|
|
He is a keen guitar player whose admiration for the Rolling Stones stretched to modeling his character, the pirate Jack Sparrow, on the mannerisms of Keith Richards.
Now the Pirates of the Caribbean star, Johnny Depp, is being lined up to play a rock star for real in a biopic of the late Queen frontman, Freddie Mercury.
On a rather serious note, [heh]… this should be fairly interesting to see! You know Johnny will add his own quirky flair to the role.
Robert de Niro’s company, Tribeca Productions, is said to be behind the project, which Brian May, the Queen guitarist, confirmed was in development. “Discussions are at an early stage,” he said on his website.
May described Depp as “fantastic”. “He would be a worthy counterpart for Freddie on screen. I don’t think I can say any more right now,” he added.
De Niro has known Brian May and Queen’s drummer, Roger Taylor, since they met at the Venice Film Festival in 1996 and ploughed his own money into their hit stage musical, We Will Rock You. The musical was originally going to be about the band but the surviving members decided that would be too embarrassing for all involved.
“It would be too painful, too close, and a bit grand. It would be for somebody else to do, you can’t supervise your own history,” May said at the time.
Instead, Ben Elton, the comedy writer and novelist, devised a story that incorporated the band’s back catalogue of songs. When the show opened in London in 2002 after six years in development, De Niro attended the first night. “It’s an adventure. I’ve been involved in this for a long time. It went through a lot of stages and finally got to this stage – it’s going to be terrific,” he said.
The £7.5m production, which is still running, is set in a future where musical instruments have been banned but a group of rebels go in search of mythical electric guitars.
But the proposed biopic would tell the life story of Mercury, who was born in Zanzibar in 1946 and died from complications of Aids in 1991, the day after confirming he had the disease.
His real name was Farrokh Bulsara but he adopted the name he was best known by at school in India, where he grew up. His family settled in England when he was in his teens. He performed with several bands before co-founding Queen in 1971.
They signed to EMI a year later. His distinctive voice, which ranged across four octaves, was a key factor in their success on songs such as Bohemian Rhapsody. It lasted nearly six minutes and stayed at number one in the UK charts for nine weeks.
It has since been voted Britain’s best single of all time by music fans in a Guinness Book of British Hit Singles poll, defeating John Lennon’s Imagine and Hey Jude by the Beatles.
Although Mercury had a close friend, Mary Austin, with whom he lived for several years and who inherited his estate, he was fairly open about his homosexuality. He lived with Jim Hutton for the last six years of his life.
source
Popularity: 20% [?]
There is a new fellow inside the yellow Wiggle costume. The kids haven’t noticed but the parents have.
The millions of families with preschool-age children around the world who have bought CDs and DVDs featuring the Wiggles, the Australian foursome known as much for their cheery color-coded jerseys as their catchy tunes, have long treated the band with an ardor reminiscent of the screams that greeted the British pop invasion.
So when Greg Page, 34, the band’s lead singer since its inception 15 years ago, announced on Thursday that he was resigning after being diagnosed with a serious illness that leaves him frequently lightheaded and unable to dance and leap to the group’s most energetic hits, it was the equivalent of John Lennon or Paul McCartney quitting the Beatles. That comparison is not so far-fetched considering Mr. Page’s high visibility within the band, which estimates it has sold more than 15 million DVDs and CDs in the United States alone in less than a decade, and in light of his role as singer and co-writer of most of its repertory of original rock and pop compositions.
And yet, there have already been signs that however much Mr. Page may have meant to the group, the transfer of his trademark yellow jersey to a new yellow Wiggle — a longtime backup singer and dancer for the band named Sam Moran — was not particularly traumatic for the Wiggles’ core audience (children 2 to 5).
The effect on parents is another matter: Mothers attending their concerts have been known to tell interviewers that they regard the nearly 6-foot-5 Mr. Page, among other bandmates, as a matinee idol, and in Australia — where the group is currently on tour — there is now a grass-roots “Wear Yellow to the Wiggles†campaign being organized “to say a proper goodbye to Greg.â€
Those of you like me, who are simultaneously old enough to have missed out on the Wiggles as a kid (indeed, I’m older than Page) and yet without children, likely consider any comparison of the Wiggles and the Beatles rather absurd. However rabid their fan base, it does not cross generational barriers in the way the four lads from Liverpool did.
OTB
Popularity: 8% [?]
Michael J. Fox and Sheryl Crow stage a rock ‘n’ roll performance at a Beatles-themed fund-raiser for the Michael J. Fox Foundation in New York on Saturday. The benefit, which attracted other celebs such as Denis Leary, Muhammed Ali, Martin Scorsese and Elvis Costello, raised more than $5 million for Parkinson’s research.
Go Michael… Go!
source: People.com
Popularity: 15% [?]
Go Yoko Ono! Nothing sickens me more… than people who try to steal. That’s what this is, in a nutshell. This was his wife, dammit, someone he loved very much. Don’t try and screw her! They probably thought… “It’s been a long time now… she probably won’t even notice the discrepancies” Pfft!!
Yoko Ono sued music company EMI Group PLC and a subsidiary for $10 million Wednesday, claiming she was cheated out of royalties due from the sale of music recordings by her late husband, John Lennon .
