Angus Young roared to live on this day in 1955. The younger AS/DC brother to Malcolm was just 18 when AC/DC got its start and 20 when the group's debut album dropped.

Other Noteworthy Classi rock events on March 31 include...

Other Rockers of note born on 3/31 include...

1944 Mick Ralphs of Mott th Hoople and Bad Company.

1948 Thijs Van Leeer of Focus.

1967 Jimi Hendrix torched his first guitar on the opening night of his British tour.

1969 Led Zeppelin's debut album released in the UK.

1969 John Lennon and Yoko Ono end their bed-in for peace at the Amsterdam Hilton.
1972 The Beatles fan club is closed.
1974 Tom Petty marries Jane Benyo.
1976 Led Zeppelin releases Presence.

1978 Paul McCartney releases London Town.

1980 Scorpions release Animal Magnetism.

1992 Def Leppard releases Adrenalize.

1992 Bruce Springsteen releases Lucky Town and Human Touch as separate albums.

2004 Ozzy Osbourne announces Blac Sabbath reunion tour.

2011 Billy Joel scraps plans to publish his autobiography

2015 Aerosmith's Steven Tyler reveals he is working on a country solo album.

2016 Ann Wilson of Heart, R,E,M.'s Michael Stipe, Cyndi Lauper, Perry Ferrell perform a tribut to David Bowie at Carnegie Hall in New York.

Ozzy Osbourne's plans for getting immune therapy treatment for his Parkinson's Disease have been disrupted by travel restrictions imposed because of the pandemic. Ozzy canceled his 2020 tour before the COVID-19 outbreak began to spread beyond China in order schedule treatments in Switzerland, His wife revealed on The Talk that she and Ozzy had booked their flights to fly there on April 8, but now are "...just hanging in, like everybody else. Just trying to stay away and be quiet".

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I have recovered from Covid-19. We are humbled by the outpouring of love for me and John and our precious family. He is stabile. Please continue to send your amazing Love and prayers. Sing his songs. Stay home and wash hands. John loves you. I love you

— Fiona Whelan Prine (@FionaPrine) March 30, 2020

Add Tom Rush and John Prine to the list of musicians up against a positive COVID-19 diagnosis. News that Rush had contracted the virus broke last night. Prine, who was hospitalized in critical condition, has now stabilized thanks to good care and the a ventilator, according to his wife, who has recovered from her own case of the disease.

R.I.P. Alan Merrill, the co-writer of I Love Rock 'n' Roll, who died of COVID-19 yesterday at the age of 69. Merrill, born Allan Preston Sachs in The Bronx in 1951, wrote what would become the biggest song Joan Jett ever recorded when he was in a band named the Arrows in 1975. It was the #1 song in the country for Jett for nearly two months in 1982. Merrill also worked with Rick Derringer on three albums in the 1980's and put out a self-titled solo album in 1983 that Steve Winwood and Mick Taylor played on.
Joan issued a statement yesterday that read in part, "I can still remember watching the ARROWS on TV in London and being blown away by the song that screamed hit to me. With deep gratitude and sadness, wishing him a safe journey to the other side."?

Sammy Hagar's band The Circle has digitally cobbled together a song from different locations using smart phones.  Funky Feng Shui started with Jason Bonham laying down the beat, Vic Johnson recording a guitar part, Michael Anothony contributing bass and Sammy Hagar finishing it off with vocals. Stay safe and ROCK on, firends... Here's the end result...?

The 5th Invictus Games, the international adaptive athletic competition in the UK involving wounded or ailing armed services members and veterans, won't go on as scheduled in May due to the pandemic, but Unbroken, a song Jon Bon Jovi recently recorded at Abbey Road Studios of the Invictus Choir, is out and all proceeds from it will go to assist the recovery of international wounded, injured or sick troops and veterans.?

Def Leppard has dropped this preview track from the upcoming Hysteria At The 02 concert DVD due May 29.

A double disc deluxe edition of material form the late, great Canadian guitarist Jeff Healey will get released on May 22. Heal My Soul, the 2016 posthumous album with a dozen previously unreleased tracks, was going to include a second album titled Holding On, but that did not happen. Now, both discs will be available together. Holding On features 5 studio tracks and live songs recorded at a Jeff Healey Band concert in Oslo, Norway.

