Elton John is celebrating his 60th birthday (which is on March 25th) by playing a record-extending 60th show at New York's storied NBC Universal and News Corp. (the parent company of Fox TV) have joined forces to set up a network for sharing video clips, TV shows, and movies online as a direct assault on the growing prominence of Google’s YouTube. The network will utilize the already extant sites of partners Yahoo, AOL, and Microsoft’s MSN as well as News Corp.’s MySpace to deliver their offerings (which will include TV shows such as Heroes, House, and 24 owned by the two principals.) The network is supposed to be up and running sometime this summer.
All of these are among the 115 experiences (you can hang out with Martha Stewart!) and items (a Tina Turner dress or a shirt signed by Robert Redford) up for bid at the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Auction running between now and April 6th on the Charitybuzz site.
You will, of course, need deep pockets: as of this writing, the least expensive thing up for bid is a CD signed by the Indigo Girls ($75…plus $15 shipping and handling); breakfast or tea with former Federal Reserve honcho Alan Greenspan and his wife NBC reporter Andrea Mitchell, on the other hand, is going for a whopping $45,000 as this hits the blog.
Apparently Amy Winehouse is something of a hellraiser…something she addresses head on with this disc’s cheeky opening track, the propulsive, gospel-tinged “Rehab”, and on the wittily self-deprecating “You Know I’m No Good” (which is featured in two versions, the second featuring a frenetic rap interlude by Ghostface Killah)…but I don't know (or care) anything about that.
What matters to me is that Back to Black is a grand, old school soul album with Winehouse’s smoky, sultry, gruff, whiskey-stained voice delivering heartfelt, soulful, confessional, occasionally profane lyrics with devastating authenticity. The musical backing is tight, bluesy retro-soul with tasty, quite effective, use of horns, strings, and backing vocals.
You listen and you can hear echoes of those who have gone before her…Billie Holiday, Ronnie Spector, Millie Jackson, Nancy Wilson, Dusty Springfield…but Winehouse is no mimic, she is the real deal…a honest-to-Aretha soul singer who delivers her songs with both restraint and aplomb; she knows that the heart of the music is in feeling and getting across the words and not in the showy, pointless runs, stretched-out syllables, and theatrical yelps that too many pop singers lazily substitute for real emotional content in their songs.
Winehouse also knows how to get in there, deliver the soulful goods, and get out without overstaying her welcome…only 2 of the 11 tracks (the rock solid groove of the horn-driven, rap-free version of “You Know I’m No Good” and the majestically-plaintive title song, which kind of sounds like a lost track that Phil Spector might have produced for Darlene Love back in the day) clock in at 4 minutes or more; 4 tracks come in at under 3 minutes.
From the bittersweet blues of “Love is a Losing Game” to the neo-Motown swing of “Tears Dry on Their Own”…from the lilting reggae groove of “Just Friends” to the sweet soulful strut of “He Can Only Hold Her”…Winehouse never makes a misstep. Black to Black is a wondrous collection of tart, uncompromising soul music from beginning to end.
Amy Winehouse's MySpace is here
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More MKW Blogstuff: Bread & Roses
The discs released by the 5th season American Idol contestants have been a mixed bag thus far: Taylor Hicks’ eponymous CD was okay but not especially remarkable and (despite a favorable initial reaction on my part) Katherine McPhee’s collection didn’t hold up on repeated listenings; Chris Daughtry’s record, on the other hand, does easily bear up to repeated plays.
And then there’s the scrappy R&B crooner Elliott Yamin. Elliott Yamin sounds like a lost soul album (complete with tasty mid-tempo grooves, smartly arranged backing vocals, and a prominent role for the keyboards) from the 70’s…from the hitmaking heydays of Yamin’s idols Stevie Wonder and Donny Hathaway…and that’s, for the most part, a very fine thing.
Yamin is in fine, confident voice throughout this disc and the best tracks…the percolating opener “Movin’ On”, the hopeful “Find a Way” (which slyly quotes Stevie Wonder’s “Heaven Help Us All”), the shimmering self-affirmation/pledge of devotion “I’m the Man”, the dance floor ready “Alright” (complete with the kind of rhythmic handclaps that would make Quincy Jones proud)…soar and delight.
