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Recipients of the Recording Academy Lifetime Achievement Award and Trustees Awards were announced today by Michael Greene, President/CEO of the Recording Academy. Pianist and band leader Count Basie and recording artists Perry Como, Rosemary Clooney, Al Green, and Joni Mitchell will receive Lifetime Achievement Awards. Engineer/producer Tom Dowd and original rock disc jockey Alan Freed will be honored with Trustees Awards. Formal acknowledgment of the awards will be made in conjunction with the 44th Annual GRAMMY ® Awards ceremony, which willbe held at Los Angeles’ Staples Center on Wednesday, Feb. 27. The show will be a prime-time television special on… Read more »

British rock band the Cure mounted a farewell tour last year to promote what it billed as its last album, and had such a blast playing for more than half a million people in North America and Europe that it now hopes to return to the road in 2002. Retirement at age 42 just never suited the Cure’s leader, singer/guitarist Robert Smith, whose gloomy songs about death and despair have transfixed fans since the Cure released its first single in 1978. “The swan song was actually me… saying the group’s going to end,” Smith told Reuters in a recent interview.… Read more »

After the Ramones said “Adios amigos” for the final time in 1996, singer Joey Ramone wasted no time in starting the recording of what would unfortunately turn out to be his posthumous solo album, Don’t Worry About Me, due out February 18th on Sanctuary Records. Ramone died April 15th of lymphatic cancer. “We started right after the Ramones’ last show,” says producer Daniel Rey, who has also worked with the Ramones themselves and White Zombie. “We cut the music pretty quickly, and then Joey just took his time on the vocals. We recorded a couple songs at a time. We… Read more »

George Harrison’s No. 1 hit “My Sweet Lord” will be re-released soon and proceeds given to charity, a spokesman for record company EMI Group Plc said Friday. “We are definitely re-releasing it, and it will be for charity. It is the original version,” spokesman Murray Chalmers said. “But so far we have no date and no name for the charity.” He said the company, which took the decision to re-release the single in consultation with Harrison’s widow Olivia and son Dhani, had not yet decided whether to reissue the spiritually tinged hit before or after Christmas. The former Beatle died… Read more »

George Harrison, who knew how bad smoking was for him, died from cancer last week, but that doesn’t mean the anti-smoking message has sunk in with everyone. John Mellencamp, who is no stranger to tobacco-related illness, is still smoking, and he says he can’t do anything about it. The topic came up earlier this week backstage at the Billboard Music Awards, where Mellencamp was given the magazine’s Century Award. Harrison was the first artist to receive the award in 1992. Mellencamp was asked for thoughts on Harrison’s death, and he said, “This smoking is bulls-t, isn’t it? I hate it,”… Read more »

Soul Asylum recently celebrated the group’s twentieth anniversary with a show at First Avenue in Minneapolis. “It was extremely touching,” says singer/guitarist Dave Pirner. “It seemed like First Avenue was overflowing with love. I’m getting emotional just thinking about it. I really couldn’t get a grip on the fact that we had been together for that long.” Now that the balloons are popped and the champagne bottles drained, Soul Asylum are back doing what’s kept the group together these last two decades: writing new music. “We don’t know where or when we’re going to put this out,” says Pirner of… Read more »

Edgar Bronfman Jr will step down as executive vice chairman of media giant Vivendi Universal next year, leaving flamboyant Frenchman Jean-Marie Messier solo at center stage. Vivendi said on Thursday that Bronfman, head of Canada’s Seagram before it merged with France’s Vivendi last year, would step down at the end of the first quarter 2002, though he would remain non-executive vice chairman of the board. “I deeply regret Edgar’s decision but fully understand his wishes,” Messier said in a statement. he said Bronfman was standing down to spend more time on his “personal and family interests.” It was not clear… Read more »

Edgar Bronfman Jr. has often been derided as the spoiled rich kid who blew his family’s liquor fortune on Hollywood, but in reality he nearly tripled it. Now, capping six years of intense dealmaking which culminated in folding the Bronfman family-controlled concern Seagram Co. Ltd. into the world’s second largest media company, Vivendi Universal, the soft-spoken mogul plans to walk away, possibly to start a new company. Save for the timing, it was no surprise that on Thursday, Bronfman, 46, said he would step down as executive vice chairman of Vivendi in 2002. The announcement came one day after another… Read more »

A one-of-a-kind Gibson electric guitar, made especially for Lava/Atlantic recording artist Kid Rock, is missing and presumed stolen. The guitar, a new Gibson SG model custom-painted in a “stars and stripes” motif, was discovered missing by customs inspectors overseas, where Kid Rock arrived this week on his way to an undisclosed location to perform for U.S. servicemen and women as part of an MTV/USO holiday television special.            The guitar was last seen at Kid Rock’s Michigan studio, where it was packed in a large case with a number of other guitars and then transported to… Read more »

“My Sweet Lord,” the 1970s hit by former Beatle George Harrison who died of cancer last week, is to be re-released, Britain’s Sun tabloid reported on Friday. If the mystical hit is out in time for Christmas, it is widely expected to top the lucrative festive singles chart. “We will be re-releasing ‘My Sweet Lord’,” the Sun quoted a spokesman for record company EMI as saying. The company could not be reached immediately for comment. “My Sweet Lord” was the first number one single by a solo Beatle and appeared on Harrison’s album “All Things Must Pass” after being digitally… Read more »