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Sex at 70, and in the 70s: Carly Simon Blows the Lid off the Singer Songwriter Era, Names Names: Warren, Jack, Mick, James, Kris, Cat, Even Sean Connery

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Forget the story of “You’re So Vain” and who it’s about. There’s so much more to Carly Simon’s memoir “Boys in the Trees” that when it arrives on Tuesday (Nov 24) there’s going be a lot of famous people flipping through it looking for their names. Carly names them, by the way.

Never shy about being candid, Carly has written a masterpiece of a literary memoir that details her amazing and messy childhood as daughter of the founder of Simon & Schuster. When she was 8, her 42 year old mother hired a 19 year old boy to be a “big brother” to Carly’s little brother. Mother and college kid became lovers, and their affair went on for years.

Meanwhile, Carly’s parents socialized like crazy, and threw dinner parties for all their friends. One show stopping chapter details such a dinner that featured the likes of big band leader Benny Goodman, baseball great Jackie Robinson, Random House founder Bennett Cerf, tennis legend Don Budge, and Sloan Wilson, author of “The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit.” The ensuing mayhem sounds like a Marx brothers movie for the over privileged.

Carly is keen to remind us that she wasn’t a “rich girl” at all. As I wrote in a 1989 story about her family, her father sold Simon & Schuster for a paltry amount to the Marshall Field company in 1944. When he tried to buy it back years later, his former partners and friends screwed him. He died very much a broken man in 1960 at age 61.

But the real stories that will light up the music and movie bizzes are Carly’s recollections of her climb to the top as a leading chanteuse, the Taylor Swift of her day (only better educated). Before marrying James Taylor in 1972, Carly’s dance card was full: Jack Nicholson, Warren Beatty, Kris Kristofferson, Cat Stevens. Marvin Gaye stuck his tongue down her throat. She had a long dangerous flirtation with Mick Jagger, who sang back up on “You’re So Vain.”

She was wise and in control when it came to sex:

In the wake of Jack, I was gently passed around, as if in a fraternity, not the first woman to experience this and not the last, either. Beginning with Bob Rafelson [The Monkees, Five Easy Pieces], his brother Don, [film producer] Pierre Cottrell, and [bestselling author] Michael Crichton, it felt like a club…where you had to please the man just below in order to graduate to the next. I didn’t feel unappreciated, though I was always aware I was giving myself away too cheaply. In
college I had read Margaret Mead’s Coming of Age in Samoa, which described sex as natural, guilt free, and causing no deep feeling or rivalries. Could sex be casual, or was it reserved exclusively for two people who had dedicated themselves to a lifetime together, as my own mother had spuriously tried to instill in my brain?

More? There’s a LOT more. Just wait. It gets better…

Grammy Hall of Fame Pick Great 2016 Inductees Including Songs-Albums by Grateful Dead, Carole King, Billy Preston, James Carr

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The list is out of the 2016 Grammy Hall of Fame Inductees. There are tons of great choices, from the Pretenders’ first album to Goffin-King’s “The Locomotion” to Roberta Flack, the O’Jays, the Grateful Dead, and even the Andrews Sisters.  But I am most happy about James Carr’s “Dark End of the Street,” a seminal R&B ballad written by Dan Penn and Chips Moman. James Carr died a footnote, but he remains a shining star. The song, and its writers, are very deserved of all awards.


2016 Grammy Hall Of Fame Inductees

AMERICAN BEAUTY
Grateful Dead
Warner Bros. (1970)
Album

THE BASEMENT TAPES
Bob Dylan and the Band
Columbia (1975)
Album

“BOOM BOOM”
John Lee Hooker
(John Lee Hooker)
Vee-Jay (1962)
Single

“CELEBRATION”
Kool & The Gang
(Robert Bell, Ronald Bell, George Brown, 
Eumir Decodato, Robert Mickens, Claydes 
Smith, James Taylor, Dennis Thomas,  
Earl Toon, Jr.)
De-Lite (1980)
Single

