106 - April 10, 2012: The Steve Miller Band, Gregg Allman, Johnny Winter & Buddy; Ron Wood & The Rolling Stones; Journey, Pat Benatar & Loverboy; former Creedence Clearwater Revival leader John Fogerty; Davy Jones tribute concert; Queen & The Beatles; guitarist Ronnie Montrose; Robin Gibb; Madonna; The Animals leader Eric Burdon; The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band - and more!

Steve Miller headlines Doheny Fest

The Steve Miller Band and The Allman Brothers Band leader Gregg Allman are headliners at this year’s Doheny Blues Festival 15, May 19-20 at the Doheny State Beach in Dana Point Harbor in southern Orange County. 

Other performers include blues great Buddy Guy; Texas blues rocker Johnny Winter; Joan Osborne and veterans, The Holmes Brothers; Texican rock trio Los Lonely Boys; the Big Easy’s Trombone Shorty, who performed last month at the White House’s blues night with Jeff Beck, B.B. King and Mick Jagger; roots and rockabilly rockers The Paladins; blues harp player-singer Rod Piazza & The Mighty Flyers; Otis Taylor, Louisiana swamp blues musicians Tab Benoit and Marcia Ball.

Woody says Stones to jam this month

Rolling Stones guitarist Ron Wood says his band will begin jamming together later this month, according to the Associated Press.

The 64-year-old, who is also currently a member of the reformed Faces, said that he, drummer Charlie Watts, singer Mick Jagger and guitarist Keith Richards will convene at an undisclosed recording studio, “to just throw some ideas around,” and “to get the feel again.” “It’s like working out for the Olympics of something. You’ve got to go into training. So we’re going to go into training.” Was this a reference to a new album or tour? Stay tuned.

Journey, Benatar, Loverboy tour

Journey, with opening acts Pat Benatar and Neil Geraldo and Canadian rockers Loverboy will tour America over three months beginning July 21 at the San Manuel Amphitheatre in Devore, according to a release from Benatar’s publicist.

Fogerty goes country

Joining a seemingly endless of artists, John Fogerty is going country on his upcoming album, not that he had far to go. After all, the 66-year-old former Credence Clearwater Revival leader has been writing and performing songs with a hard country edge all his life, including “Lodi,” “Looking Out My Back Door,” and “Down on the Corner.”

The new CD, “Wrote a Song For Everyone,” set for a fall release, according to Billboard.  On the album, Fogerty will re-record a bunch of his hits with help from country stars Miranda Lambert, Keith Urban, Alan Jackson, Brad Paisley and rockers Bob Seger and The Foo Fighters.

Davy Jones tribute concert

A tribute concert was held for Monkee Davy Jones, who died of a heart attack at age 66 at his Florida home on February 29, reports Britain’s Daily Mail. The tribute concert at B.B. King’s in Times Square in New York City was led by Jones’ bandmates Mickey Dolenz and Peter Tork. Other performers included Shondells’ leader Tommy James and Jones’ close friend, cabaret singer Deana Martin (Dean’s daughter). The fourth Monkee, Mike Nesmith was absent. Jones’ daughters Talia, 43, and Annabel, 23, also attended.

Queen is king

Queen’s “Greatest Hits” LP has passed The Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band” to become the best-selling album on the British album chart, according the U’K’s Official Chart Company. Since its release in 1981, “Greatest Hits” has sold 5.8 million copies to “Sgt. Pepper’s” 5 million.

Other albums in the Top 10 include Abba’s “Gold” (3), Oasis’ “(What’s the Story) Morning Glory” (4) Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”(5), Adele’s “21” (6), Dire Strait’s “Brothers in Arms” (7), Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon” (8),another from Jackson, “Bad” (9) and the second Queen best-of CD, “Greatest Hits II” (10).

A couple other notable records to make the Top 20 are Fleetwood Mac’s “Rumours” (14), Shania Twain’s “Come On Over” (15), and Simon and Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Waters” (18).

In other Queen news, drummer Roger Taylor told Billboard that they’ll play four shows this summer with powerhouse “American Idol” runner-up Adam Lambert, including two shows at London’s Hammersmith Apollo, a June 30 date in Moscow and a show in Kiev on a bill with Elton John.

The group is also producing “The Queen Extravaganza,” a tribute concert with that celebrates the band’s music. That tour begins May 26 in Quebec and includes a stop on June 25 at L.A.’s Club Nokia.

Montrose death a suicide

It’s been revealed that guitarist Ronnie Montrose committed suicide, reports AP. Montrose, who battled prostrate cancer and depression, died from a self-inflicted gunshot last month. He was 64.

Gibb misses “Titanic” premiere

Robin Gibb remains in a London hospital, where the 62-year-old former Bee Gees singer is fighting a bout of pneumonia, according to Reuters. The illness forced him to miss the premiere of his first classical work, “The Titanic Requiem,” by the Royal Philharmonic at Westminster Central Hall.

Gibb’s older brother Barry had flown in from his home in Miami to attend the event, but also missed the event, opting to remain by his brother’s bedside.

