John Fogerty Records Theme Song, Scores Acting Role in New TV Series

Fans of John Fogerty will want to tune in to the debut of Fox’s new TV series, The Finder, when the show debuts Thursday (January 12). Fogerty not only wrote the show’s theme song; he scored a guest role as an actor in the opening episode.

“The producers of the show, I guess they’re big fans and had this idea that they wanted me to play a character,” Fogerty said in an interview with Billboard.com. “They had a storyline that was inspired, I guess, by some events in my real life. And then as things rolled along, they asked me to create a theme for their show.”

Fogerty also performed a stripped-down version of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Fortunate Son” for the episode. The track will be posted for free download on his website one week after the show airs. The veteran rocker went on to reveal that he’s been recording original material for a new album that will include such guests as Brad Paisley, Miranda Lambert and the Foo Fighters.

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U2’s <em>Spider-Man</em> Musical Breaks Broadway Records

Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark – the drama-packed musical toting a score from U2’s Bono and The Edge – has broken Broadway records to score the title of the highest single-week grossing show of all time.

The Daily Telegraph reports the production took in roughly $3 million over a nine-show period, which breaks the previous single-week grossing record held by the Wizard of Oz-inspired musical Wicked, which grossed $2.2 million over eight shows in 2011.

First impressions are often deceiving, and that’s the case with Spider-Man. The production, which is reportedly the priciest show in history with a projected cost of $70 million, was faced with a number of early hindrances, including serious injuries to cast members, economic problems and poor reviews.

In March of last year, the production’s original director Julie Taymor was let go after the musical garnered tremendously negative reviews from critics and had to shut down for three weeks. New director Philip William McKinley stepped into the sphere and overhauled the show, revamping key parts and having U2 and the Edge rewrite some numbers. Since then, the show has evolved into a blockbuster Broadway hit. When the production re-opened in June, it received an extremely positive response from critics and theatergoers alike. Now, it looks as if nothing can top Spider-Man.

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Guns N’ Roses’ Bumblefoot Records ‘Pink Panther Theme’

Guns N’ Roses’ Ron Thal – a.k.a. Bumblefoot – has a holiday gift for you. It is a studio recording of “The Pink Panther Theme.” It’s a tune GN’R performed on the band’s 2009-11 tours.

You can learn guitar from this also. Via Bumblefoot’s website you can get a “Player Pack” that has “a transcription of the entire lead guitar track as a PDF file – musical notation, TAB, fingers, picking, and helpful hints. Included with the transcription is a ‘Backing Track’ mix and a ‘Boosted Lead Guitar’ mix, in both WAV & MP3 formats.”

The “Producer Pack” adds even more, containing “48kHz/24-bit Stereo WAV files of the mix ‘stems’ – individual files of drums, bass, rhythm and lead guitars in a bundle that you can load into your multi-track software to play with levels, make your own mixes, and hear every nuance of each instrument's performance on its own track.”

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Bob Dylan’s Mr. Tambourine Man Records Debut Album

Bruce Langhorne, the man who inspired Dylan’s classic song “Mr. Tambourine Man,” has finally released a solo album.

According to Music-News.com, the album is appropriately titled Mr.Tambourine Man.

Langhorne, a top ’60s session player who played guitar on Dylan’s original brought a tambourine (actually a Turkish frame drum with bells attached that made it jingle like a tambourine) to the session and Dylan has credited Langhorne as an inspiration for the track.

Langhorne played with a slew of top ’60s and ’70s folk-rock acts including Peter, Paul and Mary, Joan Baez, Richie Havens and Gordon Lightfoot. 

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Bon Jovi Guitarist Richie Sambora Records Third Solo Album

While Bon Jovi fields death rumors (yes, he’s alive and well), his lead guitarist Richie Sambora is starting work on his third solo album at Ocean Way Recording in Hollywood. According to Broadcast Newsroom, Sambora has tapped Luke Ebbin, who manned the boards for Bon Jovi albums Crush and Bounce, for the project.

“Richie and I have worked on and off together for years,” Ebbin told Broadcast Newsroom. “Richie came off the Bon Jovi tour energized and we got together to write a couple of songs. The results were very good, so we kept writing more and decided to go in and record them.

“The recordings came out great, so Richie decided why not make this a solo record? There are eight songs in the can now, including a co-write with Bernie Taupin...”

Sambora’s first solo release was 1991’s blues-based Stranger in This Town, and he followed up that with 1998’s Undiscovered Soul. Ebbin says the guys have started round two of sessions and hope to have the full album done by early spring.

Bon Jovi also scored one of the top tours of 2011, and check out the full list here.

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Ancestors of Lennon and McCartney Revealed in New Records

More than 500 years worth of Liverpool, England’s historical documents are now available online, shedding light on the ancestors of Beatles John Lennon and Paul McCartney – their baptisms, marriages and other public records.

Available for the first time today via Ancestry.co.uk, the collection includes upwards of three million documents, among them the records of each of Lennon’s grandparents’ baptisms and their marriage, as well as McCartney’s grandparents’ marriage record.

“While these records are hugely significant to anyone with Liverpudlian roots, they will also be of huge interest to anyone tracing Irish ancestry – with recent research revealing Liverpool has the strongest Irish heritage of any English city,” said historian Annabel Bernhardt-Reeves to the Liverpool Daily Post.

“As well as having vast historical and genealogical value, these records are also incredibly interesting from a cultural perspective, detailing the heritage of two of the biggest stars the country has ever produced – John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Our researchers didn’t know who they would uncover when digging around in these records, and were thrilled when they uncovered half of the members of the legendary band The Beatles – two of Liverpool’s most famous exports.”

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Queen’s Brian May Records Song for Yuri Gagarin

Brian May of Queen has recorded a new song dedicated to Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. The Soviet cosmonaut became the first human to fly into space 50 years ago today (April 12). May, who is famously a Doctor of Astrophysics, has recorded the song with electronic music pioneers Tangerine Dream.

The song, as yet unnamed, will debut at the Starmus Science And Music Festival on the Spanish island of Tenerife to be held June 20-25. They will also record a second song dedicated to cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, who was the first man to carry out a space walk. Both songs will be based on “cosmic” sounds, a festival spokesman said.

Of course, May is not the only rock star honoring the first manned space flight. Jethro Tull frontman Ian Anderson planned his own unique tribute.

May’s love of astrophysics is no rock star whim. He delayed study for his Ph.D. (doctorate qualification) to pursue his career with rock band Queen. May completed his academic papers over 30 years on, in 2007.

“I worked on my thesis at Imperial College [London] from 1971 to 1974 when I had to give it up because Queen became a full-time thing. I kept all my notes and I was able to find them in my loft and start working on them again,” May recalled in 2006.

May is co-author, with legendary British astronomist Sir Patrick Moore, of the book Bang! The Complete History of the Universe. Now we know why Queen named an album Hot Space.

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