Original Village People lead singer Victor Willis has won a court battle with two publishing companies -- Scorpio Music and Can't Stop Productions -- that tried to prevent him from reclaiming the rights to "YMCA" and 32 other Village People tracks. Willis filed his suit in Aug. 2011, citing a provision added to copyright laws in 1978 that grants artists "termination rights," allowing them to reclaim ownership and control of songs they'd signed away 35 years after their initial release. This means that starting in 2013 artists from Bob Dylan to Bruce Springsteen would be able to reclaim ownership of their hit records, allowing them to license their music to advertisers, sell it to another label, or even distribute it themselves. The precedent-setting ruling, which has been closely followed in the music industry, is also bad news for record labels that rely on back catalog sales. - Rolling Stone..
Mick Jagger will host the season finale of NBC's Saturday Night Live on May 19, marking the Rolling Stones frontman's first time ever hosting the show and his third time as musical guest. He also previously made cameos in skits featuring former cast members Jimmy Fallon and Mike Myers. In April, Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood told reporters the group is "throwing some ideas around" for recording new songs before preparing for a world tour in 2013. - Billboard...
Lynyrd Skynyrd has announced that they'll release their next studio album, Last of a Dying Breed, on Aug. 21. The album, the follow-up to 2009's God & Guns, is described by Skynyrd guitarist Garry Rossington as "kind of old school... all of us playing together in the studio as a band, tracking songs and creating licks." After their bassist since 2001, Donald Evan, died in 2009 after a battle with cancer, Black Crowes member Johnny Colt is contributing bass parts to the new album. Skynyrd is on a tour of the U.S. and Europe ahead of the album's release. - Billboard......
If you missed director Martin Scorsese's fascinating George Harrison documentary Living in the Material World when it aired HBO last fall, the film is now available on DVD and Blu-ray. The three-and-a-half hour film explores Harrison's spiritual side, from his early days with the Beatles to his exploration of Eastern music and religion, and also includes his death in 2001. Harrison's widow Olivia, who served as one of the film's producers, says although she loved the film's message, she feels it didn't cover her late husband's other "sides." Much of the emphasis is on the former Beatle's travels to India as he explored both the spirituality and music of the country, as well as his collaboration with Ravi Shankar. Also released in conjunction with the documentary is a new "multi-touch" book that is available on the iTunes iBookstore. It includes audio, video material from the film along with personal photographs, letters, and memorabilia never seen by the public (a traditional print edition of the book is already in stores). - AP.....
Deep Purple drummer Ian Paice says he's "almost positive" the classic rock veterans will hit the studio n 2012 to cut their 19th studio album. "I believe that we have another good record in us and I believe we'll make it this year. A couple of years ago there were a couple of guys in the band who just didn't see the point. And when it's like that there's no use trying to push it. But there's been a change of heart," said Paice. He added that he doesn't "care how successful it is... financially, most people know that making records is not what it used to be." - QMI Agency......
Attending a conference about digital media in New York , Neil Young said he's working on a device that can offer digital music without sacrificing quality as iTunes, Amazon and others have done. "Steve Jobs was a pioneer of digital music, but when he went home he listened to vinyl," Young said at the AllThingsD Dive Into Media Conference. "I have to believe if he lived long enough he would have tried to do what I'm trying to do." Young's device will download each song at the highest possible resolution, but that also takes 30 minutes to complete a single download. He disagreed with some that such a long download time would make using the device inconvenient, saying "while you're sleeping, your device is working for you." Young revealed that he had been in talks with Apple co-founder Jobs about the project, but since Jobs's death in October there is "not much going on now." Meanwhile, Young has just posted a 37-minute long collaboration with his band Crazy Horse online, which is currently streaming at Neilyoung.com. Horse Back was recorded at Audio Casa Blanca studios on Jan. 6 and it is not known if the jam is a preview of the new album that Young recently announced he was working on with Crazy Horse, or old material that was previously unreleased. - Reuters/New Musical Express.....
