- Stevie Nicks and Christine McVie have teamed up with current Fleetwood Mac guitarist and Crowded House leader Neil Finn for a new charity single. The New Zealand Herald reported the track, called “Find Your Way Back Home” was “written about Auckland, New Zealand's homeless to help raise money for the Auckland City Mission's new building on Hobson St.”
- Stevie Nicks said in a statement: “I'm honored to be a part of Neil's song for the Auckland City Mission. He is on a mission to make this work and I think this beautiful song he has written will certainly help.” (The New Zealand Herald)
- Bruce Springsteen teamed up with Boston's Dropkick Murphys — for a livestream concert on Friday (May 29th) at Boston's Fenway Park dubbed, “Streaming Outta Fenway.” “The Boss” joined the band via the park's jumbotron to perform the Murphys' “Rose Tattoo” and his own “American Land.”
- In celebration of his 75th birthday last week, John Fogerty and his kids carried on their quarantine performances direct from L.A.'s Dodger Stadium to runthrough Fogerty's 1985 classic, “Centerfield.”
- Neil Young continues to mine his past — this time by recreating legendary bootlegs made of him over the years. Young posted on his website, “We have ripped off all of the original art from the bootlegs. No expense will be spared. The only difference will be the radically better sound from our masters. . . We are going full bore with our series right now, so write letters in to me with your favorite bootlegs and we will find them and use the best audio we can locate, either from the NYA vaults or somewhere else. Watch for this coming soon. We are building it starting today.”
- The first release will be his February 1st, 1971 gig at L.A.'s Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, which was released on the famed boot, I’m So Happy That Y’all Came Down. (Neil Young Archives)
- Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson appeared on WFAN's Talkin' Golf With Ann Liguori and revealed that since drummer Neal Peart's death earlier this year, he hasn't felt music like playing music: “Not really. It's been difficult. After Neil passed in January, I've played very little guitar. I don't feel inspired and motivated. It was the same thing when (Neil's) daughter died in a car accident in 1997; I didn't really play for about a year. And I just don't feel it in my heart right now. Every time I pick up a guitar, I just aimlessly kind of mess around with it and put it down after 10 minutes.” (Blabbermouth)
- When asked about some of his favorite times in a recording studio, Paul McCartney recalled the Beatles' February 1994 reunion sessions with George Harrison and Ringo Starr for “Free As A Bird”: “Recording the Beatles track 'Free As A Bird' at my studio in Sussex. Because it was so remote, nobody knew that George, Ringo or myself had got together. So, it was very cool and it was very private. Those were fabulous sessions. 'Free As A Bird' was made with John (Lennon's) vocal taken from his old cassette demo, and then the three of us played live along with it. It was really exciting, because having him in our ears and playing along with him felt like he was really there, just in another studio. That was a really lovely memory.” (PaulMcCartney.com)
- Rock pioneer Dion DiMucci has just released the video for his new teamup with Paul Simon, called, “Song For Sam Cooke (Here In America).” His latest album, Dion’s Blues With Friends, drops on June 5th, and includes collaborations with such heavyweights as Bruce Springsteen & Patti Scialfa, Jeff Beck, Van Morrison, Brian Setzer, Steve Van Zandt, Joe Bonamassa, and ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons.
- Paul Stanley & Soul Station — this Kiss guitarist's solo R&B revue — teamed up for a quarantine group cover of Smokey Robinson & The Miracles' 1965 Motown classic, “Ooh Baby Baby.” Stanley has been working on a studio set with the group, who's setlist features favorites by the Jackson Five, the Isley Brothers, the Delfonics, the Temptations, Al Green, the Stylistics, and the Spinners, among others.
- The rock community has reached out on social media to address the death of George Floyd, the 46-year-old African-American man who died while in police custody on May 25th in Minnesota.
A string of posts by musicians was compiled by Ultimate Classic Rock:
Sammy Hagar: “Why would anyone kill innocent people and take it out on the whole race, the whole society we are living in because of a bad guy? A bad cop, a bad black man, a bad white man, a bad Chinese, Japanese, Hispanic, South American — what's the difference? Why would you take it out on the whole human race — people with families and children that are innocent? There are bad guys everywhere, every walk of life. You know it, I know it, we all know it. Stop the violence. Stop racism, prejudice. Please.”
