Billy Squier firms up summer tour plans

Rocker Billy Squier, whose smash hit "The Stroke" became an MTV staple in the early '80s, has mapped out a busy summer tour schedule.

The outing gets underway June 23 in Verona, NY, and runs well into September, hitting about 28 cities and concluding with a Sept. 22 show in Henderson, NV. Dates are below.

After performing with the group Piper in the late '70s, Squier launched a solo career, releasing the minor hit "Tale of the Tape" in 1980, followed by 1981's "Don't Say No," the set that spawned Squier's biggest hit, "The Stroke," which hit No. 3 on Billboard's US Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, and earned the performer round-the-clock airplay on the then-fledgling MTV.

"It's the most sampled song in history--they said that on MTV, so even if I'm wrong, I'm not making it up," Squier told the Boston Globe in 2005. "The intro of the song is me with my hands in a trap case, beating on the side of it. I just walked around the studio banging on stuff, looking for a sound.... People sometimes write that Billy is the king of hip-hop. I didn't even know what hip-hop was then."

Squier's most recent studio album was 1998's "Happy Blue." Last year, Squier joined Colin Hay, Edgar Winter, Gary Wright, Hamish Stuart and Gregg Bissonette on tour with Ringo Starr's All-Starr Band.