Search Results for: the maine

Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, Sheryl Crow, k.d. lang and Diana Krall will make guest appearances on Tony Bennett’s next album, Playing With My Friends: Bennett Sings the Blues, which is due this fall. The album will be Bennett’s first since 1999’s Grammy-winning Duke Ellington tribute, Bennett Sings Ellington: Hot and Cool. The seemingly ageless Bennett will launch a twenty-two-date U.S. tour with lang on July 25th in Portland, Maine. While on tour, the crooner will also celebrate his seventy-fifth birthday (August 3rd). As for lang, her popular appearance on A&E Live by Request, a show developed by Bennett with his… Read more »

Two Universal Records debut discs enter Billboard’s R&B Albums chart in the #1 and #2 spots for this week. Free City, from the St. Louis-based hip-hop group The St. Lunatics (comprised of 6x platinum rapper Nelly, Ali, Kyjuan, Murphy Lee and Slo Down), landed at #1, while Hot Boys member Turk’s long-awaited solo offering, Young & Thuggin’, grabs the #2 spot. Released June 5th, the discs also make impressive debuts on Billboard’s pop albums chart, landing among the top 10. The lead tracks from both albums are garnering significant airplay at urban and crossover radio. The St. Lunatic’s “Midwest Swing”… Read more »

The scene onstage at Jimmy Z’s is unmistakable: the singer is screeching “Sin City,” right hand on the mic, left hand cocked at the side like it might just fire bullets from the fingers drawn in a heavy metal devil salute. Several feet away, the guitarist’s head is in a non-stop nod to the beat; a schoolboy necktie squirms under a burgundy Gibson SG. Uh, but wait a minute… this Angus Young is wearing a miniskirt. And the person rocking the spotlight isn’t a middle-aged Aussie man, but a twentysomething African-American woman. Ding dong, welcome to the world of Hell’s… Read more »

The high priestess of rock and roll Stevie Nicks will embark on an extensive concert tour this summer with an itinerary that will take the superstar across the United States. Nicks will perform material from her new CD, Trouble in Shangri-La, which entered the Billboard album charts at No. 5 and has remained a Top 20 hit for the last three weeks. She will also cover material from her previous solo albums as well as her hits as a member of Fleetwood Mac. Billboard Magazine hailed Nicks’ new album as “this year’s comeback equivalent to Carlos Santana and her strongest… Read more »

‘NSYNC have found themselves in a pickle. The group’s forthcoming album, Celebrity, has been shelved until mid summer. The Backstreet Boys’ most recent record, a bellwether for Celebrity if ever there was one, wasn’t quite the huge success the Boys’ previous two were, causing some observers to even decree teen pop dead. And come to think of it, no one in ‘NSYNC is even a teen any more. What’s a boy band to do? Well, creating the largest musical production in concert history is one solution. The PopOdyssey Tour began Wednesday in Jacksonville’s Alltel Stadium with a video montage chronicling… Read more »

It’ll probably be a year before a new Dixie Chicks album hits stores, and it could be another year before the country trio goes on tour, Dixie Chick Martie Seidel said. The women, who won the Academy of Country Music’s entertainer of the year award last week, are taking a break. “The more time you take off it is kind of scary because you’re out of the limelight, so to speak, but it gives us the chance to kind of step back and write from the point of view of where we are now,” Seidel told reporters. Lead singer Natalie… Read more »

Beyond Music/VNS Records excitedly announces two album re-issues from Motley Crue’s Vince Neil. Solo projects, “Exposed” and “Carved In Stone” will become available in June 2001. Originally released by Warner Bros. Records when Vince was recording separately from Motley Crue in the mid-nineties, Vince elated his fans nationwide with his solo album releases, giving Motley Crue fans everywhere even more great music. “Exposed,” Vince Neil’s first solo album, which sold more than 300,000 copies, contains multiple, must-have hits including: “Sister of Pain,” “Can’t Have Your Cake” and “Look In Her Eyes.” “Carved In Stone,” which attracted the Dust Brothers as… Read more »

The plot was spoiled well before Eric Clapton even took the stage of Dallas’ Reunion Arena for the maiden performance of his 2001 Reptile tour. Opening act Doyle Bramhall II and his band Smokestack may have kicked off Thursday night’s show with a thunderous roar reminiscent of Clapton in his Cream days, but the three chairs brought front and center before the main event was a tell-tale sign that there would be no more of that tomfoolery. Not that Clapton didn1t receive an honest-to-god, three-time Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee, guitar hero’s welcome when he walked out on… Read more »

When the members of U2 walked off the stage on their 1997-1998 “PopMart” tour, the final image was a heart framed by the outsized “golden” arch – a juxtaposition that perfectly encapsulated that tour’s muddy concept, as the group had strained to find a balance between earnest emotion and smirking irony. On their current “Elevation” tour, the band wears their hearts on their sleeves or, to be more precise, on the heart-shaped runway that surrounds them and a portion of crowd, reaching halfway into the arena. Allowing much of the audience close contact with the band, the stage, along with… Read more »

Pop icon Michael Jackson, who has a solo album in the works and a reunion concert with his brothers planned for this fall, has severed ties with his powerhouse management company, both parties said Thursday. The Firm, which has represented Jackson’s solo interests for the past year and a half, parted ways with the Gloved One this week. “All I can say is that it didn’t work out,” Jackson publicist Cheri Fein told Reuters. Both she and The Firm declined to give any specific reasons for the separation. But the music news Web site Hits Daily Double quoted one source… Read more »