Back when album sales were booming, Major record labels timed releases for late November and early December knowing that lots of fans would snap them up for themselves and as easy to wrap holiday gifts for friends and family.

This pair of landmark albums were released right about this time in 1969 and 1973. Let It Bleed from the Rolling Stones on 11/28/1969 and Paul McCartney and Wings highly anticipated Band on the Run in on this day in 1973.

Other Noteworthy Classic Rock events on December 5 include...

1938 J.J. Cale born.

1947 Buffalo Springfield, Poco and Loggins & Messina veteran Jim Messina was born.

1960 Great White's Jack Russell born.

1965 The Beatles do their final concert in their hometown of Liverpool.

1968 Graham Nash splits wit the Hollies.

1978 Charlie Daniels Band records The Devil Went Down to Georgia.

1980 John Lennon does his last interview with Rolling Stone's Jonathan Cott.

1994 Pearl Jam releases Vitalogy.

2004 Elton John gets Kennedy Center honors

2005 Pink Floyd’s Pulse released on DVD.

2005 Valarie Bertenelli files for divorce from Eddie Van Halen.

2009 Bruce Springsteen a guest of honor at State Department dinner the night before he gets Kennedy Center Award in Washington.

2009 Phil Lesh joins the Black Crowes on a Grateful Dead song encore at the Fillmore in San Francisco.

2010 Paul McCartney gets Kennedy Center honors.

2010Steven Tyler does last 4 songs on Abbey Road album during the wards segment honoring Paul McCartney.

2013 Rough draft of Born To Run lyrics auctioned for $197,000.

2015 Indianapolis Colts owner bids just over $2 million for Ringo Starr Ludwig drum kit played at more than 200 performances.

 2017 John Mayer undergoes emergency appendectomy, Dead & Company postpone New Orleans and Florida concerts...

Photo cc 4.0 credit Michael Dinger

U2's Larry Mullen Jr. is facing surgeries to address issues that if not taken care of could end his career behind the kit. As a consequence, U2 will be Mullen-less for its upcoming Las Vegas stint and could be without him for a chunk if not all of the group's planned 2023 tour while he recovers.

This news comes as the Irish band reportedly finishes up work on a couple of upcoming albums, Songs of Ascent and a compilation of raw, rerecorded versions of the 40 songs Bono reflects on in his recent book Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story.

David Gilmour lends his guitar skills to Donovan on his new album titled Gaelia. The Pink Floyd veteran plays on two tracks on the release due on December 15. Here's a preview.

R.I.P. Christine McVie.  Her family announced the passing of the 79 year old keyboardist, singer and songwriter of Fleetwood mac today in an announcement that read in part. " we would like everyone to kee Christine in their hearts and remember the life of an incredicle human being, and revered musician who was loved universally."  Founding drummer and band namesake Mick Fleetwood posted, "This is a day where my dear sweet Friend Christine McVie has taken to flight.. and left us earthbound folks to listen with bated breath to the sounds of that “song bird”….. reminding one and all that love is all around us to reach for and touch in this precious life that is gifted to us.

Part of my heart has flown away today..

I will miss everything about you

Christine McVie

Memories abound.. they fly to me.

Born Christine Perfect on July 14, 1943, she took the last name of her husband and Fleetwood Mac bassist John McVie. She joined the group in 1971 and reunited with them in 2024 following a long hiatus. Rock In Peace, Christine.

Comments and much of the feedback we got from our post wishing former Jethro Tull guitarist Martin Barre a happy birthday a few days ago made it evident that a lot of fans of the band feel Jethro Tull was a better group when Martin and some of the other members Ian Anderson shed from the group were still in it. Anderson has been the undisputed leader of Tull throughout its multiple lineups, but Barre is measured by many fans to have been as vital to the group's sound instrumentally as Anderson.

The current line-up does have capable players, but it seems most fans consider the classic lineup's better. The next chance win them over comes next spring, when Anderson and company release the follow-up to The Zealot Gene, the 22nd album put out under the name Jethro Tull. That album was five years in the making before finally coming out in January, 2022. The next has come together much faster and could well have been out before the new year were it not for pressing delays. The title and release date are still pending, but we'll be interested to hear it.
 

Hardcore Stones fans and vinyl junkies might want to grab this up. The 16 LP collection includes all of the Rolling Stones 1960's albums pressed on 180 gram colored vinyl. The 186 song boxed collection gets released January 20, 2023.

