Pearl Jam's plans to make good on UK and European dates originally planned for the summer of 2020 and later moved to this year have been scuttled again in anticipation that ongoing Covid complications will make staging them this summer too risky and complicated.

Tonight's FOX airing of episode 701 of The Simpsons features an animated Bob Seger voiced by Bob himself. The Detroit Free Press article previewing the "Uncut Femmes" episode says Seger is a Simpsons fan and recorded his lines for the show last fall. The storyline has Marge Simpson involved in a jewel robbery and somehow leads to Homer with a VIP Bob Seger backstage pass lanyard around his neck talking with Bob.

The Steve Miller Band is packaging a full concert set recorded in Landover, Maryland in the summer of 1977 for a May 14th release. The newly mixed and mastered recording features the group in peak form on a release that will be available in digital, CD and double vinyl forms. Here's Jet Airliner from Steve Miller Band Live! Breaking Ground August 3, 1977.

Billy Gibbons is back in the solo album mode saddle for a June 4 release he's titled Hardware. The ZZ Top guitarist recruited Guns N' Roses and Velvet Revolver veteran Matt Sorum to co-produce the album with him, Sorum also plays drums on the release. The album title is a nod to longtime ZZ Top recording engineer Joe Hardy who passed away in February of 2019 at 66. Here's a look and listen to the song West Coast Junkie from it.

Guitar great Carlos Santana says his next album is 90% done and includes some ripping guitar work from Metallica's Kirk Hammett. Downtime during the pandemic also gave Carlos time to put toward two additional albums. Speaking with ABC Audio, Santana expressed gratitude for the opportunity to work on multiple projects at 73, saying, "...because of this time that I'm allowed to just replenish and nourish". Blessings and Miracles will possibly also include songs that feature Steve Winwood and Living Colour's Corey Glover.

The Grateful Dead's 1971 self-titled double live album that came to be known as Skull & Roses gets a 50th anniversary expanded edition re-release on June 25th. The 2 CD double vinyl or digital reissue features the remastered recordings made during concerts on both coasts in March and April of the release year plus 10 songs recorded during the group's last show at the Fillmore West on July 2nd, 1971.

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Stones fans looking for a particularly cool band related item and willing to pay $686 for it can get a high quality print of one of Ronnie Wood's recent retro Stones paintings personally signed by the guitarist. The run is limited to 295 individually numbered and hand autographed prints.

Triumph will release a 40th Anniversary box set of Allied Forces. The expanded edition of the band's 1981 album drops on June 12th, the day the member of the group will be honored as Canada's Record Store Day Ambassadors.

Included in the collection are picture disc lp of the original release double vinyl albums of a 1981 Cleveland concert, a 7" 2021 tribute single, a live single featuring previously unreleased versions of Allied Forces and Magic Power recorded in Ottawa in 1982, a 24 page booklet with rare tour photos, reproduced Allied Forces tour book, poster, backstage pass, copies of hand-written lyrics to Magic Power, Fight the Good Fight and Allied Forces and three comic drawings by Rik Emmet. Canadians buying the box will also get a repro of the 111x17" poster for the group's Maple Leaf Garden concert on the tour.

The Virtual Road is the name U2 has applied to a four concert series of archived concerts being made available for streaming on the group's YouTube for the first time. The 2001 Slane Castle concert leads the series off on St. Patrick's Day. Next up is the 1983 Red Rock's Amphitheatre stop on the War tour, which streams on March 25th. Mexico City's PopMart tour set airs April 1, and a 2015 Paris concert that took place just weeks after the November terrorist attacks will stream on April 10. Each of the concerts will have short sets filmed recently by bands that did not appear on the original U2 concerts.

Yes dishes up this preview from its 30 disc box set showcasing live performances during the legendary prog group's Union tour due out May 3.

Queen's Roger Taylor has let on that there just might be recordings of David Bowie and his band doing covers of a pair of Cream songs during the 1981 sessions Under Pressure was cut during in Montreux, Switzerland. Interviewed by Record Collector, the Queen drummer said he recalls doing I Feel Free and NSU "just for a laugh" before doing the collaboration that became a huge track. Bowie's own version of I Feel Free was on his 1993 album Black Tie White Noise, but the version featuring him and Freddie Mercury together has yet to surface. We're all ears at the prospect of hearing both tracks - along with any they may have done that Roger doesn't remember.

Drummer Bill Ward (3rd from left, 1970) admits that he no longer has what it takes to drive Black Sabbath in concert, but insists he's capable of doing it in the studio if another album becomes likely. Speaking with Eddie Trunk, Ward said, "...as far as touring with Black Sabbath, I don't have the chops, and I don't have the ability to drive a band like that on stage". Although no album appears to be planned, the drummer added, "I'm not done. I think as long as we all exist and we're still breathing in air, I think we have every possibility of making some great music together."

