A few weeks later he did an interview with Sirius XM where he acknowledge how ill he really was upon admittance. "I was nearly dead," he said, adding, "They couldn't tell whether the [lung] cancer had returned or whether I just had pneumonia.
"They had to wait until they got the pneumonia under control before we could tell. So it's been kind of a tough couple of weeks, but I've got so many people to thank." Read more here.
Co-chairs Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff said about the musicians nominated, 'The 2016 roster of Songwriters Hall of Fame inductees is a beautiful mosaic of the best of late 20th Century popular music.
"With creators of Rock & Roll, Soul/R&B, Country and Funk/Dance represented, we are looking forward to an unforgettable and extremely exciting event and evening at the Marriott Marquis on June 9th," according to the Songwriters Hall of Fame's website. Read more here.
Since Britney Jean, she's been focused on her Pieces of Me Las Vegas residency, which, coincidentally enough, has provided her with the kind of downtime needed to make a new album because she performs for six weeks and then takes six weeks off.
Britney's schedule has allowed her to concentrate on songwriting, but if a new album seems right around the corner, think again. 'Honestly, I'm just particular with this record. It's my baby, and so I really want it done right," she said.
In terms of a time frame, when does "right" translate into a release date? Britney didn't elaborate, but did add, "I would much rather have it be completely how I want it to be, whether that takes another year for me to do, or two months. I have no idea at this point." Read more here.
'It's time to hang my hat up and enjoy some quiet time at home. I'm so thankful for my fans, my friends and my family for their everlasting love and support," said Williams in a press release.
During his career, Williams earned the title of CMA Male Vocalist of the Year in 1978 and his hit "Tulsa Time" was named Record of the Year by the ACM in 1979. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2010. Read more here.
After performing her Oscar-nominated song (co-written with Diane Warren) "Til It Happens To You," Lady Gaga made her way backstage, where she found a group cheering and applauding her brave moment. Among them stood Grohl. He offered Lady Gaga a cup of beer, which caused her to laugh. The two clinked cups before linking arms to chug their drinks.
Elsewhere in the ceremony, Grohl performed a cover of Beatles' song "Blackbird" for the Oscar's "In Memoriam" tribute. Even if Gaga lost out to Sam Smith's James Bond theme, talk about a way to celebrate a triumphant night. Watch the video here.
She posted on change.org about her daughter's plight. "I have a very sick daughter who has cerebral palsy, epilepsy, can't walk or talk and is tube fed, she has recently became bed bound.
"She listens to Adele from she gets up in the morning until her bedtime. All I am asking for is for Adele to FaceTime wee Rebecca or send her a video message. It would be her dream come true, Please, please help me for my beautiful sick little daughter."
Adele did one better, visiting the little girl in person. Tracy shared a photo of the meeting via Twitter. Check it out here.
His appearance was part of The Muppets season finale, titled "Because�Love," which saw White helping Kermit the Frog with his relationship with Miss Piggy. White also performed the White Stripes' "Fell In Love With A Girl" with Kermit.
The physical and digital 7″ single include White's cover with the Muppets house band on the a-side plus the special TV rendition featuring the Electric Mayhem along with the rest of the Muppets singing along as the b-side. "You Are The Sunshine Of My Life" is available digitally worldwide now via iTunes. The physical vinyl 7″ is available for pre-order via Third Man Records.
Watch White's performance of "You Are the Sunshine of My Life" here.
Wiz posted the pair chilling in the studio with little to no explanation. Many assumed they were working on new music because an unknown song is playing in the background of the snap.
Gomez can be seen blowing a kiss to the camera while the song plays and Wiz chills out. Khalifa later said on Twitter the song in the background was part of his next project, which is slated to be Rolling Papers 2. According to MTV News, the snap originally held the caption, "Collab coming soon." but was edited later. Read more here.
First, the album underwent a makeover: from Moonlight to Dangerous Woman. Grande provided insight about the Egyptian feminist thinker who inspired the title, and said the song of that name was too good not to make the title track.
Then, Grande began teasing what appeared to be song lyrics on Twitter, building anticipation for her followup to My Everything. Check out the teaser clip here.
Houser says the directors of the video, Dustin Rikert and William Shockley, previously cast him in a film, 2012's Ambush at Dark Canyon. They also directed his "Like a Cowboy" video, and "We Went" is their latest collaboration.
"They came up with a concept; the lyric kind of led us there fairly easily. We shot the video out in Tucson, Arizona. The whole sheriff's department in Cochise Country came out and did the chase scenes with us, and it was really cool. So we got a lot of things done for a small budget, it was cool."
Of the song, Houser says: "One of the writers of the song, Justin Wilson, had played it for our record label president, Benny Brown. I think Benny immediately heard it for me. And they sent it to me, and I loved it. I thought it was something that was, for me, very unique and not quite as traditional as I normally would've gone. So it was one of those songs that kind of struck a chord with me, and it seemed like it would be fun for our live performances. I knew it'd make a great video." Read more here.