“COLD SWEAT—PART 1”
James Brown and the Famous Flames
(James Brown, Alfred Ellis)
King (1967)
Single

“THE DARK END OF THE STREET”
James Carr
(Chips Moman, Dan Penn)
Goldwax (1967)
Single

“DON’T SIT UNDER THE APPLE TREE (WITH ANYONE ELSE BUT ME)”
Andrews Sisters

(Lew Brown, Sam H. Stept, Charlie Tobias)
Decca (1942)
Single

ELLA AND LOUIS
Ella Fitzgerald And Louis Armstrong
Verve (1956)
Album

“THE FAT MAN”
Fats Domino
(Dave Bartholomew, Antoine Domino)
Imperial (1949)
Single

FIRST TAKE
Roberta Flack
Atlantic (1969)
Album

FLEETWOOD MAC
Fleetwood Mac
Reprise (1975)
Album

“FOR THE LOVE OF MONEY”
The O’Jays
(Kenneth Gamble, Leon Huff
Anthony Jackson)
Philadelphia International (1974)
Single

“HEART OF GLASS”
Blondie
(Deborah Harry, Chris Stein)
Chrysalis (1979)
Single

“I LOVE ROCK ‘N ROLL”
Joan Jett & The Blackhearts
(Jake Hooker, Alan Merrill)
Boardwalk (1982)
Single

“THE LOCO-MOTION”
Little Eva
(Gerry Goffin, Carole King)
Dimension (1962)
Single

LUSH LIFE
John Coltrane
Prestige (1961)
Album

“MARGARITAVILLE”
Jimmy Buffett
(Jimmy Buffett)
ABC (1977)
Single

MILES SMILES
Miles Davis Quintet
Columbia (1967)
Album

PRETENDERS
The Pretenders
Sire (1980)
Album

RANDY NEWMAN
Randy Newman
Reprise (1968)
Album

“ROCK ISLAND LINE”
Lead Belly
(Traditional)

Asch (1942)
Single

“SHE’S ABOUT A MOVER”
Sir Douglas Quintet
(Doug Sahm)

Tribe (1965)
Single

“SHE’S NOT THERE”
The Zombies
(Rod Argent)
Parrot (1964)
Single

“THIS TRAIN”
Sister Rosetta Tharpe
(Traditional)
Decca (1939)
Single

“(WHAT DID I DO TO BE SO) BLACK AND BLUE”
Louis Armstrong and His Orchestra
(Harry Brooks, Andy Razaf, Fats Waller)
Okeh (1929)
Single

“YOU ARE SO BEAUTIFUL”
Joe Cocker
(Bruce Fisher, Billy Preston)
A&M (1974)
Single

*songwriters of singles in parentheses

Adele Pre-Orders Break A Record, Sony Thinking 2 Million in Sales Is Possible

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Adele is making records and breaking records. Hitsdailydouble reports that pre-orders for “25” are at 500,000, with 100,000 of those coming from Amazon. Sure enough, “25” is number 1 on the Amazon album chart. It’s number 2 on iTunes, but that will change on Friday at 12:01 am.

Last night at Radio City Music Hall, a friend of mine from Sony proposed that Adele could sell upwards of 1 million copies in her first week of sales for “25.” This person then said, “Maybe 2 million, we don’t know.” Wow. This after Justin Bieber and One Direction combined sold 1 million albums this past week. The record biz is back! For now!

Adele currently has all three of her albums on the iTunes top 10, quite a feat. And clips from last night’s show are all over YouTube. Still, I expect the December 3rd NBC special to be highly rated. You want to see the whole hour cut together properly.

Review: Adele’s “25” is a 10, or More: A Triumphant Collection that Recalls The Greatest Singers

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Adele’s “25” is a 10. Well, we knew that. “Hello” already has its fans and it’s number 1 everywhere. But “When We Were Young” is so deliciously constructed with a gorgeous hook that we’ll be hearing it every day for the the next ten years. I imagine Tobias Jesso’s stock will rise on Friday like on Apple’s on the day of a new iPhone release. This is maybe the best new song by anyone in years.