Even on the songs that are lyrically awkward…and there are a few here (some over-written, trying to cram too many lyrics in; some under-written, with goopy sentiments that could have used rewrites)…Yamin works like a champ to try to sell them; he doesn’t always succeed but the sincere effort is definitely appreciated.
The closer, the oft-covered “A Song for You”, features just Yamin’s yearning vocal and a piano and it’s an affecting and undeniably soulful finish to the record.
Elliott Yamin is not a perfect CD…but there’s enough to the good here to make it a fine R&B album that hints at even greater things to come from the irrepressible Mr. Yamin.
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More MKW blogstuff: Bread & Roses
Mercy, mercy, mercy…2 discs, 50 astonishing tracks, more pure funk and soul than should be allowed in one place…Stax: the 50th Anniversary Celebration is a wondrous overview of the soul music juggernaut that was Stax Records in the 60’s and 70’s.
Back in the day Motown was largely uptown, polished, and pop-oriented, Stax was downtown, raw, funky, and pure rhythm and blues. This collection…which kicks off with Carla Thomas’ sublime “Gee Whiz”…is a fine, fine introduction to the Stax musical treasure trove.
All of the greatest stars from the Stax/Volt family are represented here: the incomparable Otis Redding (“I’ve Been Loving You Too Long”, the original “Respect”, “Tramp” [a duet with Carla Thomas], and the immortal “Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay”), the mighty Staple Singers (“Respect Yourself”, “I’ll Take You There”, “If You’re Ready, Come Go with Me”), Isaac Hayes (the undeniably soulful remakes of “Walk on By” and Never Can Say Goodbye” and, of course, the eternally funky “Theme from Shaft”), Sam & Dave (“Soul Man”, “Hold On I’m Comin’”, “You Don’t Know Like I Know”), Johnnie Taylor (the raucous “Who’s Makin’ Love”, the silky “Cheaper to Keep Her”, “Jody’s Got Your Girl and Gone”), the aforementioned Carla Thomas (“B-A-B-Y”, “Let Me Be Good to You”, “I Like What You’re Doing to Me”), Carla’s Dad Rufus Thomas (“Walkin’ the Dog”, “Do the Funky Chicken”) and the amazing Stax house band Booker T. & the M.G.’s (“Green Onions”, “Soul Limbo”, “Time is Tight”.)
And the golden soul flows from even the lesser-known artists like the Dramatics (the irresistible “What You See is What You Get” and the plaintive “In the Rain”), Jean Knight (a one-hit wonder with the grand “Mr. Big Stuff”), the underappreciated Soul Children (“Hearsay”, “I’ll Be the Other Woman”), Linda Lyndell (the original…and superior…version of “What a Man”, a song that was later turned into a big hit by Salt-n-Pepa and En Vogue), William Bell (“You Don’t Miss Your Water” ,“I Forgot to Be Your Lover”, which was remade years later by Billy Idol), Eddie Floyd (“Knock on Wood”), and Mel & Tim (“Starting All Over Again”, later taken back onto the charts by Hall & Oates.)
Throw in some Albert King (the fiery “Born Under a Bad Sign”) and Little Milton (“That’s What Love Will Make You Do”) and the Bar-Kays (“Son of Shaft”), among others and you’ve got yourself some glorious listening.
The 4-disc Stax Story (which came out in 2000) is, of course, more comprehensive but, as I said earlier, Stax: the 50th Anniversary Celebration, is a grand overview for those who want to enjoy this sweet soul music at a economic price (as of this writing, Amazon.com lists the 2-disc set at only $11.99.)
The force is apparently with the Post Office as they are about to debut mailboxes (400 of them altogether) redesigned to look like feisty droid R2-D2 as part of a promotion for a new Star Wars stamp. The official announcement of the stamp is scheduled for March 28th. (I will refrain from any jokes about mail put in these boxes ending up in a galaxy far, far away from where it was supposed to be delivered…)
Academy Award winner Cate Blanchett is apparently signing on to join Harrison Ford in the fourth Indiana Jones movie. The film, which will be directed by Steven Spielberg and produced by George Lucas, is scheduled to be released on
And this just in: Despite any Wikipedia articles to the contrary, actor/comedian Sinbad is still not dead.
I really like Jeff Goldblum…his rambling, ramshackle charm is apparent in everything he appears in…and so I really wanted to like Raines (which debuted on NBC this week in ER’s Thursday night timeslot)…but, alas, I did not.
