FKA Twigs: In Bloom

[Edited 1/22/15 16:04pm]

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“The Intimate Truth” EP Out Now

Ledisi’s new EP, The Intimate Truth is out now! This seven song EP features acoustic performances from her latest full-length album The Truth (March 2014). Order it now:

iTunes | Amazon MP3 | Google Play

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Marilyn Manson - The Pale Emperor

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Latin Tribute to Michael Jackson Salsifies 'Smooth Criminal': Watch It Here

By Judy Cantor-Navas | January 15, 2015 11:10 AM EST

Google Play Store has Motley Crue: The Greatest Hits (MP3 Digital Album Download) for Free.

Estelle Streams Album Sampler for True Romance
January 2015

Here's the track list for True Romance:

"Time After Time"
"Conqueror"
"Something Good / Devotion"
"Make Her Say (Beat It Up)"
"Time Share (Suite 509)"
"The Same"
"Fight for It"
"Silly Girls"
"Gotcha Love"
"She Will Love"
"All That Matters"
"Not Sure" (Bonus Track)


The album arrives next month.

R. Kelly celebrated his 48th b-day with a new track titled, "Happy Birthday".

Here's the video.

New upcoming releases:

Papa Roach

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Shania Twain to Release New Live Album, 'Shania: Still the One Live From Vegas'

By Colin Stutz | January 23, 2015 8:00 PM EST

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Scott Weiland Premieres New Songs at Sundance

By Phil Gallo, Park City, Utah | January 23, 2015 10:00 PM EST

Scott Weiland treated a packed house at the ASCAP Music Cafe at the Sundance Film Festival to half of the dozen songs that appear on his first album with his new band the Wildabouts. Due March 31, the songs from the album Blaster are no-nonsense, straight-ahead rock tunes that owe debts to music of the 1980s and '90s inspired by late '60s garage rock.

Billboard at Sundance: Se...r Coverage

The half-hour set's lone cover -- a sharp extended rendition of David Bowie's "Jean Genie" that allowed guitarist Jeremy Brown to play with tones both volcanic and cavernous -- is an appropriate root of the Wildabouts' sound: hook-filled choruses, rhythms propelled by Tommy Black's bass, almost on par with Danny Thompson's steady and aggressive drumming, and little ornamentation. The drive of "Jean Genie" is immediately evident in "Hotel Rio" and the first track being sent to radio, "Way She Moves."

Weiland accurately described the song "White Lightning" as "Godzilla or King Kong doing a song in the Appalachians." It's a boot stomper -- think of the Doors at their bluesiest -- though Weiland and the band sound best when they tear into hard-edged power pop like the catchy "Amethyst."

Longtime Weiland fans were appeased with two of his classics from Stone Temple Pilots: "Vasoline" and "Unglued."

Weiland and the Wildabouts perform again at the ASCAP Music Cafe at 4:45 p.m. on Jan 24.

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Draco Rosa Celebrates 'Vida' With Vinyl Release

By Judy Cantor-Navas | January 22, 2015 5:09 PM EST

It's been almost two years since the original release of Draco Rosa's album Vida, which won 2013's Latin Grammy for album of the year and a Grammy for best Latin pop album, and now a vinyl version is on the way.

Since then, the Puerto Rican rock icon and hit songwriter went on an extensive tour, including a Los Angeles concert that was unforgettable for its intensity: long, loud, at times almost unbearably intimate, a show of life force that under the circumstances could have been taken as a rebel yell at cancer.

J Balvin to Speak at 2015 Billboard Latin Music Conference

Rosa has undergone two stem-cell transplants after being diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma: one before the album was released and one after the tour, when he was told the cancer had returned. He has since moved his studio to a tropical setting in his native Puerto Rico and is reportedly working on his next album.

"I'm back," Rosa told Puerto Rican media recently at a press conference for the charity race "World's Best 10K," for which he serves as a spokesman, urging the public to run in the name of a child with cancer. Rosa said he plans to walk in March in the Scotiabank-sponsored race, which he had to miss last year due to his illness. People who buy a ticket to a raffle related to the event will win a chance to have coffee with the artist, or win a Draco Rosa-autographed guitar.

The vinyl edition of Vida is due Tuesday and will be available on Amazon. Meanwhile, watch Rosa performing the song "Esto Es Vida," which has to be one of the most beautiful love songs -- and life-loving songs -- ever written.

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Prepare to be Amazed All Over Again by the Gloriously Singular Nina Simone

Reviewing from the Sundance Film Festival, Mike Hogan says the upcoming Netflix documentary What Happened, Miss Simone? perfectly captures the eccentric, unique artist, far better than any archival YouTube deep dive could.

by Mike Hogan

January 23, 2015 11:55 am

Alfred Wertheimer/Courtesy of Sundance

There's an amazing moment in director Liz Garbus’s upcoming Netflix documentary What Happened, Miss Simone? where Al Schackman, Simone’s guitarist and friend of 42 years, remembers his shock at seeing her her walk up to Martin Luther King Jr. and declare, “I’m not nonviolent.” To which King replied, in Schackman’s telling, “That's all right, sister, you don't have to be."

What else was he supposed to say? By then, nobody could control Nina Simone—not even Nina Simone.

The astonishingly gifted and supernaturally cool singer grew up in an environment of crushing, undiscussed oppression. In Jim Crow North Carolina, racial discrimination was as inescapable as the weather, so what was there to say about it? Young Eunice Waymon—that was her given name—absorbed a lifetime’s worth of hurt even as a couple of nice white ladies from the other side of the tracks took an interest in her talent, subjecting her to eight-hour days of rigorous piano practice. Their dream, and hers, was that she would someday become the first black woman to play classical music at Carnegie Hall.

Instead, she was rejected by the Curtis Academy of Music in Philadelphia—because she was black, she later concluded—and wound up playing pop, jazz, R&B, and soul at a grimy bar in Atlantic City. She was so embarrassed at this fall from grace that she adopted the stage name Nina Simone so that her family, whom she was supporting with her late-night gigs, wouldn't discover her secret.

It was indisputably wrong for Curtis to reject her on the basis of her skin color, and churlish at best for her boss in Atlantic City to threaten to fire her if she didn't sing. But what a treasure the world would have missed out on if Simone had never discovered the wonder of her voice. It is among the most expressive of the 20th century, swollen with emotion, almost masculine in its depth, and versatile enough to range, as she put it, from raspy to rich and smooth as cocoa and milk.

Eventually, she fell in love with and married Andrew Stroud, an NYPD vice-squad detective. He was scary, but he also had a plan for Simone’s career, and for a while things were good. Stroud quit his job on the force and became Simone’s full-time manager. With her classical training, quasi-European sensibility, and savvy management, Simone enjoyed commercial and crossover success. One of the film's most surreal scenes shows her performing “I Loves You, Porgy" for Hugh Hefner and his gang on the set of his TV show, Playboy's Penthouse.

Simone undoubtedly enjoyed the trappings of success—the Mt. Vernon home she shared with Stroud and their daughter, Lisa, contained a cold storage room for her fur coats—but all was not well. She found the touring schedule Stroud imposed her exhausting, but her complaints fell on deaf ears or, worse, provoked him to berate her, beat her, even rape her, she said.

Moreover, she wasn’t fulfilled. Her dream was to be a classical musician, not “the high priestess of soul.” However staggering her accomplishments seem in retrospect, they didn't match up to her expectations for herself.

Everything changed in the summer and fall of 1963, as racist terrorists waged a campaign of violence that culminated with the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, and the assassination of activist Medgar Evers in Jackson, Mississippi. Possessed by horror and rage, the swallowed indignities and alienation of her youth all coming back to her now, Simone wrote and performed—at Carnegie Hall, no less—a blistering new song with the radio-unfriendly title “Mississippi Goddamn.” That’s when she found her true calling.

It would be unfair both to Garbus and to Netflix subscribers who plan to stream this documentary to give away what happens next. Suffice it to say, Simone was both exhilarated and radicalized by the Civil Rights current that swept her right into the center of a war. That's how she saw it, certainly, and the film's most uncomfortable moment comes when, under the influence of her friend Stokely Carmichael, she asks an audience of festival-goers if they are ready to burn down buildings and even kill for the movement.

As she leaves her family behind to start a new life in Liberia and later in Europe, a happy ending is far from guaranteed, not least because her increasingly erratic, even violent behavior threatens to isolate her from the only people capable of helping her. It wasn’t until she reached rock bottom, the film suggests, that Schackman and another friend insisted on taking Simone to a doctor, who offered a diagnosis that gave her the gift of self-control at last, enabling her to enjoy a dignified final act.

Garbus’s documentary is a celebration of Simone’s legacy, but it also takes a reasonably unflinching approach to her faults. (Though her various exploits with firearms go unmentioned, she can be heard in voice over stating that she would have liked to take up arms against the white enemy, if only Stroud hadn’t stood in her way.) But the real joy here is the music, and the archival footage of Simone doing what she did best: singing, playing piano, performing.

In particular, the footage her 1976 comeback performance at the Montreux Jazz Festival captures both her terrifying eccentricity (“Sit down,” she commands a random audience member midway through her perfor...��Stars”) and the sheer sublimity of her artistry (the song, once she gets going, is jaw-droppingly great).

You can watch this stuff on YouTube, but what a privilege to have it assembled in this stylish, soulful package. The risk of making a documentary of a towering artist is that, by explaining her, you only end up diminishing her. Not Nina Simone—not this time. In Liz Garbus’s telling, Simone’s talent and personality shine through, as gloriously singular, and uncontrollable, as ever.

Tangerine Dream Founder Edgar Froese Dead at 70

Electronic music pioneer passes away unexpectedly after suffering pulmonary embolism

Edgar Froese, founding member and keyboardist of the long-running band Tangerine Dream and a pioneer in the field of electronic music, passed away after suffering a pulmonary embolism on January 20th. Froese was 70.

"This is a message to you we are very sorry for… On January 20th, Tuesday afternoon, Edgar Froese suddenly and unexpectedly passed away from the effects of a pulmonary embolism in Vienna," the official Tangerine Dr...age posted Friday afternoon. "The sadness in our hearts is immensely. Edgar once said: 'There is no death, there is just a change of our cosmic address.' Edgar, this is a little comfort to us."

Formed in 1967 in West Berlin and born out of the same Krautrock scene that produced Kraftwerk, Cluster, Neu! and Can, Tangerine Dream's 1970 debut LP Electronic Meditation, which featured fellow electronic music giant Klaus Schulz, shared many of the same musical qualities as their German peers.

