Arkansas-born showman – known as ‘The Hawk’ – cut his teeth on the South’s tough 50s circuit but settled in Canada where he nurtured local talent
Ronnie Hawkins, the Arkansas-born rock’n’roll legend who mentored the young Canadian and American musicians later known as the Band, has died.
Hawkins, described in tributes as the most important rock’n’roller in Canadian history, died at the age of 87 after an illness, his wife, Wanda, said on Sunday.
Continue reading...Children’s author says she told her elderly mother to get rid of it as she was terrified of being mistakenly shot
The children’s author Dame Jacqueline Wilson has said her elderly mother slept with a gun beneath her pillow.
Wilson, creator of the Tracy Beaker series, told an audience at the Hay festival in Wales that she was daughter of a character more colourful than any she had written – and that she was terrified her mother might shoot her by accident, and persuaded her to get rid of it.
Continue reading...Brick Lane author says fear of winning Bad Sex award loomed over writing of latest book, Love Marriage
The Brick Lane author Monica Ali has said she was “terrified” to write the sex scenes in her most recent novel, Love Marriage, with the fear of being nominated for the Bad Sex awards looming over her as she wrote.
In an event at the Hay festival in Wales, the 54-year-old writer told the audience: “There’s all sorts of pitfalls to writing sex scenes – you might end up using words like ‘throbbing’, ‘thrusting’, ‘member’”.
Continue reading...Open letter signed by more than 100 actors and public figures urges end to entertainment industry’s ‘entrenched’ ageism
Actors including Juliet Stevenson, Meera Syal, David Tennant and Zawe Ashton have called for better onscreen representation of women older than 45 to fight against the “entrenched” ageism of the entertainment industry.
In an open letter signed by more than 100 actors and public figures, the Acting Your Age Campaign (AYAC) called for equal representation in the UK between men and women over 45 and urged immediate action on a “parity pledge”.
Continue reading...Royalties company PRS for Music has announced a major funding cut for its charitable arm. Artists such as Black Country, New Road explain why it could damage the UK music scene
One of the UK’s biggest funders of new and emerging music, responsible for fostering the careers of artists including Sam Fender, Little Simz and 2021 Mercury prize winner Arlo Parks, has this week seen its budget slashed by 60%.
The PRS Foundation, which funds hundreds of aspiring artists and music organisations across the country – including a number of artists from groups underrepresented in the music industry – announced on Wednesday that its income would be cut from £2.75m to £1m from 2024 onwards, citing financial necessity. The decision was taken by its parent company and primary funder PRS for Music, which collects royalties for musicians when their music is streamed or played in public.
Continue reading...Page and Deacon both won the Red Ochre prizes at the 2022 First Nations Arts awards on Friday night for their life work
Last year, choreographer, dancer and director Stephen Page announced that he was stepping down as artistic director of Bangarra Dance Theatre, after 31 years in the job. On Friday night, Page was named the recipient of a $50,000 lifetime achievement award, at the Australia Council’s First Nations Arts awards – and it could not have come at a more opportune moment.
The descendant of the Nunukul people and the Mununjali clan of the Yugambeh nation in south-east Queensland, Page has created more than two dozen works for Bangarra over the past three decades and won many accolades, including being named an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO). Now, it is time to take a break.
Continue reading...Netflix spokesperson says season four’s ‘opening scene is very graphic’, which will include warning of violence towards children when it launches on Friday
Netflix has added a last-minute content warning to the opening episode of the latest season of Stranger Things, in wake of the school shooting in Texas that left 21 people dead, including 19 children.
The first episode of the show’s fourth season will premiere worldwide on Friday, just days after the mass shooting at Robb elementary school in Uvalde. The season reportedly opens with a telekinetic massacre that includes the depiction of several dead children covered in blood.
Continue reading...Gabrielle Chanel. Fashion Manifesto will display 180 designs, jewellery, accessories and perfumes
The V&A is to host the first ever exhibition in a major UK museum on the work of Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel, covering the career of the French designer from the opening of her first millinery boutique in Paris in 1910 to the showing of her final collection in 1971.
The London museum’s exhibition, Gabrielle Chanel. Fashion Manifesto, will display 180 designs as well as jewellery, accessories and perfume, and outfits created for Lauren Bacall and Marlene Dietrich.
Continue reading...Pioneering British electronic band confirm his death on social media, saying ‘Fletch had a true heart of gold’
Andrew Fletcher, keyboardist and founding member of British electronic band Depeche Mode, has died aged 60. A statement issued by the band on social media said: “We are shocked and filled with overwhelming sadness with the untimely passing of our dear friend, family member, and bandmate Andy ‘Fletch’ Fletcher.”
Formed in Basildon in the late 1970s, the band has had 17 Top 10 albums in the UK, and international chart success with songs including Enjoy The Silence, Personal Jesus and Just Can’t Get Enough.
Continue reading...Jean-Luc Martinez is accused of conspiring to hide origin of works taken out of Egypt during Arab spring
The former president of the Louvre museum in Paris has been charged with conspiring to hide the origin of archaeological treasures that may have been taken out of Egypt during the Arab spring uprisings, in a case that has shocked the world of antiquities.
