The sons and daughters of John Wayne, John Lennon, Caitlyn Jenner and others tell us what it was like to grow up with a world-famous dad
A lot of the happy memories of my father are from the late 1960s at Kenwood, the old Tudor house we had in Surrey, when I was a little boy. Without knowing it, I probably saw some of the greatest musicians in the world come and go through that house.
Continue reading...Polish musician won numerous awards, scored The Exorcist, and was admired by rock stars
Leading composer and conductor Krzysztof Penderecki has died at the age of 86 after a long illness, his family announced this morning.
The Polish-born Penderecki was a major figure in contemporary music whose compositions reached millions through celebrated film scores, which included for William Friedkin’s The Exorcist, Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining and David Lynch’s Wild at Heart.
Continue reading...Council workers take advantage of the empty streets to spruce up the crossing featured on the cover of the 1969 Beatles album
The iconic Abbey Road zebra crossing made famous by the 1969 Beatles album of the same name has been repainted while the streets of London are empty because of the coronavirus pandemic.
A highways maintenance crew quietly repainted the normally busy zebra crossing on 24 March, the day after the prime minister ordered Britain to go on lockdown in an attempt to stem the spread of the virus.
Continue reading...It’s true the singer isn’t everyone’s favourite, but the online pasting she’s been subjected to leaves a very nasty taste in the mouth
In a way I’m glad that Kim Kardashian has reignited a four-year-old feud with Taylor Swift based on an 11-year-old feud with Taylor Swift that was all started by Kanye West, a man who has hardly been involved in it since about 2017. In a way, that’s good.
It’s hard not to [gestures at current reality] be constantly thinking about, you know, rather more pressing matters. The cleanliness of door handles, for example. The intensity of other people’s coughs, or how far to veer away from each other on the pavements while out on your government-mandated walk. Whether you have enough food in the cupboards to last two weeks. Whether daytime TV will ever go back to normal. How deeply we can possibly scrape the bottom of the Netflix barrel. How desperate for entertainment we will have to be to plunge ourselves into going on YouTube and watching a vlog. Right now, these are my worries. It’s nice of Kim Kardashian to try to distract me with something totally and utterly facile and pointless at a time of global crisis.
Continue reading...Traoré is in an international custody battle over her daughter after a Belgian court awarded sole guardianship to the child’s father
Malian musician Rokia Traoré has been released from a French prison, after being detained since 10 March for the alleged kidnap of her daughter in a child custody dispute. Her freedom is dependent on her delivery to Belgian authorities, once travel restrictions related to the coronavirus pandemic are lifted.
Traoré was arrested under a European warrant issued by a judge in Brussels, where a court had ordered her to surrender her five-year-old daughter to the child’s father, Jan Goossens, who is Belgian. Traoré was held in Paris after getting off a plane there.
Continue reading...Rapper says anger over his views reminds him of racial assumptions he once faced: ‘You’re black, so you’re a Democrat’
Kanye West has reaffirmed his support for Donald Trump, whom he has previously called “his brother”, in a new interview with the Wall Street Journal.
West says people make assumptions about his political views because of his race, automatically assuming he would disagree with Trump’s views.
Continue reading...In Listener’s Digest, our writers help you explore the work of great pop musicians. As fans eagerly await the album known as R9, here’s a guide to pop superstar Rihanna
Rated R (2009)
Continue reading...Musician who influenced Michael Jackson dies in Paris hospital from Covid-19 infection
Manu Dibango, the Cameroonian musician celebrated for his blend of jazz, funk and traditional west African styles, has died aged 86 in a Paris hospital after contracting Covid-19.
A message on his Facebook page announced the news with “deep sadness”, and added: “His funeral service will be held in strict privacy, and a tribute to his memory will be organised when possible.”
Continue reading...The actor, comedian and musician Donald Glover has made the first truly outstanding album of the decade, offsetting cultural examinations with moments of sweet levity
In hindsight, music has always been Donald Glover’s true calling. Before the sitcoms, the Star Wars movie, the Saturday Night Live hosting gigs, and the well-worn gifs of the performer walking horrified into a burning room with a stack of pizza boxes, you could find him on YouTube as a member of Derrick Comedy. The group’s greatest sketch, B-Boy Stance, saw Glover play an ageing hip-hop pioneer who had his arms surgically attached to his back, ensuring he was forever pulling the iconic pose – it riffs on the distance between the New York acolytes who witnessed the birth of hip-hop and those who came to the music after it was commodified. Glover’s understanding of American culture shines with diamond clarity; Atlanta, his comedy-drama that goes deep into the city’s rap scene, is the evolution of those ideas.
Glover’s early forays into rap were corny and forgettable. The Childish Gambino project felt like the side hustle of a talented kid eager to test every limit of his creativity – that the moniker was taken from an online Wu-Tang Clan name generator seemed to reflect how low it fell on his list of priorities. In 2016, the funk record Awaken, My Love! was an artistic breakthrough. Then came 2017’s vicious This Is America and a video that encapsulates the racial prejudice, police brutality and vicious gun lust freezing the soul of the self-proclaimed greatest country in the world. The clip became a pop cultural juggernaut, anointing Glover as spokesman for the Black Lives Matter generation.
