Blog Posts by David Browne

Starting in two years, the rights to classic albums by some of rock's biggest acts, including Bruce Springsteen's Darkness on the Edge of Town, Billy Joel's 52nd Street and the Eagles' The Long Run, could revert back to those artists. The change threatens to upend the music business - putting more cash in musicians' pockets and less in those of the labels. "It's something I've thought about on and off for a while, and it got put on the back burner because it wasn't timely," says Eagles singer and drummer Don Henley, who founded the Recording Artists Coalition, which advocates for artists' rights. "And now the time has come."

In 1976, U.S. copyright law was amended to give artists the right to regain the rights to their work after 35 years. The first batch of albums, those created on or after January 1st, 1978, become eligible for so-called "termination rights" from the record companies in 2013. Henley says the Eagles have not yet filed termination paperwork but are considering their

It's shaping up to be a big year for Paul McCartney. On May 6th, McCartney, 68, announced he had gotten engaged to his longtime girlfriend, Nancy Shevell. And in an L.A. studio a month earlier, he began making another dream come true: He started recording an album devoted to covers of pop standards from the pre-rock years. "It's my dad's style of music," he says. "I've wanted to do that kind of thing forever, since the Beatle days. But then Rod [Stewart] went mad on it. I thought, 'I have to wait so it doesn't look like I'm trying to do a Rod.'"

Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Singers of All Time: Paul McCartney

Working with an orchestra in Capitol Studios, McCartney quickly knocked out nearly a dozen tracks, including a handful with Diana Krall and her band. But he's keeping the titles under wraps for now: "They're just songs I admire," he says. "I'm trying to steer away from the obvious ones." McCartney also cut several of his own new songs in a similar vein - even singing into a

Sunday marks an anniversary most Beatles fans would rather forget: the day in 1970 when Paul McCartney announced to the world that the Beatles were essentially over. To promote his first solo album, McCartney, Paul issued a four-page interview with himself. The band, McCartney wrote, was divided over "personal differences, business differences, musical differences," adding, "Temporary or permanent? I don't know." To his own question, "Do you foresee a time when Lennon-McCartney become an active songwriting partnership again?", he bluntly answered, "No."

What was Paul's motivation and what was the immediate fallout? While researching my upcoming book Fire and Rain: The Beatles, Simon & Garfunkel, James Taylor, CSNY and the Lost Story of 1970 (Da Capo, June), I went in search of documents I'd long heard about but had never seen: the court papers of Paul's lawsuit to dissolve the Beatles, filed Dec. 31, 1970.

Choose the Cover of Rolling Stone, Round Two: Vote by April 14!

The papers