Rush fans are in for one with the May 29 release of a 40th Anniversary box set of Permanent Waves, the trio's 7th studio album that dropped at the start of 1980. Sets include a Super Deluxe Edition with 2 CDs and three 180 gram vinyl LPs. It will also be available on just CDs, just viny and in digital form, In addition to remastered tracks on the original album, the collection will include live material recorded at 1980 tour stops in Manchester and London in the UK and at a Kiel Auditorium concert in St. Louis.

Photo: redrocker.com

Season 5 of Sammy Hagar's Rock & Roll Road Trip episodes hits AXS TV on April 19 (8:30p eastern) with a jam session the Red Rocker did with Def Leppard at Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas and a chat with Shaquille ONeal. The following 5 episodes in the first of two 6 show sets in 2020 will include appearances with Rob Thomas (4/26), Ted Nugent (5/3), Big & Rich (5/10), Brian May and Joe Walsh (5/17) and Extreme and, briefly, Van Halen front man Gary Cherone.

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Metallica is rewarding their isolating fans with free weekly full concert streams. Their Metallica Mondays series concerts will be available on the group's Facebook page and YouTube channel.

The Rock Hall Of Fame is betting that this pandemic is over by the fall. The museum has rescheduled its annual induction ceremony for Saturday, November 7th. The 35th edition inductees include the Doobie Brothers, T-Rex, Nine Inch Nails, manager and label exec Irving Azoff and Bruce Springsteen manager and close associate John Landau. The ceremony, which had been filmed and rebroadcast several weeks later by HBO will be televised live this year from the Cleveland Public Auditorium starting at 8pm, eastern.

Stressing the importance of being forthcoming  about the virus, Jackson Browne announced through social media that he has tested positive for  COVID-19.  Browne's advanced age puts him in a higher risk category. We wish him well as he confronts this frightening diagnosis.

Alice Cooper debuts his Vintage Vault podcast today 3/24) at 6pm (Eastern). Each weekly episode will highlight an interview he's done over the 16 year span of his syndicated Nights With Alice Cooper radio show. Joining Alice on the inaugural session his guest is Slash.

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Whitesnakes planned tour with Sammy Hagar & The Circle and Nightranger had already been scuttled scuttled by Covid-19, but David Coverdale now needs to address a personal medical issue, needed surgery to fix a bilateral inguinal hernia. David shared the news in a post that read, "Once again it breaks my heart to be the bearer of even more sad news affecting Whitesnake's touring schedule for this increasingly challenging year, 2020. All tours, Europe, UK & US, are being cancelled owing to health issues".
We wish him well in getting this tended to under these difficult circumstances.

The Red Rocker checks in on what he's doing and hopes his fans can to help slow the spread of COVID-19.

https://twitter.com/sammyhagar/status/1241446921111101440?s=20

With so many people looking for entertaining ways to pass the time in self- quarantine, it's great that the pipeline of previously unseen and improved previously available footage is getting made available. One that's been out but can now be enjoyed in enhanced sound and visuals is Robert Plant's 1990 performance of Tie Dye On The Highway from the 1990 Knebworth Festival. Enjoy!

Bon Jovi keyboard's player has become one of the first high profile musicians to have tested positive for COVID-19. David Bryan says he was notified of the test results Saturday (3/21). In a statement about the diagnosis, Bryan wrote, "I've been sick for a week and feeling better each day", and added that once he's feeling better, "I'll get tested again to make sure I'm free of this nasty virus. Please help out each other. This will be over soon... with the help of every American!!"

We wish David a rapid recovery, and echo his hope that each of us does everything we can to minimize the risk of contracting or spreading this virus.

MORE BON JOVI ISIGHTS

Deep Purple premiers new song from Whoosh!, the new album that comes out June 12.?

The global and national focus is on doing what's necessary to get Covid-19 in check. In Tennessee, thousands face the additional challenges of doing that while also coping with the recent round of tornadoes that destroyed homes, businesses claimed two dozen lives and injured thousands. Bob Weir and many of his musical friends in Nashville did a benefit concert on March 7 in the city to raise funds to assist those in need. As a post-concert fundraiser for the Middle Tennessee Emergency Response Fund of the Community Foundation there, he and many other musicians involved in the effort signed beautiful D'Anglico Premier Bedford electric guitar to give away.  The raffle ends 3/21/2020 at 1am (Eastern).

Alice Cooper says not being able to do concerts until the global health crisis eases will speed the release of his next album. Speaking with Rolling Stone magazine, Cooper said, "At least now I won't be squeezing in vocal recording sessions on days off, between shows", and says the album of all new material recorded with the original Alice Cooper Band is almost done.

