What’s Love Got to Do With It
Better Be Good To Me
I Can’t Stand the Rain
Show Some Respect

CD3 – Previously Unreleased & Rare Tracks Plus Other Singles
Previously unreleased & Rare Tracks:
Hot For You Baby*
Let’s Stay Together (Alternative Radio Mix, 1983)
Let’s Stay Together (TV Instrumental)*
What’s Love Got to Do With It (Dub Mix)*
Private Dancer (Sterling Version)
Total Control
Non-Album singles:
Ball of Confusion (That’s What the World Is Today) (with B.E.F.) – Remix
We Don’t Need Another Hero (Thunderdome) (Single Edit)
One of the Living (Single Remix)
We Don’t Need Another Hero (Extended Mix)
One of the Living (Special Club Mix)
We Don’t Need Another Hero (Dub Version)
One of the Living (Dub version)

CD4 – World Tour ‘84 – Live At Park West, Chicago – August 2nd 1984*
Let’s Pretend We’re Married
Show Some Respect
I Might Have Been Queen
River Deep, Mountain High
Nutbush City Limits
What’s Love Got to Do With It
I Can’t Stand the Rain
Better Be Good to Me
Private Dancer
Let’s Stay Together
Help
Proud Mary
Legs

CD5 – Private Dancer Tour – Live From Nec, Birmingham 1984
Show Some Respect
I Might Have Been Queen
What’s Love Got To Do With It
I Can’t Stand The Rain
Better Be Good To Me
Private Dancer
Let’s Stay Together
Help
It’s Only Love (Feat. Bryan Adams)
Tonight (Feat. David Bowie)
Let’s Dance (Feat. David Bowie)

Blu-ray – Promo videos
Let’s Stay Together (Restored from original 16mm film)
Help
What’s Love Got to Do With It (Colour version)
What’s Love Got to Do With It (B/W version)
Better Be Good to Me
Private Dancer (Full-length version) (Restored from original 35mm film)
Private Dancer (Restored from original 35mm film)
Show Some Respect

*previously unreleased

Top 50 Albums of 1984

It’s not only one of the decade’s peak years, it also saw the release of some of the biggest and best records ever made.

Gallery Credit: Michael Gallucci