However, by the early-Seventies, Froese and his reformed Tangerine Dream soon journeyed toward more celestial, synthetic soundscapes as featured on albums like 1971's Alpha Centauri and 1973's Atem. After being among the first artists to sign with Virgin Records, Tangerine Dream released their seminal 1974 album Phaedra, where Froese experimented with sequencers and launched the Berlin School style of electronic music. The album is widely considered the band's masterpiece.

Despite a revolving door lineup that was constantly in flux, Froese remained the group's backbone and the lone member to perform with Tangerine Dream since their incarnation. Over the course of Tangerine Dream's nearly half-century lifetime, the band cultivated a cult fanbase thanks to a steady stream of studio albums and live recordings – which, all totaled, was more than 100 releases – as well Froese's own solo output. In later years, when the band added Froese's son Jerome to their roster, Tangerine Dream's style shifted yet again, aligning itself with a more ambient, new age sound, but the band's lasting impact on electronic music never diminished.

"So sad to hear of the sudden death of my friend Edgar Froese, founder of Tangerine Dream. Great memories," Brian May tweeted. The Queen guitarist performed with Tangerine Dream at a concert in 2011; that show was subsequently released as Starmus – Sonic Universe. Scissor Sisters' Jake Shears wrote, "RIP Edgar Froese of Tangerine Dream. Brought me endless inspiration and enjoyment. I dedicate my first film score to his memory."

In addition to their studio and live recordings, Tangerine Dream also became well-known among movie fans for their synth-driven, hypnotic film scores. In the Eighties alone, Froese's outfit contributed indispensable scores to films like director Michael Mann's Thief and The Keep, Risky Business, Near Dark and Miracle Mile. More recently, Tangerine Dream provided music to the video game Grand Theft Auto V.

"We started with Tangerine Dream. We've used them before in terms of licensed music – we're huge fans of Edgar Froese," Grand Theft Auto V soundtrack supervisor Ivan Pavlovich told Rolling Stone. "When we started to think about who would be the right composer for this game, he was the first name that came to mind."

Just prior to his death, Froese completed work on his 500-page autobiography Tangerine Dream - Force Majeure - 1967 - 2014. That book is available to pre-order now through Tangerine Dream's official site.

Ronnie Milsap Reflects on Ray Charles, Elvis and Entering the Country Hall of Fame

With a massive 21-CD set saluting his RCA tenure, the seminal country-pop artist looks back on his against-all-odds career

By Stephen L. Betts | November 26, 2014

Ronnie Milsap didn't just dominate country music in the Seventies and Eighties, he helped redefine it. One of the genre's most successful crossover acts of all time, Milsap blended rock & roll, soul and pop, and took songs with those elements to the top of the country charts a staggering 40 times. His pop chart successes, with such tunes as "It Was Almost Like a Song," "Any Day Now" and the Top 5 smash "(There's) No Gettin' Over Me," have earned the singer six Grammy awards, and in 2014, he was officially inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.

The rewards for the Robbinsville, North Carolina, native have been many, but fans of the albums from Milsap's two-decade tenure with RCA Records are the ones being rewarded with an embarrassment of riches in The RCA Albums Collection. Released earlier this month, it's a staggering 21-CD set that includes every studio, live and Christmas album Milsap ever released for the label. Each album sleeve recreates the actual corresponding cover art and the box set also includes extensive notes about each LP.

An eight-time CMA award winner, Ronnie Milsap was the 1974 Male Vocalist of the Year and was named Entertainer of the Year three years later. But the bright lights of Nashville were far from the world of literal darkness into which Milsap was born in 1943. Educated at Morehead State School for the Blind in Raleigh, the youngster studied classical music and learned to play several instruments. It was a chance encounter with music legend Ray Charles, however, that changed the course of Milsap's life.

These days, Milsap, 71, continues to record and perform, as well as care for his wife, Joyce, who is battling leukemia. In this exclusive conversation with Rolling Stone Country, Milsap recalls the iconic performers who influenced him, the label executives who loved (and hated) his songs and what it means to finally be in the Hall of Fame.

How old were you when it dawned on you that you had a gift for music?
Goodness, I had to be about four years old when I realized I could hear a song on the radio and I could mimic that. I could sing it and I could remember the words. Then when I got to school in Raleigh at the Morehead School for the Blind, they taught me Braille at six, violin at seven and piano at eight. So I got 12 years of classical music training. When I graduated, I wanted to become a professional musician. My counselor said, "No, you can't do that. You'll wind up out on the street, you'll fail."

I left Raleigh and went to Atlanta to a Ray Charles concert. His pilot got me into his dressing room. I was sitting in there playing Ray's piano when he comes in. I said, "Mr. Ray Charles, you are truly the high priest. I've got all your records. I love all your music. I want to become a professional musician." He said, "Play me something." So I did and he said, "It sounds to me like your heart is really into music, and if that is the case then you ought to become a professional musician."

You ended up in Memphis, working a lot with producer Chips Moman at American Studios. What do you remember about being in the studio with Elvis?
I got to play on the session with Elvis on "Kentucky Rain." "More thunder on the piano, Milsap," he said. I got to learn what hanging out with Elvis was all about. His big New Year's Eve party, I got to sit and talk with him like I'm talking with you. It was just great. He was the voice of my generation. I had a million questions to ask him, but he wanted to talk about that session of "Kentucky Rain," so we talked about that. I asked him, "Would you like to get up and sing tonight at this New Year's Eve party?" He said, "No, I want to sit here with my friends and not have to worry about singing." I said, "Well, we know all your songs." He knew we did, but he didn't want to get up and sing and that was fine. It was his party.

Ronnie Milsap performs with Jennifer Nettles at a Spotify event in Nashville in 2013. Rick Diamond/GettyImages

When you eventually made it to Nashville, success came relatively quickly. Did it ever feel like a struggle once you got here?
No! [Laughs]. I didn't have to sleep in a car, sleep in somebody's garage, I didn't have to do any of that. I was playing this cool gig on the roof of the King of the Road hotel. Playing there every night. And one day, [manager] Jack Johnson said, "Do you have next Monday off?" I said, "Yeah," and he said, "Let's go over to Jack Clement's studio. I want to do a session." He sponsored the first session I went into. Lloyd Green was on steel, Jimmy Capps was on electric guitar and Charlie McCoy was the leader of every session I did at RCA.

What kind of resistance did you encounter from the Nashville country music community because of your Memphis and R&B background?
[RCA executive] Jerry Bradley told Jack Johnson, "I know all about Ronnie Milsap. We take everybody down to Memphis to see him. He's a great rock & roll singer, he's a great R&B singer, but he's not a country singer." Jack played him that tape and Bradley said, "You know what? That son of a bitch is a country singer!" [Laughs]

Or, as it turns out, even disco. How did that come about?
When I first got my studio together, we had the console, we had everything. We stumbled into a song by Robert Byrne called "Get It Up." [Byrne also wrote songs recorded by Lorrie Morgan, Shenandoah and others.] I cut that song all night to get the take I was looking for. We sent it to Jerry Bradley and he hated it. [The B-side of Milsap's Top 10 country single "In No Time at All," "Get It Up" reached Number 43 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1979.]

Putting the albums collection together on CD and getting to revisit some of the older material, are you the kind of artist who constantly wants to get another chance to record something, to have another stab at a particular song?
Well, one time I was hearing "Happy, Happy Birthday, Baby" on the radio. [Record executive] Joe Galante called me for something. I said, "Joe, I need to get back in the studio. Because I'm hearing that song on the radio and I think I can mix it better than that." He said, "Goddammit, Milsap. The thing's already Top 20, leave us alone and let us do our jobs!"

Overall, what do you think about those records today?
That stuff was so much fun, and it reminded me of some of that stuff at Motown, where you really wanted some of those unusual sounds. You had to go create those. You can't sample them like you can do today. Once I had my own studio, I was anxious to find out what the limits were, how far I would chase a song to make it work in any format. Galante said, "That will increase your record sales," and he was right. Joe Galante took over at RCA in March 1983 and said the first single he was going to put out on Milsap was "Stranger in My House." Jerry Bradley said, "I think that's a mistake." [Laughs] Galante rolled with it and it was the biggest international record I ever had.

You also were one of the few country artists whose videos were being played on MTV in its earliest days. How did you feel about that?
June 6, 1984, I was out in Los Angeles to do a video on a song called ...s My Car." I went to Joe and I said, "Man, my uncle just passed away and I need to go back to North Carolina and be there for his funeral." Joe said, "Milsap, let me tell you something. I worked hard to get this group of people together." He was spending some ungodly amount of money to shoot the video. He said, "I'll never be able to get these people back together again. So you need to decide, are you going to stay here and do this video or are you going to go back to North Carolina for your uncle's funeral?" I found out about paying the price for being in music.

What are your thoughts on finally becoming a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame?
It's the highest award they can give you. That is a wonderful thing; I'm glad to be in that select group. I'm very thankful to be in there. What am I going to do now? [Laughs] I think the next thing I'm going to do is try to produce a couple of artists.

If you had to look back and recall one particular special memory from your career, what would it be?
I think it was the night in 1977 that I won CMA Entertainer of the Year. Joycie went up to the stage with me to accept that award and I got to say what an inspiration she had been to me. Then a couple of writers, R.C. Bannon and John Bettis, got together and wrote a song called "Only One Love in My Life." They wrote that song to relive what they had seen on the [awards] show. I put that record out, a Number One record. I think that's the instant that I knew everything I was doing was right.

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Kanye West Reveals He Asked Paul McCartney About Sex in the Sixties

Superstar debuts Rihanna duet during surprise appearance at industry event

As we've come to expect from Kanye West, new music can arrive at any minute, like when the rapper dropped new track "Only One," featuring Paul McCartney, on New Year's Eve. At the iHeartMedia Music Summit in Burbank, California on Thursday, West premiered his rumored duet with Rihanna to an audience filled with music industry figures, Billboard reports.

The rapper was a surprise speaker at the conference and treated the audience to a 45-minute, stream-of-consciousness speech about his "responsibility to innovate." The rapper also chatted about his recent "Only One" collaboration with McCartney and his love of the Beatles' "Come Together." Amazingly, West revealed that he asked Macca, "What was pussy like in the Sixties?" before performing an a cappella rendition of "Only One."