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Bono has recorded a musical salute to those on the front line of providing medical support to patients that have contracted the Covid-19 virus.

This coming Sunday night (3/22) at 9p (Eastern), AXS TV will screen the Eddie Money Tribute concert that recently took place featuring Sammy Hagar.

The Pretenders will release a new album titled Hate For Sale on May 1. The album is its first since Alone, released in 2016, a release that was billed as the Pretenders, but featured no band regulars other than Chrissie Hynde. Here's The Buzz from the 2020 comeback.

Neil Young fans will have to wait until later this year or next to see one of the concerts reuniting Young with Crazy Horse, but between now and then, Young plans to do a series of down home fireside mini-concerts with wife Darryl Hannah providing the camera work. The streaming sessions will be carried through Neil's Archives site, which offers fans tiered content that ranges from free-to-access to a monthly subscription that tops out at just under $20 a year, which is quite a deal for an artist as prolific as Young proves to be.

Get more details here.

MORE NEIL YOUNG INSIGHTS

Photo: Larry White from Pixabay

Not surprisingly, the list of bands canceling tours as Covid-19 concerns and restrictions grow has gained substantial momentum. The latest to pull the plug on taking to or remaining on the road are Guns N' Roses, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Foo Fighters,David Lee Roth.  The Rock Hall Of Fame in Cleveland has also postponed The 2020 induction ceremony scheduled for April 18 until an undetermined date later in the year.  As we announced earlier, Record Store day has been pushed from its usual April weekend to June 20th.

2020 will be a busy year for Neil Young releases. First up is Homegrown, a 1975 project that Young put on the back burner and never released. That deeply personal album gets put out on April 18. A month later, on June 19, a live album recorded with Crazy Horse in 2003 titled Return to Greendale comes out. That's followed by Archives Volume 2 on July 24, another Crazy Horse live album recorded in 1990 on October 16 titled Rust Bucket, and Young Shakespeare, a 1971 solo concert, on November 27.?

49 years after the Allman Brothers Band played the opening night at the Fillmore East in lower Manhattan, Jaimoe was on stage in midtown at Madison Square Garden to lead many alums of that great band in a celebration Tuesday night, playing for a full house of avid fans that refused to let fear of the corona virus prevent them from enjoying an epic night of many of the group's greatest songs.

In their first NYC concert since their final Beacon Theatre residency concert on an October night six years ago, the Brothers roared through a nearly 30 song set.Guitarists Derek Trucks and Warren Haynes were joined by bassist Oteil Burbridge, Duane Trucks, son of Butch Trucks, on drums together with Jaimoe, Marc Quinones added percussion, Reese Wynans who was in on the formative jams that led to the Allman Brothers becoming a group, on organ and pianist Chuck Leavell.

Carried start to finish with impressive multi-camera coverage and great sound on Nugs TV, the concert was enjoyed online by ABB fans around the globe.

Add Sammy Hagar to the growing list of Rockers concerned enough about Covid-19 to decide not to do concerts until the risk to fans and musicians spreading or contracting the virus subsides. The Red Rocker has pulled the plug on what would have been his first South American tour.

Santana cancelled the European leg of his tour and Pearl Jam announced it is postponing its North American tour earlier in the week.

Led Zeppelin has again won a verdict discounting the claim by the estate of Spirit member Randy California (Wolf) contending that a key riff in Stairway to Heaven was lifted from Taurus, an instrumental written by the late guitarist and recorded by Spirit in 1968. The Ninth Circuit Court of AppealsMonday (3/10) upheld the 2016 decision that no infringement had occurred. Spirit opened for Zeppelin on some of Zep's early US concert

dates.

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To date, we've seen very few concert or tour cancellations due to mounting concerns over the Covid-19 situation. A big one was announced yesterday when Pearl Jam pulled the plug on their spring North American tour that was due to launch next Wednesday in Toronto.
The band's notification read in part, "As residents of the city of Seattle, we've been hit hard and have witnessed firsthand how quickly these disastrous situations can escalate. Our kids' schools have closed along with a number of universities and businesses. It's been brutal and it's gonna get worse before it gets better"...
"We have and always will keep the safety and well-bring of our supporters as top priority. So it is with deep frustration and regret that we are forced to make this most unfortunate of announcements."

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