While “21” became a touchstone, and sold millions of copies, the songs on “21” are unexpectedly great. Their selection reminds me of how Clive Davis curated records for Whitney Houston. What a beautiful job Adele and her team have done finalizing the 11 main songs (I don’t yet have the extra songs on the Target edition.)

Somewhere in heaven, Dusty Springfield is smiling. Somewhere in England, Alison Moyet isn’t getting credit for laying this groundwork. But here goes– “25” ranges from startling and new to comfortable as a warm slipper. With this album you can drink Champagne, then switch to hot cider.

“Send My Love (to Your New Lover)”– a Max Martin special with a tropical feel. Someone has to study this man’s brain. How can he write in so many genres? And successfully? A good second track following “Hello” heavy and light at the same time.

“I Miss You” brings in Paul Epworth, Adele’s main collaborator through her career. It’s just the two of them– he’s playing everything.  An odd choice for the 3rd track. A bit of a speed bump. The only song on the album that needs time. Someone listened to Joni Mitchell’s “Hissing of Summer Lawns” album a lot.

“Remedy” is spare and also full of hooks, co-written with Ryan Tedder. This guy is one of our great songwriters, like John Legend, or Rob Thomas. Someone needs to record a cover album of his songs. OneRepublic is fun but it doesn’t do him justice, it sort of hides him.

“Water Under the Bridge” shows that “Hell0” co-writer Greg Kurstin does know how to make a song move– there will be dance remixes. This is a catchy song, an understatement. You don’t want it to end. A potential number 1 single.

“River Lea” is a modern gospel number from Danger Mouse that mines Adele’s lower register and finds her blissfully in an R&B groove.

“Love in the Dark” — is a big soap opera, and you can already imagine the hardcore fans singing along in darkened theaters and weeping

“Million Years Ago” — also spare, accompanied by guitar, co-written with Greg Kurstin again, recalls a lot of Sixties ballads from “Yesterday When I Was Young” to “Windmills of Your Mind.”

“All I Ask” — the Bruno Mars track. Another ballad, rich with piano, a nice hook, and ready for hankies. Greg Phillinganes’ piano is memorable.

“Sweetest Devotion” — written with Paul Epworth, ends the album proper with a big old fashioned album track (remember those?)– it’s grand and epic, and moves (thank goodness, since we’ve just had a couple of ballads). This is the way to close, on a high note, singing along. Perfect. This song could be three minutes longer, by the way. Bring it on in a special edition.

 

 

 

Adele Rocks Radio City Music Hall in Historic Concert on Eve of Having Best Selling Album

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Adele rocked Radio City music Hall tonight in her first concert in four years. She performed for a sold out crowd that included Donald Trump, Chris Christie, Daniel Day Lewis with son Gabriel Kane, Bradley Cooper and date Irina Shayk, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Colin Jost of “Saturday Night Live”  and David Schwimmer.

Lorne Michaels, whom Adele credits with breaking her on “Saturday Night Live,” produced the show for NBC. It will air December 14th. Jimmy Fallon warmed up the audience for a couple of minutes, and then Adele took the stage.

Her set lasted a little over an hour. She was funny and sweet, and her voice soared. She is now the greatest singer of her generation and this generation, with an instrument that still needs to be tested on ballads and standards. But her set was fine, starting with her current hit “Hello” and including past hits like “Chasing Pavements,” “Set Fire to the Rain,” “Someone Like You,” and the theme from “Skyfall,” which was magnificent.

As earthy and salty as she is, Adele excels at melodramatic songs. She knows a good soap opera, and is sort of a contemporary Mary J. Blige. But she also knows melody, and her newest hit, “When We Were Young,” is poised to be tremendous. Considering that she hadn’t sung in public in years, and is just breaking in the new songs, that’s saying a lot.

