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Joni Mitchell remains at number 1 on iTunes with her 1971 album, “Blue.” And at number 6, the outtakes from “Blue” called “Blue 50.”
The 50 year old album tops newcomer Olivia Rodridgo with her “Sour” album and HER Music with her first actual album.
There’s a lot of irony there. Without Joni, Olivia and Gabi Wilson aka HER, wouldn’t exist.
The “Blue 50” has a song that fell through the cracks, called “Hunter,” which is fast becoming a new favorite. Here’s Joni performing it in 1970. She pulled it off “Blue” to make room for other songs because LPs could only have 20 minutes of material on each side. Now, of course, albums can be as long as you like digitally. Oh, for those innocent days!
PS The picture is c2021 Showbiz411 by me, with Roberta Flack, at Clive Davis’s pre-Grammy dinner in 2019. Joni’s actual first name is Roberta, too. Roberta Joan Anderson.
“NCIS” is getting good at replacing aging cast members who want a rest.
First it was Linda Hunt, who will be supplemented by Gerald McRaney in next season’s “NCIS Los Angeles.”
Now it’s Mark Harmon, who’s made a zillion dollars on the “NCIS” mothership as Gibbs. He’s said to be cutting back to just a few episodes this coming season, probably during sweeps. Mark Harmon turns 70 on September 2nd, believe it or not.
So into the fray comes Gary Cole, known more in recent years for romantic roles– playing Christine Baranski’s husband on “The Good Fight” — and quipping ironically on “Veep.” Cole is a terrific actor, and capable of snarkier stuff than Harmon. If he’s coming in to run the NCIS squad, the show might actually get a hip tone.
“NCIS” is also adding Katrina Law, as a series regular, as Special Agent Jessica Knight, She’s already been on this season and takes the place of Emily Wickersham, who left after 8 seasons. If “NCIS” is going to keep going through Season 20 in 2023, and beyond, they’ll be swapping out more expensive, older actors with younger ones. That’s the way it goes in the Navy. (Are they still in the Navy?)
I think I first saw David Byrne and the Talking Heads in 1977 in Boston, probably at the Rathskeller. I awoke one morning to Charles Laquidara playing a song about people living in buildings “with every convenience.” It was the strangest song I ever heard, and remains a favorite 40 plus years later.
So guess what? David is receiving a Special Tony Award for his hit Broadway show, the unique “American Utopia.” He’ll receive it on September 26th at the belated 2020 Tony Awards. Bravo!
This gives David three of the four letters in “EGOT.” He has a Grammy, of course, and an Oscar for collaborating on the 1988 score of “The Last Emperor. Now he has a Tony Award. He may be Emmy nominated for “American Utopia” which was directed by Spike Lee for HBO this past year. He should win. Then he will be an EGOT.
“American Utopia” returns to Broadway this fall as soon as “Springsteen on Broadway” wraps up its summer run. The house of “Hello, Dolly!” and “The Producers” is rockin’ this year! (“American Idiot” also played there.) I could see “AU” over and over. Congrats to David!
PS Special Tony Awards are also going to Lin Manuel Miranda’s “Freestyle Love Supreme,: created by Thomas Kail and Anthony Veneziale iwith Miranda, and was developed in the basement of The Drama Bookshop in 2004, which they now all own. The show ran at Broadway’s Booth Theatre in 2019. Directed by Kail, the acclaimed show features a comedic improvisational musical structure, and a rotating cast; Freestyle Love Supreme will return to Broadway for a strictly limited engagement at the Booth on Thursday, October 7 through Sunday, January 2, 2022.
Now the Tony’s will have some cool stuff to put on CBS September 26th. Good work!
Debbie Gibson and Richard Marx are each pop icons from the 1980s. They weren’t from my world, but they were each each very popular and continue to be.
Now comes news from both of them. Gibson will release her long- awaited new pop album on August 20th—her first in 20 years. Her 10th studio album is called “The Body Remembers,” and features 15 new tracks written or co-written by Gibson, along with a studio version remake of her 1989 hit power ballad “Lost in Your Eyes”—now a duet with Joey McIntyre, out today.
“I’m in the zone musically on this album like never before,” says Gibson in a statement. “There’s a flow happening and it’s very exciting. I’m excited to be releasing an album that people of my generation can relate to that also feels modern.”
Gibson and McIntyre, from New Kids on the Block, are also on tour this summer.
And then there’s Richard Marx, who made the girls swoon in his 80s MTV videos. He’s got a memoir coming on July 6th called “Stories To Tell” with a two-disc companion release featuring remastered versions of his biggest hits plus never before released demos, and live tracks. Plus he’s recorded fresh interpretations of songs he wrote for other artists including NSYNC’s “This I Promise You,” Josh Groban’s “To Where You Are” and Keith Urban’s “Better Life.”
