Max Roach, a founder of modern jazz who rewrote the rules of drumming in the 1940’s and spent the rest of his career breaking musical barriers and defying listeners- expectations, died early today in Manhattan. He was 83.
Thursday’s commemoration of the 30th anniversary of Elvis Presley’s death has been mapped out for years. But Lisa Marie Presley’s idea for how to best mark the date bloomed just three weeks ago.
“People have been asking me to do another duet with him forever, but I had to do my own thing before I went back there,” says Presley, 39, whose 20th anniversary duet with her father, Don’t Cry Daddy, was never available commercially.
“So I was ready. I just had to figure out what would be right. And suddenly it came to me, all at the eleventh hour.”
More than 75,000 fans have flowed into Memphis to celebrate their American idol during Elvis Week, exceeding earlier projections. On Thursday, some will be treated to the sight of Presley’s only child using the magic of digital technology to perform another duet with her dad, this time In the Ghetto, a tale of inner-city blues and redemption that was a staple of Elvis’ Vegas shows.
But the younger Presley has added her own touch to this father-daughter reunion: Proceeds from sales of the song, which will be available on iTunes, will benefit a soon-to-be-established New Orleans branch of Presley Place, a transitional housing facility for homeless families. It’s a gesture that her benefit concert-focused dad would appreciate.
LOS ANGELES (Billboard) - Jazz icon Ella Fitzgerald is back on the U.S. pop album charts for the first time in just under 38 years.
“Love Letters from Ella” debuted at No. 97 on the Billboard 200 Wednesday, and it also entered the Top Jazz Albums tally at No. 2, behind Michael Buble’s “Call Me Irresponsible.”
Fitzgerald, who died in 1996, had not been on the Billboard 200 since “Ella” peaked at No. 196 in October 1969. The new CD, released through a partnership between Concord Jazz and Starbucks, is her highest-ranked title since “Ella and Basie!” went to No. 69 in 1963. Counting only her solo LPs, this is Fitzgerald’s finest hour since “Ella in Hollywood” starred at No. 35 in 1962.
While her career dates back to 1934, Fitzgerald’s chart span on the Billboard 200 now extends 51 years to the debut of “Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Cole Porter Songbook” in 1956.
On the Top Jazz Albums tally, “Love Letters from Ella” ties the peak position of the “Best of Song Book Collections” CD in July 1996 as the highest-charting Ella titles since “Ella in Rome - The Birthday Concert” ruled for five weeks in July-August 1988.
LONDON (Reuters) - The Red Hot Chili Peppers led dozens of pop stars performing at Live Earth concerts around the world on Saturday to persuade fans and governments to go green.
Crowds poured into venues in Sydney, Tokyo, Shanghai, Hamburg and Johannesburg to hear Linkin Park, Rihanna, Shakira, Crowded House, Kumi Koda and many others perform and former U.S. Vice President Al Gore call for action on climate change.
Genesis, Razorlight and Snow Patrol kicked off the event at London’s Wembley Stadium, leading a star’studded cast there including Madonna, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Spinal Tap, who will play before a less-then-capacity crowd of around 63,000.
Corinne Bailey Rae sang “Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)”, Marvin Gaye’s 1971 environment classic, and sets alternated with short videos about climate change and tips on how to slow it.
Following the model of Live Aid in 1985 and Live 8 in 2005, Live Earth hopes to reach up to two billion people through radio, television and the Internet.
“As a parent I want a decent world for my kids to grow up in and if we can draw attention to this and make people start doing the things that really count … then that will do something,” Duran Duran lead singer Simon Le Bon said in London.
Gore addressed a small event in Washington, where he outlined the seven-point pledge he wants people to take, binding them to cut carbon emissions and lobby governments and employers to do more to save the planet.
“We are excited to share this historic day with some fantastic musicians who are also deeply committed to using their voices and their talents to raise awareness about the climate crisis and how to solve it,” he said.
Gore hopes the concerts will be the start of a three- to five-year campaign to promote awareness of climate change.
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J., July 6 (UPI) — Live Earth, the seven-continent concert against climate change, will inspire personal change on a global scale, organizers in the U.S. predicted Friday.
Despite A-list line-ups of rock, pop and hip-hop acts on eight far-flung stages, enthusiasm is tepid the day before the ambitious event begins, the Los Angeles Times reported.
The goal, say some, is muddled. Bob Geldof, organizer of Live Aid and Live 8 concerts, says unless Live Earth presents concrete environmental measures, “it’s just an enormous pop concert.”
Two key figures behind Live Earth are former U.S. vice president Al Gore, who’ll speak at the U.S. site in East Rutherford, N.J., and Kevin Wall, the Emmy-winning producer who worked with Geldof on the Live 8 event.
Wall said the point of Live Earth is to motivate average people to engage in the issue and change their everyday behavior to protect Earth.
“I have no illusion that a concert is going to solve this problem, but what it will do is begin a long, ambitious and focused campaign to educate people on the issue,” Wall said. “We are going to be very clear in what we’re asking people to do.”
*Note: The “Live Earth” concerts will be able to be heard on various channels on XM Satellite radio.
Jimmy sent me this video of Paul Pott, a guy competing in the British equivalent of American Idol. OH MY GOD. I didn’t think I liked opera….. until now. You’ll want to listen to this over and over. Thank you Jimmah!
KANSAS CITY, Kansas (AP) — More than 1,680 guitar players turned out, tuned up and took part in what organizers say was a world record rendition of Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water” — a song that was the first many of them ever learned.
Some came from as far away as California and Germany on Sunday to take part in a Kansas City radio station’s effort to break a Guinness world record for the most people playing the same song simultaneously. The record had been 1,323 people playing the same song in Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1994.