New Releases

Among the new albums, re-releases and deluxe sets include a 2-CD from Alice Cooper, “No More Mr. Nice Guy Live”; country-folk singer-songwriter Nancy Griffith’s “Intersection”; a 2-CD set from Herman Brood & His Wild Romance, “Live At Rockpalast 1978 And 1990”; and a 2-CD import, “Dare: Deluxe Edition” from Human League.

Bonnie Raitt’s first album in seven years, “Slipstream”; The John Oates Band’s “Bluesville Sessions”; a 2-CD from Joe Jackson, “Live at Rockpalast”; Todd Rundgren’s “Live at Hammersmith Odeon ‘75”; an import from UFO, “Seven Deadly: Deluxe Edition Box”; an import from Madness, “Forever Young: Ska Collection”: and another import, “Complete Studio Recordings 1972-82” from Roxy Music.

Madonna tops, then drops

Madonna has set a record for the biggest second week sales drop in the history of American sales charts, according to Forbes.

Coming out the gate, the 53-year old superstar hit No. 1 with her new album, “MDNA,” selling 359,000 copies its first week. However, the Hollywood Reporter says that 185,000 copies were included with tickets to her upcoming tour, meaning that 179,000 copies of the album were actually sold.

Week two saw sales of approximately 46,000 copies, representing a drop from week one to two of a record 88 percent.

Madonna’s “MDNA” world tour stops at the Staples Center in Downtown Los Angeles for a couple nights, October 10 and 11.

Now Playing

Classic acts from the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s continue to perform. Here’s what some of them are doing.

In the ‘60s, British Invasion legend Eric Burdon led two versions of The Animals. The first group was formed in Newcastle, England, in 1962. They were heavily blues-based rockers who scored hits with cover versions of songs like John Lee Hooker’s “Boom Boom.” The band’s hard-edged take on an American folk song, “House of the Rising Sun,” hit No. 1 in 1964 n many countries, including the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Finland and Sweden and was ranked No. 122 on Rolling Stone magazine’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. Other hits include, “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood,” “It’s My Life” and “Don’t Bring Me Down.”

In 1966, Burdon left the original Animals and left England for the West Coast, where he formed his second Animals band. That group was rock oriented, especially psychedelic rock. From 1966-69, they produced another slew of hits, including the anti-Vietnam War anthem, “Sky Pilot”; “San Franciscan Nights,” another anti-war tune that was a love song to the hippie movement in the city by the bay; and “Monterey,” that detailed their experience at the iconic 1967 pop festival.

After disbanding that second Animals band in 1969, the following year Burdon scored another monster hit with Long Beach funksters War, the easy-going, jazzy “Spill the Wine.”

The 70-year-old Burdon, who was inducted with The Animals (both contingents) into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994, has a couple shows in Washington state this week with his latest version of The Animals before hooking up for a gig with John Kay and Steppenwolf n Thackerville, Oklahoma, on the 28^th. On June 20, he’ll play the San Diego County Fair at the Del Mar Fairgrounds.

Country rockers, The New Riders of the Purple Sage came together in the late ‘60s in San Francisco. The band was comprised of The Grateful Dead’s Jerry Garcia, Phil Lesh and Micky Hart; Big Brother and The Holding Company guitarist David Nelson; and sometime Dead session guitarist John Dawson. They scored an early FM radio hit, “Panama Red.”

Last month, the band, still led by Nelson, released its 17^th studio album, “17 Pine Avenue,” that features seven songs penned by Nelson and Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter. The New Riders have nearly two dozen concerts on their schedule beginning in May and running through August. They’ve opted to play quite a few smaller, often quirkier festivals, including the Mighty High Mountain Fest in Tuxedo, New York, on May 20, when they’ll be joined onstage by Blues Traveler singer-harmonica player John Popper.  On June 8, they’ll headline the Stone Pony in Asbury Park, New Jersey, the intimate club made famous by Bruce Springsteen.

In May 1966, Jackson Browne graduated from Sunny Hills High in Fullerton and became a founding member of country-folk rockers, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. He quit the band a few months later but not before they opened for The Lovin’ Spoonful at the legendary Huntington Beach club, the Golden Bear. Brown’s replacement, singer and multi-instrumentalist John McEuen, led the band in 1970 when they appeared in the Clint Eastwood-Lee Marvin western musical, “Paint Your Wagon” and then hit the Top 10 with Jerry Jeff Walker’s “Br. Bojangles.” He led the Dirt Band in 1972 when they traveled to Nashville, to record an album considered an American classic, “Will the Circle Be Unbroken,” with an array of famed country and bluegrass singers and players including Merle Travis, Doc Watson, Earl Scruggs (who passed away two weeks ago at 88), Roy Acuff, violinist Vassar Clements, and Mother Maybelle Carter, June Carter Cash’s mom.

McEuen, 66, and his Nitty Gritty Dirt Band have seven gigs in Texas and Oklahoma during the remainder of the month. They have dozens of gigs throughout the U.S. and Canada from now until Halloween, including three tour-ending shows in northern California, but nothing set in southern California.