At the 2013 Governors Bal...n New York, the rapper made controversial statements about how he didn't care if his abrasive Yeezus tracks were played on the radio. "When I listen to radio, that ain't what I want to be anymore," West said during his headlining set. West backtracked from those comments Thursday, telling the IHeartMedia crowd "I was joking!" He then admitted he wished "Black Skinhead" was a bigger hit than it was and sang a portion of the Yeezus cut.

However, West saved the best for last when he unveiled the Rihanna collaboration that Ty Dolla $ign hinted at e...this month (Ty Dolla $ign also said that he and McCartney were featured on the track). West played the as-yet-untitled song straight off his computer and, according to Billboard, the song "featured acoustic guitar and a big, soaring chorus and melody with a massive hook." Before West could announce when the track would be made available to radio, the rapper slammed his laptop shut and walked offstage.

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[Edited 1/24/15 8:38am]

Ian Allen, Former Negativland Member, Dead at 56

The musician helped usher in the band's notion of "culture jamming" and was most active in the group during the Eighties

Onetime Negativland member Ian Allen died on January 17th, a result of infections and complications following heart-valve replacement surgery at a hospital in Sanford, California. He was 56. The band reported the news on its Facebook page.

A member during their 1983 album A Big 10-8 Place, Allen was part of the group on the vanguard of "culture jamming," the wry use of existing recorded material and tape splicing, joining the eras between John Cage and contemporary hip-hop sampling. He was most active between 1981 and 1987, leaving before the group's critically acclaimed, confrontational mid-Eighties run on punk label SST. That run included their 1991 U2 EP, which kickstarted a legendary court case over unauthorized samples.

"His impact, inspiration and influence on the group is impossible to overestimate," the group wrote in its statement. "There would be no group as we know it today, no Over The Edge radio show [on KPFA], no 'culture jamming' and no A Big 10-8 Place LP without him."

The musician had struggled with serious health issues throughout his adult life, the band reported, which prompted his departure from Negativland. Nevertheless, he remained close to the group, attending every concert the band put on in the Bay Area.

"With Ian's blessings, we were thrilled to recently revive and rework an early Eighties unfinished tape loop based on his work, called 'Like Cattle Act,' and made it a part of our current live set," the band wrote. "He was part of creating Negativland's Points LP in 1981, introducing to the rest of us, on the track 'BABAC D'BABC...,' the idea of using tape splicing not just as a way to make loops and connect tracks but as a compositional tool unto itself. This revelation led to the exploration of this technique full-on in 1983's A Big 10-8 Place, and he played a major role in the creation of that record and its unique packaging."

The group also credited Allen's contribution to the concept of culture jamming, as well as introducing the band to radio DJ and Negativland member Don Joyce, inspiring their radio show. It said that the way he pushed the band members, and suggesting making their 1983 LP a concept album, set the standard for Negativland releases. He also had a more unordinary influence on the group: "Ian was obsessed with the number 17, which is why it appears in various ways on so many Negativland projects and texts in the Eighties and Nineties (please note the day he died!)," the band wrote.

"For those who knew him, he was a visionary, magical, impish, playful and eccentric thinker, a true genius who was light years ahead of all of us with his ideas about art, sound, society and technology," Negativland wrote. "He will be dearly missed."

Allen is survived by his brother, Pyke.

Additional reporting by Christopher R. Weingarten

Book Review: ‘John Lennon: The Collected Artwork’ – The Beatle as a Visual Artist

Posted by: Richard Marcus January 21, 2015

It might be hard for those who didn’t live through the arc of John Lennon’s life to understand the impact this one man had on people around the world. Coming out of the darkness surrounding the end of World War II and the paranoia of the 1950s, The Beatles were a breath of fresh air, a sound of hope and new possibilities. Today their songs from the early 1960s probably don’t sound overly rebellious, but in the context of the times they were new and liberating. Sure there was other pop music at the time, equally good if not better, but The Beatles managed to capture the imaginations of young people around the world like few others.

However, it wasn’t just the music. Part of their appeal was the irreverent humour they projected in their public appearances. While they all shared this characteristic, Lennon’s humour and comments always seemed to have more of an edge to them than the others’. This came to a head with his off-the-cuff comment about how The Beatles were more popular than Jesus. While this caused the type of backlash you’d expect in certain quarters – burning of Beatles’ records, condemnation by fundamentalist Christians (sound familiar?), and warnings of “he better not show his face around here” – it did nothing to affect the group’s popularity around the world, proving Lennon right in his assessment.

While many of today’s pop stars and celebrities have carefully cultivated images for public consumption, Lennon’s public persona was his true face. Mischievous, sometimes caustic, and often opinionated, what we saw in his appearances and heard in interviews was who he had always been. You only need to glance through a new book, John Lennon: The Collected Artwork, from Insight Editions, for proof. For the book contains artwork he created from his childhood onwards, and even in some of those earlier drawings we see manifestations of each of those characteristics.

Before Lennon was a Beatle he had attended the Liverpool Art School. Although he was unable to complete his studies as his music career took off, he continued to sketch and draw for the rest of his life as time allowed. Glancing through the book the first impression is of relatively unsophisticated line drawings that appear to range from doodles to sketches or cartoons. But upon closer examination you realize the looseness of style was a deliberate choice. One need only look at some of the detailed backgrounds in the work to realize the time and effort which were put into each drawing.

In his text for the book Scott Gutterman not only makes an effort to put the illustrations into a historical context in terms of Lennon’s life, but also points out how they reflect the way he looked at the world. While the first of the book’s seven sections offers paintings and sketches from Lennon’s early years, the chapters are not in chronological order. Instead, they have been arranged to give us a sense of who Lennon was as visual artist, and what he attempted to accomplish with his work.

Most of the chapters’ titles are self-explanatory: “Self Reflection” (Chapter 2), “Observations” (Chapter 3) or “John With Yoko” (Chapter 6). But Chapter 4, “Japanese Translation Drawings”, is different. After the birth of their son Sean, Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono would make frequent trips to visit her family in Japan. Not only do the pictures in this section depict Lennon’s attempts to learn Japanese, they also reflect his study of sumi-e, a traditional Japanese style of pen and ink drawing.

The work in this section, and many of the pieces created in the years following, reflect this new influence. However, we also see why Lennon would have been attracted to the form. For while there are distinct stylistic differences: The lines are more definite, and these drawings don’t contain the same amount of detail as others, it’s still a natural extension of the line drawings Lennon had been doing previously. On a more personal level, the new style of drawing also reflects the changes he went through during his retirement from 1975 to 1980 when he took time off to raise his new son. There’s a stillness to them indicative of the changes he underwent transitioning from rock and roll star to househusband and father.

While Lennon will always be more remembered for his music than his output as a visual artist, the work contained in this book gives us a different view of him as a person and an artist. They may not be the most sophisticated pieces of art, but each of them reveals something of his nature, whether his sardonic view of middle class values in the work “Squares”, or his love for the simplicity of his domestic life through the depictions of his family in the last years of his life. Most impressive is how much he’s able to communicate with a few strokes of his pen. It’s as if he were able to channel his passion or emotions through this very narrow conduit and have them show up on the page where we can all appreciate them.

Of course there’s the question of whether we’d be seeing these works of art if he weren’t John Lennon. The answer is probably not. However, that does nothing to diminish this book’s importance as a record of Lennon and his life. Those who knew his work as a musician, or knew anything about him when he was alive, will be reminded of those things they admired in him. Whether the pieces will have the same appeal to others is uncertain, as in some ways you’d have to have experienced Lennon the person and musician to fully appreciate them.

John Lennon: The Collected Artwork is a beautifully packaged and presented book. The reproductions of his art are as good as those you’d see in any collection of this kind and the accompanying text does a good job of explaining their history and background. Lennon will always be best known as a musician, but this collection of his artwork provides a fascinating look into a different facet of an intelligent, opinionated and original mind. That alone makes it worth owning.

Gina Rodriguez: History Making Golden Globe Award Winner

Posted by admin on January 11th, 2015 11:41 PM |

Thank you God for Making me an artist.
Thank you to my mom and my dad for telling me to dream big and to never stop dreaming. To my siblings, to my sisters Evelise and Rebecca for being the biggest role models in my life. This award is so much more than myself. It represents a culture that wants to see themselves as heroes. My father used to tell me to say every morning, ‘Today’s going to be a great day. I can and I will.’ Well, Dad, today’s going to be a great day. I can and I did.” — Gina Rodriguez

With those words Gina Rodriguez made history yesterday at the Golden Globes as she accepted her Best Actress in a Television Series – Musical or Comedy award from the Hollywood Foreign Press for her role in Jane the Virgin; this is the first time in history that a CW show has every been nominated, (Jane the Virgin was nominated for Television Series – Musical or Comedy) let alone have the star win a the Golden Globe!

Prior to the Golden Globes, the CW had announced that Jane the Virgin would be returning for a second season, with their Golden Globe win they must have partying up a storm. However, the reaction to Gina’s win from Latinos in Hollywood is unprecedented and overwhelming. No other Latino/a winninga Golden Globe has had such an impact as that of Gina Rodriguez’s, because in addition to her win Gina takes every opportunity to always represent her under-represented Latino community. From press interviews to her acceptance speeches (yes we are confident there will be more), she is never shy about speaking on behalf of her community.

It is no wonder that twitter was a-blaze with love and congratulatory wishes from Latino celebrities, working actors and fans across the nation. To get a sense of the pride this community feels for Gina, we selected a few of the comments below:

Eva Longoria @EvaLongoria

Mario Lopez ‏@MarioLopezExtra 5h5 hours ago

Proud of my girl hereisgina for winning her award! Way to go… #JaneTheVirgen #LatinaPower http://instagram.com/p/xvKZdUyMGX/

Wilmer Valderrama @WValderrama

Tears of pride & happiness! CONGRATS my dear @HereIsGina for your Golden Globe!!! You are yet one more example of our blossoming community!

