Buffalo Springfield reunion will reach Los Angeles, Oakland in June* (Updated)

Buffalo Springfield is expanding its latter-day reunion from last fall into a limited tour this year that will include several shows in California, including stops June 4 and 5 at the Wiltern Theatre in Los Angeles.

The celebrated group featuring Neil Young, Stephen Stills and Richie Furay will start its tour June 1 and 2 at the Fox Theater in Oakland, and will make a previously announced appearance June 11 at the Bonnaroo Festival in Manchester, Tenn.

It’s very likely that more stops will be added, according to sources close to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame band.

Update at 4:07 p.m.: True enough, the band's camp has just announced that the tour also will include performances June 7 and 8 at the County Bowl in Santa Barbara.

Buffalo Springfield formed in 1966 in Los Angeles and released only three studio albums before disbanding in 1968. Original members Young, Stills and Furay reconvened last fall for two performances at Young’s annual Bridge School benefit concerts in the Bay Area. Bassist Rick Rosas and drummer Joe Vitale, who will support the surviving members on the reunion tour, filled in at those shows for original Springfield members Bruce Palmer and Dewey Martin, who died in 2004 and 2009, respectively.

Tickets go on sale Friday for the Los Angeles shows  and Sunday for the Oakland dates at Ticketmaster.

Related:

Buffalo Springfield just one of two tantalizing reunions slated for Bonnaroo 2011

More Buffalo Springfield reunion gigs on the way?

Buffalo Springfield to reunite for Bridge School benefit

-- Randy Lewis

Photo of reunited Buffalo Springfield (from left): Stephen Stills, Richie Furay, Rick Rosas and Neil Young. Not pictured; drummer Joe Vitale. Credit: Ticketmaster.com.

 

Live from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony: Tom Waits, Dr. John, Darlene Love, Alice Cooper and Neil Diamond celebrate in New York

 

Now into its second quarter-century, its rebellious youth largely a memory and its adolescence rapidly receding into the past, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's annual induction ceremony canonized Neil Diamond, the Alice Cooper band, Tom Waits, Dr. John and Darlene Love as its newest performer honorees on Monday night at the Waldorf Astoria in Manhattan.

All five had long been eligible under the hall's requirement that acts only become candidates 25 years after the release of their first recording, making this something of a catch-up year for those like Cooper, Diamond and Love, all of whom sold millions of records in their prime, or in the cases of Waits and Dr. John, artists whose critically admired work hadn't been accompanied by the kind of commercial success that might have helped usher them into the hall earlier. Fellow pianist Leon Russell was inducted in the "sideman" category.

Rock Hall opens doors to ceremony rehearsals -- for a price

 

 

 

For the first time in its 25-year history, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame will allow an audience into rehearsals for its star-studded induction ceremony and dinner, which take place this year on March 14 at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York.

Through a new partnership between the Rock Hall and the Gilt City website, which specializes in luxury services and experiences, fans can buy tickets that will include admission to the March 13 rehearsal for this year’s event, at which the Alice Cooper Band, Neil Diamond, Tom Waits, Dr. John and Darlene Love are being inducted.

The privilege comes at a price, however. A VIP ticket that opens the door to otherwise closed rehearsals costs $3,500, and also includes entrance to the pre-ceremony cocktail party and the awards dinner itself. For $2,000, members of the public can get into the cocktail party and awards dinner.

This year’s honorees are being inducted by Neil Young (Waits), Paul Simon (Diamond), Bette Midler (Love), Rob Zombie (Cooper) and John Legend (Dr. John). Elton John will present Leon Russell with the hall’s new musical excellence award, which replaces the former Sideman category; Doors’ drummer John Densmore will usher in Elektra Records founder Jac Holzman as a non-performer; and Lloyd Price will do the same for Specialty Records founder Art Rupe.

-- Randy Lewis

Tom Waits, left, will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by Neil Young. Credit (Waits): Michael O'Brien; (Young): Jack Plunkett / Associated Press.

Buffalo Springfield just one of two tantalizing reunions slated for Bonnaroo 2011

 
Along with the coup of what figures to be one of a small handful of Eminem live appearances in 2011, this year’s Bonnaroo Festival in Tennesee also has in store a reunion performance in June by surviving original members of Buffalo Springfield, festival organizers announced today.