The lawsuit, filed in Manhattan’s state Supreme Court, accuses EMI and Capitol Records Inc. of violating a half-dozen agreements by “willfully and knowingly underreporting royalties” by hiding the “true use and disposition of Lennon’s recordings.”
Ono’s three-page filing, which included a summons and notice but no detailed complaint, also accuses EMI and Capitol of “intentionally and systematically rendering dishonest and grossly deficient accounting statements.”
A spokeswoman for EMI/Capitol, Jeanne Meyer, would not discuss Ono’s lawsuit specifically, but she said, “Artists from time to time request audits of their royalty accounts. Sometimes there are differences of opinion, which is understandable given the complex nature of recording contracts.”
Meyer said the contracts are sometimes subject to interpretation “but 99 times out of 100 these things are resolved in an amicable way.”
Ono’s lawyer, John LiCalsi, refused to comment on the lawsuit, which asks for at least $10 million plus interest.
In August, state Supreme Court Justice Karla Moskowitz refused to dismiss a similar lawsuit brought by the Beatles and their music company, Apple Corps Ltd. That lawsuit seeks ownership and control of the Beatles ‘ master recordings.
Meyer said her company is appealing the judge’s ruling. source
Popularity: 10% [?]
Sadie Frost… a vegetarian since birth stripped her clothes off for PETA.
We all know that she’s the mother of Jude Law’s children…What else do you know about Sadie Frost?
Sadie Frost (born Sadie Liza Vaughan on June 19, 1965), is an English fashion designer and former actress. She is probably best known for her six-year marriage to Jude Law, which has made her a staple of the British tabloids.
Frost was born in London. Her father, David Vaughan, was a psychedelic artist who did work for The Beatles. Her parents were sixteen and seventeen when she was born. Frost had a somewhat unconventional childhood, with numerous siblings and step-siblings, including a sister named Sunshine Purple Tara Velvet. She was brought up in Primrose Hill, London, but spent quite a lot of her youth in Ashton-under-Lyne, Greater Manchester, when her parents separated.
Regularly featured in tabloid and gossip magazines, she is better known for her series of high-profile relationships, than her own film and television work. At the age of five, she appeared with Morecambe and Wise. She studied acting at the Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts. At nineteen she joined the Manchester Royal Exchange Theatre to appear in Mumbo Jumbo. The majority of her film credits have been brief supporting roles in mostly forgettable films, however, she made a memorable appearance as vampire Lucy Westenra in Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992). She is also featured in the music video for Pulp’s “Common People”. She now co-owns the fashion label Frost French.
Frost has been married twice. She married first husband, Spandau Ballet’s Gary Kemp on May 7, 1988, and with him she has a son, Finlay Munro (born September 20, 1990). They divorced in 1997. She married actor Jude Law on September 2, 1997, and with him she has three children: son Rafferty (born October 6, 1996), daughter Iris (born October 25, 2000) and son Rudy Indiana Otis (born September 10, 2002). They divorced in 2003.
Popularity: 27% [?]
Paul McCartney famously wondered whether he would be needed “When I’m 64.” His kids informed him that he was by recording their own version of the song for the ex-Beatle’s 64th birthday.
Sir Paul McCartney’s children re-recorded classic Beatles hit ‘When I’m 64′ as a birthday surprise for their dad. Stella and Mary – Paul’s daughters – organised a trip to the world famous Abbey Road studios for the family to record a new version of the track for Paul’s 64th birthday.
The legendary musician has recently been left reeling by allegations his estranged wife Heather Mills worked as a high-class prostitute and posed for a sex book, and his family were desperate to cheer him up. A source said: “Stella and Mary knew exactly how down in the dumps their dad had been feeling. “They were determined to put a smile back on his face for his birthday.”
Paul’s son James and adopted daughter Heather were also present. Stella’s 16-month-old son Miller, and Mary’s sons also visited studio two – where the original version was recorded – last Monday. Giles Martin, son of the Beatles producer Sir George Martin, helped to rewrite the lyrics.
The family played the new version to Paul yesterday (18.06.06) as they gathered at his East Sussex mansion for a birthday vegetarian barbeque. The musician shelved plans for a star-studded party following the shocking revelations about Heather. A source said: “He could not face a big party with so much turmoil in his life.”
Meanwhile, Paul got a surprise birthday phone call from Heather yesterday. The former model also dropped their two-year-old daughter Beatrice off to the party and handed over a birthday present.
The “When I’m 64″ references were bound to come up, repeatedly, and this was a particularly nice way of handling it. I suspect the young Beatle’s never much considered that they would actually reach such an advanced age, let alone that they would be married to hookers at that point in their lives.
Popularity: 19% [?]
The Beach Boys put their differences aside to reunite to celebrate the 40th anniversary of one of the landmark albums of the rock era, “Pet Sounds.”
The surviving founders of the Beach Boys — Brian Wilson, Mike Love and Al Jardine — made their first public appearance together in 10 years Tuesday, standing atop the historic Capitol Records building in Hollywood.
The trio gathered to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the landmark “Pet Sounds” album and the recent double-platinum certification of 2003′s “Sounds of Summer: The Very Best of the Beach Boys.” The trio was joined by veteran band member Bruce Johnston and former Beach Boy David Marks. “It’s always good to do this while we’re living,” Jardine quipped to reporters before the event, in which band members were presented with framed plaques each containing two platinum vinyl records. Plaques also were issued posthumously to Wilson’s brothers, Carl and Dennis — both original Beach Boys members.