Late Grateful Dead mastermind Jerry Garcia will be the subject of a new feature-length documentary from filmmaker Malcolm Leo, who has previously made biopics about Elvis Presley and the Beach Boys. Leo and his partner John Hartmann (who has managed such bands as the Eagles and CSN&Y and is the brother of late Saturday Night Live star Phil Hartmann) say they've secured the music rights to tell Garcia's story, something that's eluded other potential filmmakers over the years. Jerry Garcia died of a heart attack at age 53 in 1995. - Rolling Stone.
Former Journey frontman Steve Perry says he'll begin work in earnest on a new solo album after he finishes a new deluxe recording studio he's building in his southern California home just north of San Diego. Perry, who left Journey in 1998, says he's "written a whole bunch of ideas and directions, all over the map, in the last two, three years" and he "plans on getting in the studio at some point and start trying to track these things and see where they go." Although the 62-year-old Perry says he'd "love to" play live again, he says he's "no spring chicken... the same arthritis that ate up my left hip that finally got replaced hasn't stopped there... and touring is a lot of work." "I'm impressed when I see people like Eric Clapton out there. Gee whiz, Eric, give me a break! It's amazing. I know it's gotta hurt somewhere," Perry added. Perry says the newly released Journey hits collection that he helped compile, Journey's Greatest Hits Vol. 2, "was one of the most wonderful and emotional experiences I think I've had thus far, probably more emotional than putting together the original Greatest Hits." "I'm able to look back at the forest now, because I've certainly walked out of the trees," he said. - Billboard...
Queen have announced plans to release a new album of old demo recordings featuring their late singer Freddie Mercury. Guitarist Brian May recently told the U.K. publication Uncut that he's been going through the band's old material with drummer Roger Taylor to compile a selection of previously unreleased tracks for a new album. The last Queen album made when Mercury was alive was 1991's Innuendo, released before his death that same year. May says he and Taylor are also working on the follow-up to the long-running Queen-based threatrical production "We Will Rock You," which continues its long run on London's West End. - Uncut UK.....
Director Ron Howard's production company has snapped up the rights to Steven Tyler's 2011 autobiography Does The Noise In My Head Bother You?, meaning the Aerosmith frontman likely will see his life turned into a bigscreen biopic. "This whole thing with Aerosmith has been like a dream come true," Tyler recently said in an interview with women's fashion magazine. "It's like it's been plotted out and planned and written about before. Every time something happens, I think, 'Is this a movie?'," he said. Tyler's book, which was published in May, notoriously revealed that he had once tried gay sex, but only one time because he "didn't dig it." - New Musical Express...... Meanwhile, Cable TV's HBO channel is reportedly close to sealing a deal for a new series about a fictional record executive in the late '70s that is being developed by Mick Jagger, acclaimed director Martin Scorsese, and Boardwalk Empire creator and former The Sopranos writer Terence Winter. Winter has already penned a pilot script for the show, which was orignially conceived by Jagger as a concept for a feature film. Meanwhile, the Showtime channel is developing another program, Vinyl, that is also set in the record industry of the 1970s. - Rolling Stone......
Rod Stewart is the latest classic rocker to jump on the memoir-writing bandwagon, promising he'll "hold nothing back" in detailing a legendary music career which saw him sell more than a 100 million records, survive cancer, and romance a string of blond bombshells. Stewart's yet to be titled book is due out in Nov. 2012 and will be published worldwide by Random House. The 66-year-old rocker's book comes as he has toned down his rock act, instead concentrating on remaking a string of successful covers albums of standards by everyone from Cole Porter to George Gershwin. Stewart's book comes on the heels of bestselling autobiographies by the Rolling Stones' Keith Richards, Aerosmith's Steven Tyler, and the recent announcement by Neil Young that he is also planning on penning a memoir. - Reuters.....
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Kim Kelly
