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Irony: Kelly Clarkson Won the Very 1st American Idol 18 Years Ago Hosted by Simon Cowell, Whom She Now Replaces on “America’s Got Talent”

Roger Friedman
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Irony: Kelly Clarkson Won the Very 1st American Idol 18 Years Ago Hosted by Simon Cowell, Whom She Now Replaces on “America’s Got Talent”

18 years. The student replaces the teacher. Or something like that.

It was September 4, 2002 when Kelly Clarkson won the very first “American Idol.” Simon Cowell was the host of the show.

Now nearly two decades later, Cowell has broken his back trying to ride a motorized bike without looking at the directions. He can’t host “America’s Got Talent.” Clarkson, who has recently become ubiquitous on television, will step in for him.

She says on Twitter, “My friend, Simon Cowell, is doing better now but was in an accident and won’t be able to make Tuesday and Wednesday’s live shows for AGT, but no worries America, someone far wiser, cooler, and hotter is taking his seat! The unbelievably amazing Kelly Clarkson 😜 You’re welcome in advance!”

Simon says: “Some good advice… If you buy an electric trail bike, read the manual before you ride it for the first time. I have broken part of my back. Thank you to everyone for your kind messages.”

Cowell thinks he will just miss this week’s live shows and be back next week like nothing happened. That’s because the pain meds haven’t worn off.

Kelly already hosts her own hit talk show and appears wherever else she can, including “The Voice.” Did she send him the bike as a gift? Nooooo. But let’s start that rumor.

Get well, Simon. Hurry! (In the accompanying photo, Kelly tried to swear herself in as president.)

Was Broadway Producer Living in a House of Cards? Scott Rudin Sued for Not Paying Ad Agency $6.3 Million

Roger Friedman
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Was Broadway Producer Living in a House of Cards? Scott Rudin Sued for Not Paying Ad Agency $6.3 Million

Scott Rudin has lived large on Broadway for years.

He’s made his recent reputation in the last decade for bringing in big stars, charging very high ticket prices, cutting out the Broadway press, and making a lot of enemies.

Now it turns out his whole set may have been a house of cards.

Broadway’s biggest ad agency, Spot Co, is suing him for non payment of $6,331,972 and four cents in ads. You can read the complaint here.

Rudin blanketed shows like “CBS This Morning” and “60 Minutes” with ads for shows like Jeff Daniels in “To Kill a Mockingbird” and several others including Elaine May in “The Waverly Gallery,” the current and much criticized revival of “West Side Story,” “The Lehman Trilogy,” Nathan Lane in the great failure, “Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus,” Glenda Jackson in a disappointing “King Lear,” the about to open and unnecessary “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” and this fall’s now postponed “The Music Man” with Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster. He also covered every NYC bus, bus shelter, taxi, any surface available with his ads for his shows.

There’s a lot of minutiae in the lawsuit, but the gist of it is found in this paragraph: “Throughout the business relationship between SpotCo, Rudin, and SRP, Rudin and SRP have had a practice of being delinquent on outstanding invoices. Rudin and SRP’s usual practice is to make partial payments on outstanding invoices on the one hand, while requesting additional services on the other. In other words, while the oldest debts were paid off, new debts were incurred, and the result was that the totality of the debt was never paid in full.”

And here we have the mystery solved of how Rudin was affording big two paid spreads in the Sunday New York Times and all those TV splashes even for shows we all knew were duds. Ironically, Rudin always held himself out as the anti-Harvey Weinstein, who was also slow to pay his bills and for juggling accounts. But — aside from Weinstein’s situations with women– the two were not that different.

Two shows not mentioned in the lawsuit are Rudin’s actual hits– “The Book of Mormon” and the Bette Midler revival of “Hello, Dolly!” The latter is long since closed, and the former was struggling for a good year or more before the pandemic shut down.

An even bigger mystery is why the New York Times downplayed this story on August 7th. They barely acknowledged it. That’s because so much of the advertising Rudin didn’t pay for was in their paper. One thing we learn in the lawsuit is that this past February, Rudin went around SpotCo and paid the Times $3 million directly. This is was not the usual way things were done, but the suggestion is that Rudin could see Tony season coming and needed the Times more than he needed the agency.

Rudin’s attorney says: “The case has no merit and the defendants intend to contest it vigorously.”

But it’s hard to imagine Jackman and Foster, or other big stars, committing to Rudin for big budget productions with this lawsuit hanging over his head. And what of “Mockingbird,” which ended abruptly with the arrival of the pandemic? Will it return?  And with Ed Harris, who’d succeeded Daniels as Atticus Finch? The jury is out.