The reunion of the Beach Boys came after decades of animosity between Love and Wilson, who are cousins. Love sued Wilson in November, saying Wilson “shamelessly misappropriated (Love’s) songs, likeness and the Beach Boys trademark, as well as the ‘Smile’ album itself” when Wilson was promoting 2004′s “Smile.” Love previously sued his cousin in the mid-1990s, seeking more songwriting credit on the band’s back catalog.
The two shared a friendly rapport Tuesday, standing side by side and patting each other on the back. In thanking his bandmates, Love lauded “my cousin Brian Wilson, for his incredible abilities that gave us all this amazing life.” When asked if all hatchets have been buried, Love pointed to his back. “The hatchets are right here,” he said with a laugh. Loved added that between the band members “there’s issues that arise, and you resolve them over time.”
Of the reunion, he said: “We’ve been together, just in different configurations and different situations. But this is a great one because everybody’s in a celebratory mood, everybody’s on their good behavior and everybody’s enjoying the fact that our records have been recognized even 40 years after we first put (them) out.”
The heyday of the Beach Boys is well before my time; indeed, Pet Sounds came out when I was still in diapers. Their music hasn’t stood the test of time in the same way that that of contemporaries like the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Led Zepellin, or the Who. On the other hand, their sound was quite unique.
As to the album, WikiPedia offers a useful if pedantic history:
Pet Sounds is a 1966 album recorded by American pop group the Beach Boys. Often regarded as the masterpiece of composer-producer Brian Wilson, it has been hailed as one of the best and most influential albums in popular music. In 1995, nearly thirty years after its release, a panel of top musicians, songwriters and producers assembled by MOJO magazine voted it “The Greatest Album Ever Made.” In 1998 Q magazine readers voted it the 31st greatest album of all time; critics of German magazine Spex voted it the best album of the 20th Century; in 2003 the TV network VH1 placed it at #3. It also placed #2 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time to Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles. In 2004, it was one of 50 recordings chosen by the Library of Congress to be added to the National Recording Registry.
In many ways more of a Brian Wilson solo project, Pet Sounds was created after Wilson had stopped touring with the band, focusing his attention on writing and recording. Wilson created elaborate layers of beautiful harmonies by The Beach Boys, sound effects and unusual instruments like bicycle bells, buzzing organs, harpsichords, flutes, the theremin, and even dog whistles, on top of conventional keyboards and guitars.
Music critic Jerry McCulley offers a gushing review at Amazon.com, where you can download MP3 samples.
 If you need some pointy-headed pundit to sell you on the merits of Pet Sounds, your money might be better spent on an ear specialist. Brian Wilson’s gift to 20th-century music elevated this pop album into a beguiling musical and emotional cogency that still operates outside pop culture’s fickle space-time continuum–and limited critical lexicon. There’s never been another record to compare (Rubber Soul, its inspiration, is close; Sgt. Pepper’s, its response, misses the point), and certainly no album has been as dissected, overanalyzed, and predigested for public consumption. In 1997 Capitol Records devoted an entire four-disc box set, The Pet Sounds Sessions, to its thorough deconstruction. The techno-marvel centerpiece of that project–the album’s first true stereo mix, painstakingly conjured out of multitape session sources by producer-engineer Mark Linett (under Wilson’s supervision)–was at once heresy and revelation. Now the label has gratifyingly seen fit to offer both mixes on a single disc (along with alternate versions of “Hang On to Your Ego,” the original title of “I Know There’s An Answer”), an idea that should please the orthodox and heretics alike. And while the album has always clearly been The Brian Wilson Show featuring the Beach Boys, biographer Brad Elliott’s concise new notes attempt to be more inclusive of a wider band perspective. The result (three of the five band members claim credit for the album title) sometimes resembles Rashomon. If Pet Sounds forever crystallized the band’s various creative (in)differences, it also became Wilson’s grand karmic joke on his band mates; its burgeoning reputation (Mojo magazine’s panel of pop experts once elected it greatest album of all time) guaranteed they would sing its songs–and praises–until the end. And if putting two different versions of the same album on one disc seems like overkill, look at the bright side: it’s a perfect excuse to listen to the glorious Pet Sounds twice.
Popularity: 21% [?]
News from PEOPLE that Paul McCartney and his wife Heather Mills are getting a divorce–making official what we’ve all presumed–will almost certainly be overshadowed today by the publication of a new book with racy photos from a pornographic book she participated in several years back.
First, the former.
After previous statements referring to her split from husband Paul McCartney as a separation, Heather Mills McCartney is now using the D-word. “Contrary to recent press reports, Heather Mills McCartney will not be giving any interviews or commenting in relation to her pending divorce from her husband,” said a statement issued by Mills McCartney’s office Sunday.
And Tuesday morning, Mills McCartney’s lawyer released another statement, marked “urgent,” saying that she planned to sue a British tabloid after her divorce had been finalized.
The tabloid, presumably, is The Sun, for this report:
 TWO more graphic publications featuring Lady Heather Mills McCartney emerged yesterday — threatening to widen her rift with husband Sir Paul.
