Sunday, December 21, 2025
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Senate Democrat Ron Wyden Railed Against by Vintage Pop Stars Over Legislation That Could Destroy Their Meager Earnings from Digital, Satellite Broadcast

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Famed R&B star “Soul Man” Sam Moore is the latest member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame who is furious with Oregon Democratic Senator Ron Wyden. The reason is that Wyden may screw up pending legislation now called The Music Modernization Act (S. 2823), which includes the “Classics Act.”

Currently, music artists who made records before 1972– which is all of classic rock, pop, R&B, country, etc– are not compensated by digital or satellite radio. The Music Modernization Act, endorsed by Barack Obama while he was president, is also supported by two dozen or more US senators and huge numbers in the House of Representatives.

The Classics Act protects not just big stars like the Beatles or Rolling Stones, but huge numbers of R&B stars from labels like Motown, Stax, Atlantic– i.e. all the stuff you love to dance to at parties (Aretha, James Brown, Temptations, Sam & Dave)— who get nada, zip, zero now from millions of plays on various services from Spotify to Sirius, Pandora, AppleMusic, et al.

Wyden has suddenly weighed in with his own legislation that would not only water down the Music Modernization, but take away rights these artists already have! Billboard’s Robert Levine recently observed: “Wyden’s bill also calls for all pre-1972 recordings to lose all of the protection they currently have under state law. Under current law — and the Music Modernization Act wouldn’t change this — all state law protection expires no later than 2067, although in some jurisdictions it could run out sooner. It also says that works recorded between 1923 and 1930 will enter the public domain if they’re not used, and it offers a three-year window from liability for statutory damages in some cases.”

Wyden’s legislation, called ACCESS, must be stopped. Sam Moore posted on Facebook this week:  “Stop Sen Wyden from devaluing and stealing from me and all of my peers who recorded our biggest hits before Feb,1972!  The idea that he thinks that he can minimize or devalue my talent and my peers talent is about as offensive as offensive can get!
Don’t take our legacies away from us! Don’t take our ability to care for our children and our grandchildren and our great grandchildren
You are just plain wrong and you just don’t have that right Senator. It’s embarrassing that a 70-year-old man, a Democrat, no less, would put himself above all of us! (I’m betting his you know what stinks just as bad as mine does how dare he!) “

Moore notes that Wyden’s local NAACP chapter in Oregon is also railing against his proposal as hundreds of the artists are black.
 Yes I’m sick and tired of any senator or congressman who feels that they can play God over us artists because they’re getting there you-know-what’s kissed by special interest and lobbyists and I don’t care which party they are in!
ENOUGH!
Hope you have a Happy Independence Day Senator Wyden! “

MusicFirst, a coalition that represents music artists’ digital rights, also has chimed in:

“Wyden’s bill also calls for all pre-1972 recordings to lose all of the protection they currently have under state law. Under current law — and the Music Modernization Act wouldn’t change this — all state law protection expires no later than 2067, although in some jurisdictions it could run out sooner. It also says that works recorded between 1923 and 1930 will enter the public domain if they’re not used, and it offers a three-year window from liability for statutory damages in some cases.”

Me, personally: I can’t figure out how a Democrat who considers himself a friend of the arts, and a progressive, wants to limit the rights of these amazing artists. Maybe it’s time to take a deeper dive into Wyden’s motivations.

Sandra Bernhard Says Her One “Roseanne” Reboot Episode Was Cut to Shreds, Hasn’t Heard from Comedian Since Scandal

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Comedian and actress Sandra Bernhard says her one appearance on the “Roseanne” reboot was cut  to shreds and that she hasn’t heard from the embattled star since she shot the episode last year.

Bernhard made a brilliant appearance last night at East Hampton’s Guild Hall where, for 75 minutes, she let loose on everyone including people in the audience and Hamptonites in general. Some of the show was scripted with set  pieces but much was ad libbed, and hilarious. Bernhard is never mean, but she can go in for kill and come out of it bloodless.

It wasn’t far into the set when Roseanne’s came up. Bernhard said that she’d had a great scene with Estelle Parsons, who plays Barr’s mother on the show. “But they cut the whole thing out, and I was like okayyyy,” she said. She said that basically Barr was crazy, that years ago she’d visited her in rehab, that the comic “lived badly” in Hawaii, and that she was currently staying with her parents in Utah. “Do you remember when she accused them of sexually molesting her?” she asked the audience. “I wonder how they feel about that now.”

The set pieces included witty takes on QVC presenters. She also began the set with a gentle jab at Melania Trump. Bernard also gave a few zetses to the Hamptons crowd, chiding the audience over their “resistance.”

