Tom Petty, John Fogerty and Jackson Browne joined Randy Newman onstage last night at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony. The four veteran rockers, who all live in Los Angeles, opened the show at the city's Nokia Theater with a version of Newman's 1983 song 'I Love L.A.'
For a band that was never particularly narrative, linear or even all that ambitious with their songwriting, the Eagles’ decision to make their second album a concept record always seemed a bit odd. Their self-titled 1972 debut was filled with peaceful, easy and likable L.A.-style country-rock that rarely grabbed at more than it could handle. At this stage in their career, there was nothing cynical or pretentious about the Eagles.
Like many of their contemporaries, the Who adapted to the constantly evolving '60s music scene by expanding their scope and sound. They just did it better than almost everyone else. They started off combining Pete Townshend's guitar-powere
In mid-1966, following a whirlwind couple of years in which he became a legend and a reluctant star, Bob Dylan withdrew from the public eye. And he found a reason that was fitting of his testy image at the time: He claimed he was in a motorcycle accident, which fans still dispute to this day. Was it real? Or was it staged so that the increasingly agitated and reclusive singer-songwriter could get away from it all for a while and clear his head?
‘Street Survivors’ was going to be the album that would make Lynyrd Skynyrd even bigger stars. They had already dented the mainstream, reaching the Top 10 with ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ in 1974, and picking up a sizable following of Southern-rock fans since releasing their 1973 debut album. But 1977’s ‘Street Survivors’ was supposed to catapult them into a whole other realm of rock-star popularity.
When Bruce Springsteen started recording a batch of new songs to a four-track tape machine in his New Jersey bedroom in January 1982, he wasn’t planning to release an album. The acoustic demos were to be used as guidelines for the E Street Band, who would bring their epic heft to the two dozen or so songs Springsteen had recently written. But something happened along the way to Springsteen’s sixth album: The more he listened to the bare, stark songs on the cassette he carried around, the more he thought this was how they were supposed to sound.
