New York-born Such played bass for American rock band in its 1980s heyday
Alec John Such, the bassist and a founding member of Bon Jovi, has died. He was 70.
Jon Bon Jovi on Sunday announced the death of Such, the New Jersey rock band’s bassist from 1983 to 1994. No details of when or how he died were immediately available.
Continue reading...Songwriter Andy Stone claims he co-wrote song with the same name and did not give permission for it to be used
Mariah Carey is being sued for $20m (£16m) for alleged copyright infringement over her festive megahit All I Want for Christmas Is You – nearly three decades after it was released.
Since it came out in 1994, the song, which features on her album Merry Christmas, has become a global classic and a firm favourite in the pop Christmas canon.
Continue reading...Musician celebrated for slide guitar playing and soulful voice released a string of acclaimed albums between 1994 and 2012
Kelly Joe Phelps, the celebrated singer and guitarist whose music traversed blues, country and jazz, has died aged 62. A post on his Facebook page said he died “quietly at home in Iowa”.
Born in Washington state, Phelps was raised in a musical family and first trained as a jazz musician, but broadened his playing after being inspired by artists such as Mississippi Fred McDowell. “I wanted to figure out a way to improvise like a jazz musician would, but at the same time play a style of music that was more closely linked to folk forms,” he explained.
Continue reading...Krishnakumar Kunnath, a star Bollywood singer best known as KK, complained of feeling cold and unwell before collapsing
Star Bollywood singer Krishnakumar Kunnath, popularly known as KK, has died of a suspected heart attack at age 53 after a concert on Tuesday, prompting a flood of tributes from fans including Indian prime minister Narendra Modi.
“His songs reflected a wide range of emotions as struck a chord with people of all age groups,” Modi said on Twitter.
Continue reading...German rockers’ most famous song now includes lyrics: ‘Now listen to my heart / It says Ukrainia’
The lead singer of German hard rockers Scorpions has revealed he changed the lyrics of Wind of Change because he no longer wanted to “romanticise Russia” with his chart-topping perestroika power ballad, after Putin’s war of aggression in Ukraine.
“To sing Wind of Changeas we have always sung it, that’s not something I could imagine any more,” Klaus Meine told Die Zeit. “It simply isn’t right to romanticise Russia with lyrics like: ‘I follow the Moskva / Down to Gorky Park … Let your balalaika sing’”.
Continue reading...Actor performs in UK for second night in a row while awaiting US defamation lawsuit verdict
Johnny Depp has appeared on stage alongside Jeff Beck for a second night in a row ahead of his defamation trial verdict in the US.
Concertgoers had expressed hope the actor would appear at the Royal Albert Hall in west London after he made a shock appearance at the Sheffield date of Beck’s UK tour on Sunday – just 48 hours after the jury was sent out to consider its verdict in the multimillion-dollar defamation lawsuit with his ex-wife Amber Heard.
Continue reading...Musician whose real name was Shubhdeep Singh Sidhu was killed a day after his security cover was withdrawn
Indian police are investigating the murder of a popular Punjabi rapper a day after he was fatally shot.
Shubhdeep Singh Sidhu, better known by his stage name Sidhu Moose Wala, was killed on Sunday evening while driving his car in Mansa, a district in Punjab state, northern India. Moose Wala, 28, was taken to hospital where he was declared dead.
Continue reading...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...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...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...A club night that ends at midnight is welcomed by those who – like the DJ – want a good time without partying all night long
Before Annie Macmanus – aka veteran DJ Annie Mac – started her four-hour set for her new night, Before Midnight, she wandered around the early arrivals saying hello. They all said the same thing: thank you. “It’s like I’m doing some kind of a public service,” she says.
At Islington Assembly Hall in north London on Friday night, the gratitude was real – with the mixed crowd delighted to be raving hard by 9pm, before many clubs have even opened, and knowing they’d be on their merry way home just after midnight, when “normal” clubbers are just getting started. Macmanus started the night, billed as “clubbing for people who need sleep”, because, at 43 and with children to care for, she no longer wanted to play sets all night. The DJ – who during her 17 years as one of the biggest DJs at BBC Radio 1 always declared that “raving is a state of mind” – also wanted to put on nights “for anyone who just wants to go out and loves nightclubbing but hasn’t really felt like nightclubbing is a place for them any more.”