 The ex-model posed for hard core porn pictures in an X-rated US booklet crammed with snaps of sex scenes. In the 1988 book, titled Sexual Secrets, she is seen performing a sex act, indulging in bondage and simulating full sex. The volume — with many pictures too filthy to print in a family newspaper — was published by New York firm Arlington and sold worldwide through an erotic book club. Heather is also shown exposing herself and being seduced by a male “co-starâ€. She is seen laid over his knee while he prepares to spank her bare behind.
Other pictures, which do not feature Heather, show four-in-a-bed and lesbian sex.
Meanwhile last night it emerged that Heather — who split from Macca last month after four married years — was also pictured in a top-shelf French magazine. It is thought she appeared in a number of graphic poses.
News of the two publications comes just days after The Sun exclusively revealed how the blonde had posed for pornographic snaps in lewd 1988 German book The Joys of Love.
Given that she rather clearly posed for these photos–unless they are excellent PhotoShopping–it is unclear what the basis of her suit might be.
UPDATE: Dr. Rusty Shackleford was all over this story last week with an extensive piece entitled “Heather Mills McCartney’s Porn Pictures.” Sadly, he has no video.
Popularity: 50% [?]
Billy Preston, who played with the Beatles and Stones and had a modest solo career in the 1970s, has died at the age of 59.
Billy Preston, the exuberant keyboardist who landed dream gigs with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and enjoyed his own series of hit singles, including “Outta Space” and “Nothing From Nothing,” died Tuesday at 59.
Preston’s longtime manager, Joyce Moore, said Preston had been in a coma since November in a care facility and was taken to a hospital in Scottsdale Saturday after his condition deteriorated. “He had a very, very beautiful last few hours and a really beautiful passing,” Moore said by telephone from Germany. “He went home good.” Preston, who had battled chronic kidney failure, had undergone a kidney transplant in 2002, but the kidney failed and he has been on dialysis treatments ever since, Moore said earlier this year.
Known for his big smile and towering afro, Preston was a teen prodigy on the piano and organ, and lent his gospel-tinged touch to classics such as the Beatles’ “Get Back” and the Stones’ “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking?”
He broke out as a solo artist in the 1970s, winning a best instrumental Grammy in 1973 for “Outta Space,” and scoring other hits with “Will It Go ‘Round In Circles,” “Nothing From Nothing” and “With You I’m Born Again,” a duet with Syreeta Wright.
A shame, although it sounds like a blessed escape from his existence of the past several months.
Popularity: 9% [?]
Desmond Dekker, who put Jamaican music on the international map, died this week of a heart attack. He was 64.
 Desmond Dekker, the Jamaican singer whose 1969 hit, “The Israelites,” opened up a worldwide audience for reggae, died on Wednesday. He was 64. He died after collapsing from a heart attack at his home in Surrey, England, his manager, Delroy Williams, told Reuters.
“The Israelites” was the peak of Mr. Dekker’s extensive career, selling more than a million copies worldwide. He was already a major star in Jamaica and well known in Britain. The song was his only United States hit, but it was a turning point for Jamaican music among international listeners. The Jamaican rhythm of ska had already generated hits in the United States, notably Millie Small’s 1964 hit, “My Boy Lollipop.” But that song was treated as a novelty. “The Israelites,” with its biblical imagery of suffering and redemption, showed the world reggae’s combination of danceable rhythm and serious, sometimes spiritual intentions.
[...]
His 1960′s songs used the upbeat ska rhythm, a precursor to reggae also known as bluebeat. By the end of the decade, Mr. Dekker had won the Golden Trophy award, presented annually to Jamaica’s top singer, five times and was known as the King of Bluebeat. He won the Jamaican Song Festival in 1968 with “Intensified.” “Honour Thy Father and Mother” was released in Britain in 1964 on Chris Blackwell’s Island label, which would later release Bob Marley’s albums. Three years later, Mr. Dekker had his first British Top 20 hit with “007 (Shanty Town),” a tale of rude-boy ghetto violence — “Dem a loot, dem a shoot, dem a wail” — sung in a thick patois, which Americans would hear later as part of the soundtrack to the film “The Harder They Come” in 1972. Paul McCartney slipped Mr. Dekker’s first name into the lyrics to the Beatles’ ska song, “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da,” on “The Beatles” (also known as the White Album) in 1968, the year Mr. Dekker moved to England.
With “The Israelites,” released in Jamaica in December 1968, Mr. Dekker had an international impact. “I was telling people not to give up as things will get better,” he said in a interview last year for the Set the Tone 67 Web site. “The Israelites” reached No. 1 in Britain and No. 9 in the United States in 1969. The song would return to the British charts in 1975 and was reissued as a single after being used in a commercial for Maxell recording tape in 1990. Although Mr. Dekker had no further hits in the United States, he continued to have hits in England with “It Mek” in 1969 and the first recording of Jimmy Cliff’s “You Can Get It if You Really Want” in 1970. But while Mr. Dekker kept up a busy performing career, the death of Mr. Kong in 1971 ended his streak of hits. He returned to the British charts with “Sing a Little Song” in 1975.
Bob Marley, of course, was the first huge raggae star outside Jamaica, hitting it big in the 1970s. There’s a connection: “As a teenager he worked in a welding shop alongside Bob Marley and auditioned unsuccessfully for various producers until Mr. Marley encouraged him to try out for his own first producer, Leslie Kong.” Ironically, Dekker made it big first. Marley, however, remains a household name.
Popularity: 7% [?]