I hadn’t seen a Sandra Bernhard show in about 25 years. I was so impressed, and the audience loved her. She’s retained a lot of her edge, and is as current as possible. She’s also a terrific rock singer, and comes with a three piece band. (Her pianist and music guy has been with her since 1985.) I was thinking I’d say Sandra Bernhard is the Patti Smith of comedians. But she beat me to it by closing the show rocking out a blistering performance Patti’s “People Got the Power.” Other songs included “Downtown Train,” Neil Diamond’s “Hot August Nights,” and “Manic Depression.”

There’s no question that after more than three decades, Bernhard is a gifted performer. It’s time, I think, for some higher career retrospective love. (Netflix?) This girl is on fire.

 

 

 

Box Office: “Gotti” All But Disappears After Two Weeks in Release, “Jurassic” Roars with Another $60 Mil

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John Travolta’s “Gotti” movie has all but disappeared from the box office charts. Even though it seems to be playing in some theaters, Vertical Entertainment didn’t report numbers from Friday night.The weekend take was just $305K from 331 locations.

It’s Travolta’s biggest bomb in 20 years. So far there’s no hope of overseas box office, as only Hungary has reported with $57K.

But small films can be hits if they’re well made. The Mister Rogers documentary “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” has made over $7.5 million and is growing. Focus Features tapped into a nostalgia for the late children’s show host and it worked. Personally, I’m ready for the Soupy Sales movie.

Neon’s terrific “Three Identical Strangers” — a must see doc– scored $32K per screen for a limited NY-LA opening total of $163K.

In blockbuster news, “Jurassic World” overcame its meh reviews and made another $60 million this weekend for a total of $264 million. I’m happy for that dinosaur named Blue, I liked him.

“Incredibles 2” is almost at $500 million. Incredible!

Charts: Beyonce & Jay Z, Kanye Are Not Selling Enough Downloads or Streams to Get Hits

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Drake released a new album today. It went straight the top of iTunes, and most of its tracks are lodged on the iTunes singles chart. They’re all getting lots of play on Spotify. “Scorpion” is a hit, whether you like it or not.

But Drake always sells like that. I’ve written about him before. He swamps the streaming songs chart.

This week, though, he’s also knocked off Beyonce and Jay, and Kanye West. The first couple of hip hop has “The Carters” album out. Kanye has his “Ye” album. They are really not selling, and not selling enough to have made a difference.

This week “The Carters” sold around 59,000 “copies.” They did streaming equivalent of 37,000 copies, and another 20,000 in paid downloads. (They skew older as it turns out.)

Kanye sold a total of 25,000 copies, most of which came from streaming. He had about 2,000 paid downloads.

These are not big numbers. Kanye certainly alienated his audience, so it’s understandable. But Bey and Jay have no hit single. “The Carters” has had a long lukewarm response despite the fact that they’re touring.

Listen, financially, I’m not worried about any of these guys. But the reality is, recordings is not where they’re making their money. Only Drake can say that.

By the way, an unreleased John Coltrane album was released today from the height of his career. The tapes were just put away. Now they’re finally out. If you’re interested in actual music, take a listen.

The Beatles Will Release First Ever “Sing-a-long” Version of “Yellow Submarine” Movie to Theaters

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Big news from the Beatles:

They’re going to release a first ever sing-a-long version of the movie “Yellow Submarine” next month to support the 50 th anniversary.

The group is already releasing the movie in various locations beginning July 9th. I saw a new print of it a couple of weeks ago and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band has never looked better, just like Pepperland and the Blue Meanies. The Nowhere Man is still nowhere.

Directed by George Dunning, and written by Lee Minoff, Al Brodax, Jack Mendelsohn and Erich Segal, Yellow Submarine began its voyage to the screen when Brodax, who had previously produced nearly 40 episodes of ABC’s animated Beatles TV series, approached The Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein with a unique vision for a full-length animated feature.

Check thebeatles.com for more info on tickets to both versions.

This isn’t the only 50 th anniversary for the Beatles this summer. From July 31st to August 2nd, 1968 they recorded “Hey Jude.” The single was released at the end of August and spent 7 weeks at number 1. The flip side was “Revolution,” which also went to number 1. The song were original, they weren’t sampled from something released 30 years earlier. They have remained classics, the best of the group’s amazing canon.

There will also be a 50th anniversary edition of “The White Album” in November, with outtakes and all sorts of extras.

Almost 92, Tony Bennett Coming to Save Columbia Records with Lady Gaga, Diana Krall Releases

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EXCLUSIVE What have you been doing this year? Tony Bennett, who turns 92 in August, has been pretty busy from what I hear. He’s going to save Columbia Records from their year long dry spell.

Back in October 2014, Tony told me he and Lady Gaga already had a planned sequel to their “Cheek to Cheek” hit album. He said it would be all Cole Porter and he wasn’t kidding. On this past May 28th, fans saw Bennett and Gaga go in and out of Electric Lady Land Studios on West 8th St. I can tell you they were putting the finishing touches on that same Cole Porter album. 