“I’ve been dying to do a f—ing show,” she said in one of her many Eliza Doolittle moments of the evening. Even in a glittering gown, there is no changing Adele. Some of the show will have to be bleeped. “This is for TV,” she advised the audience, “don’t pick your nose.” She called Bruno Mars, who wrote a song with her, “cool as f-ck.”

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Maybe she needs the humor to keep herself from getting too bowled over by what’s going on. We haven’t had a singer like this since Whitney Houston or Barbra Streisand. As Adele has progressed from “19” to “21” to “25,” she’s making a legend in her own time. And now we know what happened to “23”– she said that “Skyfall” was Bond 23, and she was 23 at the time, so that project fulfilled that missing number for her.

Just a word on the video projection: Adele, you see, cannot be confined to a video screen. So Michaels and his staff just projected her over the entire Radio City proscenium, using the video screen as an insert. The effect was mesmerizing.

adele writ large

I did run into a friend of mine from Sony before the show. Apparently, “25” is on track to sell more than a million copies in its first week– maybe closer to 2 million. Extraordinary in a time when the music business seethes apathy toward most artists. But Adele is real, and the audience knows it. There is no artifice. When she plays the guitar, she makes excuses in advance– and then plays it very well. She’s connecting on a very basic level, unlike almost all the female performers of her age group whose shows seem like they were scripted within an inch of their lives.

So, onto the album release this week and “Saturday Night Live” and record setting sales. Brava!

 

P.F. Sloan, Writer of “Eve of Destruction,” “Secret Agent Man,” Dies at Age 70

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P.F. (Phil) Sloan, the singer songwriter responsible for songs like Barry McGuire’s “Eve of Destruction” and Johnny Rivers’ “Secret Agent Man,” has died at age 70. He had had pancreatic cancer.

Sloan was a popular figure in Nashville, and a legendary figure in the Phil Spector world as part of the famed and legendary Wrecking Crew. He also wrote the guitar into for the Mamas and the Papas’s “California Dreamin’.”

Sloan also wrote the original singles for the Grass Roots pre-“Midnight Confessions.” Jimmy Webb also wrote a song called “PF Sloan” inspired by Sloan, and covered by many artists including Jackson Browne, Jennifer Warnes, and the Association. Sloan and Steve Barri were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2014.


 

Oh Carol: At Oscar Buzzed Film Premiere, Rooney Mara Says She Expects to Be in Next “Dragon Tattoo” Movie

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Todd Haynes’ Oscar-buzzed 1950s lesbian romance film, “Carol,” premiered last night at the Museum of Modern Art. The whole cast, except Cate Blanchett, headed over to a swanky party at the Four Seasons afterwards, with special guests like Zosia Mamet, Holland Taylor, and playwright Suzan Lori Park. Blanchett, tired from doing more press than a presidential candidate, went back to her hotel to be with her newly adopted baby.

Rooney Mara’s guests included her parents Chris and Kathleen Mara, of the NY Giants dynasty Mara’s. Yes, they have two movie star daughters–Kate is in “The Martian” right now.

Chris Mara told us, proudly: “Each of them works hard, and directors know that. They come ready to work.”

The stunning and very soft spoken Rooney told our Roger Friedman she expects to be in the sequel to “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.” Daniel Craig, as well? “I don’t know,” she said. “I’m just trying to keep track of this movie!” Rooney, by the way, doesn’t follow football much even though she’s named for her mother’s father, football coach Dan Rooney.

On the red carpet Blanchett towered over Rooney as they posed for photographs. Blanchett wore a mustard-colored gown by Lavin with cutout panels in the back and side and underneath what looked like a pink corset.

 She told journalists that all the characters in “Carol” were in the same dilemma and victims of society and the roles they felt foisted on them to play.

 “I think they are all as entrapped by the roles that they’re meant to play, men and women,” Blanchett said. “You know, when women are set free, men benefit. And when men are set free, women, so I think they’re all in the same terrible conundrum.”