Continue reading...The 1969 Fender Mustang, on display in Seattle’s Museum of Pop Culture, is expected to have a starting price of over $600,000
The electric guitar played by Kurt Cobain in the Smells Like Teen Spirit music video will be put up for sale this weekend by Julien’s Auctions.
Speaking about the 1969 Fender Mustang during his final interview with Guitar World, Cobain said: “I’m left-handed, and it’s not very easy to find reasonably priced, high-quality left-handed guitars. But out of all the guitars in the whole world, the Fender Mustang is my favorite. I’ve only owned two of them.”
Continue reading...Items including a handwritten letter from David Bowie and Peel’s horn gramophone will be up for sale next month
Records and music memorabilia once owned by the celebrated former BBC DJ John Peel, including a signed mono pressing of John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s 1968 album Two Virgins, is to be sold at auction in June.
Peel’s family said in a statement: “John/Dad was in a position to have access to many of the most celebrated people and events in the history of popular music. This is reflected in a wealth of souvenirs he collected. In going through the accumulation of 40 years of pop music moments, we decided that some of the most interesting items might find a home, with fans of his programme or of the artists whose music he played.”
Continue reading...Song has more than 111m views on YouTube and has been heralded for transcending boundaries
From radio stations in Islamabad to the nightclubs of Delhi and house parties in Kathmandu, it is a song that in recent months has been impossible to avoid. As soon as the distinctive opening claps of Pasoori, by the Pakistani singer Ali Sethi and his collaborator Shae Gill, are heard, it is often greeted with a roar of approval.
And it is not just in south Asia: since it was released in February, the song, which draws on traditional and modern musical influences, has gone on to become a global phenomenon and one of Pakistan’s most popular musical exports for years. It has more than 111m views on YouTube, it was the first Pakistani song to top Spotify’s global viral charts, and the first Pakistani song to enter its official global songs chart.
Continue reading...Director Rob Reiner is bringing back the cast of the much-loved rock mockumentary for a follow-up set to be released in 2024
A sequel to the mockumentary This is Spinal Tap is in the works with the original director and cast.
Spinal Tap II will see Rob Reiner return as both film-maker on and off the screen along with Michael McKean, Harry Shearer and Christopher Guest. The film will be released in 2024 on the 1984 original’s 40th anniversary.
Continue reading...A Night at the Kabuki, which shifts the star-crossed lovers to 12th-century Japan, will visit London on an international tour
A Night at the Opera, the classic rock album by Queen, has inspired a Japanese theatre production that will visit London this autumn as part of an international tour.
Created by Hideki Noda, A Night at the Kabuki includes songs from the British band’s 1975 album which is best known for its singles Bohemian Rhapsody and You’re My Best Friend. The master tapes from the studio recording of the album are used in the show, which has a storyline set in 12th-century Japan and is inspired by Romeo and Juliet.
Continue reading...Indictment quotes multiple music videos as evidence and accuses alleged gang members of targeting other high-profile rap artists
Atlanta rapper Young Thug co-founded a violent street gang that committed multiple murders, shootings and carjackings over roughly a decade and promoted its activities in songs and on social media, prosecutors allege in a sprawling indictment that charges him, rapper Gunna and 26 others with racketeering.
The 88-page indictment filed Monday in Georgia’s Fulton county quotes multiple music videos as evidence and accuses alleged gang members of targeting other high-profile rap artists.
Continue reading...Paper beat out two other finalists, the New York Times and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
The Washington Post has won the 2022 Pulitzer prize for public service journalism, for The Attack, its account of the deadly assault on the US Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump on 6 January 2021.
The paper beat two other finalists: the New York Times, for challenging official accounts of US military engagements in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan, and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, for an exposé of electrical fires in city rental operations.
Continue reading...Star said the film – based on his Texas club – had ‘huge impact’ on his career while in life ‘I am doing exactly what I want to do’
Country music star Mickey Gilley, whose namesake Texas honky-tonk inspired the 1980 film Urban Cowboy and a nationwide wave of western-themed nightspots, has died aged 86.
Gilley died on Saturday in Branson, Missouri, where he helped run the Mickey Gilley Grand Shanghai Theatre. He had been performing as recently as last month, but was in failing health over the past week.
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