My sources say we’ll hear the second Bennett-Gaga album in 2019, because both artists have other projects that will come first.

Gaga, of course, will hit us with “A Star is Born” in September. She not only stars in it but has a whole album of songs to accompany the movie.

Tony, I’m told, will announce another duets album on his birthday. A Diana Krall duets album of songs by the Gershwins will hit stores in September, right before the Grammy deadline cut off on September 30th. Tony and Diana have sung together on off tracks in the past, but this is a whole concept album, and it’s on Columbia. We need new Tony Bennett albums now more than ever!

So that’s what Tony’s been up to, that and doing concerts all over the world, even at almost 92!

 

Michael Moore Will Release Anti Trump Doc on September 21st

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Michael Moore will release his anti Trump doc “Fahrenheit 11/9” on September 21st. He’ll announce it tonight on Colbert. Tom Ortenberg, who gave us Spotlight, will distribute under a new banner.

More to come

Ed Sheeran Sued for $100 Mil on “Thinking Out Loud,” Righteous Bros. Will Be Next for “Perfect”

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Ed Sheeran is being sued again for his hit, “Thinking out Loud.” Last year, co-writer of Marvin Gaye’s Let’s Get it On sued Sheeran. Now it’s a music firm that owns part of the copyright, Structured Assets. They want $100 million. Gaye’s heirs, who won a $5 million case against Robin Thicke for “Blurred Lines,” haven’t filed yet. But they will.

Sheeran loves to nick pieces of other songs for his hits. His big hit, “Perfect,” sounds so much like the Righteous Brothers’ “Unchained Melody,” that YouTubers have mixed videos for it. Alex North and Hy Zaret wrote the song in 1955, and it was covered by several artists. But the Righteous Brothers had the biggest hit in the 60s. Their version was rediscovered for the movie “Ghost” in 1989.

Hy Zaret, who wrote the lyrics, died in 2007 but presumably his estate has a lawyer. PS The song is called “Unchained Melody” because it was written for a movie called “Unchained.” Zaret never used that word, but the song became the melody from “Unchained.”

As for “Let’s Get it On,” poor Marvin Gaye. I used to hear “Thinking Out Loud” on the radio and say, “Damn, that sounds just like Let’s Get It On.” Just like Blurred Lines” sounds just like “Got to Give it Up.” Sheeran may have to sell one of his tattoos to pay for this mess.

“General Hospital” Star Maurice Benard Books 5th Movie Role in 2 Years: Does He Know Something We Don’t?

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Maurice Benard has been playing gangster Sonny Corinthos on “General Hospital” since the early 90s. He’s on screen almost every afternoon. His Michael Corleone like character, improbably, has been centrai to the soap for years.

Today Bernard announced that he’s filming a movie role this summer on the East Coast. It turns out this is fifth such job since 2017. The movies are “B movies,” straight to video, not big productions. Except for one, called “The Ghost and the Whale,” Benard is never the star. He takes secondary roles that require a week or two off from the soap.

But still, one wonders, what exactly is going on? Does Benard know something we don’t? Prior to this little run he did almost nothing outside of “General Hospital” for more than a decade. His best known role was playing Desi Arnaz in a TV Movie about Lucille Ball and her late, famous husband in 1991.

Benard could be planning, very smartly, for the future. “General Hospital” ratings are down. There’s general chaos in what’s left of the soap world, with the four remaining shows letting go of tenured actors and not offering raises to actors.

Stay tuned…

EXCLUSIVE Scarlett Johansson, the Real Story: Auditioned for “MI:3,” Not to Be Tom Cruise’s Girlfriend, At Scientology Center in 2005

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Some cockamamie story emanated from Megyn Kelly’s awful TV show yesterday that came out all botched like a whispered part of a “telephone” game.

I can tell you what really happened: Johansson, like a lot of actresses, were brought to the Scientology Celebrity Centre in the spring of 2005 to audition for “Mission Impossible 3.” Many of them realized later that they’d also been brought there as potential girlfriends for Tom Cruise. Katie Holmes was one of those actresses. She got the girlfriend job. Michelle Monaghan got the part.

Other actresses who told stories later like this included Jennifer Garner. If you recall, later, it was reported that Cruise started calling Garner with an idea of dating her. Ben Affleck told Cruise to buzz off, or else. (This was back before Affleck and Garner’s marriage and divorce.)

All these stories turned up years later in Lawrence Wright’s award winning book, “Going Clear.” Cruise also had a Scientology fix up with actress Nazanin Boniadi.