Like “South Park Republicans,” the concept of “conservative rock songs” is rather counterintuitive. Nonethless, the editors of the venerable National Review of compiled a list of the top 50.
The New York Times lists all 50 and provides NR’s reasoning, some of which is rather strained. And a few of the songs are by no means “rock,” even by the expansive new definition that includes Aretha Franklin.
Some examples and analysis below the fold.
1. Won’t Get Fooled Again,” by The Who.
The conservative movement is full of disillusioned revolutionaries; this could be their theme song, an oath that swears off naive idealism once and for all. “There’s nothing in the streets / Looks any different to me / And the slogans are replaced, by—the—bye. . . . Meet the new boss / Same as the old boss.” The instantly recognizable synthesizer intro, Pete Townshend’s ringing guitar, Keith Moon’s pounding drums, and Roger Daltrey’s wailing vocals make this one of the most explosive rock anthems ever recorded — the best number by a big band, and a classic for conservatives.
I’m not sure cynicism and an acknowlegement that Leftist causes eventually become conservative staples is a conservative viewpoint–although it’s generally correct. Surely, this isn’t the best example of a conservative rock song?
2. “Taxman,” by The Beatles.
A George Harrison masterpiece with a famous guitar riff (which was actually played by Paul McCartney): “If you drive a car, I’ll tax the street / If you try to sit, I’ll tax your seat / If you get too cold, I’ll tax the heat / If you take a walk, I’ll tax your feet.” The song closes with a humorous jab at death taxes: “Now my advice for those who die / Declare the pennies on your eyes.”
More populist than conservative. But yes.
3. “Sympathy for the Devil,” by The Rolling Stones.
Don’t be misled by the title; this song is “The Screwtape Letters” of rock. The devil is a tempter who leans hard on moral relativism — he will try to make you think that “every cop is a criminal / And all the sinners saints.” What’s more, he is the sinister inspiration for the cruelties of Bolshevism: “I stuck around St. Petersburg / When I saw it was a time for a change / Killed the czar and his ministers / Anastasia screamed in vain.”
Not sure Jagger and company were going for a conservative theme. Douglas Cruickshank provides an excellent literary take on it for Salon.
4. “Sweet Home Alabama,” by Lynyrd Skynyrd.
A tribute to the region of America that liberals love to loathe, taking a shot at Neil Young’s Canadian arrogance along the way: “A Southern man don’t need him around anyhow.”
Definitely a Southern anthem but not sure there’s much “conservative” about it, aside from vague pro-Wallace sympathies and the line “Now Watergate does not bother me/Does your conscience bother you?”
7. “Revolution,” by The Beatles.
“You say you want a revolution / Well you know / We all want to change the world . . . Don’t you know you can count me out?” What’s more, Communism isn’t even cool: “If you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao / You ain’t going to make it with anyone anyhow.” (Someone tell the Che Guevara crowd.)
This is a classic case of liberal values become conservative over time. The Lads were pretty liberal even by the standards of 1960s era twentysomethings. They were just also anti-violent and anti-Communist. So, incidentally, was George McGovern.
16. “Get Over It,” by The Eagles.
Against the culture of grievance: “The big, bad world doesn’t owe you a thing.” There’s also this nice line: “I’d like to find your inner child and kick its little ass.”
This one deserved to be much higher on the list. Again, though, Henley and company are hardly conservatives.
20. “Rock the Casbah,” by The Clash.
After 9/11, American radio stations were urged not to play this 1982 song, one of the biggest hits by a seminal punk band, because it was seen as too provocative. Meanwhile, British Forces Broadcasting Service (the radio station for British troops serving in Iraq) has said that this is one of its most requested tunes.
An inspired choice, although a case of a song being seized upon people with radically different sympathies than the songwriter.
31. “Small Town,” by John Mellencamp.
A Burkean rocker: “No, I cannot forget where it is that I come from / I cannot forget the people who love me.”
Mellencamp will cringe if he finds out conservatives are glomming onto his music.
35. “Who’ll Stop the Rain,” by Creedence Clearwater Revival.
Written as an anti—Vietnam War song, this tune nevertheless is pessimistic about activism and takes a dim view of both Communism and liberalism: “Five—year plans and new deals, wrapped in golden chains . . .”
Again, cynicism is not conservatism.
50. “Stand By Your Man,” by Tammy Wynette.
Hillary trashed it — isn’t that enough? If you’re worried that Wynette’s original is too country, then check out the cover version by Motörhead.
Wynette ain’t rock and roll, gents.
OTB
« Hide it
Popularity: 19% [?]
Paul McCartney’s romantic gesture of foregoing a prenup when marrying Heather Mills could cost him big time.
Former Beatle Paul McCartney could lose up to a quarter of his estimated $1.56-billion fortune after separating from his second wife Heather Mills, legal experts said on Thursday. That would equate to roughly $1.9 million for every week of their short-lived four-year marriage.
McCartney, 63, and former model Mills, 38, announced their separation on Wednesday, blaming media intrusion for the collapse of one of the most high profile showbusiness marriages.