“It was cool to see little kids playing, people who had been playing for their whole lives, like older people, and then I’m sure there were people like me who just picked up the song a couple days before,” said Autumn McPherson, of Winfield, a senior at the University of Kansas.
Preliminary numbers show 1,683 people played the popular early ’70s guitar riff on Sunday at CommunityAmerica Ballpark.
“I thought it was going to be kind of cheesy,” said Hannah Koch, of Prairie Village, who came clad in an elf costume. “But after I got here, I got caught up in the excitement of it.”
Tanna Guthrie, a morning show host for KYYS (99.7 FM), came up with the idea for the record attempt. She said her station will send participant sign-up lists, photos, videos and copies of media coverage to Guinness seeking official recognition of a record.
Guthrie said she chose “Smoke on the Water,” a track off Deep Purple’s “Machine Head” album, because it’s one of the first songs many guitarists learn.
“You never know if you can pull something like this off,” she said.
One of the participants, John Cardona of Hanford, California, said he brought felt-tip pens so he could get others to sign his guitar.
“It was the guitar I learned on,” the 41-year-old said. “It was very dispensable on the way here, but very valuable to me now.”
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The big voice overwhelmed the beatbox Wednesday night as Jordin Sparks was crowned the newest and youngest ”American Idol.” Sparks, 17, of Glendale, Ariz., prevailed over beatboxer Blake Lewis, 25, of Bothell, Wash., after a triumphant performance Tuesday that wowed the show’s judges and the viewers who gave her a majority of the record 74 million votes cast.
”Mom, Dad, I love you,” Sparks, the daughter of retired NFL player Phillippi Sparks, said tearfully after a bearhug from Lewis.
BlueHerald Image
The contest came down to either the stronger singer, Sparks, or the better entertainer, Lewis. Sparks delivered her songs simply and powerfully; Lewis’ flourishes included his sound effects and sharp dance moves.
Even the famous were gushing over Sparks.
”She is an awesome singer,” finale performer Smokey Robinson said backstage. ”She sings so good, it’s hard to believe she’s 17. To sing like that you would have to have lived for a long time. She’s an old soul.”
The finale pulled out the stops and the stars, with Gwen Stefani, Tony Bennett, Bette Midler, Green Day and more singing.
The two-hour show opened with Lewis and Sparks dueting on the Beatles ”I Saw Her Standing There,” followed quickly by a touring Stefani singing ”4 in the Morning” via satellite from Massachusetts.
When “Sgt. Pepper” appeared, it was as if a massive block party had appeared outside your window. I was nearly 12 years old at the time and when one of my four older brothers came home with the highly anticipated new Beatles record, we listened to it over and over, marveling at the sheer audacity of songwriters John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Doug, overwhelmed by enthusiasm and hyperbole, declared, matter-of-factly, “The band has changed its name forever and rock ‘n’ roll will never be the same.”
And it wasn’t just the music. The album cover itself was breathtaking, a puzzling and colorful collage by Peter Blake that showed the band, in gaudy mock-military costumes, presiding over the burial of the “old” Beatles, with scattered mug shots of high and low cultural icons hovering in the background. You’d go cross-eyed trying to figure out just how many notables were depicted — a mass of pop art that included Marilyn Monroe, Karl Marx, Aldous Huxley, Marlene Dietrich, Sonny Liston, Laurel and Hardy, Oscar Wilde, Marlon Brando, Leo Gorcey, Bob Dylan, Lenny Bruce and Mae West.
The presentation was a triumph of packaging, and included for the first time the printing of lyrics on the back cover. That the group had reached this point a mere three years after the first rush of “Beatlemania” was astonishing, and the songs simply ratcheted up the sense of momentousness provided by the record sleeve.
Relieved from the pressure of performing live, the Beatles were able to record songs that were, even in a relatively primitive studio, filled with overdubs, backward tape loops, snippets of orchestral crescendos, a cowbell here, a tin horn there, creating a sound and style that was quickly, for better or worse, aped by the band’s peers and imitators. Aside from the technical innovations, the 13 songs ushered in yet another phase for the Beatles, one that was far more introspective, grandiose and certainly informed by their recreational use of drugs.
Forty years later, it’s easy to dismiss such lyrically slight songs as Mr. McCartney’s “When I’m Sixty-Four” or George Harrison’s meandering, sitar-driven “Within You Without You,” but the bulk of “Sgt. Pepper” stands the test of time. For example, John Lennon’s “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!” is about an evening vaudeville romp where “Henry the Horse dances the waltz” and men leap through “a hogshead of real fire!” Another standout is Mr. McCartney’s “Fixing a Hole,” a dreamy and druggy meditation about fame and drudgery. He sings about “filling the cracks” in his door that “kept [his] mind from wandering,” and chastises those who “disagree and never win and wonder why they don’t get in my door.”
Email QuestionGirl
“People have been asking me to do another duet with him forever, but I had to do my own thing before I went back there,” says Presley, 39, whose 20th anniversary duet with her father, Don’t Cry Daddy, was never available commercially.
“Love Letters from Ella” debuted at No. 97 on the Billboard 200 Wednesday, and it also entered the Top Jazz Albums tally at No. 2, behind Michael Buble’s “Call Me Irresponsible.”
Crowds poured into venues in Sydney, Tokyo, Shanghai, Hamburg and Johannesburg to hear Linkin Park, Rihanna, Shakira, Crowded House, Kumi Koda and many others perform and former U.S. Vice President Al Gore call for action on climate change.
“As a parent I want a decent world for my kids to grow up in and if we can draw attention to this and make people start doing the things that really count … then that will do something,” Duran Duran lead singer Simon Le Bon said in London.