Johansson herself told me that she’d been brought to the Celebrity Center to meet Cruise for “Mission Impossible 3” and and kept there for around eight hours. There was a lavish meal set with her and Cruise. They showed her around the facility and offered to give her an e-meter test. (I can’t remember if she took it.)  Johansson was horrified. She sensed something else was going on, had no intention of becoming a Scientologist or Cruise’s girlfriend. She’s a New York girl. She bolted. End of story.

Scarlett certainly didn’t “go on an audition to become Tom Cruise’s girlfriend.” No one did. No one new that’s what Cruise or Scientology had in mind. The Cruise marriage to Nicole Kidman had ended five years before. In that time, there had been public “fix ups” with Penelope Cruz, and with Sofia Vergara. Cruise was about to embark on publicity for “War of the Worlds.” He needed arm candy. After he “obtained” Katie Holmes, of course, there was a ton of publicity. Eventually Cruise went couch jumping on “Oprah” and fought with Matt Lauer on “Today.”

The rest, as they say, is misery.

Here is what I wrote on June 21, 2oo5:

The newly engaged Katie Holmes still has some explaining to do to her friends and family.

There were 16 days in April during which no one seems to know where she was.

Holmes made a public appearance on April 4 at the premiere of “Steel Magnolias” on Broadway.

She came with her publicist, Leslie Sloane Zelnick, and a couple of other friends. They were there to support Rebecca Gayheart, who was making her Broadway debut.

I know this because I spoke to Holmes at length during the play’s intermission. She said she had just moved into her New York apartment and was looking forward to seeing the city.

I also know that on April 4, she had not yet made the acquaintance of Tom Cruise. She briefly dated Josh Hartnett after breaking up with actor Chris Klein.

Hartnett, Klein, Cruise: Which of these three is not like the others?

Klein and Hartnett are young and tall. Cruise is middle-aged and height-challenged.

On the other hand, he’s the biggest movie star in the world. They are not.

Holmes was busy during that first week in April. On April 7, she was photographed at the Fragrance Foundation’s FiFi event.

Four days later, Holmes was still in New York and was photographed at VH1’s “Save the Music” concert. She still had not met Cruise.

Sometime that week, her friends say, she flew to Los Angeles for a meeting with Cruise about a role in “Mission: Impossible 3.” The meeting took place after April 11.

The next time anyone heard from Holmes was on April 27, when she appeared in public as Cruise’s girlfriend and love of his life.

Where was she during those 16 days?

Somewhere during that time, she decided to fire both her manager and agent, each of whom she had been with for years and who were devoted to her.

The manager, John Carrabino, also handles Renée Zellweger and is beloved by his clients.

Holmes also acquired a new best friend, Jessica Feshbach, the daughter of Joe Feshbach, a controversial Palo Alto, Calif., bond trader.

The Feshbach family, according to published documents, has donated millions to the Church of Scientology. Jessica’s aunt even runs a Scientology center in Florida.

According to Richard Behar‘s now famous 1991 story in Time magazine about Scientology, the Feshbachs were the subject of congressional hearings in 1989.

Behar wrote: “The heads of several companies claimed that Feshbach operatives have spread false information to government agencies and posed in various guises — such as a Securities and Exchange Commission official — in an effort to discredit the companies and drive the stocks down.

Michael Russell, who ran a chain of business journals, testified that a Feshbach employee called his bankers and interfered with his loans. Sometimes the Feshbachs send private detectives to dig up dirt on firms, which is then shared with business reporters, brokers and fund managers.”

The risk-taking Feshbachs, known the world over for making their fortune “shorting” stocks, and the level-headed, conservative Holmeses would be a difficult mix at a dinner table.

Katie’s father, Martin Holmes, is the senior partner in a large and respected Toledo, Ohio, law firm. His son, Martin Jr., has recently joined the firm. He’s a Harvard graduate. Katie’s mom, Kathy, is frequently cited in Toledo for her charity work.

There is some fear among Holmes’ close circle that her instant romance with Cruise is not as organic as portrayed.

For one thing, Holmes was raised a strict Catholic. Also, gone from the picture are two close Holmes friends who used to be with her when she did publicity for a film.

One of these is Meghann Birie, a childhood friend who has suddenly disappeared from Holmes’ world. Another, a local TV producer here in New York, was too afraid to discuss the situation with me.

We know that Cruise auditioned several actresses for this role before settling on Holmes. This column reported a story about Jennifer Garner. There have been published stories about Kate Bosworth, Lindsay Lohan and Jessica Alba being approached.

A newer one involves Scarlett Johansson, who ran for her life when presented with a fait accompli dinner at the Scientology Celebrity Centre in Hollywood.

And history has been rewritten since the April 27 unveiling.

Curiously, since the Cruise-Holmes situation popped up, we have heard over and over again that Cruise was the young actress’ idol when she was growing up.

That’s certainly interesting because all of the publicity that used to run on Holmes — still found all over the Internet — lists another Tom as her favorite actor.

That would be Tom Hanks.