Melissa Fumero @melissafumero ·

My 2nd favorite moment of tonight. (1st being @HereIsGina‘s win). @KatieQLowes #NYUbuds #scandal #brooklyn99

Comedian Ernie G. Gritzewsky put it best

Comedian Ernie G. Gritzewsky

Wow! Wow! & Wow!! I don’t think people realize how HUGE it is that a LATINA, from Chicago, a Boricua, BEAT OUT Lena Dunham (HBO’s Girls), Edie Falco (Sopranos, Nurse Jackie), Julia Louis Dreyfus (Seinfeld, Veep) & Taylor Schilling (Orange is the New Black) for BEST ACTRESS in a TV Series Comedy!! Way to go ‪#‎GinaRodriguez‬!! THIS is a HUGE Night for ALL LATINOS Everywhere!! And like Gina said in her acceptance speech, “This Award is so much more than myself, it represents a Culture that wants to see themselves as Heroes!” Gina Rodriguez YOU ARE OUR HERO, and we Love You!! Here is her acceptance speech, in case you missed it!! (It begins about 1:20 into this clip) ‪#‎JanetheVirgin‬ ‪

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George Lopez Actor/Producer of the Sum of “Spare Parts”

Posted by admin on January 12th, 2015 10:38 PM |

By Bel Hernandez

Spare Parts is one of three Latino teen champs movies to be released this year, and it is setting the bar pretty high for these types of feel-good movies. George Lopez not only stars as the mentor of the robotics team of four “dreamers”, he is also one of the producers. This marks the first film under Lopez’s film and TV deal with Pantelion Films (the venture between Lionsgate and Mexico media conglomerate Televisa) he recently signed.

Based on a true story from an article written by Joshua Davis for Wired Magzine in 2004, the film revolves around a group of high school students who compete in an underwater robotics competition, with their Home Deport supplies made robot, beating out the MIT team. The star robotics team is played by Carlos PenaVega (Big Time Rush) as Oscar Vasquez, Jose Julian (A Better Life) as Lorenzo Santillan, David Del Rio (Pitch Perfect) as Cristain Arcega and Oscar Gutierrez as Luis Aranda in what is his first foray into acting. He pulls it off beautifully bringing a quite charm to the role. However, all the performances are solid, with a touch of familiarity and a truthfulness.

Jaime Lee Curtis is delightful as the stern, push-over principal of Carl Hayden High School where the students came together under the watchful eye of their teacher Fredi Cameron (Lopez). Marisa Tomei plays the love, non-love interest to Lopez’s Cameron and between is just the right amount of chemistry to not pull focus on the triumphant story of the team of “dreamers” who beat the Goliath MIT college team.

With enough marketing, this is the kind of film is a shoe-in to fill the theater with the audiences cheering after the film, as they did at the advance screenings across the country. Names like George Lopez, Jamie Lee Curtis and Marisa Tomei should be enough to get seats filled in the theater, the supporting cast with fan favorites like Esai Morales as the overbearing and uncaring dad and Alexa PenaVega (nee Alexa Vega of the Spy Kids franchise) is sure to sweeten the deal.

So, go ahead – see the movie and allow yourself feel good, take the family and enjoy watching the little “dreamer” robotics team that could…and did.

Distributor: Pantelion /Lionsgate; Production Company: Lionsgate, Pantelion, Televisa Cine, Travieso Productions, Circle of Confusion, Brookwell McNamara Entertainment

Principal Cast: George Lopez, Jamie Lee Curtis, Carlos PenaVega, Esai Morales, Jose Julian, David Del Rio, Oscar Gutierrez, Alexa PenaVega, Alessandra Rosaldo and Marisa Tomei

Director: Sean McNamara
Producer: Benjamin Odell, George Lopez, Leslie Kolins Small, David Alpert, Rick Jacobs
Writers: Based on the Wired Magazine article “La Vida Robot” by Joshua Davis and Screenplay Elissa Matsueda

Executive Producers: Fernando Peìrez Gavilan, Paul Presburger, James McNamara, Sean Mcnamara and Lawrence Mattis

Runtime: 113 min
Genre: Drama, Comedy
U.S. Release: January 16, 2015
Rating: Rated PG-13 for some language and violence

FB: https://www.facebook.com/...PartsMovie

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Alice Braga, Justina Machado & Hemky Madera to Star in USA Network’s “Queen of the South”

Posted by admin on January 7th, 2015 03:00 PM |

By Bel Hernandez

USA Network’s TV pilot Queen of the South based on Arturo Perez-Reverte’s novel by the same name, begins production this January 16th in Mexico. The pilot order has been given to Fox Television Studios from a script written by Joshua John Allen, Jeremy Fox and Aaron Harvey.

Teresa Mendoza

Alice Braga (Elysium) has been cast as the title character of Teresa Mendoza, a beautiful young Mexican woman who goes into hiding when her drug dealer boyfriend is murdered. She ends up in Spain where she eventually takes up the trade and the need to avenge her lover’s murder. She ultimately returns to Mexico and becomes the leader of a cartel. Kate Del Castillo played Mendoza in Telemundo’s Telenovela La Reina del Sur, which in 2011 beat all English-language TV network shows in the ratings.

Hemky Madera (Weeds), Adolfo Alvarez (El Cocodrillo) and Justina Machado (The Purge: Anarchy) have also been cast.

L-R) Hemky Madera, Justina Machado Adolfo Alvarez

In 2009 Perez-Reverte’s Queen of the South was about to be show as a feature film under the direction of Jonathan Jakubowicz (who most recently wrapped Hands of Stone which stars Edgar Ramirez & Robert De Niro). Attached to producer were Sandra Condito (Sequestro Express) and Elizabeth Avellan (Sin City: A Dame to Kill For) when due to threats by the Mexican cartel the project fell apart. This time around there seems to me no such threats to contend with.

NBC Universal is the producing entity with other producing entities listed as Origen Producciones Cinematograficas S.A. Robert Ogden Barum (Lawless) along with Megan Ellison (American Hustle) are executive producing and producing respectively. Pancho Mansfield had also been previously announced as executive producer.

Queen of the South is slated to premiere in 2016 on the USA Network.

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Misty Boyce Talks New Album 'The Life,' Touring With Sara Bareilles, Moving to L.A. & More [EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW]

By Caitlin Carter
Jan 20, 2015 06:16 PM EST

Misty Boyce (Photo : Courtesy of Misty Boyce)

Experimental singer-songwriter Misty Boyce got her start backing artists such as Ingrid Michaelson, The Naked Brothers Band and most recently, Sara Bareilles, on stage but now it's Boyce's turn to be front and center. A formally trained and highly versatile artist in her own right, Boyce followed up her debut album with her second full-length, The Life. The album is out today on Bandcamp. Ahead of its release, we caught up with Boyce to talk about inspirations behind the album, her favorite memories on tour with Sara Bareilles, adjusting to life in L.A. after moving from New York, and more. Here's what she had to say:

MT: So you're a formally trained musician, and I read that you kind of had to unlearn what you had learned in school. What is your favorite musical theory rule to break when you write?

MB: Well I guess I learned in jazz school that 1-4-5 is boring. Going to the 1 chord, then the 4 chord, then the 5 chord, like a country song. Like the most simple, basic chord progression is a no-no because it's boring and I had to unlearn that because it's actually where all of the magic is.

MT: Yeah that's the bread and butter of pop music.

MB: I mean there's some pop songs that are 1 chord, some Madonna songs that never change and yet it's still super interesting the whole time, and that's a skill in and of itself.

MT: What's the idea behind that way of thinking in jazz?

MB: I guess the whole, well not the whole thinking behind jazz, but basically since Charlie Parker, he was the one that was like I'm going to take all these popular songs and add shifty chord changes to it and then play through it. So modern jazz comes a little from that mentality. You start there. You start by making it super complex, and I think even the best jazz musicians start to try to strip that complexity away at some point. It's like being a painter. The best painters learn how to paint in exasperating detail and then Picasso is like no, now I'm just going to be weird.

MT: So does jazz music still influence your sound or is that just kind of where you got your skill set and then moved on from that?

MB: I think that's where I got a skill set and then the skill set that I learned playing jazz, I don't use at all in writing songs anymore. I did when I first started. I would put in all these complex instrumental breaks and then thought that's silly, I just want to write a song.

MT: Does your songwriting process start with the lyrics or music first?

MB: I think definitely I'm a music-first person and then melody or the chords, or both come first and then I add lyrics later, or sometimes the magical thing happens where I'm just kind of singing random stuff and lyrics come out in the moment and that's really awesome, but that's rare. Only like a couple of songs have I had the lyrics for first and even then it's maybe like one line or something like that.

MT: Being from New Mexico and performing a lot in Los Angeles and New York, how have those music meccas influenced your sound? Do you feel like you connect more with the L.A. sound now that you live there?

MB: It's interesting in that music has become very homogenized in a way, but I do think there's still a bit of a difference between the New York sound and the L.A. sound, which I think is really great. When I made the decision to move here a couple years ago, I was gravitating toward artists coming out of here, like Dawes and like Blake Mills. I'm mostly interested in people playing the sh*t out of their instruments and writing really good songs. I'm not super into how everyone can make a record on their computer. That really bums me out as a musician. It shouldn't, but it does. It's all music, so that's great. I love finding those people who are still really taking being great at their instrument seriously and putting on a really good live show and making their words mean everything. Not to say that that's not happening in New York, but the style that I was looking for seemed to be happening more in LA.

MT: I know many musicians tour with other acts to pay the bills and see some cool places, but really, their heart is in their own projects. What does working with other acts mean to you?

MB: It kind of started out as another way to pay the bills, but I've played with a couple of musicians whose projects I felt like I cared about it as much as my own. I think Sara [Bareilles] was one of those. It doesn't happen very often. It is sort of like a day job in a way, but every now and then I get lucky and get to play with somebody that I also really care about and care about their music.

MT: So what were some highlights of that tour with Sara Bareilles? Was there anything that stuck out in particular to you?

MB: Yes, actually. Radio City was definitely one of the big ones. Just playing there and looking out to the sea of people and I've seen so many great shows there and that was a very big moment. But even bigger than that was when we played in Sara's hometown, close to Eureka, California, up near San Francisco. We played in a really small theater and she wanted to do "The Way You Look Tonight," and I played a jazz solo. I hadn't played jazz in forever, and then I was doing it on a stage with her, and I actually did really well. And I don't know, it was a magical moment. I felt like all the things that I had worked on had led me to this moment, and it was a really cool experience.

MT: Is there a song of Sara's that's your favorite to play or cover?

MB: I love playing "Eden" from her new record, [The Blessed Unrest], and "Satellite Call." Those songs I look forward to every night.

MT: What was your songwriting process like for the album? Were you writing on the road a lot or did you carve out some time just to focus on this project?

MB: I would say half and half. Some of my songs are older that I just had and hadn't recorded yet, and then the five or six are newer ones I wrote when I was home in L.A. in between tour cycles with Sara. During some points, I had two months at home and that's where most of those songs came from. I do write on the road, but I haven't ever written anything that's actually stuck.