Neil Young, Richie Furay and Stephen Stills played together for the first time since 1968 last fall at Young’s annual Bridge School benefit concerts in Mountain View in Northern California. For those two shows, Springfield charter members were backed by longtime Young bassist Rick Rosas (filling in for Bruce Palmer, who died in 2004) and Crosby, Stills & Nash drummer Joe Vitale (taking over for Dewey Martin, who died in 2009).

They ran through a generous sampling of Springfield’s influential rock-folk-country songbook, including “For What it’s Worth (Stop, Hey, What’s That Sound),” “Rock & Roll Woman,” “Mr. Soul,” “Bluebird,”  “Kind Woman,” “I Am A Child” and “On the Way Home.”

After those performances, the three reportedly were so satisfied by the outcome that they started talking about doing more shows in 2011. Nothing is official yet, but the announcement of the Bonnaroo appearance raises the possibility of Springfield dates in Southern California, where the group formed in 1966.

In addition to the Springfield reunion, the Bonnaroo lineup also has a tantalizing reunion of two of the key forces in New Orleans R&B and funk: Dr. John and the Meters.  They plan to play their 1974 collaborative album “Desitively Bonnaroo,” from which the festival takes its name, in its entirety for the first time in public.

Bonnaroo will run June 9 through 12 in Manchester, Tenn.

— Randy Lewis

Photo of reunited Buffalo Springfield at Neil Young's Bridge School concerts in October 2010: drummer Joe Vitale, left, Stephen Stills,  Richie Furay, Neil Young and bassist Rick Rosas. Credit: Eleanor Stills.

Presenters for 2011 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame class announced

What do Rob Zombie, Neil Young, Bette Midler, John Legend and Elton John have in common?

They’ll all be onstage in New York in March, along with Paul Simon, Lloyd Price and the Doors’ John Densmore, welcoming the latest class of inductees into the Rock and Roll of Fame, hall officials will announce Tuesday.

Zombie has been tapped to welcome in one of his musical forebears, shock-rock pioneer Alice Cooper; Young will induct fellow iconoclast Tom Waits; John will bring in his friend and recent collaborator Leon Russell; and Simon will deliver remarks on Neil Diamond. Legend inducts Dr. John,  Midler will handle Darlene Love and Densmore gets Elektra Records founder Jac Holzman, who signed the Doors and launched their recording career.

The ceremony is scheduled for March 14 at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City.

-- Randy Lewis

Photo (left) of Alice Cooper. Credit: Ethan Miller

Photo (right) of Rob Zombie: Credit: Stephen C. Mitchell / EPA

More Buffalo Springfield reunion shows on the way in 2011?

 
Buffalo Springfield issued only three studio albums during the influential band’s short two years together from 1966-68: “Buffalo Springfield,” “Buffalo Springfield Again” and “Last Time Around.”

All indications going into the group’s reunion performances last month for Neil Young’s annual Bridge School benefit concerts in Northern California seemed to suggest that the operative album title for this latter-day get-together was going to be “Last Time Around.”

However, “Buffalo Springfield Again” might be the more fitting choice, as Pop & Hiss is hearing rumblings of some additional performances next year, possibly even a summer tour. (It wouldn't come as a big surprise to any of those who were on hand to witness the joy the group members appeared to be having being in one another's company once again.)

It had been 42 years since Neil Young, Stephen Stills and Richie Furay last performed together as Buffalo Springfield before they reunited for the Bridge School event, which benefits the Northern California institution that serves severely disabled students and their families. Young and his wife, Pegi, have been staging the annual benefits for 24 years now, and their son, Ben, has been a Bridge School student. (The other two original band members, bassist Bruce Palmer and drummer Dewey Martin, died in 2004 and 2009, respectively.)

Their set included such Springfield touchstone numbers as “Mr. Soul,” “Rock and Roll Woman,” “For What It’s Worth (Stop, Hey, What’s That Sound),” “Kind Woman,” “Bluebird,” “Go and Say Goodbye” and “Nowadays Clancy Can’t Even Sing.”

Above is a shot of the 2010 edition of the band from backstage showing (l-r): drummer Joe Vitale, who has played with Crosby, Stills and Nash;  Stills; Furay; Young, and bassist Rick Rosas, who has played regularly with Young. Some have whimsically dubbed the reconstituted group “the new Eagles.”

-- Randy Lewis

Photo of Buffalo Springfield reuion for the 2010 Bridge School benefit. Credit: Eleanor Stills

 “Please Give’s”

Merle Haggard misses Bridge School concert because of illness [Updated]

Merle Haggard missed his scheduled appearance Saturday with Kris Kristofferson for Neil Young's annual Bridge School benefit concert in Mountain View, Calif., because of illness, Kristofferson announced when he arrived onstage alone.

