This is a week that I have a tough time relating to. Born in ’76, I never really got the full impact of '60s music and never heard enough that excited me to make me want to go back and visit it. I know this sounds strange coming from a guy that found enough stuff exciting to own 4,000+ pieces of audio from the '80s, which is arguably the worst decade for music. (At least I know El DeBarge and Taco would be on my side of the debate). So a song like "Some Other Guy" is almost like listening to an original for me. Fortunately though, Leiber and Stoller wrote a lot of great tunes that were covered by a mess of bands, so I’m sure I can say I’ve heard most. Side note: Many of the artists I will type as the performer of the songs really aren’t the original performers and I know that. But the artists I type are the versions that I remember as the hits. In a lot of cases, the original Leiber and Stoller song was performed by a soul group to little fanfare and then turned ...
read more
As the 30th anniversary of Elvis Presley's death nears — it's Aug. 16, but you knew that — plans are moving full-steam ahead for an extreme makeover of Graceland. Among the upgrades:• a bigger, better visitor center • a convention hotel • a high-tech museum in which the digitized Lisa Marie's pop can swivel his hips forevermore.Since the ex-Mrs. Presley, Priscilla, was recently caught canoodling with American Idol producer Nigel Lythgoe, can a reality show be far behind? "The Search for the Next King of Rock 'n' Roll," anyone?
read more
In case you hadn’t heard, American Idol was in a giving mood this week. Save the children. Save the world. They put Heroes to shame this week with their all-star charity drive to raise money to help victims of poverty in this country and in Africa. The footage was at times quite wrenching, of orphaned-by-AIDS African children and of children in this country dispossessed by Katrina and disenfranchised in urban centers or rural backwaters, seeking relief and comfort and, in the best of all possible worlds, an education.At first it looked like the Idol results show was being awkwardly tacked onto this earnest all-star telethon, for the most part handsomely mounted until we got to that truly bizarre, undeniably creepy Celine Dion/Elvis duet. Reminds me all over again why I resist all invitations to go to Las Vegas, cheese capital of the world. I must have missed Celine’s obit, because there is no way a member of the living human race was responsible for that.Anyway… to th...
read more
This is going to be a different kind of blog tonight as I am frankly stunned, shocked and really pleasantly surprised that Idol pulled this little telethon together so quickly and so effectively. Idol is in a position to do something to help others less fortunate, and I am proud they took this opportunity to do it. They have friends in very high places, and scores of Idol-worshiping celebrities offered their services to help spread the message. Not only that, but they partnered with One.org to bring awareness to extreme poverty. And although the show felt pretty much like a long Ford commercial, I am happy and amazed that they did it. A little more than halfway through the show Ryan announced they had raised $30 million! That’s pretty impressive. So if you haven’t donated, do so now! There were some funny moments, but mostly these were two hours that really touched me. I started to lose it during the segment about New Orleans: After walking back and forth to the bathroom f...
read more
Elvis Presley's three appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show are chronicled in a three-disc DVD set due for release on Nov. 21.... BET is in talks to air syndicated episodes of HBO's The Wire, starting with Season 1 and unspooling perhaps as soon as 1Q 2007.... Dane Cook — my current fave to play Fletch on the big screen (see related blog entry), and Jessica Simpson's apparent fave to play footsie (per the New York Post) — is taking his Tourgasm act to Las Vegas on Nov. 17.... Fox News Channel celebrates its 10th anniversary with Thank You America!, a two-hour special airing Sunday at 8 pm/ET and hosted by Chris Wallace and Martha MacCallum.
read more