 

 

Viral Video of Teens Hearing Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight” For 1st Time Sends Single to Top 10 iTunes

Roger Friedman
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Viral Video of Teens Hearing Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight” For 1st Time Sends Single to Top 10 iTunes

Tim and Fred Williams are the stars of the month.

Their viral videos on YouTube have featured the 22 year olds from Gary, Indiana filming themselves hearing old music for the first time.

Their latest is a video of them listening to Phil Collins’s 1981 hit, “In the Air Tonight.” It’s become such a hit that “In the Air Tonight” has risen to the top 5 on iTunes. On Friday and Saturday alone the song sold over 14,000 copies.

The Williams– who are like Wayne and Garth from “Wayne’s World” — are hilarious and sweet as they discover Whitney Houston, Frank Sinatra, Al Green, the Carpenters, Dolly Parton, and so on. Wait til they get to the Beatles, the Stones, and Aretha.

How long before they’ve got their own show on MTV? That depends if MTV is still alive, if anyone’s there to realize this is a show that doesn’t include a paternity test. I hope these guys get a decent agent who cares what happens to them.

Trudie Styler on the Death, from COVID-19, of Chief Aritana Yawalapiti, Influential Leader of Rainforest Preservation

Roger Friedman
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Trudie Styler on the Death, from COVID-19, of Chief Aritana Yawalapiti, Influential Leader of Rainforest Preservation

Trudie Styler is an actress, activist, wife, mother, dare I say grandmother, producer, director, and friend.

As we all know is she– and Sting– are passionate about the preservation of the Rainforest in Brazil, aka “the heart of the world.”

Yesterday Trudie posted this announcement to Instagram. I asked her if I could repost it. The tragic death of Cacique Aritana Yawalapiti is another blow to the Rainforest and its indigenous peoples. Despite our own immediate and local problems, we can’t forget that those issues will be resolved but the Rainforest and the stability of the world will always continue and must be addressed.

Trudie didn’t include this in her post but I say here, you can donate the 30 year old, highly respected Rainforest Foundation Fund by clicking this link.

Trudie’s statement:

With a heavy heart, the Rainforest Fund brings you very sad news.

Chief Aritana Yawalapiti, who led the people of upper Xingu in central Brazil, died on Wednesday from COVID-19.

Cacique Aritana Yawalapiti will be remembered by all those who had the chance to meet him as an iconic chief of the people of the Upper Xingu region who dedicated his life to his community. He was one of the most influential leaders who helped create the Xingu Indigenous Reserve working with the Villas-Boas brothers, the first vast protected area in the Amazon.

We first met Aritana in his village in the Upper Xingu in 1988. He was always the most welcoming and gracious host and never short of a smile.

It was a time of heightened tension with all the indigenous people of the Xingu as they were opposing the building of the Belo Monte dam, and Aritana was at the forefront of the fight to protect their land and the integrity of their riverine life. He did this all his life from the inception of the Xingu Indigenous Reserve to the present crisis.

He spoke with great authority and calmness, marshalled his arguments with a politician’s finesse, and being from one of the smaller tribes he was adept at finding compromise within their sometimes fractious grouping. He could read people very well, and his combination of oratorical skills, dignity, personal charm and toughness were the perfect combination for a Xingu chief, where personal and inter-tribal rivalries were traditional.

A kind and warm-hearted man, he respected all sentient beings, and had begun to pass on his experience and guidance to his young son to become the next cacique.

We all feel so very sad for the Yawalapiti people, who were our first introduction to life in the rainforest and so hold a special place in our hearts. At this extraordinary time in the world, we are seeing the passing of a generation who straddled the old and the new; what will follow for the next generation will be very different.

Cacique Aritana will be sorely missed, and with his passing the tribal memory of the Yawalapiti and indeed Brazil is sadly depleted.
We hope his legacy will be the continued fight for the protection of his people, the Xingu

Britney Spears On Why Tim Burton’s “Big Eyes” is Favorite Movie: “Stay away from bad people and raise your awareness with high energy people”

Roger Friedman
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Britney Spears On Why Tim Burton’s “Big Eyes” is Favorite Movie: “Stay away from bad people and raise your awareness with high energy people”

Britney Spears has chosen Tim Burton’s “Big Eyes” as her favorite movie. She’s posted a review to Instagram:

“I watched the movie Big Eyes the other day by of course my favorite director in the whole world @timburton !!! It’s about a fragile yet adorable eccentric woman who has problems with men yet she’s an extraordinary artist who paints children with big eyes 👀👀👀 !!!  She obviously paints them for the love of her daughter … the troubled man she is seeing loves the fame and handles it better so he takes all her glory and says it’s him doing all the work … in the end she gets fed up and reclaims her art proving it is her that is indeed the artist 🎨👩‍🎨⭐️ !!! She leaves him never to remarry and takes care of her daughter 💕👯‍♀️ !!!! It was very weird the same day I watched this movie I did a mini photoshoot and look how freaking big my eyes were 👁👁 !!! I mean … my eyes have never been that big !!! It’s actually kinda crazy and they aren’t retouched at all … coincidence maybe ???  If the power of what you see and hear can influence your life THAT much … I mean literally stay away from bad people and raise your awareness with high energy people ✨🌸🌟 !!! That’s what I learned from this … and watch Big Eyes while you’re at it !!!”