Master recordings and demos of songs planned for inclusion on the second album by Todd Rungren's early band Nazz have been collected in a new boxed release titled Nazz: Lost Masters & Demos. Most of the more than two dozen songs never got released, but some ended up on Nazz III, an album released after the group's demise. The 4 LP / 3 CD configurations each include a booklet including liner notes and an interview with engineer James Lowe, who worked with Nazz and continued with Todd on Rundgren's first three solo albums. The boxed sets will be released December 2.

Peter Gabriel recently posted a photo of his studio and, even though it wasn't accompanied by any comments regarding a new album being close to ready, his posting it raised hopes and expectations. Gabriel has since confirmed not only the upcoming release of i/o, an album he's been working on for quite some time, but an international tour that will feature him with Tony Levin, David Rhodes and Manu Katche. European dates open with a May 18th concert in Krakow, Poland. Gabriel brings the tour to North America for his fist US concerts since 2016. North American tour dates and the album's release date are expected to be announced soon.

One of the earliest rock concerts the LA Forum hosted featured the Jimi Hendrix Experience on April 26, 1969. This November 18th, that concert set gets released on 2LP vinyl, CD and on digital platforms. Recorded in front of an energized, sold out audience, Hendrix, drummer Mitch Mitchell, bassist Noel Redding were in their live performance prime for what would be the only LA concert the trio did that year. This release is the first of that concert in its entirety.

While most of his contemporaries seldom if ever record and release out new albums, Van Morrison continues to crank them out at a prolific pace. His next album will reach back to one of his earliest influences, skiffle music. Moving On Skiffle gets released March 10, 2023.

Neil Young will release a 50th anniversary expanded edition of his 1972 album Harvest on December 2. In addition to multiple alternate or live takes of songs on the original album, both CD and vinyl sets will include DVDs of a BBC performance and a documentary titled Harvest Time. Here are the bonus songs on the 50th anniversary edition.

Words (Between the Lines of Age)

Out on the Weekend (Live)

Old Man (Intro) (Live)

Old Man (Live)

Journey Through the Past (Live)

Heart of Gold (Live)

Don’t Let It Bring You Down (Live)

A Man Needs a Maid (Live)

Love in Mind (Intro) (Live)

Love in Mind (Live)

Dance Dance Dance (Live)

Bad Fog of Loneliness (Outtake)

Journey Through the Past (Outtake)

Dance Dance Dance (Outtake)

Graham Nash's former band mate Neil Young has released dozens of albums of archived recordings in recent years. Now, Nash is doing some mining of his own. The Hollies, CSN and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young veteran recently revealed plans to release an album featuring himself and David Crosby. Nash shared some details about the release during an interview with the San Diego Times-Tribune, saying it will include the pair singing the Stephen Stills’ 1970 solo song Love the One You’re With, on Jackson Browne’s Doctor My Eyes and on James Taylor’s Mexico. It also features them doing  You’ve Got a Friend with Carole King at the Universal Amphitheatre in LA in 1993. The title of the album hasn't been finalized, but Nash is leaning toward calling it Harmony, something there hasn't been much of between Nash and Crosby in quite some time. We hope it helps re-establish more of it between the two.

Sammy Hagar, Warren Haynes and Gary Rossington are among the musicians that have signed on to do songs on an upcoming Lynyrd Skynyrd tribute album being coordinated by drummer Artimus Pyle. Hagar Will be featured singing Simple Man and Rossington provided a sensational slide guitar performance on Free Bird, according to Pyle. Gary's decision to participate was a bit of a surprise as he was aligned with other former members and families of late members of the group that were opposed to Pyle's film documenting the plane crash that claimed the lives of Ronnie Van Zant and Steve and Cassie Gaines on October 20, 1977.

In January of 1971, the Allman Brothers Band played an unlikely date in a venue that had been an early home for the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. The set performed that night in the 3,700 seat Syria Mosque of Pittsburgh that has been in circulation in bootleg form for some time will get an official release on October 28.

1. Statesboro Blues

 2.Trouble No More

3. Don’t Keep Me Wonderin’

4. In Memory of Elizabeth Reed

5. Midnight Rider

6. You Don’t Love Me

7. Whipping Post

Bruce Springsteen's November 11 release Only the Strong Survive finds The Boss and band in the soul gold mine for an album packing 15 songs, most of them relatively deep tracks from an overall popularity standpoint. 