Lawyers believe the divorce would never be allowed to degenerate into a messy court case but they said McCartney’s decision not to seal a pre-nuptial deal could cost him dear in a private settlement. The couple, who have a two-year-old daughter, Beatrice, met in 1999 at a charity event, a year after the death from breast cancer of McCartney’s first wife Linda Eastman. Lawyer Mark Stephens of Finers, Stephens and Innocent told Reuters: “Heather and the child need to be looked after financially. I think you are looking at 150 million to 200 million pounds ($283-377 million).” “She is the child of a Beatle and they have to live in a cosseted and protected environment,” he said, recalling the killing of John Lennon by a crazed fan and the attempt on the life of George Harrison.
Independent legal estimates on how much Heather could get are based on a recent high profile divorce dispute between fund manager Alan Miller and his wife Melissa. She was awarded five million pounds of his 20 million pound fortune after a childless marriage that lasted less than three years. The House of Lords, Britain’s highest court, is to make a final ruling on the case next week.
After their separation was announced, McCartney denied that Heather had ever been attracted to his fortune, estimated by the Sunday Times Rich List at 825 million pounds ($1.56 billion). “It’s been suggested that she married me for the money,” he said. “There is not an ounce of truth in this.”
In an interview before her marriage, Mills said she had offered to sign a pre-nuptial agreement but McCartney had turned down the offer. “The acid test is now,” said Stephen Foster, head of the divorce department at Stewarts. “I think it would be a big award. I wouldn’t be shocked if it is 100 million pounds.” “He famously didn’t sign a pre-nup as he said it was unromantic. If they don’t resolve things amicably and it becomes a protracted court case, that could be a very expensive decision,” he said. “If Paul and Heather had any sense — and I am sure they do — they would both seek top quality independent advice from lawyers and accountants and settle this round a table. Is it in anyone’s interest to be front page news for a year?”
Indeed not. I suspect there will be a settlement. But a very expensive one.
Popularity: 21% [?]
Paul McCartney and his wife Heather Mills are separating, according to multiple press reports.
Paul McCartney and his wife Heather Mills are planning to separate, media reports said Wednesday. Representatives of the couple declined to comment but said a statement was expected later in the day.
The former Beatle married Mills in June 2002, four years after his former wife Linda McCartney died of breast cancer. McCartney and Mills had a daughter in October 2003.
The Daily Mirror and BBC both reported the planned split.
A shame, especially since they have a child together. McCartney was married to Linda for ovr thirty years, so it’s not as if he has trouble with commitment.
Update: trikc has the story as well.
Update: The couple have held a press conference whining that it’s all the media’s fault.
Former Beatle Paul McCartney and his second wife, Heather Mills McCartney, said Wednesday that they are separating after nearly four years of marriage, blaming intrusion from the media and insisting their split is amicable.
[...]
“Separation for any couple is difficult enough, but to have to go through this so publicly, especially with a small daughter, is immensely stressful,” it added. “We hope, for the sake of our baby daughter, that we will be given some space and time to get through this difficult period.”
[...]
On Wednesday afternoon, McCartney posted a message on his personal Web site, saying he was very upset over suggestions that Mills McCartney had married him for his money. “It’s been suggested that she married me for the money and there is not an ounce of truth in this,” he said in the post. “She is a very generous person who spends most of her time trying to help others in greater need than herself. All the work she does is unpaid, so these stories are ridiculous and completely unfounded. I’m very sad to see that some insensitive people would choose a moment like this to spread these vicious rumors.”
[...]
“Although some of these articles can be funny, there are others that are plain malicious and you need to be strong not to be hurt by some of the cruel suggestions that flow from these peoples pens,” the statement said. “The media sometimes suggests a rift between my kids and Heather, but in fact we get on great and anyone who knows our family can see this for themselves,” McCartney wrote.
Now, I sympathize with his pleas for privacy and avoiding vicious gossip. Still, McCartney has been an international superstar since literally before I was born. And I was born before his wife. It’s not as if the man doesn’t know the territory by now. And he managed to keep his first marriage together for over thirty years, until her sad passing, during the heyday of his fame.
Update: Perez Hilton apparently did not get word to be sensitive to the McCartneys’ feelings. Commenters at US Weekly didn’t, either.
Update: Nor did Don Surber.
Popularity: 21% [?]
A new Beatles album produced by George Martin and overseen by the surviving band members is underway, reports the BBC.
Unreleased Beatles tracks are to be reworked for a Las Vegas circus show soundtrack, with an accompanying album reported to be lined up for release. Producer Sir George Martin is making background music for the forthcoming Cirque du Soleil show by remastering unheard recordings by the band.
Variety says the band’s label Apple Corps plans to release an album of “completely new music” from the show.
Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr are said to be overseeing the project. The families of George Harrison and John Lennon have also been involved.
[...]
Sir George’s son Giles Martin, who is working on the project, told Variety they were trying to “achieve the same intimacy we get when listening to the master tapes at Abbey Road”. “I think we will achieve a real sense of drama with the music,” he said.
“The audience will feel as though they are actually in the room with the band.”
It is quite bizarre that, a quarter century after the band last recorded together, “new” music is being released. If “Free as a Bird” and “Real Love,” the singles unearthed and released as part of the Anthology promotion years back is any indication of the quality of the forthcoming material, I am not impressed.
I don’t blame Martin and the lads from trying to make some more money off the Beatles franchise, though.
via OTB
Popularity: 19% [?]
Country music legend Buck Owens has died at the age of 76.