MT: Was there anything particularly inspiring you at the time? Any themes or events in your life?

MB: Yeah, I had gone through a pretty big break-up. There was a wedding planned and I bailed. I moved to L.A. and I was feeling kind of like a gypsy and a little bit lost and a little bit sad, not a little bit, pretty sad. I was just feeling like I how one person says paper bags are better than plastic bags then I hear that actually paper bags take as much energy to make as plastic bags, so it's all going to sh*t anyway. So these broader, hopelessness feelings in life, I was feeling in my own small little universe, too. It's a lot about that kind of thing, but also trying to reach for happiness in whatever way I could. I don't want to stay in that space. I don't want to stay in that sadness. I want to practice looking outside of my own world and not to the shitty parts of it.

MT: Have you been able to spend much time in L.A. there since you actually moved?

MB: No I haven't.

MT: So it probably doesn't feel like home yet.

MB: Not really, I mean it was a year and a half of being here, but not here. My stuff was here, but I was never here. But I guess I've been here for 3 months now since the tour is over and I'm just now starting to feel like all right, cool, I got my place, and now I'm meeting more people and that's great and now I'd like to work a little bit more and just do stuff.

MT: So you just need to get out and get to know the area still?

MB: Yeah, totally. New York I knew where to go on any given night to see something great or hang out with friends, and I don't really have that here yet.

MT: You'll get there. How do you like it compared to New York?

MB: I feel, I love it here. It's just as expensive as New York, but what you get for your money is more and the pace is a little bit slower, which I really needed and that actually gives me room to be more creative. I felt like I was just burning at both ends all the time, working constantly and, granted I would like to be busier here, I would like to be working more, I'd like for it to be a little bit faster of a pace, but I feel like there's room to still be a person here.

MT: What are you envisioning for your live shows in support of the record?

MB: I feel like the simpler, the better. The record has a lot of layers on it, like all modern records do. There's a lot of keyboard parts, and there's a lot of guitar parts and tons of layered vocals. There's 108 tracks on every song. But when I go to see a live show what impacts me most is the simplicity of vocal words. I want to be able to understand the words and hear the vocals so there needs to be enough space to hear that. So I try, in a live show, to keep it simple enough that I can express what I want to express, but not so simple that it falls flat. It's getting that good balance of enough to keep it interesting, but not too much that it steals the show.

MT: I saw that you're touring in Germany. I was wondering, did you just find an unexpected fan base there?

MB: There's an interesting pipeline that happened between Germany and Brooklyn. Through this booking agent named Olaf Beise, he found an artist named Steve Waitt and more and more Brooklyn artists started coming over to Germany through him. He has connections in the northwest part of Germany, and there are smallish clubs that pay a guarantee to Americans, which was like the dream. I just want to tour and break even, and that's like a godsend. And you can go through him. I've been able to go tour Germany and play to really, kind, welcoming, responsive audiences. One time I walked away making 75 bucks, which is unheard of, but mostly I break even. It's just, I have grown a fan base through doing it, but being an American, Germans will just come to the show because you're from L.A. or New York, so you kind of don't have to have a name there like you do in the states.

MT: That's interesting.

MB: It was really, so magical. I felt like a rock star over there.

MT: What's next with this album? Are you going to be pushing that a while or will you start making new music?

MB: I guess both. I'm still looking to get on a tour with another artist, to open for them because I don't really have enough of a fan base across the states to justify going on tour by myself again. I did that in the spring, and it was really fun, but I had to play a lot of sh*tty clubs in between to make it work, so I'm looking for the smart next step to support the record while I'm writing a lot and waiting to see where my next step should be.

MT: Do you have a backing band or is it just you on stage for these shows?

MB: I have a band when I'm in L.A. or New York, but when I'm touring, sometimes I'm allowed to bring my boyfriend and maybe another person with me, but usually it's just by myself.

MT: Do you play keys or guitar, or both?

MB: I've been doing mostly guitar these days, but if there's a piano there I'll definitely play the piano. It's easier to travel with a guitar, and a lot of these new songs were written on guitar.

MT: Going back to the record. You raised money for the album on Pledge Music. I always find it interesting to think of who buys these exclusives. Did you ever end up going to coffee, record shopping, sending a birthday phone call, playing on someone's record or performing at their house? If so, what was that experience like with your fans?

MB: I did, but the fans that bought those were people that I already knew. So it was sort of just getting together with people I was already friends with.

MT: I saw that a percentage of your post-goal money was going to National Eating Disorders Association. Why is that cause close to you?

MB: I had an eating disorder and it was one of the most important life-changing things in my life to go to therapy and overcome it. I think, one of the things that's shaped me the most, and working with Pledge requires that you give to a charity, which I think is so great, and the one that felt the most honest and closest to my own life was that.

For more information on Misty Boyce, head over to her official website or follow her on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. If you're near Chicago, you can also check her out live at Uncommon Ground on Thursday night (Jan. 22) or the night before (Jan. 21) in Evanston at Levere Memorial Temple.

Listen to her full album here: https://soundcloud.com/mistyboyce

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Kendrick Lamar's New Album Might Drop Next Week

By Joey DeGroot
Jan 22, 2015 10:59 AM EST

Kendrick Lamar (Photo : Mike Coppola/Getty Images)

From Radiohead to Beyoncé to D'Angelo to Björk, we are truly in the era of the surprise album release, and yesterday (Jan. 21), it was revealed that Kendrick Lamar might be joining this very prestigious list. According to a leaked photograph posted by Section Eighty, Kendrick Lamar's long-awaited follow-up to his 2012 breakthrough good kid, m.A.A.d city is set to drop this Tuesday, Jan. 27. The photo shows a list of albums scheduled to be released by Wal-Mart this month, which at the very bottom reads "Kendrick Lamar Jan. 27."

As exciting as this news may be, make sure to take it with a grain of salt. Section Eighty doesn't specify where these photographs came from, and as Stereogum points out, surprise releases such as this tend to start off as digital releases before their physical copies hit stores, and to be perfectly honest, Kendrick Lamar doesn't seem like the type of artist to release his album exclusively through Wal-Mart. However, Lamar is performing at some big festivals this year, including Bonnaroo, so perhaps he does have something unexpected like this planned.

Whenever this album does actually drop (it hasn't even been given a title or album cover yet), it will be Lamar's third studio album overall (second on Interscope/Aftermath), following his 2011 debut Section.80 and his classic 2012 breakthrough good kid, m.A.A.d city. Only one single, "i," has been released from the album so far, and though Lamar performed an untitled new song on The Colbert Report back in December, he admitted to Billboard that it would likely not be included on the album.

Kendrick Lamar's "i" was chosen by the Music Times staff as one of the 25 best songs of 2014. You can check out that complete list right here.

You can check out the music video for "i" right here:

Film & Broadway Stage Performer Navarre Matlovsky, dies at 63

Posted by admin on January 18th, 2015 09:54 PM |

Survivors include his wife of 33 years, actress/author Miluka Rivera, his son Elan L. Matlovsky, his daughter Miluette Nalin Matlovsky

Navarre Matlovsky, who performed on the Tony awarded Broadway musical Barnum and the classic film Pete’s Dragon, passed away on December 12, of a ischemic stroke at the Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena, CA. He was 63.

Matlovsky credits also include such films as Treasure of Matacumbe (1976) with Robert Foxworth and Joan Hackett and Movie Movie ( 1978).

On television he guest starred on scores of shows like Julie the Julie Andrews show directed by Blake Edwards and Webster. He also performed on the 42nd Academy Awards Show during the Rain Drops Keep Falling on my Head dance number from the awarded “Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid” film and at the Kennedy Center’s Honors honoring Cary Grant, with the cast of Barnum and along aside Audrey Hepburn and Mikhail Baryshnikov.

Besides his role in Barnum, later on he was the assistant to the director/choreographer of the Barnum National Tours. He also performed on Broadway in The King of Hearts and on musical shows with Debbie Reynolds, Glenn Close, Jim Dale, Lucy Arnaz, Tony Orlando, Agnes Moorehead, among others.

Navarre Matlovsky & wife, actress/author Miluka Rivera

This long time member of SAG-AFTRA, AEA and AGVA, was involved in Screen Actors Guild’s (SAG) activities along with his wife Miluka Rivera, a lauded actress-activist, author. He was also a photojournalist and Hollywood Correspondent for Puerto Rico, Miami and New York. His photograph of actor Ricardo Montalbán made history by being the first “Screen Actor” National Magazine cover featuring a Latino. The inside of the 1993 SAG issue had photos featuring 6 Latinos and interviews by Miluka Rivera also a former National Board member of SAG.The same year Montalbán became the first Latino to received a “Lifetime Achievement” by SAG.

Navarre was a long time ballroom dance professor at Pasadena City College. In addition he was the co-owner and dance instructor with his wife and dance partner Miluka of the Kumaras Center for the Arts, Dance and Etiquette in Burbank, CA for over 10 years.

He began his classical dancing training at the age of 14. He toured worldwide as a dancer with the legendary Burch Mann’s “American Folk Ballet.

Navarre, who was a native of Los Angeles, CA, was a descendant from the Shotwell aristocratic lineage, documented in the Ambrose M. Shotwell book Annals or Our Colonial Ancestors (1895).

A private Memorial service for Matlovsky will take place during the month of January 24. Donations could be send to the Raul Julia’s Hunger Project.

Survivors include his wife of 33 years, Miluka Rivera, his son Elan L. Matlovsky, his daughter Miluette Nalin Matlovsky an actress and stunt-artist, his sister actress/dancer and professor Noelle North Norris, and 2 nephews.

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LL Cool J Confirmed To Host 57th Annual Grammy Awards

Ceremony will take place on February 8th

It's hard to believe that it's already been a YEAR since last year's Grammys, but it's nearly time for the 57th Annual awards ceremony. And with just a couple of weeks to go, it's now been confirmed that LL Cool J will be presenting the show, once again.

The two time Grammy Award winner will be hosting the celeb-filled ceremony for the fourth consecutive year on February 8 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles - it will be shown live on the CBS Television Network between 8.30pm and 11pm ET/delayed PT.

"As both a GRAMMY-winning recording artist and an accomplished actor, LL Cool J's wide range of talent, dynamic personality and charismatic energy make him the perfect choice to host the GRAMMY Awards," Recording Academy President/CEO Neil Portnow said of this year's host. "His unique expertise allows him to set the right tone for the show and connect with everyone - from his musical peers to fans at home. We are honored to have him back."

