Eric Clapton's decision to sue a woman for selling a CD of his music that she didn't realize was a bootleg has us baffled.  According to accounts, the widowed 55 year old woman from Cologne, Germany found the disc among her late husband's belongings and didn't realize it wasn't a legitimate release.  She listed it on EBay for $11.  It didn't even sell, but it did come to the attention of Clapton or someone associated with him and Clapton filed suit.  A court sided with the guitarist.  While the woman wasn't fined, she did incur $3,500 in legal fees for filing an appeal on the matter that was rejected by a judge.  
Clapton has every right to be vigilant in targeting sellers of bootleged recordings and is said to have filed hundreds of suits against bootleggers, but unless there's more to the case than has been reported, suing this poor woman is sad.  

Rod Stewart and his son have entered guilty pleas to charges related to a New Year's Eve 2019 confrontation the pair had with a security guard that blocked them from attempting to enter a private party at a Florida hotel. According to the guard, Rod's son shoved him and then his father landed a punch to the guard's ribs during the altercation at the Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach. Rod and his son Sean plead guilty to simple battery misdemeanor counts in the incident. The court's acceptance of the pleas mean the two will not face a trial. The Stewart's lawyer in the matter said the decision was made to "...avoid the inconvenience and unnecessary burden on the court and the public that a high profile proceeding would cause."

Join Joe Walsh for another stellar online VetsAid benefit concert this weekend.

Steve Earle's annual John Henry's Friends benefit Monday night at Town Hall in New York City included guest performances with Bruce Springsteen, Willie Nile and Rosanne Cash. Bruce was backed by Earle's band on renditions of Darkness on the Edge of Town and The Promised Land. Nile joined them on Glory Days and Earle emerged for Pink Cadillac. Earle and The Dukes delivered a full set and the night closed with all of the performers doing Graham Nash's Teach Your Children at the concert to raise funds to support the Austism education programs at the Keswell School.

Paul McCartney's Yamaha BB-1200 guitar shattered the auction record for a bass guitar, bringing a top bid of $496,000 in the Music Rising benefit auction conducted by Van Eaton Galleries over the weekend. The Edge's I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For custom Fender Strat matched that amount and guitars donated by Bruce Springsteen and Lenny Kravitz tallied bids of $76,100 each. Proceeds from the auction will provide assistance to New Orleans area musicians that were sidelined due to the pandemic.

Before his music career kicked into gear, Tom Petty spent some time working as a groundskeeper on the University of Florida campus in his hometown of Gainesville. The institution's board of trustees this week voted unanimously to honor Petty with a PhD in music. Timing of when the posthumous doctoral degree will be conferred and who will be accepting it on behalf of the late Rock great who died four years ago of an accidental overdose just a week after his final concert hasn't been announced yet.

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Passing along our rapid recovery wishes to guitar great Carlos Santana who will undergo a heart operation to address a problem he became aware of last weekend. His wife drove him to the hospital, where test results confirmed there was an issue that should be addressed with surgery. The procedure and recovery period that follows require that his upcoming House of Blues residency dates in Las Vegas will have to be postponed, news that he delivered to fans via this video.

Fronted by the towering presence of a flute player that spent nearly as much time performing on one leg as two made the appearance of Jethro Tull was as unique as the band's sound. Audiences catching the group live in the early years were both mesmerized and blown away. At a time when encores were relatively rare, Tull was earning multiple ones as an opening or middle act and regularly outshining concert headliners. A new book that covers the group from its inception and during those remarkable years is due out March 25th via Wymer Publishing.

Written and compiled by author Laura Shenton, Jethro Tull Chronicles 1968-1979 should be a good read for fans that got to see the band as well as those that whish they'd been able to during that era. The 256 page book will include a trove of photos, including many never before published. Shenton has previously written well received books on Deep Purple, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Supertramp, Tommy Bolin and others.

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