http://www.92citifm.ca

Julian Lennon has issued a statement regarding the death last week of his childhood school friend Lucy Vodden, the Lucy in The Beatles‘ “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds.” He says he and his mother Cynthia are “shocked and saddened by the loss of Lucy, and are thoughts are with her husband and family today and always. Shine on, Lucy.”

Ray Davies will bring his ambitious choral re-working of Kinks classics to the U-S in November — both on record and in concert. The Kinks Choral Collection, which Davies recorded for the B-B-C in 2007, will get an American release on November 10th, and he’ll support it with a short U-S tour backed by a variety of local choirs.

Alice Cooper and Halloween go together like ice cream and apple pie — and so to celebrate, Cooper has released a new song called “Keepin’ Halloween Alive,” which comes with a bonus karaoke version called “Cooper-oke.” He jokes, “At home, my family all gathers around an old spooky tree decorated with skulls and bones in the living room, and we exchange gifts. It’s our holiday. We even all have matching black-and-orange Halloween sweaters! I wanted a theme song for people like me, and for us Halloween never ends.” The song is available on I-Tunes.

Cooper performs in Durham, North Carolina tonight.

KISS frontman Paul Stanley has finally commented on the band being nominated for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He tells the Boston Globe, “There’s a long way between a nomination and induction. That being said, this is really something that I think is exciting. There is a very vocal segment of KISS fans and rock fans who have wanted us in, and so for them I’m very, very pleased.” The Rock Hall‘s class of 2010 will be announced in January.

Rush are on hiatus this year, but they’ll still have product in stores for Christmas – Working Men, a live best-of D-V-D which will be available November 17th. Selections include the title track, a previously unreleased version of “One Little Victory” plus “Limelight,” “The Spirit of Radio,” “Freewill,” “Subdivisions,” “Closer to the Heart” and “Y-Y-Z.”

I remember being 17 when I was first introduced to the genius of the late Stevie Ray Vaughan.  My friend Carl picked me up in his 73 Nova with some incredible sounds blasting out of the dash.  He had it so loud the distortion had the inner car mouldings vibrating like jack hammer.  “Mary Had a Little Lamb” I think was playing at the time…this being one of the tracks from “Texas Flood” – Stevie’s debut record.  For someone who was caught up in the nostalgia of older Led Zeppelin at the time, I was quite literally speechless hearing SRV for the first time.  I mean the guy played like Jimi Hendrix, and while I had been exposed to lots of blues music, nobody I had heard before sounded anything like SRV.  Such a tragedy that we would lose Stevie at such a young age.

This Saturday would have been Stevie’s 55th birthday.  Dan Akroyd (aka “Elwood Blues) has a special one-hour tribute planned for this week’s edition of the HOUSE OF BLUES – featuring guests Eric Clapton, Buddy Guy and Stevie’s older brother Jimmy.  HOUSE OF BLUES airs at 9pm Sunday night exclusively on 92 CITI FM.

Genesis weren’t done when they put out all their studio albums in three box sets — today they release the 10-disc concert box set Genesis Live 1973-2007. It contains four of their five live albums recorded during that time — Genesis Live, Seconds Out, Three Sides Live and The Way We Walk — and the packaging includes a slot for the recent two-C-D set Live Over Europe 2007. Each of the four albums contains new stereo mixes and bonus material, including the long-awaited stereo and surround-sound mix of Live at the Rainbow 1973. Guitarist Mike Rutherford says, “This is for the fans… It’s quite nice to get these recordings back out there.”

Lucy Vodden, the inspiration for The Beatles‘ “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds,” died last week in the U-K from lupus. She was 46. Lucy was a childhood friend of Julian Lennon, who came home from school one day with a drawing that he said was “Lucy in the sky with diamonds.” He showed it to his father, John Lennon, who took the title and turned it into a song in 1967 for the Sgt. Pepper album. Most fans and critics thought that Lucy, Sky and Diamonds stood for L-S-D.

A-C/D-C have been promising a big announcement today — and now we can tell you it was what we reported earlier this month…a box set that comes in a working amplifier. Backtracks will contain three C-Ds of live and studio rarities, two D-V-Ds — including the long-awaited Family Jewels disc three — a vinyl L-P of studio collectibles, a coffee-table book, facsimiles of authentic memorabilia, fine art lithographs and more. It will also be available as a two-C-D and one-D-V-D set. The deluxe edition of Backtracks will be limited to 50-thousand copies and is only available at ACDCBacktracks.com.