1. Only the Strong Survive

2. Soul Days (featuring Sam Moore)

3. Nightshift

4. Do I Love You (Indeed I Do)

5. The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore

6. Turn Back the Hands of Time

7. When She Was My Girl

8. Hey, Western Union Man

9. I Wish It Would Rain

10. Don’t Play That Song

11. Any Other Way

12. I Forgot to Be Your Lover (featuring Sam Moore)

13. 7 Rooms of Gloom

14. What Becomes of the Brokenhearted

15. Someday We’ll Be Together

New album announcements come in may forms and sizes. The Rolling Stones almost always went big - playing live on a flatbed truck rolling through Manhattan, buying giant billboard displays. Bruce Springsteen opts for a much more subtle approach. A couple of weeks ago, Rolling Stone Magazine's Jann Wenner let slip in an interview that he got a copy of a new Springsteen album with the E Street Band that would be out this fall. Whether or not Bruce approved him revealing that isn't clear, but it's the kind of thing he might have okayed. No announcement has followed from Springsteen or his label, but yesterday, this uncaptioned photo of a mid-to late 1960's steering wheel popped up in a tweet on his Twitter account. Looks like a release date is just around the corner.

MORE BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN INSIGHTS

More than 4 hours of highlights from Tom Petty's 20 night stand at the Fillmore in San Francisco with the Heartbreakers in 1997 are included in a box set due out on November 25. The 58 song collection includes 35 cover songs on a 4 CD set and a 32 page booklet of photos, an "All Access" tour laminated pass and a three pack of guitar picks.

Steve Perry is taking legal action against Neal Schon and Jonathan Cain in a trademark challenge over twenty Journey songs. The band's former lead singer contends that Schon and Cain sought to register the songs for commercial use without his agreeing to it. The filing has renewed bickering between the former band mates, with guitarist Schon attributing Perry's move to jealousy in a tweet on his Twitter account, and also describing it as "...a real sickness".

Before the Arizona Cardinals and The Raiders take the field at Allegiant Stadium Sunday  afternoon (9/18), longtime Raiders fan Carlos Santana will take it to play the National Anthem. We hope the network carrying this game won't repeat the blown coverage that occurred during Ozzy Osbourne's half time performance during an NFL game last week.  The performance will be one of the first the guitarist does after being sidelined by a health scare after collapsing on stage during a concert several weeks ago.

Marcus King's second solo album gets it's title from the fitting nickname Jaimoe from the Allman Brothers gave him when the now 26 year old rocker was hanging around absorbing everything a youngster could from southern rock bands. The name stuck, and the music sparked the passion and ambition in King to pursue a career in music. After an excellent but comparatively subdued last album, King is rocking again on Young Blood, an album with blistering, grinding, soulfully great guitar work. Recognizable influences include the Allman Brothers, of course, but also ZZ Top, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and others, but King's own style comes through and makes this impressive new album well worth checking out.

Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road farewell tour has filled stadiums, large arenas and earned rave reviews. Elton will do what he has maintained will be his last US concerts with three nights in Dodger Stadium in November. Concerts on the 17th and 19th will be filmed for a documentary about his final tour. The final one on November 20 will be streamed live by Disney+, which will also carry the documentary once production of it wraps-up.

John Lennon's killer will remain behind bars until at least 2024. Mark David Chapman was denied parole for the twelfth time, New York State corrections officials announced Monday (9/12). Chapman, now 67, will continue serving his 20 years-life sentence at the Green Haven Correctional Facility in Stormville, New York, about 70 miles north of New York City.

AC/DC front man Brian Johnson's autobiography hits bookstores and online sellers on October 13 in the UK and October 25 in the US. The Penguin publication titled The Lives of Brian will chronicle Johnson's childhood, his musically formative years in a series of bands and the skyrocketing career opportunity auditioning and being anointed by AC/DC to be the successor to the late, great Bon Scott turned out to be for him.

Photo: Isle of Man Post Office

A run of commemorative stamps celebrating David Bowie's acting career can be ordered from the Ilse of Man Post Office starting on Monday, September 12th. The set of stamps covers his stage and screen roles in The Elephant Man, Everybody Loves Sunshine, Labyrinth, Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, Just a Gigolo, The Man Who Fell to Earth and the BBC's televised adaptation of Bertolt Brecht's Baal. Design of the series was entrusted to Jonathan Barnbrook, who Bowie relied on to create all of the album covers from 2002 - 2016 Blackstar, the lp released within days of Bowie's passing.



 

A Jimi Hendrix Experience concert set recorded at the Los Angeles Forum in Inglewood, California in the spring of 1969 is set for a November 18th release. Los Angeles Forum: April 26, 1969 features a medley of VooDoo Child and the Cream classic Sunshine Of Your Love and will be available in a double disc vinyl version, a CD release and on several digital streaming platforms.