Continue reading...Musicians including Damon Albarn and Salif Keita call for release of singer, who is in an international battle over custody of her daughter
There are growing concerns for the health of Rokia Traoré, the internationally celebrated Malian singer, who has been on hunger strike at the Fleury-Mérogis prison near Paris since she was arrested on 10 March on allegations of kidnapping her daughter in a child-custody dispute.
Her lawyer, Kenneth Feliho, said: “I am very worried. She is only drinking. She has not been eating for over a week and her immune system is weak.”
Continue reading...People from all walks of life are mobilising to support those coping with isolation
Amy Tan is preparing to burst into song with two fellow musicians on a deserted street in Acton, west London.
“We’ll do anything by Frank Sinatra or Ella Fitzgerald – the Rat Pack,” she says. “Or maybe they would like a song by Elton John or the Beatles?”
Continue reading...Representatives of Rogers’ family said the singer died peacefully at home from natural causes
Kenny Rogers, the American country music star with hits popular across the world, has died of natural causes at the age of 81 at his home in Sandy Springs, Georgia.
The husky voice and down-home narrative style of Rogers won him three Grammy awards and put him at the top of the American music business for more than four decades. The tracks he made famous, such as Lucille and Islands in the Stream, have been karaoke standards for almost as long.
Continue reading...Welsh star’s song Something Beautiful played on Radio 2 to ‘lift spirits during these troubling times’
Duffy, the pop star who recently said she retreated from public life due to a kidnap and rape ordeal, has debuted her first new music since the announcement.
Related: Duffy has made peace. But social media won't let her
Continue reading...What more could you ask for, at this bizarre, unnerving and outlandish time, than a roundup of the greatest hits of one of the most bizarre, unnerving and outlandish musicians of all time
A rejected single finally released on a 1970 cash-in compilation, Bowie’s first collaboration with the producer Tony Visconti is better than anything on his debut album. Driven by acoustic guitar, its sound points the way ahead and there’s something appealingly odd, even sinister about the lyrical come-ons: “Wear the dress your mother wore.”
Continue reading...Judge rules against jury verdict in case over song Dark Horse, which had previously been found in favour of rapper Marcus Gray
Katy Perry has won an appeal in a copyright case involving damages of $2.8m (£2.3m).
In July 2014, Perry was accused of plagiarising the song Joyful Noise by a Christian rapper named Marcus Gray (AKA Flame), for her US No 1 hit Dark Horse, which was the second biggest-selling song worldwide that year. The songwriters sued, with Perry and her team defending themselves by saying they had never heard Joyful Noise.
Continue reading...In a new exhibition, Studio 54 co-founder Ian Schrager goes back to the late 70s to explore the highs and lows of the celebrity-packed hotspot
Ian Schrager has seen many things in his life, but nothing quite like this. The 73-year-old Studio 54 co-founder is freaking out on the phone.
“It’s funny after 40 years! Forty years!” he exclaims. “Doing an exhibition on Studio 54? In a world-class museum? I don’t think anyone would have believed that – but they were too busy dancing.”
Continue reading...Singer says senator is the ‘Real Deal’ who offers the big changes needed to beat Trump
Neil Young has endorsed Bernie Sanders for president, saying the Vermont senator is “the real deal” to win the Democratic nomination.
Writing on his personal website, the 74-year-old folk singer said that Sanders’ policies on climate change, student debt, healthcare and the minimum wage were the “big changes” required to beat Donald Trump in the 2020 election.
Continue reading...San Francisco appeals panel reinstates 2016 judgment that found no proof 1971 song breached copyright of Taurus by Randy Wolfe
A US appeals court has reinstated a ruling that British rockers Led Zeppelin did not steal part of their song Stairway to Heaven from another band.
The San Francisco 11-judge panel affirmed a 2016 judgment that found no proof the classic 1971 Zeppelin song breached the copyright of Taurus, written by Randy Wolfe from a Los Angeles band called Spirit.
Continue reading...London concert for Royal Marines one of couple’s final public engagements as senior royals
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex received a standing ovation at the Royal Albert Hall as they attended one of their final public engagements before they step back as senior royals.
The couple were treated to a sustained round of applause before the national anthem and as they took their seats in the royal box at the London venue on Saturday for the annual Mountbatten Festival of Music.
Continue reading...Why did they waste their best tracks on B-sides? Were Noel’s lyrics really that bad? It’s time to reappraise the Mancunian legends …
A stand-alone single that was reportedly removed from Don’t Believe the Truth to cut down on the number of Noel Gallagher-sung tracks, Lord Don’t Slow Me Down offered fruitful, grimy repurposing of the old guitar lick from the Yardbirds’ version of Bo Diddley’s I’m a Man – by way of David Bowie’s The Jean Genie and the Sweet’s Blockbuster.
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