REO Speedwagon: Legendary band still loves touring
REO Speedwagon still love to share their music with fans. Nearly four decades after the album High Infidelity turned the Midwest band into coast-to-coast stars, singer Kevin Cronin still radiates enthusiasm.
He says, "I get to walk out on stage in front of thousands of people. And just kind of play the opening chords to a song. Certain songs, when I start, 'Heard it from a friend who...' You can just feel the energy in the room. Yeah, I'm a lucky guy."
Touring this summer with longtime friends Chicago, Cronin says REO have a special way to connect with their audiences:
"Our concerts are to, y'know, bring people a nostalgic feeling and bring them back to where they were when they first heard those songs. There's a secondary goal, a personal goal for me, and that is to inspire people. Just because you're in your 50s or 60s or 70s, that doesn't mean you have to be old. My thing is, I'm going to be young... when they bury me, I'll be young."
Promoting three California shows next week, Cronin admitted to the Orange County Register that the enduring success of High Infidelity is "hard to comprehend, really... That record, about half of what you hear is stuff that we recorded in a little demo studio in Hollywood called Crystal. So our best-selling record ever is really a demo. That just goes to show you."
We had a great time meeting the guys and hearing them at last Sunday's Bowen MusicFest with thousands of rock 'n roll fans in Waco. We love REO Speedwagon!
JOHN LENNON: Book on the making of "Imagine" due out in October
Yoko Ono's upcoming book focuses on the making of John Lennon's iconic album Imagine.
Imagine John Yoko runs 320 pages. The book, which goes on sale on Lennon's birthday, October 9th, is dominated by numerous never-before-published photos, along with stories from Klaus Voormann, Alan White, Jim Keltner, David Bailey, Dick Cavett, Julian Lennon and Sir Michael Parkinson.
Yoko says, "A lot has been written about the creation of the song, the album and the film of Imagine, mainly by people who weren’t there, so I’m very pleased and grateful that now, for the first time, so many of the participants have kindly given their time to 'gimme some truth' in their own words and pictures." (SuperDeluxeEdition.com)
PRINCE: Piano & a Microphone set for September release
There's a treat for Prince fans on what would have been the iconic musician's 60th birthday.
Piano & a Microphone 1983 will be released September 21st. Just as the title describes, this is Prince working alone, with just one instrument, to deliver some of the most riveting music of his remarkable career.
The nine-track, 35-minute album comes from a previously unreleased 1983 home studio cassette recording of Prince at his piano. It offers an earlier glimpse at soon-to-be-famous songs such as "Purple Rain" and "17 Days" that were released a year later, and "Strange Relationship" (not released until 1987 on Sign o' the Times). Also noteworthy is Prince's cover of Joni Mitchell's "A Case of You"
The preview track is a stunner -- a raw, chillingly emotional take on the 19th century spiritual "Mary Don't You Weep." The track will be featured during the end credits of Spike Lee's BlacKkKlansman, which reaches theaters in August.