 Singer Buck Owens, the flashy rhinestone cowboy who shaped the sound of country music with hits like “Act Naturally” and brought the genre to TV on the long-running “Hee Haw,” died Saturday. He was 76. Owens died at his home in Bakersfield, said family spokesman Jim Shaw. The cause of death was not immediately known. Owens had undergone throat cancer surgery in 1993 and was hospitalized with pneumonia in 1997.
His career was one of the most phenomenal in country music, with a string of more than 20 No. 1 records, most released from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s. They were recorded with a honky-tonk twang that came to be known throughout California as the “Bakersfield Sound,” named for the town 100 miles north of Los Angeles that Owens called home. “I think the reason he was so well known and respected by a younger generation of country musicians was because he was an innovator and rebel,” said Shaw, who played keyboards in Owens’ band, the Buckaroos. “He did it out of the Nashville establishment. He had a raw edge.”
Owens, elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1996, was modest when describing his aspirations. “I’d like to be remembered as a guy that came along and did his music, did his best and showed up on time, clean and ready to do the job, wrote a few songs and had a hell of a time,” he said in 1992.
[...]
In addition to music, Owens had a highly visible TV career as co-host of “Hee Haw” from 1969 to 1986. With guitarist Roy Clark, he led viewers through a potpourri of country music and hayseed humor. “It’s an honest show,” Owens told The Associated Press in 1995. “There’s no social message — no crusade. It’s fun and simple.”
From his Hall of Fame bio:
 Singer, songwriter, and guitarist Alvis Edgar Owens Jr. ruled the country music scene for a period in the mid-1960s, producing a clear, twangy, danceable sound that he repeated across dozens of chart-topping singles. Though he would later become a fixture on television through the success of Hee Haw, Owens is best remembered by fans and those younger stars he has influenced for timeless hits like “Act Naturally†(#1, 1963) and “My Heart Skips a Beat†(#1, 1964).
[...]
During a period he spent in the Seattle area in the late fifties, Buck struck up a musical relationship and personal friendship with a young fiddler, Don Rich. Their partnership was crucial in Buck’s career, and Rich stayed with Owens as musician, guitarist, and leader of Buck’s band, the Buckaroos, until his death in 1974.
Owens’s first #1 hit, which began a string of six years in which he had at least one #1 and usually had three, was “Act Naturally†in 1963, later covered by the Beatles. Following this with a series of similar singles with a clear sound that seemed literally to jump out of AM transistor radios, Owens hit the top again and again with songs such as the ballad “Together Again†(#1, 1964), “I’ve Got a Tiger By the Tail†(#1, 1965), “Think of Me†(#1, 1966), and “Sam’s Place (#1, 1967).
Unlike most other artists during the heyday of the Nashville Sound, Owens would virtually always record with his road band, giving his records both a distinctive sound and a live feel. From 1963 to 1967, during the peak of Owens’s commercial and artistic career, Owens and Rich were joined by pedal steel player Tom Brumley, drummer Willie Cantu, and bassist Doyle Holly on all of Owens’s records and on the Buckaroos’ own marginally successful releases on Capitol. While Nelson nominally produced his sessions, Owens would shape and control the band’s sound and songs. These factors, and Owens’s desire to keep the same winning song and arrangement formula, helped to create the conditions for his signature style based upon simple storylines, infectious choruses, twangy electric guitar, an insistent rhythm supplied by a drum track placed forward in the mix, and high two-part harmonies featuring Owens and Rich.
Wikipedia adds,
Rather than using the stolid session musicians most country singers relied on, Owens put together a solid road band and brought it into the studio (the band was eventually named the Buckaroos by a brooding ex-con who played bass in the band for three weeks: Merle Haggard). He did it because he wanted the live show to sound like the records, but the result, happily, was the opposite: the records sounded like a live band. Using what he’d learned about AM radio sound in Washington, Owens mixed his records using tiny speakers so he’d know what they’d sound like in the real world. The guitars fairly shimmered. The vocal harmonies cut like diamonds. If you were listening to the radio, you knew a Buck Owens song in an instant. It jumped right out of the speaker.
Owens was named the most promising country and western singer of 1960 by Billboard, and his top-10 duets with Rose Maddox in 1961 earned them a nod as vocal team of the year in DJ polls. But it was in 1963, after updating his sound again, that Owens’ career went ballistic. He moved away from the traditional country shuffle to a more upbeat, driving style (“…like a freight train coming through your livingroom,” as Buck said) with the single “You’re For Me” in late 1962. A few months later, “Act Naturally” became his first No. 1 hit. It was rock ‘n’ roll with a country feel. The Beatles later covered it without changing much of anything. It crossed over to the pop charts, and it began an astonishing run: for the next four years, every Buck Owens single went to No. 1. Fifteen in a row. At one point, he had a B-side, “My Heart Skips a Beat,” alternating in the top spot with its A-side, “Together Again.” “Love’s Gonna Live Here,” the follow-up to “Act Naturally,” was No. 1 for 16 weeks. He even sent an instrumental — the signature “Buckaroo” — to No. 1. The streak finally ended in October 1967 when his tribute to his fans, “It Takes People Like You (To Make People Like Me),” underachieved, stopping at No. 2. The next single, “How Long Will My Baby Be Gone,” went to No. 1, as did three more songs in 1969.
