Classic Rock Interviews

This is the conclusion of the interviews with Sir Elton John and lyricist Bernie Taupin on the golden about the blockbuster double album "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road", which includes a segment on the remake of "Candle in the Wind '97", the biggest-selling recording in history.

If you think the songs of composer Jim Steinman are populated by fantastic people and places right out of central casting, they ain't got nothin' on the real life sojourn of the 300 pound interior lineman dressed in a prom tuxedo named Marvin Lee Aday from Dallas Texas, aka Meat Loaf. Here is a rare colorful classic rock conversation with the man to a mark the thirtieth anniversary of “Bat” sequel,” Bat II: Back Into Hell”.

focusing on the  1978 release of "Pieces of Eight", former Styx member and co-founder Dennis DeYoung  confesses that, in spite of his major conceptual songwriting role on the band's 1977 breakthrough three million seller "The Grand Illusion", the highly-anticipated follow-up "Pieces of Eight" was not his finest hour. Styx guitarists/ songwriters/ singers Tommy Shaw and James Young stepped up creatively to fill the void on "Pieces of Eight", again selling triple platinum with the muscular "Blue Collar Man","Renegade","The Great White Hope","Queen of Spades", and "Sing for the Day".

Over the fifty+ years the perception seems to have become that Lynyrd Skynyrd had a date with destiny, an almost Shakespearean drama of dreams, aspirations, triumph, and tragedy to which all of us were immediately and keenly aware from the moment of "Pronounced" 's release. The late Gary Rossington dismissed that assumption as no more true than imagining Will Shakespeare did not toil, struggle, and starve in relative obscurity in his time.