Goldblum’s distinctive mannerisms are in full effect…if muted due to the character’s tragic past and seemingly fragile grip on his sanity…but despite his best efforts this show is a plodding, predictable police detective procedural with the added bit of business being Detective Michael Raines’ penchant for interacting with hallucinations of the victims of the murders he’s investigating (they go out of their way to make sure we understand that they are indeed hallucinations…figments of Raines’ imagination…and not ghosts.)
The conceit is too precious by half and, sadly, it’s about the only interesting part of the show. The supporting cast is filled with cop show clichés (the gruff boss with the hidden heart of gold, the beautiful tech geek, etc.) and the twist at the end of the pilot concerning Raines’ injured ex-partner (the remarkable Malik Yoba in a fine turn) was easy to peg from the first time he appeared.
I’m glad to see Goldblum get a regular gig I just wish it was something more worthy of his talents.
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More MKW Blogstuff: Bread and Roses
And then there were 11.
With Sanjaya being protected from on high for the time being (some are blaming young female American Idol fans besotted with young Mr. Malakar’s “cuteness” factor…some are blaming the impish snarky [and increasingly infamous] “Vote for the Worst” site which has adopted him as their candidate to push as far through the competition as possible), the fact that Brandon Rogers (above) was the first ejected from the top 12 wasn’t really a surprise (it certainly didn’t help that some of Brandon’s performances have had a tepid wedding singer quality to them and that he stumbled over the lyrics of “You Can’t Hurry Love”…)
Because of that the results show was anti-climatic…and not very entertaining (the opening group number was a big hunk of badly choreographed cheese…the contestants' Ford commercial was odd…and Diana Ross’ performance of “More Today Than Yesterday” was, in AI speak, “pitchy” and, “if I’m being honest”, more than a bit “cabaret”.)
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In other “news”, Paula Abdul swears that Simon Cowell is a “really good friend” and that during the show Cowell is like a bratty brother always doing things to try to throw her off. Between that and the “nod, nod, wink, wink, come out of the closet” on-air banter between Cowell and Ryan Seacrest on Wednesday’s show (dutifully rebroadcast at the top of Thursday’s show) I guess it must be one big lovefest there on the AI set.
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Chris Sligh, AI’s favorite (well except apparently when he’s trying to run a Diana Ross song through an ill-fitting Coldplay filter) rockin’ moptop, has a CD out already. Take a Chance on Something Beautiful is by Half Past Forever, a rockin’ band featuring Sligh as lead singer and songwriter. Samples are available on the HPF website (see here) and it’s available on Amazon.
FX is arguably the go-to channel for edgy (lots of letters…L, S, V, M…in its onscreen parental advisory) drama on basic cable…be they good (The Shield, Rescue Me, the better episodes of Nip/Tuck) or not so good (the woeful Dirt, the other episodes of Nip/Tuck)…and The Riches, the new series that debuted on the channel this week, certainly fits in on that basis.
If you can go along with the preposterous premise…a family of "Travelers" (roaming con-artists who supposedly traverse the country running scams on “buffers” [the derogatory term they use for non-Travelers]) end up taking over the mansion…and the lives…of an affluent couple (whose surname is Rich) whose deaths they accidentally caused…there is some enjoyment to be found in this show. But that’s a big “if”.
The notion that the dead people…who were strapped into their car and sunk into a swamp…wouldn’t have people who would miss them and find it strange that another family was living in their new house (the dead couple were conveniently moving into a new mansion that they bought on the internet so neither their neighbors nor their realtor had ever met them) and using their names stretches credibility (though one presumes that will addressed as the series…which has a 13-episode first run…continues.)
Minnie Driver is ferociously engaging as the mother of the clan, newly released from prison and hooked on drugs. Eddie Izzard is more subdued, but effective nonetheless, in his role as the ambitious, crafty, slightly sadsack father (who instigates the move into the new situation by stealing money from their fellow Travelers and then taking the personal papers and wallets of the dead couple and letting them lead them to the mansion.)
The other characters…the three children (the oldest son is sullen, the daughter has mommy issues, the youngest son is, for unexplained reasons, fond of wearing female clothes), the other Travelers, the new neighbors…are all sketched out in broad strokes in the pilot (something else that one presumes will be addressed as it goes along.)