(Fuse ODG won a Ghana Music Awards in 2013 for Antenna (featuring Wyclef Jean) and is the first Ghanaian musician in history, in 2013, to reach the number one spot on the iTunes World Chart)
Pilling says, 'Because Fuse's family is from Ghana, we thought it would bring a really interesting aesthetic to film the video there. Delving deeper into Ghanaian culture, we found that their traditional funeral ceremonies perfectly exemplify this sense of coming together to rise up against sadness. The whole community joins together, first in mourning the death, then in celebrating the life that was lived. We worked closely with a Ghanaian family and village, meeting the elders and receiving their blessing to film a real funeral ceremony."
A tour was also announced starting with a free show, presented by the Musicabana Foundation and the government of Cuba, on March 6. Major Lazer will become one of the first major American artists to play the country since diplomatic ties were restored between the U.S. and Cuba. Watch the video and see the tour dates here.
Bryan Adams has been recording hits for four decades now, rekindling his famous songwriting partnership with Jim Vallance and recruiting ELO mastermind and producer Jeff Lynne to record some of the strongest songs Bryan has released in years. Bryan tells InTheStudio host Redbeard, "The idea wasn't really ever to make an album though (with Jeff Lynne). It was really just to do a song or two and see how it goes and have fun."
Along with the warm close-mic'ed Jeff Lynne production on Bryan's catchy "That's Rock and Roll", "Go Down Rockin'", the celebratory song "Brand New Day", the Beatlesque "Don't Even Try", and the melancholy "Yesterday Is Just A Dream", Bryan shares the back story of who he was channeling for the vocal performance on " We Did It All".
"I was thinking about Freddie Mercury. I was thinking about how when Freddie sang he was always so emotive and he was always convincing." - Bryan Adams
Get Up, Bryan's 13th album, may be thirty-five plus years into his recording career, but as he tells InTheStudio host Redbeard, it's as vital to him as the day he started making music.
Adams says, "I have the same exuberance and enthusiasm for writing music now as I ever have. I don't know if I write the same songs as I used to write. I think these stand up, and the true test of it is playing it live. These songs feel like they've been in the set already for along time." Stream the episode here.
Jadakiss and Fab working together is nothing new. The pair have recorded plenty of songs together including "Respect It," "B.E.T.," and "The Hope." They've also contributed verses to other artists tracks like Young Jeezy's "OJ" and Troy Ave's Do Me No Favors."
The versus theme has been done before. Lil Wayne and Drake did a Street Fighter-themed tour called Lil Wayne Vs. Drake where at the end fans voted on who had the better set of the evening. What makes Fab and Jada's forthcoming mixtape interesting is the speculated horror theme suggested by the title. Read more here.
The project will include cover songs from Hamilton as well as original material inspired by the musical. The tape is a collaborative project between Hamilton star and writer Lin-Maunel Miranda and Questlove of The Roots.
Miranda tells Variety his idea on doing the mixtape originated before the actual play, "To me, Hamilton was a hip-hop artist. He used his words to get everywhere. He also ruined his life using those verbal abilities. I thought of this as a concept album like Jesus Christ Superstar; that was an album before it was staged as a show. I wanted to write really dense, fun lyrics like my favorite hip-hop artists did." Read more here.
Lupe raps about a self-absorbed woman who doesn't realize she's "killing herself." The rhymer plays the position of the woman's potential suitor who is intimidated by her and therefore overcompensates.
"Bone" is the precursor for more music from Lupe. He plans to release three albums this year. They are titled Drogas, Skulls, and Roy. The release date for the projects are unknown at this time. Check out "Bone" here.
Kenan Thompson (now of Saturday Night Live) and Kel Mitchell made quite the dynamic duo back in the late 90's/early 2000's. They starred in Nickelodeon's Kenan & Kel as well as All That and in the movie Good Burger.
Kel addressed the reunion question on the Brown and Scoop podcast on CBS Radio's Play.it. 'Me and Kenan have definitely been talking about it, so you might definitely see something coming up with me and him soon," Mitchell said.
Will it be a movie in the works? 'Yeah, well I can't talk about it right now'but yeah, definitely. We definitely have been talking about doing something big for the fans, because everybody has been looking for it. They want us back together, so we're like yeah we got to do something." Listen to the interview here.
Mike Epps also stars. Producer and writer Cynthia Mort not only served as the film's writer, but its director as well. Nina has had its fair share of production issues. Mary J. Blige was once attached to the project, but she dropped out due to scheduling conflicts.
Saldana took over the lead, but drew criticism, especially from Simone's daughter Simone Kelly (via Entertainment Weekly). People were upset that the petite Saldana didn't sing, and that her skin differed from Simone's darker complexion.
