Prince, Eartha Kitt, Robert Plant – what you might have missed over Christmas

With many people heading back to work today (January 5) after the Christmas and New Year break, you might have missed some of the music news stories that broke over the festive season.

On Christmas Eve (December 24) music retailer Zavvi went into administration following the collapse of distribution company UK Entertainment. 3,400 jobs were threatened.

Woolworths stores began closing on December 27 after it also fell into administration.

Also on December 27 it was announced that Clarence Fender, the creator of the Fender guitar, would be honoured with a technical Grammy award in February.

Meanwhile Festival Republic, the owners of the London Astoria, set to be demolished later this year, said the venue will be replaced.

After being involved in a plane crash with Blink-182's Travis Barker last year Adam 'DJ AM' Goldstein has filed a lawsuit against companies and the pilots of the plane, for negligence and breach of contract

John Lennon's return was announced – the former Beatle will appear in a TV advert for the One Laptop Per Child foundation.

We lost two music figures when singer Eartha Kitt died aged 81 and jazz pioneer Freddie Hubbard passed away aged 70.

Elbow's album 'The Seldom Seen Kid' was deemed the 'critics' choice' of 2008, with retailer HMV aggregating end-of-year polls.

In the New Year's honours list Led Zeppelin singer Robert Plant was given a CBE, as was jazz musician Courtney Pine.

In Edinburgh Glasvegas celebrated the new year by performing with Carl Barat at Hogmanay. In London Reverend And The Makers headlined the Club NME New Year's Eve Ball at the KOKO venue.

Prince outlined his plans for 2009, saying he would release three new albums before the year ends.