Famous

In Almost Famous, the 2000 film inspired by Cameron Crowe’s years as a teenage music journalist, one fictional Seventies rocker warns another about talking to a Rolling Stone reporter. “It’s Rolling Stone,” he says. “The magazine that trashed ‘Layla,’ broke up Cream, ripped every album Led Zeppelin ever made!”

Rolling Stone had, in fact, panned Zeppelin’s first two albums. “The latest of the British blues groups so conceived offers little that its twin, the Jeff Beck Group, didn’t say as well or better three months ago,” wrote John Mendelsohn in the March 15th, 1969, issue of Rolling Stone. “And the excesses of the Beck Group’s Truth album (most notably its self-indulgence and restrictedness) are fully in evidence.”


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There are two places where country hitmaker Josh Turner no doubt feels most at home. One is in the realm of gospel music and the other is the Grand Ole Opry. Turner has been an official Opry member since October 2007 and recently returned to Nashville’s historic Ryman Auditorium, the site of the wintertime Opry at the Ryman performances, to deliver a gospel classic with significant ties to the long-running radio show.

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For the third year in a row, veteran members of various David Bowie’s backing bands are hitting the road to play music from his vast catalog. This year’s incarnation of the A Bowie Celebration tour is lead by Spiders From Mars keyboardist Mile Garson (who played with Bowie from 1972 all the way to his final live appearance in 2006), guitarist Earl Sick, bassist Carmine Rojas, multi-instrumentalist Mark Plati and guitarist Charlie Sexton along with vocalists Bernard Fowler and Corey Glover.

The setlist switches a bit from show to show, but it tends to mix enormous Bowie hits like “Rebel Rebel,” “Fame” and “Ziggy Stardust” with deeper cuts like “Bring Me The Disco King,” “Win” and “Sweet Thing.” Between songs, Garson often tells stories about his long friendship with Bowie. They have been joined by a number of guest vocalists on recent tours, including Perry Farrell, Joe Sumner and Evan Rachel Wood.

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Michel Legrand, composer of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Yentl and The Thomas Crown Affair, died Saturday at the age of 86.

Legrand’s death was first reported by Agence France-Presse. The songwriter’s publicist also confirmed Legrand’s death to Variety, adding that he died early Saturday at his Paris home with his wife, French actress Macha Meril, by his side. His cause of death has not yet been revealed.

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Bethel Woods has announced that Ringo Starr and Santana will lead the original Woodstock site’s 50th anniversary celebration to the legendary 1969 festival. New York’s Bethel Woods Center for the Arts’ half-centennial event – a separate festival from the one being organized by original Woodstock founder Michael Lang in Watkins Glen, New York – will also feature performances by Edgar Winter Band and the Doobie Brothers during August 15th through the 18th, that exact dates of the original festival.



On Thursday, August 15th, Bethel Woods will host a screening of the concert film Woodstock: The Director’s Cut on the field where the festival happened. Starr and the Edgar Winter Band will perform Friday at the venue’s 15,000-person amphitheater, with Santana and Doobie Brothers booked for Saturday. Sunday’s attendees will be announced soon.


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English songwriter Tom Wardle was having a hard time sleeping one night at his friend’s house in Los Angeles, so went outside and stood in the driveway and stared at the Hollywood sign. “I really had no money, but at least the sun was coming out,” he says.

The next day, Wardle went home and wrote “Jacqueline,” a sweet, folksy ballad with gritty vocals that echo Rod Stewart. With lyrics like, “We’re high in the hills / With our head in the clouds,” the song feels like a California dream.

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Barbra Streisand issued a statement Saturday clarifying her controversial comments regarding the two men who accused Michael Jackson of sexual abuse in the documentary Leaving Neverland.

“To be crystal clear, there is no situation or circumstance where it is OK for the innocence of children to be taken advantage of by anyone,” Streisand said Saturday in a statement (via Variety).

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Coming onstage at 10:30 a.m. London time on Saturday, Robert Fripp got right to the point. “I don’t know what your personal aims are for today, but I’ll declare mine,” the guitarist and longtime King Crimson bandleader said. “My primary interest is to introduce King Crimson to innocent ears, that is, to audiences who have never before seen King Crimson live.”

Chances are, very few of the people sitting before him fell into that category. The room — an intimate upstairs space in the October Gallery in Holborn — was filled with around 40 journalists, assembled from all over Europe and North America for a rare public audience with Fripp, one of the few times he’s spoken to the press since 2014, when he came out of effective retirement and started performing with an all-new jumbo-sized King Crimson lineup known as the Seven-Headed Beast. The occasion is the shapeshifting avant-rock outfit’s yearlong 50th anniversary festivities — an upcoming deluxe reissue of their classic 1969 debut In the Court of the Crimson King, a documentary on the band and 50-plus shows worldwide, including appearances huge populist festivals like Rock in Rio — which Fripp hopes will attract the “innocent ears” he’s looking for.




Going in, there was no way of knowing what to expect, especially given Fripp’s avowed distaste for doing press. But despite his stated “personal aims,” the day’s dialogue was surprisingly spontaneous and open-ended. For a guy who’s no great fan of interviews, he’s one hell of a talker.

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To celebrate May the 4th, the annual “Star Wars Day,” the franchise’s long-awaited Galaxy’s Edge theme park opened within Disneyland. The theme park comes with new music created by Star Wars‘ longtime composer John Williams; a portion of that score, “Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge Symphonic Suite,” premiered in full Sunday.

The soaring 5-minute piece, which features elements of Williams’ iconic Star Wars work, was recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra at Abbey Road Studios.

Williams has contributed to the score to all eight “Episodes” in the Star Wars saga – from 1977’s A New Hope to 2017’s The Last Jedi, with the composer stating that his work on the upcoming The Rise of Skywalker will be his last for the Star Wars franchise.

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Madonna has unveiled new song “Future,” which features Migos’ Quavo. It’s the second collaboration the pair have released following “Champagne Rosé,” which appeared on the rapper’s solo debut, Quavo Huncho.



On the reggae-tinged song, the pair look to what is ahead, celebrate the present and also contemplate the past. “Not everyone can come into the future/Not everyone that’s here is gonna last” she sings, in a hopeful tone about shedding any recent negativity. Meanwhile, Quavo reflects on his current status while looking forward to what’s to come. “My life is gold,” he raps. “I drip in ice/I see the signs/Just free your mind/Welcome to the future, it’s a culture ride.”

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