I have my doubts that this setup lends itself well to an ongoing show…the previews for upcoming episodes in the series show it trying to be a family drama, a con artist farce, a soap opera, a fish out of water tale, and a crime caper all at once and I don’t think, Driver and Izzard notwithstanding, that it can pull all of that off. If they can, The Riches could turn into an interesting show.
But that’s a big “if”.
…you say it’s your birthday,
it’s my birthday too, yeah!...
Today (Tuesday March 13th) is my birthday…yay! I still love my birthdays!...and it’s also the birthday of one of my favorite actors William H. Macy (above with his wife Felicity Huffman) as well as the birthdays of U2’s bassist Adam Clayton, singer/songwriter/pop icon Neil Sedaka and actresses Deborah Raffin, Dana Delany, and Annabeth Gish.
Happy birthday to all of us happy Pisces people! :-)
We come not to bury Captain
The media went nuts for a bit (they’ve since moved on.) Speculators are already charging insanely-inflated prices on eBay (buyers being perhaps a bit foolish since Marvel overprinted the issue in question…Captain America #25…and savvy comic book shops should have a new supply next week...hopefully at or near cover price. Baring that Marvel has announced a second printing that will be out at the end of the month...which, as I think of it, will only make the speculators even more happy. In any case, comics hoarded this way will not be a viable longterm "investment" since the supply will end up far outstripping the demand in the long run...especially once the storyline has run its course.)
Personally I’ve been to this particular rodeo too many times to take it at all that seriously.
I've been a comic book fan long enough to know that the death of Captain America is not a permanent thing (unlike here in the real world, death in comics…like death on soap operas…is a decidedly transitional thing…”dead” characters regularly return to “life”…Superman, for example, “died” in similar burst of publicity and he’s back fighting the “never-ending battle for truth, justice, and the American way” and living happily with his wife Lois Lane…and comic book fans, being the avid “suspension of belief” folks that we are, gripe at bit and then go with the flow.)
The stunt generated momentary media buzz (with outlets as diverse as the venerable New York Times and the aforementioned Colbert Report taking note) and kudos to the folks at Marvel Comics for that. Me, I just hope that there are some interesting stories coming out of all of this.
And Captain
So rest in peace, Cap…and we’ll see you later, dude.
And then there were 12. Antonella Barba is out, Sanjaya Malakar is in…Sundance is out (started out strong in the prelims but went off the rails during Hollywood week and never really completely righted himself), Jordin is in (too bubbly and cute…in a precociously Amazonian way [it’s admittedly petty but I love the way she makes Seacrest look so small]…to not make the cut.)
Melinda Doolittle, Stephanie Edwards, Gina Glocksen, Lakisha Jones, Blake Lewis, Sanjaya Malakar, Chris Richardson, Brandon Rogers, Haley Scarnato, Chris Sligh, Jordin Sparks, Phil Stacey…in a few weeks time one of these folks will be “your American Idol!”
Yes, as a group the women in the top 24 pretty much smoked the men during the semi-final rounds but that doesn’t necessarily assure a female winner. There’s a certain rhythm to American Idol seasons: at some point there will be a “shocking!” elimination (maybe Lakisha) and, of course, there will be somebody who skates through for a while even though the online buzz will be full of complaints about how much they don’t deserve to be there (um…maybe Sanjaya this year?)
Who’s gonna win? I don’t know…I’m rubbish at predicting this thing at this point in the competition. I like Melinda, LaKisha, Stephanie, Chris S., and Blake but I don’t have really horse in the race (I stopped voting two seasons ago.)
Game on, kids…and hey good luck with Miss Ross next week :-)
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has released their ranking of the "Definitive 200"…200 albums that, according to them, “every music lover should own.”
Their Top 10:
1) Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band – The Beatles (1967)
2) Dark Side of the Moon – Pink Floyd (1973)
3) Thriller – Michael Jackson (1982)
4) Led Zeppelin IV – Led Zeppelin (1971)
5) The Joshua Tree – U2 (1987)
6) Exile on
7) Tapestry – Carole King (1971)
8) Highway 61 Revisited – Bob Dylan (1965)
9) Pet Sounds – The Beach Boys (1966)
10)Nevermind – Nirvana (1996)
The Beatles placed 4 other albums on the list: Abbey Road (#12), The Beatles (aka The White Album - #39), Revolver (#42), and Rubber Soul (#110) along with 1 solo album each by John Lennon (Imagine at #144), Paul McCartney & Wings (Band on the Run at #182), and George Harrison (All Things Must Pass at #69).