LL Cool J is returning to host this year's Grammys (WENN)

And LL Cool J is equally as happy to be returning to that stage! "I'm thrilled to again be part of Music's Biggest Night," he said of the honour. "The performances and moments you see on the GRAMMY stage are nothing less than amazing throughout the years and this year's show is shaping up to be one you will never forget."

This year's Grammys is set to be bigger than ever, with performers that have already been announced including AC/DC, Eric Church, Common, Ariana Grande, Miranda Lambert, John Legend, Madonna, Ed Sheeran, Sam Smith, Usher AND Pharrell Williams. Jeez that's quite the list! It's also thought that Rihanna may be making the...e comeback at this year's awards show, with her drummer, Aaron Drape, allegedly revealing the news via an Instagram Q & A. Now THAT would be one helluva line-up!

The 57th Annual Grammys will be taking place on February 8th (Twitter)

He told one follower: “We have some shows coming up,” and when they asked if they’ll be performing at the Grammys, he simply replied: “Yup yup,” according to the Idolator. Of course, this is yet to be officially confirmed by RiRi and the Grammys themselves but being the Rihanna fans that we are, we’re going to believe it’s true!

She's also getting ready to release her brand new album sometime soon - even more proof that the rumours are true! Time will tell, we guess...

Will Rihanna be the surprise performer at this year's bash? (Splash News)

Make sure you stick with EntertainmentWise for all the gossip from the year's Grammy Awards. You can check out all the nominations here.

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Adrian Grenier Says ‘Entourage’ Movie Sequel Is Sure Bet (Exclusive Video)

Clay Pritchard/Larry King Now

Getty Images

Rutina Wesley is moving on from the vampires of “True Blood” to another creature with a taste for gore.

Wesley, who played Tara Thornton on HBO’s vampy drama “True Blood,” has been tapped for NBC’s cannibal drama “Hannibal,” a spokeswoman for the network told TheWrap on Friday.

See video: ‘Hannibal’ Season 3 Trailer: Will Graham Tells the Cannibalistic Doctor ‘I Forgive You’

The “True Blood” alum will join the show for its third season, playing Reba McClane, a blind woman who catches the Red Dragon’s eye, essentially the bride to be of the monster and Francis Dolarhyde’s (Richard Armitage) last best chance at humanity.

Wesley follows in the footsteps of Emily Watson, who played the character in the 2002 film “Red Dragon,” and Joan Allen, who portrayed McClane in the 1986 offering “Manhunter.”

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Netflix Movie List February 2015: ‘House Of Cards,’ ‘White Bird In A Blizzard,’ ‘Earth To Echo’ Will Be Available To Stream; See All Movies And Series!

Shailene Woodley's film "White Bird in a Blizzard" will be making it's way to Netflix in February. See the full list of release here! Magnolia Pictures

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Cinema Tropical Announces Winner of Best Latin American Film

Posted by admin on January 21st, 2015 08:55 PM |

Las Marthas and Purgatorio Tied for Best U.S. Latino Film

New York, NY, — The Uruguayan film The Militant by Manuel Nieto Zas takes the top award for Best Latin American Film of the Year at the 5th Annual Cinema Tropical Awards presented by the non-profit media arts organization Cinema Tropical earlier today.

Other films noteworthy awards went to the Mexican film Coffee (Chants of Smoke) by Hatuey Viveros was named Best Latin American Documentary Film of the Year, while the Chilean film The Quispe Girls by Sebastián Sepúlveda was awarded with the prize for Best First Film. For the second time, the Cinema Tropical Awards presented a prize for Best U.S. Latino Film Year and the jury decided to give the award to two films: Las Marthas by Cristina Ibarra, and Purgatorio: A Journey into the Heart of the Border by Rodrigo Reyes.

Argentinean filmmaker Gustavo Fontán received the award for Best Director of a Fiction Film for The Face, while filmmakers Camila José Donoso and Nicolas Videlafrom Chile, were the winner of the award for Best Director of a Documentary Film for Naomi Campbel.

Cinema Tropical also announced that New York audiences will have the chance to see the award-winning films as they will be showcased as part of the Cinema Tropical Festival to take place on February 6-8, 2015 at the Museum of the Moving Image.

The winners of this year’s Cinema Tropical Awards were selected by a jury panel composed by Daniela Alatorre, producer, Morelia Film Festival; Gustavo Beck, filmmaker and film programmer; Marcela Goglio, film programmer; Lucila Moctezuma, Executive Producing Director UnionDocs; Tamir Muhammad, Director Content and Artists Development for Time Warner; Rachael Rakes, film programmer; José Rodriguez, Manager, Documentary Programming, Tribeca Film Institute; Bernardo Ruiz, filmmaker; and Naief Yehya, film and culture critic, writer.

The Cinema Tropical AWARDS were created in 2010 to honor excellence in Latin American filmmaking, and it is the only international award entirely dedicated to honoring the artistry of recent Latin American cinema.

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Lady Gaga & Adele Spark Collaboration Rumours With Fun Selfie

By Shaun Kitchener On January 22, 2015

The pair had a 'bro-down' which we can only hope involved hitmaking

They’re both known to be working on new albums, and they’re both in proud possession of almighty fan bases. So we can only imagine how well-received a collaboration would be between Adele and Lady Gaga.

The pair were hanging out last night (January 25); just hours after the ‘ARTPOP’ star had seemingly been working on music with long-time producer RedOne. Posting a smiley snap to her Instagram page of herself with the record-shattering ‘Rolling In The Deep’ singer, Gaga wrote: "Nothing like a Wednesday night bro-down with the beautiful Adele”.

Oh to have been a fly on the wall…

(Photo: Instagram/Lady Gaga)

Gaga has been keeping fans in-the-loop with her sessions for her next album; her fourth pop release but technically her fifth studio effort following her jazz hook-up with Tony Bennett on Cheek To Cheek last year. RedOne was the maestro behind her breakout hits including ‘Poker Face’, ‘Just Dance’ and ‘Bad Romance’, but hasn’t been so much involved in recent years. Thankfully, they seem to be working together again. Now if we could just add a pinch of Ms Atkins to the mix...

(Photo: Instagram/Lady Gaga)

As for Adele, she was thought to be releasing her third album in 2014, but it never came to fruition - and now rumour suggest we'll be lucky to even get in 2015. A source told Music Business Worldwide that “logically, there is now almost no chance” of us seeing anything from her this side of summer, and it’s no certainty it’ll even hit shelves before Christmas. “The album will be released when it’s ready – (we) hope that will be at some stage in 2015. That’s all I can tell you right now.” Ryan Tedder, Dianne Warren and James Ford have all thought to have been involved thus far.

In the meantime, she could be recording the theme to the new James Bond movie, after scooping awards and plaudits for the title song to 'Skyfall'. A source for MGM told the Mirror that she's only just put herself in the running, saying: “She hadn’t been in contact with the film bosses for a few weeks, but suddenly she said​ she had great plans for the theme, so they flew her over... They’ll still have to decide whether they want the tune once it’s recorded."

In the meantime, let's have an Adele & Gaga banger please...

Katy Perry 'Donates $5k To TLC's Kickstarter Campaign'

The girlband are to release their final album

The Kickstarter campaign to help the two surviving members of TLC make their final album has soared above and beyond its target - and it seems Katy Perry may have had a little something to do with it.

44-year-old T-Boz and 43-year-old Chilli were aiming to raise $150,000 for the final chapter of the TLC story and, according to TMZ, Perry proved herself to be a huge fan by throwing $5,000 in the pot. And, looking at the Rewards offered to backers who pledge certain amounts, she is now basically entitled to a slumber party with a band member of her choice - at which they can “put on our jammies, order some late night snacks, and have some TLCPillowTalk. Mom and Dad won’t be there, so there’s no need to keep the volume down.” Maybe Katy had better wait until after her big Super Bowl gig before claiming her reward, though...

(Photo: WENN)

Explaining why they had taken the crowd funding route instead of going via major labels, the duo had said: "While major labels offer artists multimillion dollar recording and marketing budgets, they don't often give artists complete control of their own music. It is ESSENTIAL that we create our final album completely on our own terms, without any restrictions, with YOU.

"Every penny we raise during this campaign will go towards MAKING this final album together with you! The initial goal of $150,000 will go towards a writing session in the studio with a producer and engineer. The money beyond that will go to booking music producers, writing sessions, mixing sessions, recording sessions, and SO much more. We want to work with the best in the business, so the more we raise means access to the best.”

(Photo: Kickstarter/TLC)

And now, it seems, the best might just be in reach. Thanks to widespread media coverage, fan attention and a little help from the ‘Roar’ star, at time of writing the group have secured 1,505 backers and a $161,000 total, with 28 days still to go.

The group’s third member, Lisa ‘Left-Eye’ Lopes, passed away in 2002; and the band have said in a special Kickstarter update: "Some fans have been asking how we can make a final album without Lisa, and we wanted to share our thoughts with you all, since you have been so kind and supportive on day one. We feel that this final album will be the best way to keep Lisa's memory alive. We can never replace Lisa, and we are constantly thinking of ways to incorporate her into this album. How could we not?! She's a part of TLC.

"Lisa was our sister, and we know she would have loved us doing something so out of the box like this. That's what TLC has always been about!” Check out the Kickstarter for yourself here.

'OMG': Game Of Thrones' Sophie Turner Lands Jean Grey Role In X-Men Apocalypse

By Adam Miller On January 23, 2015

X-Men Apocalypse is expected to hit cinemas May, 2016

Director Bryan Singer just shared some very exciting news about X-Men: Apocalypse which is seet to start shooting later this year, revealing the three new actors who will be playing Jean Grey, Cyclops and Storm in Apocalypse, via his Twitter page.

Singer, whose future as director ... last year, claims which have now been dropped, looks like he's concentrating on the next installment of the hugely successful franchise and following news Channing Tatum will proba...as Gambit, we've got some other new faces in the mutan world.

The most recognisable name on the list, if you’re a Game Of Thrones fan at least, is Sophie Turner or Sansa Sark to those of you more familiar with her GoT on screen character. She replaces Famke Janssen, who played the telepathic mutant Jean Grey in all three of the original X-Men pictures as well as returning for a brief role in 2014’s X-Men Days of Future Past; the prequel to the prequel First Class. Reacting to the news on Twitter Sophie, 18, seemed pretty excited about joining the cast, writing: 'OMG' on Twitter after re-tweeting Singer's initial announcement.

