Archive for category: Beard’s Blog

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Journey- Escape @45- Neal Schon- Jonathan Cain- Steve Perry

Hard-charging San Francisco juggernaut Journey unveiled a defining album for the decade with "Escape"  in July 1981, containing "Don't Stop Believin' ","Stone in Love", "Who's Crying Now","Open Arms", and "Mother, Father". For the forty-fifth anniversary of this timeless effort, the Journey songwriting triumvirate of Steve Perry, founding guitarist Neal Schon, and new recruit then Jonathan Cain all recall their daring "Escape". 
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Foreigner- 4 @45- Mick Jones, Lou Gramm

Foreigner "4" interview includes band founder/ guitarist Mick Jones, original singer Lou Gramm.
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Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers- Into the Great Wide Open 35th

July 1991's "Into the Great Wide Open", Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' first post-Traveling Wilburys/"Full Moon Fever" effort with his own band. First, Tom turned forty. "I'll probably look back at this as some kind of mid-life crisis album," Petty chuckled, "and go,'God, I should've just lightened up ! Should've had a drink and forgot about it!' ,,.It's very hard living your life as we have in tour buses and airplanes for all of this time... And you do kind of realize that ,' Gee, twenty more and I'm outta here!' So you do take stock of that, you do."
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Allman Brothers Band- Live Fillmore East 55th-the late Gregg Allman, Dickey Betts

The original Allman Brothers Band had to be seen and heard live to be fully appreciated, and in 1971 the band headlined four shows over two nights on March 13-14 at the Fillmore East that were recorded. My guests remembered it well: one of two original guitarists, Dickey Betts, & the late great Gregg Allman.
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Steve Winwood- Back in the High Life 40th Anniversary

"Higher Love", the #1 seller and winner of both the "Record of the Year" and "Song of the Year" Grammys for 1986, isn't about doing it in the top bunk. It's about love on a spiritual plane, not an airplane. By his mid-twenties, Steve Winwood already may have  been on a hall of fame career pace, singing and playing hits as a mere teenager with the Spencer Davis Group ("Gimme Some Lovin' "," I'm a Man"), Traffic, and Blind Faith. Yet Winwood told me in this  classic rock interview about 1986's "Back in the High Life"  that a 1972 bout with peritonitis almost killed him...
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Genesis- Invisible Touch @40- Mike Rutherford, Tony Banks, Phil Collins

Genesis' biggest album in their long fifty year+ career, "Invisible Touch"  (worldwide sales estimated at 15,000,000) turns forty, so we convened Mike Rutherford, Tony Banks, and Phil Collins here In the Studio  to discuss the blockbuster sales behind "Tonight, Tonight, Tonight", "Land of Confusion", "In Too Deep", "Throwing It All Away", and "Invisible Touch".
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Metallica- Load 30th- James Hetfield, Kirk Hammett

Metallica "Load" did not budge from the top seller position for a full four consecutive weeks in June 1996 because of such tender love songs as "Ain't My Bitch","Bleeding Me","King Nothing", "The House  Jack Built", and "Until It Sleeps". Guitarist/singer James Hetfield and guitarist Kirk Hammett are surprisingly unguarded, conversational, and open about this dizzying rocket ride into superstardom.
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Rod Stewart- Every Picture Tells a Story 55th Anniversary

When the Jeff Beck Group made their American debut at New York City's Fillmore East, no one in the audience watching  the young lead singer Rod Stewart hide behind the backline amps  due to major stage fright could have imagined that the raspy-throated rooster-haired Englishman would become an international star just three years later with his third solo album, 1971's "Every Picture Tells a Story". 
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Peter Gabriel- So 40th Anniversary

This week's classic rock interview guest: ex-Genesis lead singer Peter Gabriel had a cult following after four studio solo albums, with his most significant creation being the ground-breaking "Shock the Monkey" video. But with the May 1986 release of "So" forty years ago,(#1 UK, #2 U.S., over 5 million sold; 4 Grammy nominations including Album and Record of the Year for the #1 hit "Sledgehammer"), Peter Gabriel was vaulted into international pop stardom with all of its attendant door-opening , barrier-eliminating amenities...(more)
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Steve Miller- Fly Like an Eagle 50th

Sales of Steve Miller Band's "Fly Like an Eagle",  which includes "Rock 'n Me","Take the Money and Run","Wild Mountain Honey","Serenade","Mercury Blues", and the title song have exceeded five million copies of Rolling Stone magazine's Album of the Year 1976, plus a berth on that mag's 500 Greatest Albums All Time list.