#WhatsHappening for January 25, 2108

Hey, hi, howdy homies. Hope you're all sailing smoothly through the week.

Don't forget to join us this week at the Iron Horse for another edition of Saturday Night Karaoke. We're there to spread the joy from 10pm to 1am.

South African jazz giant Hugh Masekela died this week after battling cancer for nearly a decade.

Masekela began playing the trumpet at 14 and became an integral part of the 1950s jazz scene in Johannesburg as a member of the Jazz Epistles.

He left the country in the 1960s, going into exile in the United Kingdom and the United States, where he collaborated with Harry Belafonte, Paul Simon, Herb Alpert, and others- and used his music to spread awareness about the apartheid in his homeland.

Masekela was 78.

Original Smashing Pumpkins bassist D’arcy Wretzky says she was't invited to take part in an the band's upcoming reunion tour.

"My apologies to all of the Smashing Pumpkins fans out there who are excited about this oncoming reunion tour of the original members of the band," Wretzky said via text to Blast Echo  she said. "I know this is a huge disappointment for me, as well, but it’s not going to happen [with me]. I only just found about yesterday that the band has decided to go with a different bass player."

That paragon of pretentious, Billy Corgan, did not respond to media requests for a comment.

Hot on the heels of Neil Diamond's announcement that his touring days were over, Sir Elton John has added his name to the ranks of rockers saying goodbye.

In a press conference yesterday, John told host Anderson Cooper and a live-streamed audience that his upcoming tour will be his last. The shows, which kick off September 8 in Allentown, PA, will part of an announced 300 date Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour.

"Ten years ago, if you had said I’m going to stop touring, I would have said, 'No, no, I’m a working musician. I always play.' But we had children, and that changed our lives," John told Cooper. "And in 2015, David (John's husband) and I sat down with a school schedule, and I thought, 'I don’t want to miss too much of this.' I’ve had an amazing life, I’ve had an amazing career, I’ve been so incredibly lucky, and, just, my life has changed. My priorities now are my children and my husband and my family."

John added it "was not hard decision because I really do love my kids so much. … You can FaceTime all you want, but it’s not exactly like being there with them. They need me, they need David, they need parents, and I want to be there."

John did say he would still record at least "a couple more albums" and that he would "be creative, hopefully, up until the day I die."

Birthdays today include: Alicia Keys (37); Gary Tibbs of Roxy Music (60); Andy Cox of Fine Young Cannibals (62); Richard Finch of KC & The Sunshine Band (64);  Malcolm Green of Split Enz (65); Michael Cotton of The Tubes (68); and Dave Walker (73). #MusicalBirthdays