Sophie Turner will play Jean Grey in X-Men: Apocolypse (Daniel Deme/WENN)

She’ll be joined by Tye Sheridan who stars as a young Cyclops, not to be mistaken with the young Cyclops who appeared in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. The events of Wolverine ended up being completely wiped out as a result of last year’s of Future Past. So it’s a fresh start and a fresh Cyclops! Sheridan is best known for his roles in the Terrence Malick head-scratching arthouse picture Tree of Life and Joe where he starred along Nicholas Cage. Cyclops was originally played by James Marsden in X-Men’s one through to three but was killed off in 2006’s The Last Stand.

Turner seems pretty excited about joining the cast (Twitter/SophieTurner)

And finally Singer’s latest addition to the X-Men class of 2016 is Alexandra Shipp whose name may be familiar from last year’s Aaliyah biopic for Lifetime. The 23-year-old starred as the RnB icon in last year’s dire TV movie but will surely find her big break in next year’s Apocalypse where she’ll be taking over Hallee Berry’s role as a young Storm.

Already announced as a newbie to the franchise is Inside Llewellyn Davis actor Oscaar Isaac, who is currently filming the upcoming Star Wars: Episode VII. He’ll be starring as Apocalypse, who as you can probably guess has one thing on his mind. Basically he’s not a nice guy and will be the latest in a series of endless obstacles faced by Charles Xavier’s school of mutants.

James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender and Jennifer Lawrence will all be reprising their roles as Xavier, Magneto and Mystique in Apocalypse, which is though to be the closing chapter in the First Class trilogy. There’s also rumours that we’ll get a first look at Channing Tatum’s Gambit and Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool who have both been given their own stand alone movies, although their appearence in Apocalypse is currently just speculation which we are otherwise more than happy to protest for.

With more announcements expected in the coming weeks all we can say for now is watch this space…

2014’s X-Men: Days of Future Past became the highest grossing picture in the franchise’s history so far taking $748 million from a $200 million worldwide and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Visual Effects.

X-Men: Apocalypse is currently expected to hit cinemas on May 27, 2016.

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Fame Game

01.24.15

John Travolta, Just As Fever Struck—Celebrities on The Brink of Fame

A Paris exhibition features photographs of Travolta, Meryl Streep, Sigourney Weaver, Robert De Niro, and others—just before their careers went stellar.

Thanks to the accessibility of photography, “everybody is a celebrity,” stated Susan Sontag in her essay America, Seen Through Photographs, Darkly. “No moment is more important than any other moment; no person is more interesting than any other person.”

In the era of the selfie, this seems irrefutable: everyone simply expects that they, and their reality, are worth looking at. And yet? Little powers our curiosity quite like actual celebrity imagery. The pull of the famous person is still, somehow, unrivalled.

The photography exhibition Déjà Stars (January 23 to March 23)—being at the Crous Cultural Center in Paris’s Saint-Germain Des Prés neighborhood—spotlights the attraction of celebrity. With a greatest hits of recognizable personae, all captured in the mid- to late-20th century by one unfamiliar French photographer Marcel Thomas, it revisits and reinforces the mythology of iconic performers.

The name of the exhibition, Déjà Stars (Already Stars), tries to underline the prescience of Thomas’s eye: he photographed people on the brink of stardom, their charisma already manifest, but they were not as reputed as they were to be.

If anyone took 30,000-odd portraits of performers, it’s inevitable that some would make it big; still, the expo does genuinely provide a glimpse of “before.” The images allow us not only to peek at figures prior to becoming capital-C Celebrities, but also to a culture in which celebrity had a different import and allure.

GALLERY: Stars Before The...s (PHOTOS)

Marcel Thomas

There’s Harrison Ford, in round ‘80s-era glasses. John Travolta in a turtleneck sweater and his real head of hair. There are three shots of Dustin Hoffman, one in which he’s wearing baseball cap that says “SALESMAN” in all caps. A young and goateed Robert De Niro. A youthful Jean Seberg in a beret, as gamine as anyone could be.

Audrey Hepburn is effortlessly chic, topped with a fur cap, breezing along some boulevard. Sylvester Stallone is pimped out in an enormous fur jacket. Jack Nicholson, in a white suit, smoking a cigarette, is seen loping through the street with swagger. David Bowie sports a trench coat. Mickey Rourke is in a zipped-up leather jacket, long before he himself looked wholly made out of cowhide.

There are three shots of Marlon Brando, one of which sees him bleached blond. A frosted-looking Kim Basinger has big hair. A fresh-faced Sigourney Weaver wears an enormous belt and a secretary blouse. Meryl Streep, squinting in the sun, is positioned in front of the Bulgari boutique.

Gregory Peck, debonair in gray suit, is about to step into a car. There are multiple shots dedicated to Elvis in uniform. A snapshot of young Woody Allen features a lady taller than he on his arm.

“Mickey Rourke is in a zipped-up leather jacket, long before he himself looked wholly made out of cowhide.”

Americans and international stars are only one part of the exhibition—there are plenty of French stars, whose celebrity never translated across the Atlantic, or elsewhere. (Singer Johnny Hallyday is France’s token long-term washed-up celebrity; here, he’s a young gun in a bathrobe.) Nonetheless, people would readily recognize a baby-faced Serge Gainsbourg, or a bearded Gérard Depardieu many decades before he fled to Russia for fiscal refuge, or the slightly smug mug of Jean-Paul Belmondo.

Marcel Thomas—nicknamed “le photographe à la moustache” by Simone Signoret, aka the mustachioed photographer—remains unknown to the general public, but is deemed “the first paparazzo” in this expo.

Born in 1909 in the Lorraine region, Thomas initially toiled as a steelworker. After WWII, he moved to Paris, where he worked in a confection shop. He began photographing celebrities in 1947, waiting patiently at the exits of theaters, music halls, swanky restaurants, and other such soirée spots.

He sought out images, but with politesse: he asked permission, and embodied a paparazzo only in the sense of explicitly seeking celebrity subjects with spontaneity and immediacy.

A journalist friend initially tipped him off to celebrity whereabouts, and eventually Thomas became such a regular presence at high-end hotels that he befriended its porters and valets, who would give him key information. All of his photographs were taken in Paris; he didn’t travel.

In 1983, Thomas met Gérard Gagnepain, an editor and graphic designer. They both loved the opera singer Maria Callas and flamenco dancer Carmen Amaya—both were featured in Thomas’s portfolio, notably a 1955 shot of Callas outside Le Meurice, who was swanning around with American socialite Elsa Maxwell.

Though Thomas and Gagnepain knew little of each others’ personal lives, Thomas left him the rights to his colossal oeuvre of some 30,000 images, from vintage prints to unseen negatives.

Gagnepain describes Thomas as an amateur photographer, and his images as “très artisanale”—he developed them not at some great studio, but at the FNAC (a multi-purpose emporium vaguely like a Best Buy, for lack of a better equivalent). Indeed, looking at the images, this wasn’t someone who stared into anyone’s soul; these are in-between moments in public places. But the sheer volume of Thomas’s images attests to an obvious passion.

The images function as a kind of capsule, and they feel dated in a good way: aesthetically (some are small and scallop-edged, all are black-and-white) as well as symbolically (no one is startled on their way out of Duane Reade). One marvels at them the way one does at seeing images of one’s own family album: the sharp sense of the uncanny, of seeing someone clearly familiar yet differing from present perception. The time machine quality has a certain magic.

The over-decorated staging of the exhibition, however, is quite cringe-y. There’s a shabby red carpet, a low-lit jazz club, a celebrity dressing room, a movie theater, ending with a rockabilly diner scene, all to imbue the sense of “showbiz!”

It’s a shame, because nothing zaps the glamour of celebrity more than trying to cheaply emulate it for plebs. The images fight with the trappings of faux glitz, instead of being allowed to simply speak for themselves. What could more acutely take you out of the past and into today’s tawdry self-indulgence?

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Stevie Ray Vaughan and ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons.

DMC interview about his new comic book & album and performing with Rev. Run

http://www.dmc-comics.com

[Edited 1/24/15 19:23pm]

Thanks for the postings ID & Mickey. Good stuff.

Joe Franklin, Local Talk Show Pioneer, Dies at 88

Joe Franklin interviewed Debbie Reynolds at the WOR-TV studios in 1985. Credit Walter J. Kuhn

Joe Franklin, who became a New York institution by presiding over one of the most compellingly low-rent television programs in history, one that even he acknowledged was an oddly long-running parade of has-beens and yet-to-bes interrupted from time to time by surprisingly famous guests, died on Saturday in a hospice in Manhattan. He was 88. Steve Garrin, Mr. Franklin’s producer and longtime friend, said the cause was prostate cancer.

A short, pudgy performer with a sandpapery voice that bespoke old-fashioned show business razzle-dazzle, Mr. Franklin was one of local television’s most enduring personalities. He took his place behind his desk and in front of the camera day after day in the 1950s and night after night in the 1960s, ’70s, ’80s and ’90s.

In 1993, he said that he had hosted more than 300,000 guests in his more than 40 years on the air. Another way to have interviewed that many people would have been to go to Riverside, Calif., or Corpus Christi, Tex., and talk to everyone in town.

Photo

Mr. Franklin in 2002 with a trombone given to him by a member of the Tommy Dorsey Band. Credit Don Hogan Charles/The New York Times

And although he never made the move from local television in New York to the slicker, bigger realms of the networks, he was recognizable enough to have been parodied by Billy Crystal on “Saturday Night Live” and mentioned on “The Simpsons.”

What came to be considered campy began as pioneering programming: the first regular program that Channel 7 had ever broadcast at noon. WJZ-TV, as the station was known then, had not been signing on until late afternoon before the premiere of “Joe Franklin — Disk Jockey” on Jan. 8, 1951.

Soon celebrities like Elvis Presley, Bing Crosby and John F. Kennedy were making their way to the dingy basement studio on West 67th Street — a room with hot lights that was “twice the size of a cab,” Mr. Franklin recalled in 2002. He booked Woody Allen, Dustin Hoffman, Barbra Streisand, Bill Cosby and Liza Minnelli as guests when they were just starting out, and hired two other young performers, Bette Midler and Barry Manilow, as his in-house singer and accompanist.

“My show was often like a zoo,” he said in 2002. “I’d mix Margaret Mead with the man who whistled through his nose, or Richard Nixon with the tap-dancing dentist.”

Mr. Franklin claimed a perfect attendance record: He said he never missed a show. Bob Diamond, his director for the last 18 years of his television career, said that there were a few times in the days of live broadcasts when the show had to start without Mr. Franklin. But Mr. Franklin always got there eventually.