Kristofferson said Haggard's doctor ordered him to cancel several performances this month to recuperate. A chest infection prompted him to cancel a chunk of his September itinerary, but at the time his spokeswoman said he had been expected to recover in time to perform for the Bridge School event. Haggard's representative was not immediately available to comment on whether the same illness prompted the latest round of concert cancelations.

[Updated Oct. 25, 11:45 a.m.: Haggard's spokeswoman said the health issue concerned regulating his blood pressure.]

The 73-year-old singer and songwriter, whom Kristofferson lauded Saturday as "the closest thing we have to Hank Williams on the planet right now," is due in Washington, D.C., in December as one of five recipients of this year's Kennedy Center Honors.

-- Randy Lewis

Photo: Merle Haggard performs at the Stagecoach festival on April 24, 2010. Credit: Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times

Neil Young, 'Le Noise' and the threat of creativity

 
During my recent interview with Neil Young and Daniel Lanois about their collaborative new album, “Le Noise,” I asked Young about one of the thematic threads running through several songs. My question had to do with songs that address opposing forces and raise the prospect of balancing those forces.

In “Angry World,” for instance, he sings, “Some see life as a broken promise/Some see life as an endless fight/They think we live in the age of darkness/They think we live in the age of light.” In “Love and War,” broad topics commonly thought of as mutually exclusive domains, he says, “When I sing about love and war, I don’t really know what I’m saying/I’ve been in love and I’ve seen a lot of war/Seen a lot of people praying.” “Someone’s Gonna  Rescue You” takes aim at people who focus on the negative -- “Somewhere in a ray of sunshine, you find the dark” -- then suggests a way out: “Someone’s going to rescue you and bring you back.”

So I asked him: Has the idea of balance become more pressing as time goes by?

Album review: Neil Young's 'Le Noise'

Neil Young is an experimental artist working in a pop mode; he wants his music to be relevant, but he doesn’t care about either proving himself great or staying hip, the usual stumbling blocks for aging baby boomer rock stars. Young just wants to hear how something (a choir, an R&B band, a concept like the history of automobiles) sounds when it collides with his fundamental warped-folk sound. A strong sense of entitlement, the bane of many in his generation, is his ace in the hole. Not caring what anybody thinks keeps him attuned to himself.

He does make room for collaborators, though, and on “Le Noise,” his 34^th solo studio album, he engages in a clarifying dialogue. Young recorded the tracks in the Silver Lake home of producer Daniel Lanois, using just his voice and mostly electric guitar; the studio master then remixed and enhanced them. The result lands in the same ballpark as work by much younger artists such as Joseph Arthur or even Best Coast, though the mood is more reflective.

At times, the sound heats up, as on the earnest “Walk With Me” and the Bo Diddley-touched “Rumblin'.” But in general, this is an easy album to enjoy, something not always true of Young’s recent output. The treatments Lanois gives Young’s raw performances don’t distract from their basic emotional tone, and if the lyrics sometime seem simplistic, Young’s worn, gentle vocals lend them an authenticity that’s neither showy nor dogmatic. He revisits his favorite themes, from marriage and the pull of family to the ecological fate of the Earth, without fussing over them. “Le Noise” is not an epic -– if it were a book, you could read it in an afternoon -– but it’s statement enough from a man who’s already said so much.

-- Ann Powers

Neil Young

Le Noise

Reprise

Three and a half stars

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Merle Haggard illness prompts cancellation of 10 performances

 
Merle Haggard has canceled 10 performances through the end of September after coming down with a chest infection, his spokeswoman said Thursday. That includes an appearance on “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon” that the 73-year-old country music singer and songwriter had been slated to do on Tuesday.

The cancellations include dates in the South and on the East Coast. Haggard has returned to California and is consulting with his doctor about treatment. His spokeswoman said he is expected to recover in time to make a newly announced appearance with Kris Kristofferson on Oct. 23 for Neil Young’s annual Bridge School benefit concerts in Mountain View, Calif.

He’s also due at the White House in December to receive one of this year’s Kennedy Center Honors, along with Paul McCartney, Oprah Winfrey, choreographer Bill T. Jones and Broadway lyricist and composer Jerry Herman.

-- Randy Lewis

Photo of Merle Haggard and his dog, Fanny Mae, aboard his tour bus backstage at this year's Stagecoach Country Music Festival in Indio. Credit: Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times