Thursday, November 14, 2024
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Is Kanye Forgiven for “Slavery is a choice” and His Trump Endorsements, White House Meetings, Failed Presidential Run?

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And so here is “Donda,” a PR spectacle for the summer of 2021.

It’s a hit, and it’s pretty good, the tracks are excellent, highly listenable and accessible.

But now: how short are memories?

It was only a year ago that Kanye West was running for president, supporting Donald Trump, meeting him in the Oval Office.

It was May 2018 when Kanye announced that “slavery is a choice.”

Everyone was outraged as Kanye melted down, carried on, ranted on Twitter like a loony toon.

Is all forgiven? Do we forgive and forget and just move on? “Donda” will be a referendum on short term memory loss.

Stay tuned…

Kanye UPDATE “Donda” is Number 1 on iTunes, Also on a $200 Remix Device, Here are the Credits

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“Donda” is here, it’s very good. It’s on streaming services and on iTunes for download. It’s already number 1.

It’s also on Kanye‘s website in a $200 device you can buy called a Stem Player. A small round beige object with lights, the device offers you a chance to remix the album at your discretion. There’s 8 gigabytes on it, and the website says you can add your own music. I’m not sure if that means you can also delete “Donda” and make it an expensive MP3 player.

Hell Freezes Over, Pigs Fly: Kanye West Releases “Donda” Album to Streaming Services, Sort of

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After weeks of delays and three listening sessions in stadiums, Kanye West has released his “Donda” album, sort of.

Hell has frozen over, pigs are flying, and “Donda” has turned up on streaming services. Sort of. On Spotify there are different versions, in different orders, as playlists. On Apple’s iTunes, there’s a different version.

No word came this morning from Kanye’s record label. The thing has just appeared. There are lots of guest artists and no credits, so who knows what the samples are yet or how this thing is made. Lawyers will be poring over it.

“Donda” comes as hurricane “Ida” lands in New Orleans. Seems right. There’s a track called “Off the Grid,” which was supposed to be the name of Sean Puffy Combs’s new album next month. Coincidence?

“Remote Control” is very catchy. It’s still to be seen who actually wrote it.

Stay tuned…

 

 

Beatles: Listen Here to Three Remixed, Rare, or Unreleased Tracks from the “Let it Be” 50th Anniversary Album and “Get Back” Movie

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Sorry, friends. I didn’t realize we could listen to three remixed and rare tracks from the “Let It Be” anniversary album coming in October. That little pieces of news was buried in yesterday’s announcement. Hence, the few plays on YouTube. But these are a BIG deal.

So we have the 2021 remixed “Let It Be.” Then “Don’t Let Me Down” first performance from the famous rooftop concert. And then Glyn Johns’s unreleased remix of “For You Blue.”


Tighten Up, Kids: The Amazing Archie Bell Is Having a Live Birthday Telethon Next Sunday

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Archie Bell, I’ve never met him. I love his music. Archie Bell & the Drells, there’s nothing better. His “Tighten Up” is an eternal classic of soul and jazz, a joyous, ebullient celebration of life.

Next Sunday, September 5th, the Continental Club in Houston is having a live telethon on Facebook Live to raise money for Archie. He’s been recovering from a stroke earlier this year and is excited about visiting with his friends and fans at the Continental Club Houston on Sunday, September 5 from 2 to 5 pm.

Donations either online or at the door for Archie’s medical expenses are both encouraged and greatly appreciated. Suggested minimum donation is $10 but listen, donate a hundred bucks. If you’re a music fan, you owe it to the universe.

I’ll have more on this during the week. Archie, we’re there for you!

 

Netflix Picks Up NBC-Cancelled “Manifest” for 20 New Episodes and a Resolution of Cliffhanger

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Where is flight 828? On Netflix! The deal is done. “Manifest” will have a fourth season on the streaming platform. The cliffhanger will be resolved. NBC looks pretty lame for cancelling the show in the first place.

I’m proud to say this column had the original scoop that “Manifest” was not dead and would return in some form. What a mess! NBC cancelled “Manifest” because Dick Wolf promised them another hour of “Law & Order” branded TV. Then Wolf forgot to develop a show. By that time, “Manifest” was already a hit n Netflix. And that’s where the deal was made.