He played sold-out shows at Carnegie Hall and the London Palladium. In 1968 he played at the White House by special invitation of President Johnson, and he blew away the hippest room in America, the Fillmore West. Creedence Clearwater Revival, the biggest American rock band of the period, listed “listenin’ to Buck Owens” as one of life’s pleasures in “Lookin’ Out My Back Door.” Beginning in 1966 he hosted a syndicated TV show, “Buck Owens’ Ranch,” for six years. He hit on a trademark when he painted his guitar red, white and blue. And he was smart with his money: He ran his own music publishing company and, with his manager, Jack McFadden, a booking agency. He bought radio stations and opened a recording studio in Bakersfield, which country music writers now called “Buckersfield.”
He was no poet. His lyrics were simple and direct, relying more on clever wordplay than deep insight. Merle Haggard had since stepped out of his shadow to become the so-called “bard of the working man” (not to mention marrying Bonnie Owens, who had a few minor hits of her own). George Jones was a far better singer, and even his own boy Don Rich was a better guitarist. Unlike many fellow artists, Owens avoided drugs and drink, living as a quiet family man. But Owens was a rebel at heart doing his music his way, shunning the conventions of Nashville, and fairly owned country in the ’60s.
[...]
In 1969, he agreed to co-host what critics called “a hillbilly version of Laugh-In” with Roy Clark on CBS. Hee Haw started as a special, then it was a summer replacement, and then finally it earned a spot on the schedule. It went to the top of the ratings. Critics said it was ridiculous. But the biggest stars in country music came on, and the show treated the music seriously. CBS canceled it in 1971 in a move away from rural shows, but it went on and on in syndication. A generation, and then another, grew up knowing Buck Owens as the co-host of Hee Haw.
Gary Kaufman had an interesting Owens profile, “The Baron of Bakersfield,” as part of Salon’s Brilliant Careers series in 1999. It begins,
A decade before Waylon and Willie and the boys became revered as “outlaws” for shunning Nashville and basing their careers in Texas, Buck Owens changed country music and became its biggest star from a flat little oil town called Bakersfield, Calif.
He was a rebel without a dark side — a polite, law-abiding, hard-working family man who invested his earnings prudently, stayed away from drugs and drink, preferred working with musicians who did the same and spent 17 years hamming it up as the co-host of the corniest show on TV, “Hee Haw.” But he was a rebel nonetheless, insisting on playing his own music, his own way, with his own band and in his own town at a time when country singers were supposed to go to Music City and sing over sweet, canned backing tracks laid down by session players and string sections. They named the hard, guitar-driven honky-tonk sound that purists still call “real” country after his town, but the Bakersfield Sound is the sound of Buck Owens.
Despite his remarkable influence as a musician, Owens is doubtless best remembered by those under 50 for “Hee Haw.” Both he and his co-host Roy Clark were much better musicians than comedians, but their pickin’ and grinnin’ overshadowed the music on the show.
Update (3/26): The Nashville Tennessean has a long obituary which includes this passage:
Though many knew him primarily for his role on the popular syndicated television series Hee Haw, Mr. Owens’ guffawing presence on that show did not hint at his musical significance. Before Hee Haw’s 1969 premiere, Mr. Owens had redefined the sound of country music. He had already worked in television, giving future superstar Loretta Lynn her first media exposure on KTNT in Tacoma, Wash. He had already brought the snarling, treble-heavy Fender Telecaster guitar to popularity.
He had established Bakersfield as a place where renegade artists made edgy country music that served as the sinewy anti-thesis of the lush, pop-leaning records coming from Nashville in the 1960s. He led his electrifying Buckaroos band to triumphant concerts overseas and at New York’s hallowed Carnegie Hall. He had inspired a British rock group called The Beatles to record a version of Mr. Owens’ hit Act Naturally, and he had done enough to ensure a lasting place in American music.
“I looked at CNN.com today and (the headline) said, ‘Hee Haw Star Buck Owens Dies,’ and it made me mad,” said country musician Brad Paisley, a longtime fan of Mr. Owens who became a friend of the legend’s. “This is a guy who influenced The Beatles. They covered him. He’s one of the most important country artists ever. That headline should say, ‘Music Legend Buck Owens Dies.’”
Quite right. Notice the lead-in to this post?
Others paying their respects: NYT, WaPo, LAT, Reuters, BBC, PunditGuy, Silflay Hraka, Florida Cracker, Lakeshore Laments, Musings of Brandon Jaynes, Panhandle Pundit, donkey o.d., Magpie, Middle Earth Journal, unpartisan
The LAT piece, by Randy Lewis, features this fitting synopsis of Owens’ last night:
“He had come to the club early and had a chicken-fried steak dinner and bragged that it’s his favorite meal,” Shaw said. After dinner, Owens told band members he didn’t feel up to performing and decided to drive home. On his way to his car, fans on their way in told him that they had come from Bend, Ore., and that they were really looking forward to hearing him sing. Owens turned around and did the show. “He mentioned that onstage: ‘If somebody’s come all that way, I’m gonna do the show and give it my best shot. I might groan and squeak, but I’ll see what I can do,’ ” Shaw said. “He died in his sleep — they figure it was about 4:30 [a.m.] — probably of heart failure. So he had his favorite meal, played a show and died in his sleep. We thought, that’s not too bad.”
About all a man could hope for, really.
________
See more Obituaries from the OTB archives
crosspost from OTB
Popularity: 20% [?]
|
|
