Liner Notes (January 3)

Lawsuits, a beautiful tribute and more make up the January 3, 2018 installment of “Liner Notes”  Enjoy!

Well…the New Year is off to a very rocky start for Spotify.

Per The Hollywood Reporter, the popular music streaming service is being sued by Wixen Music Publishing for a whopping $1.6 billion for streaming thousands of songs “without a license and compensations.  Those thousands of songs include various tracks from Tom Petty, The Doors, Steely Dan, Weezer, Neil Young, Stevie Nicks and Rage Against The Machine to name just a handful.

Spotify was hit with three other copyright/licensing lawsuits in 2016.

Even though numerically and legally this wasn’t going to happen, it’s always interesting to see the write-in results of any election.

In the recently released election results from the Alabama special Senate election between Democrat Doug Jones and Republican Roy Moore, there were about 23,000 write-in candidates and among them was the Piano Man himself, even though he’s not a citizen of Alabama.  Other write-in names included Charles Barkley, Ellen DeGeneres, Tyler Perry, Kermit the Frog and, of course, Santa Claus.

Elton John’s mother Sheila Farebrother passed away unexpectedly last month, and the legendary singer shared his final goodbye to her in a touching Instagram post.

”Today’s funeral was perfect,” John wrote.  “Having the service in the family chapel and attended by your brother and sister brought us all comfort. Having the service where Nan lived out her final days brought you and your Mother back together again. Tomorrow your friends will gather separately to say their goodbyes. I’ve chosen all the music so everything will be just right. Thank-you for bringing me into the world and for all that you have done for me.  Love, Elton #RIP”

Erica Banas is a rock/classic rock blogger that loves the smell of old vinyl in the morning.