 

Mel Brooks, 95, Zooms Into Hilarious East Hampton Celebration of “The Producers” with Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick

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Mel Brooks may be 95 years young but that didn’t stop him from Zooming into East Hampton’s Guild Hall celebration of his musical “The Producers” last night.

Starved for Broadway’s reopening, a happy crowd packed Guild Hall for an evening of clips and anecdotes about “The Producers,” the winner of the most Tony awards of any musical in history.

On a panel introduced by choreographer Susan Stroman, a winner of 5 Tonys herself, the show’s stars Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick, and Brad Oscar quipped and reminisced about the play’s Chicago debut, and the run on Broadway, shut down for 3 days in the aftermath of 9/11, but then it was Rudy Guiliani who urged everyone to get back to work. People did not know whether it was appropriate to laugh, said Oscar. And of course, the show offered the audience a way to grieve less for a two-hour period, Stroman remembered. Nathan Lane performed, but scheduled for a vacation, he decided to take, joking, “If I cancel my vacation, the terrorists won.”

And so the evening went with Lane recounting his first encounter with Mel Brooks in a swimming pool at the Ritz in Paris. Anne Bancroft, finished with her swim, went up to her room, and Lane thought, Mel Brooks is in the pool with me instead of with Anne Bancroft. He also remembered that it was Harvey Weinstein, a backer at the time, who read the all-important New York Times review at the opening night party . . . “and then went off to pee in a flower pot” . . . conflating the producer’s crimes with another #Metoo accusee. Matthew Broderick remembered people coming to the door, every performance someone else would show up, Al Gore, for example. Lane said Clinton came, shook hands, but kept his eyes on Cady Huffman, the show’s splendid Ulla. But they were all in awe when Gene Wilder, the original Leopold Bloom, stopped by.

As if anyone needed to be reminded of how great this show is, clips of Mel Brooks recording his song “That Face,” telling how it was Anne Bancroft who encouraged him: “She was the angel on my shoulder,” and beaming at how wonderful Broderick was in that duet with Huffman. Or the incredible “Springtime for Hitler” number where Stroman’s choreography shines as the dancers do a swastika formation a la Busby Berkley. The showstoppers of the night were the live performances: first, Brad Oscar in his original Nazi helmet—“Every Jewish boy has to have Nazi paraphernalia,” he said. And then Lane and Broderick doing “Like Him,” sweetly renewing the Bialystock and Bloom friendship, their heads touching.

And then there was Mel himself looming over the John Drew Theater, zoomed in with failing audio but speaking and gesticulating nonetheless. He was God bestowing his blessings and love to an evening that could have gone on –for a few more hours at least.

Backstage, while everyone was considering which bar might still be open for a nightcap -— I think they settled on The Maidstone —- Broderick said his return to Broadway in the two-year delayed Plaza Suite would occur in February. That should give us enough time, right?

Eric Clapton Doubles Down on the Crazy, Releases Another Anti-Vax Song for Tour, Says Nothing about Charlie Watts

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The tragedy of Eric Clapton continues.

(On Twitter, Clapton has said not a word about the death of Rolling Stones legend Charlie Watts, whom he knew for 50 or 60 years. Not a peep.)

Clapton says he had a terrible reaction to his COVID vaccination. His response is to urge the public not to get vaccinated. This makes no sense, and is dangerous.

Clapton was a drug addict for years before cleaning himself up and becoming a rehab advocate. But the damage he did to his body is unknown. And the effect of any medication on him would be certainly much different than the average healthy human being.

What he’s doing now is dangerous and stupid. He’s issued a second anti-vax single, this one called This Has Gotta Stop. He’s right: what has to stop his idiotic behavior and poor judgement.

There’s also a very poorly thought out lyric in this song. One of the lines is “Thinking of my kids, what’s left of them.” Clapton’s son, Conor, died famously, tragically falling out a window at age 4 in 1991. Clapton subsequently had a hit single, one of the biggest of his career, “Tears in Heaven.” That line in the song seems very glib and kind of cruel.

