Read the interview here.<\/a><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
The rest of the best<\/p>\n
Shaun Cassidy (December)<\/p>\n
Liberty DeVitto (October)<\/p>\n
Orianthi (October)<\/p>\n
Russell Moore of Union Station (September)<\/p>\n
Nick Hexum (September)<\/p>\n
Morgan Freeman (September)<\/p>\n
Lee Brice (September)<\/p>\n
Nick Heyward of Haircut One Hundred (August)<\/p>\n
Steve Lukather (June)<\/p>\n
Jon Anderson (June)<\/p>\n
Rick Springfield (May)<\/p>\n
Howie Mandel (May)<\/p>\n
Michael Franti (May)<\/p>\n
Hauser (April)<\/p>\n
Robin Zander (May)<\/p>\n
Todd Rundgren (April)<\/p>\n
Lee Loughnane of Chicago (April)<\/p>\n
Matthew Nelson (April)<\/p>\n
Ketch Secor of Old Crow Medicine Show (April)<\/p>\n
Jon Lovitz (March)<\/p>\n
Bill Medley March)<\/p>\n
Bill Payne of Little Feat (February)<\/p>\n
John Flansburgh of They Might Be Giants (February)<\/p>\n
Judy Collins (February)<\/p>\n
Arturo Sandoval (January)<\/p>\n
Randall Bramblett (January)<\/p>\n
James \u2018JY\u2019 Young of Styx (January)<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You can\u2019t get the A without asking the Q. That\u2019s the first rule of arts journalism. The\u00a0St. Pete…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":92354,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-92353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92353\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/mike-campbell-2-141x150.jpg\"){kind=spacer}
Tom Petty had been his best buddy and musical partner for decades, and once guitarist Campbell had sufficiently grieved his lost colleague, who died in 2017, and the dissolution of the Heartbreakers, he went back to work. Campbell performed with his own band, the Dirty Knobs. \u201cI\u2019m a musician, I\u2019ll keep playing till I die. That\u2019s all I know how to do. It\u2019s all I love. And I don\u2019t want to do anything else. I\u2019m not gonna retire, or whatever, sit around and wonder what I\u2019m gonna do with my time. I can always record and write, but I\u2019m gonna keep playing. I\u2019m aiming for 100, Bill!\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Dolenz-Micky-150x150.jpg\")
With all three of his TV castmates (and \u201cbandmates\u201d) dead and gone, Micky Dolenz found himself carrying the Monkees torch alone, touring with a nostalgic \u201cmusic and memories\u201d show. Nearly 60 years after the two-season TV series was canceled, the Monkees still mean a lot to lots of people, and Dolenz was only too happy to still be talking about it. St. Pete Catalyst:\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s got to be bittersweet, if that\u2019s the word, to be the last man standing.\u201d Dolenz:\u00a0\u201cThat\u2019s the perfect way to put it. It is. I\u2019m still a little bit bewildered, a little bit like \u201cWhat the hell happened?,\u201d you know? Because they\u2019re around me all the time. I\u2019m sitting here in my office, going through old stuff and photos and things, and everywhere I look, it\u2019s the other three guys. Everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Mac-McAnnally-150x150.jpg\")
Loss was also on singer\/songwriter McAnally\u2019s mind as he talked about his late friend Jimmy Buffett, and his years as a key member of Buffett\u2019s Coral Reefer Band. Along with his prolific solo career, McAnnally tours as part of a reconstituted Coral Reefers (he\u2019s \u201ca little bit of a Buffett missionary, I guess\u201d) and as a two-guitar show with bandmate Scotty Emerick. \u201cEven when he was going through the cancer treatment, he played beyond when the doctors told him he should be playing. He just loved it more than anything. The show was his favorite thing in the world. And I got a feeling he\u2019s still around when we play, too.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Adam-Duritz-crop-2-150x150.jpg\")
Counting Crows\u2019 longtime singing, songwriting frontman reflected candidly on a career that started with a bang, then endured numerous ups and downs only to last 30 years and \u2026 counting. \u201cLife doesn\u2019t allow most people to do whatever they want 24 hours a day. It\u2019s just not realistic. I\u2019m just happy that it\u2019s still going on! Because this could have been over a long time ago. The truth is, these things just last five minutes for most people. If they happen at all. And we\u2019re still playing to multiple thousands of people every night. Which is pretty great. So it\u2019s hard to be too pissed off about that.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Ela-Melo-136x150.jpg\")