8 country albums made the cut, including 3 by the Dixie Chicks (Wide Open Spaces, Home, and Fly), two by Willie Nelson, and 1 each by Johnny Cash, Shania Twain, and Faith Hill.
17 rap albums are included led by 3 from Jay-Z, 2 each from Eminem and 2Pac and discs by Dr. Dre, the Beastie Boys, Public Enemy, Will Smith, Nas, the Notorious B.I.G., 50 Cent, Nelly, LL Cool J, and NWA.
The 4 jazz albums to make the list were: Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue (#34), John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme (#78), Dave Brubeck’s Time Out (#150), and George Benson’s Breezin’ (#177).
The oldest album on the list is 1954’s In the Wee Small Hours by Frank Sinatra. The newest discs (4 of them) came out in 2004 (including Green Day’s American Idiot and Usher’s Confessions.)
It’s an eclectic and…interesting…list. Not interesting enough to get me to buy Celine Dion’s Falling into You (#97) or Kenny G’s Breathless (#107) but interesting just the same.
Is there nothing that Samuel L. Jackson can’t do? (Well okay, he couldn’t get tons of folks to buy tickets to see Snakes on a Plane but we’ll cut the brother some slack on that one…there was no way the finished movie was going to live up to the internet hype…)
Here on the soundtrack to Black Snake Moan (I haven’t seen the movie myself…looks like a “wait for Netflix” picture for me) our man Sam holds his own as blues singer (I’m not saying he should quit his day job…dude’s no Muddy Waters or anything…but he acquits himself better than some other actors who decided they needed to be singers…and yes I’m looking at you Bruce Willis, Eddie Murphy, Don Johnson, Russell Crowe, Steven Seagal, and too many others to go into here…)
This soundtrack is a rough and tumble, down and dirty journey through the delta blues in many of its myriad incarnations: thick swampy rock and roll (The Black Keys’ muscular “When the Lights Go Out”, the slow lope of John Doe’s “The Losing Kind”), down home tales of woe and redemption told with rough hewn vocal and simple but effective chord progressions (Jessie Mae Hemphill’s quietly-wrenching “Standing in my Doorway Crying”, Bobby Rush’s randy tribute to his woman and her cooking “Chicken Heads”), and country folk blues (Precious Bryant’s wistful “Morning Train”).
Not everything works…Outrageous Cherry’s sonic attack on “Lord Have Mercy on Me” is powerful but the vocals don’t have the soulful heft of the blues and so the tune ends up sounding tepid despite the big tangle of aggressive electric guitars.
Scott B. Bomar’s short instrumental interludes interspersed throughout the disc all ring with authentic blues flavor as, of course, do the two brief spoken word tributes to the blues by Son House.
The CD ends with bluesmen old and young: the late, great R.L. Burnside bringing soulful gravitas to “Old Black Mattie” and the North Mississippi Allstars bringing the proceedings to a rocking, engaging conclusion with “Mean Ol’ Wind Died Down”.
Black Snake Moan probably won’t bring delta blues into the musical mainstream but it is a very tasty sampler just the same.
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More MKW Blogstuff: Bread and Roses
Amid rumors of a possible
The first, a VIP party scheduled for Thursday, will feature guests…who have to pony up $3,500 each…mingling with Jacko and, according to the organizers of the shindig, getting “thirty seconds to one minute” of exclusive face time with MJ (be still, my heart.)
The next day
No word on how much of the dough from the VIP party is going to
Vincent (“Big Pussy” from The Sopranos) Pastore has pulled out of Dancing with the Stars. The 60-year-old actor was overwhelmed by the physical demands of learning the dances after a week of practice and elected to withdraw and allow someone else to participate (Vincent should have called Master P before agreeing to do the show…he would have given him the “411” on how hard it was.) ABC will announce his replacement shortly.
Announcing his gubernatorial on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno worked for
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Fox’s lawyers have made former American Idol contestant Matt Buckstein stop calling his online Idol shadow performances (see story here) “The Lost Idol.” Buckstein soldiers on having changed the name of his endeavor to “The Lost Country Singer”.
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More MKW Blogstuff: Bread and Roses