My own father died last December from COVID before there was a vaccine. I wish to God he’d lived long enough to get the shots. I do find the anti-vaxxers completely repulsive in their selfishness and short sightedness. When I raced to get my mother her vaccination last March I had no idea that there might be people who would be against it. But mental illness has overtaken our society in many realms. That’s what’s gotta stop.

Kennedy Family Civil War as Sensible RFK Daughter Rory Says They Will Challenge Sirhan Parole Supported by Robert Kennedy Jr.

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I was more than shocked on Friday, and maybe you were too when Sirhan Sirhan, the man who assassinated Robert F. Kennedy was recommended for parole. To make matters worse, Robert Kennedy Jr., the loony toon who opposes vaccines, wrote a letter supporting his father’s killer.

But now cooler heads prevail. Rory Kennedy, RFK’s sensible and talented filmmaker daughter, has organized her siblings against the parole. She writes on Twitter that the level headed children of RFK will challenge the decision. She writes, in part: “We are in disbelief that this man would be recommended for release.”

I am, too. What Sirhan did was unforgivable. He can never be paroled. It would be one of the most horrifying acts of a broken legal system. For Robert Kennedy Jr and his brother Douglas to endorse such a thing just shows how horribly warped they’ve been by the violence of Sirhan.

So this is a Kennedy Civil War. But we know what side we’re on. The sensible RFK children have broken with Robert Jr. over his crazy vaccine stand, among other things. Everyone should remember that Robert’s second wife, Mary Richardson, from whom he was “estranged,” hanged herself in their Westchester County, New York barn. Let’s get a grip on what’s going on here. For his anti-vaxx stance, Robert Jr. is barred from posting on Instagram. He is not playing with a full deck.

I’ll tell you who’s really responsible for this sick turn of events: LA County District Attorney George Gascon. He didn’t turn up and send anyone to the parole hearing for Sirhan. He should be fired immediately. Disgraceful behavior.

Here is the letter from Rory and her siblings.

MGM Throws in the Towel, Sends Aretha Franklin Biopic “Respect” to Streaming, Facing $30 mil Write Off

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MGM  has waved the white flag, thrown in the towel, fallen on its sword.

The studio is sending the Aretha Franklin biopic “Respect” to VOD services Google Play and Vudu for $19.99 starting tonight. I hope Amazon Prime and iTunes are next.

MGM allowed a movie to be made badly but with a standout performance by Jennifer Hudson. JHud deserves an Oscar. Everyone else deserves a lump of coal. They let Liesl Tommy, their director who’d never made a big budget movie, direct. They let her replace Callie Khouri, a respected professional screenwriter, with Tommy’s theater buddy to re-write the screenplay.

The result is a movie with a 69 on Rotten Tomatoes and $17 million in the bank. That’s against a cost of $55 million. Aretha had actually talked to “Ray” director Taylor Hackford before she became ill. A Hackford film with a Khouri screenplay would have been a 100 on Rotten Tomatoes, and made $75 million at the box office.

The only person who did their homework preparing for this movie was Jennifer Hudson. The producers had no consultant, didn’t speak to any friends of Aretha. They interviewed Dana Dowd, daughter of late producer Tom Dowd, then ignored what she said and didn’t even include Dowd in the movie. They cut out of Aretha’s story songs she wrote herself,massive hits like “Daydreamin'” and “Rock Steady.” They cut out Aretha’s famous back up singer, Cissy Houston, Atlantic Records chief Ahmet Ertegun, and producer arranger Arif Mardin.

The movie just had bad karma. So many people were never invited to see it in advance. I had to make dozens of calls, send numerous emails, to finally get a look at it. I’m fairly certain Clive Davis has never seen it. Instead of being a joyous occasion, “Respect” turned into something that caused enmity. What a shame.

I am adamant about Jennifer Hudson. See this movie at home. Watch an Oscar performance. The rest of it doesn’t matter. The spirit of Aretha lives in that performance. JHud’s integrity and fierce talent are in every scene. But no actor can bend a whole movie to their will. Hudson did her very best. The others failed her and Aretha.