Madonna at a Crossroads: Record Deal with Interscope is Over, It Won’t Be Easy to Get Another One

Roger Friedman
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Madonna at a Crossroads: Record Deal with Interscope is Over, It Won’t Be Easy to Get Another One

Madonna is at a crossroads now. Her record deal with Interscope is over after a decade of not selling records, CDs, downloads, or streams. Variety first reported that news tonight.

It’s a situation not uncommon to older artists. Madonna was once a best selling pop star with Warner Music. Then she moved into the Interscope phase, which was tied to her concert tours. The albums were bundled with tickets to make it look like they were selling.

But in recent years, the record sales have dried up as radio stations don’t play new music by legacy stars. It’s hard to believe that the woman whose records are ubiquitous on oldies and disco stations can’t get arrested now on radio. The one time Material Girl turns 62 in a couple of weeks.

Madonna’s total sales this year, according to Buzz Angle/Alpha Data, comes to 28,300 albums in CD sales and paid downloads. Her last album, “Madame X,” has sold 170,000 copies since it was released on June 14, 2019. Of that number 125K was CDs and downloads. The rest came from streaming. I’m sorry to say, but that’s not enough to engage a contract from a major label.

Madonna could go the way of a lot of older artists and sign a vanity deal with BMG. But they just rubber stamp the release and do not marketing or distribution. (Ask Chrissie Hynde.) Warner’s could make a distribution deal with her since they have her biggest catalog. But there’s no money there for new Madonna music.

What Madonna could do is revive her Maverick Records as indie, use an outside distributor, and hire PR, radio, ad, social marketing etc people. What Madonna hasn’t really explored are box sets, taking old albums and making anniversary packages, finding lost recordings. For some legacy artists, that’s become a good business. (See Paul McCartney.)

But Madonna just posted to Instagram that she did everything to make her career, she had help from no one. She did it her way. So she may not find a lot of people who want to help her now when she needs it.

Beyonce “Black is King” Fans Don’t Realize Last Year’s Album “The Lion King: The Gift” is the Soundtrack, Buy Only 5K Copies of Album

Roger Friedman
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Beyonce “Black is King” Fans Don’t Realize Last Year’s Album “The Lion King: The Gift” is the Soundtrack, Buy Only 5K Copies of Album

Beyonce fans who owned “The Lion King: The Gift” were pretty much locked in with its release last summer.

Despite Beyonce’s new “Black is King” visual thing on Disney Plus, more fans did not go out and the album from last year.

Last week “The Gift” sold just 5,000 CDs and downloads, a total of 26,000 copies including streaming.

That could be a troublesome number for Disney if it can be compared to the number of subscribers who joined Plus just to see “Black is King.”

It also makes you wonder how many Beyonce fans who were already Disney Plus subscribers have actually watched and listened to “Black is King.” Or understand that “The Gift” is its soundtrack.

I know, that part is confusing. Because Beyonce and her Parkwood Entertainment and Disney haven’t done much to tie the two projects together. Yet, “Black is King” takes all those “Gift” songs, makes new gorgeous videos for them and gives them a story. I know that when I watched the 90 minute video, I appreciated the songs in a whole new way.

But fans are not making that connection. And Sony isn’t doing anything to promote last year’s album since Beyonce cut them out of this project.

In the end, the lion really does sleep tonight.

Hollywood Catch Up: Golden Globes President Dead, HBO Chief Ousted, MTV Cancels VMAs at Barclays Center

Roger Friedman
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Hollywood Catch Up: Golden Globes President Dead, HBO Chief Ousted, MTV Cancels VMAs at Barclays Center

There’s a lot going on, and you will read about it all in various places.

But just to recap:

Lorenzo Soria, the president of the Golden Globes organization the Hollywood Foreign Press, has died at the age of 68. Lorenzo and I were famous enemies. We disagreed a lot, we argued when we first met, but we always laughed everything out. He was devoted to the Globes. Showbiz publicist extraordinaire Norah Lawlor really liked him. She said, “He was the hippest president of the Golden Globes.” A short time ago Lorenzo got married, which softened him a bit and it helped that his wife liked everyone. New bridges were built. I am really upset. I had hoped to keep tussling with Lorenzo for years to come. This is way too young to die. He also leaves a young son. Condolences to his family and friends and to the HFPA.