Jean-Luc Martinez was charged this week after he was taken in by police for questioning, a French judicial source told Agence France-Presse. Martinez ran the Paris Louvre, the most visited museum in the world, from 2013-21.
Continue reading...Medical charity’s president calls publication of controversial photographs ‘a mistake’ and says guidelines will be tightened
The international president of Médecins Sans Frontières has apologised for publishing photographs of a teenage rape survivor from the Democratic Republic of the Congo on its website, following criticism that the images were unethical and racist.
Dr Christos Christou also announced that the medical charity had tightened its guidelines on photographing vulnerable minors, such as survivors of sexual abuse, requiring that they should not be identified visually or by name.
Continue reading...Artworks by sculptor William Mitchell, designed to encourage public interaction, earn Grade-II accolade
A group of concrete murals on a flyover in Birmingham, known as a “brutalist climbing wall”, have been given listed status.
The three-banked mural walls flanking the entrance to the Hockley flyover underpass feature geometric shapes and abstract patterns and were designed by the sculptor William Mitchell to encourage public interaction.
Continue reading...Portland jury finds Nancy Crampton Brophy guilty of killing chef Daniel Brophy in June 2018
A jury in the US city of Portland has convicted a self-published romance novelist who wrote an essay titled How to Murder Your Husband of fatally shooting her husband four years ago.
The jury of seven women and five men found Nancy Crampton Brophy, 71, guilty of second-degree murder on Wednesday after deliberating for two days over Daniel Brophy’s death, according to reports.
Continue reading...Anonymous artist behind billboard’s makeover says it was ‘just a poetic endeavour’
In the 65 years since their unmistakeable silhouettes first appeared on Spanish hillsides, the bulls created to advertise Osborne brandy have hosted cinematic trysts, been given a Guernica paintjob, and even borne a phone-checking, coffee-drinking Batman.
Until a fortnight ago, however, no bull had ever vanished, almost completely, into the blue depths of the Spanish spring sky. Today, thanks to an overnight sortie and some very long brushes, the Osborne bull on the outskirts of the small Galician town of Xinzo de Limia is a fetching shade of azure – and a reflection on the impossibility of doing justice to the ever-changing heavens.
Continue reading...Supermodel, 48, says in three-minute appearance that she and Depp had been in romantic relationship between 1994 and 1998
Kate Moss testified by video for just three minutes on Wednesday in the Johnny Depp-Amber Heard defamation trial, dispelling a rumor that Depp had pushed her down a flight of steps when he was her boyfriend in the 1990s.
The 48-year-old supermodel, speaking from her English home in Gloucestershire, told the court in Virginia that she and Depp had been in a romantic relationship from 1994 to 1998.
Depp’s attorney Benjamin Chew asked Moss if anything had happened while they were on holiday at the GoldenEye resort in Jamaica.
Medical charity criticised for using images that ‘endanger and exploit children’ amid row over photos from DRC identifying child rape survivor
Doctors, photographers, human rights activists and academics have written to Médecins Sans Frontières to raise concerns that the medical charity is exploiting the trauma of vulnerable patients to promote its work.
In an open letter to the international president and MSF board, almost 50 signatories, who include current and former staff, allege that the aid organisation has commissioned, published and allowed the sale of photographs that endanger and exploit vulnerable black people, including children.
Continue reading...The Canadian director made the comments at a press conference for his latest body horror film Crimes of the Future
David Cronenberg, director of Crash, The Naked Lunch and A History of Violence, has said that “the US is completely insane”.
Speaking to the press at the Cannes film festival premiere of his new film Crimes of the Future, Cronenberg referred specifically to attempts to overturn Roe v Wade. “In Canada … we think everyone in the US is completely insane. I think the US has gone completely bananas, and I can’t believe what the elected officials are saying, not just about Roe v Wade, so it is strange times.”
Continue reading...Exclusive: researcher calls for sale of marble head of Greek philosopher Antisthenes to be halted
An archaeologist is calling for a US auction house to withdraw a monumental Roman sculpture from sale, claiming he has photographic evidence of its direct link to a dealer involved with illicit trade.
Prof Christos Tsirogiannis, whose academic research focuses on antiquities and trafficking networks, said Hindman Auctions in Chicago should cancel its auction of the portrait head of Antisthenes, the Greek philosopher, scheduled for Thursday.
Continue reading...Richard Moore says he is sceptical of claim that Depp injured finger during Amber Heard fight, as defamation trial enters final week
The defamation trial of Johnny Depp and Amber Heard entered its fifth and final week of testimony on Monday, with a witness for Heard testifying that Depp could not have lost the tip of his finger during a domestic fight in the way he had recounted.
The serious injury to his middle finger, which occurred during a March 2015 row in Australia between Depp and Heard during their brief marriage, has been one of several key points of dispute in the civil case.
Continue reading...Protest came before premiere of Holy Spider, based on story of man who killed at least 16 women in Iran
Protests about women’s safety have taken place at the Cannes film festival for the second time in a matter of days, after a group invaded the red carpet at a premiere of a film about the killing of sex workers.
About 12 women went on to the red carpet before the screening of Holy Spider, carrying a banner with the first names of 129 women killed in France since the last time the festival was held.
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