On the red carpet, I spoke to Todd Haynes about his upcoming film, “Wonderstuck,” based on the children’s novel by Brian Selznick, the author of “The Invention Of Hugo Cabret,” that was made into a movie by Martin Scorsese. Julianne Moore will star in “Wonderstruck,” is set in the 1920’s and 70’s and marks the fourth time they’ve worked together.

In an awkward segue, I asked the director about the women’s sex scene and if there were any challenges. “I don’t know if I can characterize it as a challenge exclusive to lesbian sex and love. I really think that when people are intimate with each other there’s all kinds of roles that get played,” he said. “I think when it’s a gay couple they can swap different kind of dominant and passive roles maybe more freely. But that’s also true for heterosexuals,” he said.

Whether it’s shooting a gay or straight sex scene it’s the same he said. “You just want everybody to feel as free and supported as possible, so we all we know what we’re doing and why we’re doing it, where the camera is, what the emotion and the mood of the sex is, why it’s in the film to begin with, and what nudity is involved? When people know all those things, they feel an element of trust that’s really important.”

Photo c 2015 Showbiz411 by Paula Schwartz

 

Charlie Sheen’s Doctor was O.J. Simpson’s Steroid Specialist During Trial of the Century

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Charlie Sheen just appeared on the Today show with his doctor. Hollywood is a small town. His HIV doctor is Rob Huizenga, the steroids specialist hired by Robert Shapiro to be O.J. Simpson’s doctor in 1994 after the murders of Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman.

Huizenga was hired by Shapiro as Simpson returned from Chicago the day after the murders in Los Angeles. Simpson had long suffered from rheumatoid arthritis, and Huizenga was an expert on the subject of athletes and steroids. He’d written a book about helping members of the L.A. Raiders deal with the addiction.

Sheen on Today attributed his 2011 “winning” breakdown to “‘roids.” Interesting.

Huizenga never spoke about Simpson’s steroid issues when he was on the witness stand in 1994. Ten years later, in 2004, I asked him why. He said it was because none of the lawyers asked him the question. If they had, the Simpson trial might have been very different. He told me in 2004, “Some guilty people are set free.”

Charlie Sheen Announces He’s HIV Positive, Victim of Extortion, Paid “Over 10 Million Dollars” to Blackmailers

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with updates

Charlie Sheen is in the middle of his two Today show interviews this morning, admitting that he’s HIV positive. Sheen has told Matt Lauer that he’s been the victim of extortion and blackmail, and has paid people “over 10 million dollars” to keep quiet. It’s an extraordinary interview as so far Sheen has told Lauer that of all the ways one could contract HIV, “needles” is not the way it happened.

Meantime, the announcement is clearly not the way Sheen’s publicist, Jeff Ballard, thought he should make. Ballard quit yesterday and ended a 35 year friendship with Sheen. Ballard has also represented over the years Charlie’s father Martin Sheen. Years ago Ballard was his publicist. In recent years, Sheen was repped by Stan Rosenfield, who also reps Robert DeNiro and Helen Mirren. But Rosenfield quit when Sheen began his “winning” rampage in 2011.

And the “winning”-“tiger blood” breakdown that Sheen went through and made headlines with seems like it was caused at least in part by Sheen’s diagnosis. “It was on the heels of that,” Sheen said. He also admitted that he’d had unprotected sex since the diagnosis, but that the partners were being treated by his doctor and understood the situation.

Sheen can only be congratulated for facing this on TV, it shows amazing courage. Whatever happened to get him to this place, his owning up to it now is remarkable. He will make it so much easier for HIV sufferers everywhere. And as I Tweeted yesterday by the end of the day you know he will be a spokesperson for amFAR, a group that loves celebrities. Sheen’s stock is on the rise. Wait and see…

Adele Drops Second Single, “When We Were Young,” in New Video

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In the hours before Adele appears at Radio City Music Hall, she has dropped her second single from “25.” The video for “When We Were Young” is below. And this one, like “Hello,” should go right to the top of the charts. Welcome to Adele week.