Warner Media was rocked today by sweeping changes at HBO. Bob Greenblatt, who’d replaced Richard Plepler as head of the studio, is out. So is Kevin Reilly. Greenblatt had come from a successful reign at NBC and at Showtime. He was very popular, and I know he’ll reappear in some great new position. HBO is still the gold standard, and longtime exec Casey Bloys gets promoted in this reshuffle. But with “Perry Mason” getting lots of great attention, and HBO receiving 106 Emmy nominations, I’m surprised Greenblatt is out. But that’s Hollywood, kids.

MTV will still have their Video Music Awards, but they’ll be virtual and from undisclosed locations around New York. They will not be at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. I never understood how that was going to work. Apparently neither did MTV. “The 2020 VMAs will be held on Sunday, Aug. 30 and pay homage to the incredible resiliency of New York with several outdoor performances around [NYC] with limited or no audience, adhering to all state and city guidelines. In close consultation with state and local health officials‎, it became clear at this time that outdoor performances with limited or no audience would be more feasible and safer than an indoor event.”

No kidding.

 

Madonna, One Week Away from 62nd Birthday, Reminds Fans She Made it On Her Own Without Any Help from Anyone

Roger Friedman
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Madonna, One Week Away from 62nd Birthday, Reminds Fans She Made it On Her Own Without Any Help from Anyone

Madonna is one week away from her 62nd birthday. She’s supported Louis Farrakhan and in the last few weeks also crazy Dr. Immanuel, the demon sperm doctor.

She hasn’t had a hit in a long time. But she’s made hundreds of millions of dollars, and was once the Queen of Pop. So she wants to remind us she did it on her own. She posted a picture of herself circa 1985 and wrote: “No YouTube, No Vine, No The Voice, No American Idol, No Disney. Just $35 and a dream.”

Madonna did it all on her own. No songwriters, no producers, no Seymour Stein or Sire Records at Warner Bros., no Liz Rosenberg, no other publicists, managers, Freddy DeMann, no Jellybean Benitez, no fans, no Susan Seidelman. No Guy Oseary, I guess, either.

Just her. Gotcha.

View this post on Instagram

No IG, Twitter or Tik Tok either! 🚀🚀🚀

A post shared by Madonna (@madonna) on

Solid as a Rock: Remembering Tee Alston, Friend, Family, Manager of Ashford & Simpson’s Sugar Bar, Gone at 82

Roger Friedman
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Solid as a Rock: Remembering Tee Alston, Friend, Family, Manager of Ashford & Simpson’s Sugar Bar, Gone at 82

It is with deep sadness that I must tell you today that the great Tee Alston has passed away less than a month before her 83rd birthday.

We called her Tee, but her real name was Altomese, and she was the Major Domo of the world of Ashford & Simpson for over 50 years. She was the best friend of Nik and Val, their consort, cohort, organizer, family member, Grand Poobah of the Sugar Bar on West 72nd St. and before that the 20/20 club.

I’m sure I’m not alone when I say I had Tee’s phone number memorized for all these years. If I asked everyone in New York or the music world to raise their hands if they had that number, the whole place would rise. Everyone loved her, and the love went back and forth. She was one of those people who glowed from within.

I asked Valerie Simpson today– she’s in shock, by the way– how she met Tee. “It was before there was a Nik and Val,” she told me. “I was playing piano for a gospel group in Harlem. Tee and her friends were walking by and they stopped in because they heard the music. I told her she had great shoes. And that was it.” Best friends forever.

Tee apparently passed in her sleep, she was otherwise perfectly fine. The Sugar Bar has been closed because of the pandemic, but she’d been taking care of herself and quarantining.

We all had a long running inside joke with Tee. She loved Sam Moore, had a had mad crush on him. She’d always say to me, batting her big brown eyes, “How’s that Sam?” and give me a wink. Then we’d hug.

Tee has a daughter, Sharon, to whom we send condolences. But also to Val and her daughters Asia and Nicole, to everyone at the Sugar Bar, to everyone who loves Ashford & Simpson. To Nik in heaven, who greeted Tee with open arms. I know they are having a good time but we wish they were here.

Tee maybe best exemplified Ashford & Simpson songs herself. She was “Sold as a rock.” She was “the real thing” from “Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing,” and she was all everybody needed to get by. This picture above was from Val’s birthday party one year ago on a boat we sailed around New York at midnight. And Tee — look at the smile — was always getting the cakes, putting it all together. My friend, bless you. You will not be forgotten.

Tee uploaded one video to YouTube (she wasn’t really a computer person). I’m including it here, of all Ashford & Simpson’s performances.

 

 

Pictures courtesy of Valerie Simpson c2020

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