Whew! I didn’t know this but Marx is now coupled in real life with MTV’s Daisy Fuentes. He also suffers from an undiagnosed malady. He looks pretty good nonetheless in this clip from Mother’s Day:
Tickets for “The Music Man” went on sale before 10am on telecharge.com
There’s a smattering of seats left in the orchestra on most nights, some in the mezzanine. Most tickets were already sold to scalpers who are reselling them for thousands of dollars.
So get in there while you can. The whole run will be sold out before the end of the morning.
Check your clocks at 10am. That’s when “The Music Man” should send Telecharge into a frenzy. The Hugh Jackman musical revival is putting “regular priced” tickets on sale at that time. Tickets are already selling on secondary sites for thousands of dollars. Telecharge should be broken within minutes.
At the same time, producers Barry Diller and David Geffen today announced the person who would replace Scott Rudin as lead producer of the show. They’ve chosen a woman, which is was the smart movie after the ousting of Rudin– not because he was a sexual harasser of women, but because it’s a new, fresh look for the company.
The new lead producer is Kate Horton, and according to a release, she heads Fictionhouse, an independent production company making work in television, film, and theatre, alongside screen and stage director Dominic Cooke. Ms. Horton is said to be responsible for numerous commercial transfers between London and New York, including “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time.” I don’t know why that’s important since “The Music Man” is a New York show, but I guess it’s to say she’s very accomplished.
Replacing Rudin should be a challenging task. For a while, at least, no one will believe he’s not somehow pulling strings, if not throwing the potatoes.
“The Music Man” also announced some five star casting: Tony Award winner Jayne Houdyshell as Mrs. Shinn, Tony Award winner Jefferson Mays as Mayor Shinn, Tony Award winner Marie Mullen as Mrs. Paroo, and Tony Award winner Shuler Hensley as Marcellus Washburn. The principal cast will also include Remy Auberjonois as Charlie Cowell, Gino Cosculluela as Tommy Djilas, and Emma Crow as Zaneeta Shinn.
But with tickets selling for upwards of $5,000 a pair, will anyone get to see this show? Stay tuned…
As you know, Joni Mitchell’s 1971 watershed album “Blue is number 1 today. When it was released 50 years ago, it never hit number 1.
The number 1 album at the time was Carole King’s Tapestry. It was in the middle of a long run at the top of the charts. Carole’s double A side single, “It’s Too Late” backed with ( or b/w) “I Feel the Earth Move” was on a similar run at number 1 on the Hot 100.
The era of the singer/songwriter, the female singer/songwriter, was now in motion. Also on the charts was Carly Simon’s “That’s The Way I’ve Always Heard it Should Be.” In the fall, Carly would release “Anticipation.” Carole would back with her “Music” album. The three ladies would be everywhere.
“Blue” grew over the years as a favorite, followed by Joni’s “For the Roses” album. But Joni wouldn’t have her biggest commercial success until 1974 and “Court and Spark.” The singles off that album — “Help Me” and “Free Man in Paris” — are her biggest hits ever, far bigger than “Blue.” But by then “Blue” was a must-have in every record collection, a classic.
And threaded through these albums were those by James Taylor, Neil Young, Jackson Browne, the guys from the singer/songwriter world, just as successful.
But that was all just one side of music. There was plenty of R&B. Besides Marvin Gaye, Aretha Franklin, and James Brown, 1971 was full of great soul singles. There was a dogfight on the charts between Jean Knight’s “Mr. Big Stuff” and the Honeycone’s “Want Ads” right now. Aretha had “Bridge Over Troubled Water” and “Spanish Harlem.” Marvin had the songs from “What’s Going On.” The Jackson 5 was on top with “Never Can Say Goodbye” and the Temptations lived all summer on “Just My Imagination.”
This was an era when Black and white music shared the top 40. Al Green, the Staples Singers, the Stylistics, there was no end to it. The Dramatics’ “Whatcha See Is Whatcha Get” was just this gorgeous, rhythmic opera that I could not get enough of in the summer of 71. And it all lived together happily in my 14 year old head. That was the world “Blue” was born into 50 years ago today.
The next big anniversaries come up on July 3rd and 6th, the deaths of Jim Morrison and Louie Armstrong. Jim was 27, Louis was only 69.
Pop tart Lorde has had a big flop single for the last couple of weeks called “Solar Power.” Downloads: 5,000, With streaming: 85,000.
So now what? Why, a new album, of course, named for the single. And then a tour next year when everyone’s forgotten about the album. Sounds like a plan. “Solar Power,” is produced, like everything else, by Jack Antonoff.
Plus the new album will be bio-degradable or something.
