Tina’s career ranged some 50 years, from her start as a teenaged partner to the nasty blues guitarist and band leader, Ike Turner, to her escape from him and into a brilliant second life as a solo star. She did several farewell concert tours, including One Last Time in 1999, when she was the sexiest 61 year-old imaginable, but would continue to say goodbye on stage until 2009.

Christmas is fast approaching and some of you may still be looking for gift ideas for your loved ones. Here is our ultimate gift guide for music lovers!

Ray Manzarek told me that he was dying. He had an incurable disease, he said in an email dated April 2nd. “I’m hoping that was a belated April Fools joke,” I replied.

It’s not a sexy, round-number anniversary, but I bet Deadheads know that July 9 was the date of the last Grateful Dead concert with Jerry Garcia. That was in 1995, at Soldier Field in Chicago. With the surviving Dead having celebrated a 50th anniversary with a farewell tour—and then a return of most of them, as Dead & Company—they continue to be in the news.

Call it a Maccathon.

Whenever Paul McCartney does a concert these days, he’s in for the long haul, and the haul includes five decades of iconic hits, discoveries of other worthy tunes, and massive doses of charm.

McCartney likes to perform, and he aims to please.

Most of the time, when it comes to music, what happens in England stays in England. Not until a scene, style, and fashion have evolved around a cohesive, frenzied trend does the music become exportable across the Atlantic. When grunge ruled in the early Nineties, English music was nowhere on the map. But in London, the sound and attitude that would become Brit Pop was percolating, until Oasis were ready to storm North America.