Nina hits theaters April 22nd. Watch the trailer here.
Prince will be bringing his intimate Piano & A Microphone Tour to Oracle Arena in Oakland, CA Friday. The 20,000-capacity venue is home to current NBA champions, the Golden State Warriors.
He has intimated in his Twitter post that the first hour will be dedicating to showing off his basketball skills. The performance features Prince just on his piano showcasing his past and recent hits. See the tweet here.
On February 27th, (Cam's last night on Paisley's Crushin' It tour), Paslay surprised the headliner by impersonating Cam during their duet "Whiskey Lullabye."
Paslay wore a curly blonde wig, yellow cardigan and hair bow, and walked on onstage to a surprised-but not entirely flummoxed-Paisley to lip sync the first verse. Paisley smirked and turned his back to the audience, presumably to hide his laughter.
Wearing in a yellow dress that matched the color of Paslay's cardigan, Cam eventually came out for the second verse. Watch it here.
This is me talking about "The Train Song", a song off of our latest album about (you guessed it) trains! The headline for this could be called, "Trains: Can't Stop, Won't Stop". Or "I Think I Can, I Think I Can." Or perhaps "Back On Track: Kicking Your Coal Addiction". For now, we'll go with the following because its also fitting and doubles as an introduction... "All Aboard, Kids, There Are Yuppies To Rob!"
Trains. Everybody loves them. I love them. You love them. Your late grandfather loved them. Or was that my late grandfather? Perhaps he was conceived on a train? Or was it this song that was conceived on a train? You know, I get a lot of things mixed up from time to time (get that from my grandfather) but one thing that can definitely be agreed upon: we're all loco for locomotives.
I knew I wanted to write a train song, long ago. I started writing it before releasing our first album, but there just wasn't enough room for it. I'm glad, too, because of how much it has evolved in a good way since then. The steel shop where I worked was nestled in a dank crumbly brick room of an old woolen mill that had shut down years prior and been recovered and turned into barely rentable (or legal) workspace. Every couple of hours the train (the one that used to deliver to this mill before it shut down and now just carried typical freight) would roll by, sounding its warning blasts that clearly exclaimed, "Get out of the way or don't - I'm not stopping." A train's attitude is fierce and powerful. They're the pioneers of Can't stop Won't Stop. True as it is, I tend to relate to this attitude. The Little Engine That Could taught us how to believe in ourselves. Thomas the Tank Engine taught us to trust ourselves and be headstrong. And the Wild West Lego sets told us that robbing trains could be fun! Which brings me to the lyrics...
The lyrics mean several things to me. The song invites you right on board a train that just so happens to be the target of a robbery, by a notorious group of outlaws. This gang includes: Dynamite Davey, Geronimo Joe, Sam I Is, and Harry the Hurricane. None of them are historical, per se, but all of them are very real. The song is a call to arms, to get the led out and get your can on board because you're either kissing ass or kicking ass and there's no time for dilly-dalliers! The chorus is as follows: "nowhere to go, nowhere to stay, you need a home to run away. Always going, always leaving, whistle blowing, engine steaming." If you don't have a home, you're not really running away or leaving, are you? You're just in constant, crazy motion. Or constant, loco-motion...
Oh man, I almost just thought of another possible title for this blog. But I think I lost my train of thought... I digress! Check out the track, climb aboard with us, and let off some steam. Just be sure to leave your pearls and pocket watches at the station. And enjoy the ride!
Choo-Choo, Travelers. -Zach
Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen for yourself here and learn more about the album right here!
McBride had this to say about the song, "I was immediately drawn to this song. It's really a song expressing gratitude to someone who is willing to reach out and see the best in you and loves you unconditionally.
"I feel like its universal and that most everyone has someone who believed in them and maybe even pulled them through a hard time. I've heard people say it reminds them of their relationship with their mom or sister or counselor." Stream the song here.
The Judd Apatow-produced film is a mockumentary based on music films like Justin Bieber's Never Say Never and Katy Perry's Part of Me. It will be released through Universal Pictures on June 3rd.
Samberg explained his character's a rapper named Connor4Real who's last album was a flop. Trying to fight off self-doubt and regain in his place in the limelight, he decides to reunite with his former boy band. Read more here.
"The Essence Festival is back in New Orleans with an extraordinary roster of the biggest names and best performers in entertainment--from global music icons to the industry's rising stars," said ESSENCE President Michelle Ebanks.
"We are welcoming Mariah Carey, Kendrick Lamar and Maxwell to headline the Superdome main stage. In addition, we will be embracing newcomers like Leon Bridges, Jeremih, Lion Babe, Dej Loaf and The Internet, as well as fan favorite Charlie Wilson for the ultimate cultural experience in New Orleans this July 4th weekend." Read more here.
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