“I didn’t wanna make something that would end up in a landfill in 2 years, but more than that, I wanted to make something that symbolised my commitment to asking questions of our systems, and making stuff with intention and sensitivity,” Lorde said. “I’m calling it a music box. It’ll be the same size and shape as a CD, and you can buy it where CDs live, but this is something totally different. If you’re torn on which hold-in-your-hands, flip-through-the-pages thing to buy to best enjoy this album, honestly, I’d go for the music box.”
Whatever. The tour starts next spring in Nashville. This isn’t how things work. If the album is a bust in August– and look, even a hit album doesn’t last more than a few weeks anymore– she’ll have to have a new album in April 2022 or a hit of some kind to tour behind. Why not wait and release the album next February? Since you’ve already had a single that didn’t work?
Well, no one asked US! No word yet on whether Lorde will pick up where she left off with her anti-Israel sentiment.
Solar Power Tracklist:
1. The Path
2. Solar Power
3. California
4. Stoned in the Nail Salon
5. Fallen Fruit
6. Secrets From a Girl (Who’s Seen It All)
7. The Man with An Axe
8. Dominoes
9. Big Star
10. Leader of a New Regime
11. Mood Ring
12. Oceanic Feeling
Dan Rather is unhappy with Jon Stewart. The famed journalistand former CBS News anchor is taking issue with Stewart’s rant on Colbert regarding the Wuhan virus starting in a laboratory versus somehow emanating from bats. Stewart, surprising Colbert on live TV, turned into a right wing curmudgeon and blamed the sceintists in the Wuhan lab for creating the virus.
Stewart said on the show: “I honestly mean this: I think we owe a great debt of gratitude to science,” Stewart said. “Science has in many ways helped ease the suffering of this pandemic ― which was more than likely caused by science.” He added, “Oh my God, there’s a novel respiratory coronavirus overtaking Wuhan, China. What do we do? Oh, you know who we could ask? The Wuhan novel respiratory coronavirus lab.”
“Can I say this about scientists?” he continued. “I love them and they do such good work but they are going to kill us all.” Let that sink in. Scientists are going to “kill us all?” Rather notes on his blog today that Stewart finished up by predicting how the world would end. “The last words man utters are somewhere in a lab a guy goes, ‘Huhuh! It worked.”
Rather is incensed. He writes: They idea that scientists have done some bad things in the name of research — such as the Tuskegee experiments. Scientists have been wrong. Science and technology have been tools that supported colonialism and oppression. Science does not release us from our moral responsibilities. All of this is the case because science is a human endeavor and scientists are human, subject to the same frailties and base instincts as any member of our species. But science is also a way of thinking, where we challenge our own dogmas and beliefs, where we change our minds and approach when the data show we were wrong.
“Stewart is playing into the trope of the mad scientist at a time when we need science more than ever to solve our more pressing problems — most notably climate change. The idea that science is the biggest threat to the planet is terribly irresponsible. It gives free license to all those who say, forget what we have learned, forget knowledge, forget seeing reality. And I fear this reasoning – or should I say “unreasoning” — has not only consumed the modern Republican party but is in danger of consuming an even broader swath of the American and global public.”
I’m trying to think of the Wikipedia entry for Nick Cannon. “Father of Mariah Carey’s twins, avowed anti-Semite and follower of Louis Farrakhan, host of The Masked Singer.”
And man who fathered four children by three women in 2021.
Cannon is apparently expecting his fourth kid of the year and seventh in total soon with a woman named Alyssa Scott. And she’s proud of it! She announced it, albeit in code, on Instagram.
Nick is not new to the maternity ward. This month he’s already had a pair of twins with another woman, and a baby last December with yet another willing participant. The twins are named twin boys Zion Mixolydian and Zillion Heir, because why not? And the December baby was called Powerful Queen. I’m not kidding. Powerful Queen has a full brother named Golden.
And then of course there are the Mariah Carey twins Moroccan and Monroe, who are 10 years old and probably losing sleep about keeping all these birthdays straight.
Nick Cannon currently hosts Fox’s’ “Masked Singer” and for a time lost his job with Viacom hosting “Wild N Out” when it was discovered he was posting anti-Semitic videos to YouTube supporting Louis Farrakhan and calling Jews names. Do you remember that? That was less than a year ago.
But then, facing financial ruin as his brood was cooking, Cannon started a mea culpa campaign. He interviewed rabbi’s and asked for forgiveness. He never renounced Farrakhan or the Nation of Islam. His employers, who were making money off of him, eventually let it all slide.
Next up for Nick is a syndicated talk show in the fall. I guess the producers, Debmar Mercury, will offer day care. They should kick off the first episode with the mothers of all the kids. Mariah could sing the theme song.