More than six hours of bonus material is packed into an Ultimate Collection box set reissue of John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, John's 1970 solo debut due out on April 16. The premium edition contains six CDs and two Blu-ray discs of Hi-Res audio containing hours of additional outtakes, demos and jams, along with a full-length live recording. Non music perks include a poster and hardbound 132 page book.

The 1990 Knebworth concert featured an A-list lineup that included Pink Floyd, Robert Plant and Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, Genesis and Elton John Dire Straits and Paul McCartney. Roger Waters had left Floyd, but the remaining members felt their band should get the closing headline slot, a contention that boiled over into heated exchanges between the managements of each group on the very day of the concert. When Pink Floyd prevailed, McCartney and his band refused to end their set at the appointed time, causing tempers to rise again between the camps because heavy weather was rolling in. Despite the discord, or perhaps because of it, both groups did stellar sets. Pink Floyd's set from that night gets released on CD, double vinyl and digital form for the first time on April 30th.  Order it now here.

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Fleetwood Mac will release an expanded edition of the group's 1980 Fleetwood Mac Live album on April 9th . Here's a version of Gold Dust Woman recorded August 29th in 1977 at the Inglewood Forum in California that's among the additional tracks on a bonus disc that includes over an hour of previously unavailable concert recordings from that year through 1982.

Updates and noteworthy anniversaries involving Classic Rock musicians fill this page, but we also occasionally make note of those events in the lives of people that were instrumental in those musician's lives. In the case of Henry Goldrich he, was literally instrumental. Henry joked with customers who asked about his favored instrument or his skill level by saying, "I play the cash register", something he did from 1969 - 1999 as the owner of Manny's Music, the legendary musical instrument shop at 156 W 48th St. in New York City. A multitude of musicians from virtually every genre of music made that register sing, too, but it was especially true of guitar players. Wall space that wasn't covered with guitars and other equipment was scarce, but there you could peruse the personally signed photos of thanks from the likes of Jimi Hendrix, the Doors, the Beatles, David Gilmour, the Who and dozens of other iconic musicians that crossed the threshold of what they came to consider a musical Mecca.

The namesake of the store was a saxophone salesman who opened the original location in 1935 at 120 West 48th. At the outset, it was only 20x20 feet, but by 1954 had swelled to fill the whole building. Rockefeller Center was interested in taking over the building eleven years later and offered to buy the building up the block that Manny's later occupied. Unfortunately, Manny passed away before the move was made. His son Henry and daughter Helen ran the business from 1969 until the early 90's when they handed the reigns to Manny's grandchildren. By then, online competition and franchised instrument mega stores were getting the lion's share of the sales. Manny's ceased to be a family run business in 1999 when Ian and Judd Goldrich sold Manny's to rival Sam Ash Music - although it was operated as a subsidiary, keeping the Manny's name and employees until 2009.

Henry Goldrich wasn't a musician, but from his childhood to well into adulthood he spent his days in the nearly constant company of them. He and his staff were highly knowledgeable and had little patience for novices or indecisive buyers, and people that wandered in to browse were subject to disdain. But their love for hooking-up accomplished musicians with just the right gear made Manny's Music the place almost all of the greats wanted to go.

We learned this week that Henry passed away on February 16th in Florida at 88. Manny's is gone, but one of its favorite customers and a world renowned guitarist and instrument and amp collector Joe Bonamassa, now owns the vertical sign with the clock at the bottom of it generations of musicians kept an eye out for when in Manhattan.

Add Yes to the ever growing list of Classic Rock bands mining the archives for expanded edition box sets. Union 30 Live, a 30 disc collection culled from the 1991 tour of the prog group's lineup featuring Jon Anderson, Steve Howe, Bill Bruford, Chris Squire, Rick Wakeman, Alan White, Trevor Rabin and Tony Kaye all uniting for the Union album and tour. The super deluxe version includes some fan recordings, radio broadcasts, repro laminate and fabric tour passes and tour programs, 10 photos and 2 posters, all packaged in a replica tour equipment case. The massive collection drops on May 3, along with a 4lp vinyl set of Union 30 Live.

Pete Townshend is suggesting there's a decent chance a new album will develop out of some pandemic lockdown music he and Roger Daltrey have worked on. One thing on the Who horizon is certain is that a bunch of previously unavailable material is being packed into an expanded edition of the band's 1967 album The Who Sell Out that's due out April 23rd. The double vinyl and CD sets will be accompanied by a Super Deluxe version that has 46 previously unreleased tracks, nine posters and an 80 page hardbound book.