The fulcrum (onstage and in the recording studio) of the North Carolina indie band Rainbow Kitten Surprise is Ela Melo, an animated performer who happens to be trans. She was very open about the band \u2013 she identified as male in the early days \u2013 and how both bandmates and fans dealt with her decision (just fine, as it turned out). This was one of our most-read stories of the year. \u201cI had a hard time my whole life, connecting with people. I never felt very seen. I didn\u2019t know what to call it. I looked around and thought \u2018Man, it looks like everybody\u2019s got something I just don\u2019t have.\u2019 I felt like I was a machine before I transitioned, and I don\u2019t know if that was me running from something, Like, just not knowing how life could get on the other side of it. And it\u2019s so worth it.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Burton-Cummings-jpg-150x150.jpg\")
Whatever your views on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, it\u2019s a pretty serious oversight that the Guess Who, the biggest rock band to come from Canada, is not in, and has never even been nominated. Songwriter Burton Cummings, who sang every single one of the Guess Who\u2019s great hits (from \u201cThese Eyes\u201d to \u201cAmerican Woman\u201d to \u201cAlbert Flasher\u201d), was pleased, in our interview, to explain that he and co-founding guitarist Randy Bachman had just won their lawsuit against a \u201cfake\u201d band using the Guess Who name (and recordings). \u201cLegally, I couldn\u2019t even mention the fact that I was ever in the Guess Who. They tried to really scoop the legacy, steal the legacy. They had all the streaming platforms covered. If you went to the Guess Who on social media you got the fake band. All that\u2019s over with! That young blonde, whoever, who thought he was me, it\u2019s over! Those guys have got to go find something else to do!\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/China-Forbes-150x150.jpg\")
Lead singer for the smart, sophisticated \u201ccocktail jazz\u201d orchestra Pink Martini, Forbes is also a singer\/songwriter whose music is practically 180 degrees from that of her longtime band, an international phenomenon. She is fluent in three languages, and sings \u2013 sometimes phonetically \u2013 in more than 25 others. \u201cI think one unifying trait of our audiences is that they are open and they\u2019re appreciative that we make the effort to sing in all these languages, and maybe their language, too. Even if it\u2019s not perfect, people are really grateful that you tried to sing in their language. And did your best. That took a lot of the pressure off, for me, early on.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Billy_Bob_Thornton-150x150.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Danny-Hutton-150x150.jpg\")
Three Dog Night, the band Hutton formed in Southern California circa 1968, put 21 consecutive singles into the Top 40, broke all kinds of sales and attendance records, and left a legacy of top-drawer songs like \u201cOne,\u201d \u201cMama Told Me Not to Come,\u201d \u201cShambala\u201d and the ubiquitous \u201cJoy to the World.\u201d He\u2019s 83, and the only original member left in Three Dog Night, which still tours the country. Hutton was disarmingly honest about the drinking and drugging that destroyed the classic version of the group (beware what you wish for) and about his strained \u2013 to put it politely \u2013 relationship with former TDN co-vocalist Chuck Negron. \u201cI had no interest at all in the sessions; I really stopped participating. To get up in the morning, I would have to drink a large glass of gin. One or two Seconals. And a couple of big snorts of coke. Just to get up and not be normal, or high, but kind of be sideways. That\u2019s what I used to call it.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Art-Alexakis-2-150x150.jpg\")
Everclear\u2019s guiding light has weathered 30 hard years since his band hit it big with \u201cSanta Monica,\u201d \u201cWonderful,\u201d \u201cHeroin Girl,\u201d \u201cEverything to Everyone\u201d and others, but he is in every sense a survivor, had been since the pre-Everclear days. He came out the other side, still writing and still singing, only to be diagnosed with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis in 2019. Will that stop (or slow) his restless creative drive? Not a chance. He talked about 21st century Everclear concert audiences: \u201cThese kids look like those people did 30 years ago. They\u2019re got the fire in their eyes. Because the thing is, music, when you hear it, doesn\u2019t matter if it came out 30 days ago or 30 years ago. It\u2019s new to you, and if it connects with you and resonates with you, and you\u2019re a teenager, you\u2019re gonna be on fire.\u201d<\/p>\n