And he always seemed to have a gimmick. He celebrated his 40th anniversary on television by interviewing himself, using a split-screen arrangement. “I got a few questions I’m planning to surprise myself with,” he said before he began.

Had he been asked, he could have told viewers that he was born Joe Fortgang in the Bronx. He explained in his memoir, “Up Late With Joe Franklin,” written with R. J. Marx, that his press materials had long said that he had been born in 1928, “but I’m going to come clean and admit that my real birth date was March 9, 1926.” He was the son of Martin and Anna Fortgang; his father was a paper-and-twine dealer who had gone to Public School 158 with James Cagney.

By the time he was 21, he had a new name, a radio career, a publicist and a too-good-to-be-true biography invented, he wrote in “Up Late,” by a publicist. In that book, he denied an anecdote that appeared in many newspaper articles about him: He had met George M. Cohan in Central Park when he was a teenager. That led to a dinner invitation from Mr. Cohan, who let him pick a recording from his collection and take it home — or so the story went. It never happened, Mr. Franklin wrote in “Up Late.”

But a real invitation to pick records was his big break. He had been the writer for the singer Kate Smith’s 1940s variety program, which featured guests like Clark Gable, Myrna Loy and Edward G. Robinson — “all my childhood heroes” — when the radio personality Martin Block hired him to choose the records played on Block’s “Make-Believe Ballroom” on WNEW. Block arranged for Mr. Franklin to go on the air with a program called “Vaudeville Isn’t Dead.” After stops at several other stations in the 1950s, Mr. Franklin settled in at WOR in the mid-60s with his “Memory Lane” program — “that big late-night stroll for nostalgiacs and memorabiliacs,” as he described it.

He was both. He owned a shoe of Greta Garbo’s, a violin of Jack Benny’s and a ukulele of Arthur Godfrey’s — not to mention 12,500 pieces of sheet music and 10,000 silent movies. His office was several rooms of uncataloged clutter, first in Times Square, later at Eighth Avenue and West 43rd Street. “You know, I was a slob,” he said in 2002.

Mr. Franklin met his wife, Lois Meriden, when she applied for a job as his secretary. Soon they were being mentioned in gossip columns. “Dorothy Kilgallen wrote that we were ‘waxing amorous,’ ” he wrote in “Up Late.” “Walter Winchell queried in his column, ‘What radio voice with initial J. F. seen ’round town with model Lois Meriden?’ ” Soon, too, she was accompanying him to the studio for his 6:30 a.m. broadcast. “Lois made faces at me through the control room window, wiggling her ears and her nose,” Mr. Franklin wrote in “Up Late.”

They were married on a television show called “Bride and Groom.” Off camera, he wrote in 1995, “things weren’t going right — it’s been like that for 40 years. But if we divorced, it would cost me a lot of money. Lois is happy, I’m happy, I live in New York, she lives in Florida.”

After his television show was canceled in 1993, Mr. Franklin repeatedly tried to cash in on his fame and his collection of memorabilia. In 2000, he lent his name to a 160-seat restaurant on Eighth Avenue at 45th Street. Eventually it became a chain restaurant with “Joe Franklin’s Comedy Club” in the back; later the restaurant and the comedy club closed. And in 2002, he sold some of his memorabilia at auction.

His survivors include his son, Bradley Franklin; two grandchildren, Billy and Sara; a younger sister, Margaret Kestenbaum; and his longtime companion, Jodi Fritz.

On television, Mr. Franklin did not like to rehearse, and he never used cue cards or prompters. The opening monologue and the questions were all in his head.

“I was the only guy who never had a preproduction meeting,” Mr. Franklin said in 2002. “You don’t rehearse your dinner conversation. I’m not saying I was right, but I lasted 43 years.”

Interview with 'Empire' star Grace Gealey

Born and raised in the Cayman Islands, Grace Gealey went to school at the University of South Florida in Tampa where she received her Bachelor’s in Theater Arts. She then attended the University of California in Irvine where she received her Master’s on Fine Arts in acting.

After completing school, Gealey moved to Los Angeles and New York where she performed professionally on stage and in minor film and television roles. Gealey then moved to Chicago where she made her major television network debut on FOX’s new music series Empire. Gealey stars as Anika Gibbons, head of Empire Entertainment A&R, alongside Terrence Howard as Lucious and Taraji P. Henson as Cookie.

Gealey is also skilled in painting and ballroom dancing, hoping to incorporate those skills into her work in the future.

Marie Blake: Growing up in the Cayman Islands, what drew you into the acting field?

Grace Gealey: What was interesting about that was, I never thought of the acting field because of the fact that it's not a profession that was widely pursued by a woman in the Cayman Islands. It wasn't that I thought ‘yes, acting is what I want to do.’ I just knew that I liked to perform and I love to express myself through art. As I got older I realized that was acting and that I loved performing. It wasn't until I actually went to school at the University of South Florida, until I realized that in order to make this a profession; this is what I would have to do to pursue it.

Marie: I know you've had some prior work in theater and small television roles, but how does it feel to have your network television debut on Empire?

Grace: It feels amazing of course. It's such a phenomenal show to be a part of and now with the ratings and stuff, I’m so honored and humbled to be a part of such a powerhouse project.

Marie: How is it working with such an outstanding cast including Taraji P. Henson, Terrence Howard and Lee Daniels? Have they given you any acting advice?

Grace: Well I wouldn't say acting advice, I went to school and I have my two degrees, but there has been guidance for me in reference of exactly what direction to take, and that has been really amazing.

Marie: What do you enjoy most about Anika Calhoun?

Grace: Well, I call her a silent moving storm because of the fact that she has so many layers and so many dimensions. She can use different tactics to get what it is that she wants, and that is the most enjoyable part of playing her.

Marie: After earning your B.A. in Theater Arts from the University of South Florida and graduating with your M.F.A. from the University of California - Irvine, did you ever imagine that you would be where you are today?

Grace: One dreams (laughs), one definitely dreams, but actually, before I booked Empire, I was in a different place mentally. I was getting to the point where I was accepting the fact that maybe this might not happen for me. I was fine with the fact that if I just create art then that would be enough for me, then Empire happened.

Marie: What was the hardest part in your journey to becoming an actress?

Grace: Everybody has a different journey, everybody has a different path and you don’t really know what to expect. All you know is to just keep plugging away and you hope something will come through and something will happen. There is no formula to stand behind so you don’t know what’s going to happen in the end, You don’t know that if at the end of all of this you’re going to see everything come through. So I think that was the hardest part. There were times when I was working three jobs at one time and I was still auditioning just to make ends meet and I was hoping that something was going to come through. Especially after you have two degrees, standing solid through the process is sometimes the hardest part because there is no guarantee.

Marie: Are there any actors or directors you would love to work with in the future?

Grace: Oh yeah! (laughs). I would love to share the screen with Meryl Streep, wouldn't we all? I would love to work with Spielberg and Scorsese; that would be lovely. I’m also a huge fan of Johnny Depp and the way he creates his characters, so that would be fun. I mean any of the greats really. I’m just enjoying the ride at this point.

Marie: Do you see yourself branching out into other ventures like film or Broadway?

Grace: Of course, again for me it's not just about being in television, it's about creating art and if I can create art on Broadway or if I’m able to explore in film, absolutely, whatever that entails. As long as I’m creating art and I’m being challenged I feel like it's something that I would consider.

Marie: I know you’re very talented in other areas like dance and art, so if you weren't acting, what do you think you would be doing instead?

Grace: I would either be painting or I'd be ballroom dancing. Those are the things I do on my free time and I absolutely love it. I love expressing myself through those mediums of art.

Marie: Are there any other projects that you’re working on?

Grace: That is in the process (laughs), so I’ll have to get back to you on that one!

image courtesy of Jennifer Graylock/INFphoto.com

When Empire, the new series from Lee Daniels, premieres on Jan. 7, it’ll be not only something to watch, but something to listen to. The Fox series brings viewers into the world of Lucious Lyon, a ferocious hip-hop mogul whose fading health means major changes for his entire operation. In addition to his three sons, all of whom are angling to take over his kingdom, Lucious is tangling with an unpredictable ex-wife, a troubling past and a music industry teetering on the edge of obsolescence.

And then there’s Anika Gibbons. Played by Grace Gealey, Gibbons is Lyon’s paramour and A&R rep, and perhaps the least volatile character on the show—or so it seems. Here, Gealey talks about landing the role, doing her homework and why you won’t see her singing on TV any time soon.

Talk about luck: the show films in Chicago and you had coincidentally just moved there from New York when casting began. How’d that work out?

They knew they were shooting the series in Chicago and were casting out of Chicago, and that was fortunate for me. I went into the casting director in Chicago, and she put me on tape and she sent it off. Then Lee Daniels flew in to do the callbacks and two days later, I got the job.

Two days? That’s not very long.

No, it all happened within a span of five days.

What was it about the show that appealed to you?

Well, apart from the names attached to it, it was the character I’m playing. But just the caliber of artists that were associated with this was the number one thing. The other thing, of course, was the actual script, reading it and meeting this character, who was just this extremely refined and elegant but fiery woman who showed what she felt more than spoke it. I found that to be very interesting, and was thinking about what things I could bring to her.

Gealey on ‘Empire’

The music industry is such a unique thing. What kind of research did you do into how A&R and labels work?

Well, I watched a lot of interviews with A&R people, but the biggest thing I was missing was a female A&R executive. I was learning that the music industry was very cutthroat in a lot of ways, and my biggest question was if you were a woman, how did that play a role. Luckily, I was able to get an interview with a female hip-hop executive and I just asked her every single question I had. She was completely honest with me and that was the best research that I got.

The show’s about a lot of things: family, business, pride, talent, loyalty. What is it you want people to take away?

You know, the reason why I find this whole project to be extremely fascinating is the dynamic that we’re creating. You have a husband and wife—now ex-husband and ex-wife—with their three children living in the ghettos of Philly and dealing drugs. This is the African-American community associated with hip-hop culture, and this is the family dynamic in that community. So, I think the show gives a sense of hope; it gives a sense of an expanded view for people who think that’s how everyone lives. It’s about showing the different elements within our culture.

You’ve filmed almost the entire first season now. How does Anika change over the course of those 12 episodes?

Oh, every episode is so interesting because I started to develop my own trajectory for the character, and then I’d get a script and it would change everything. That happened with every single episode.

It’s an interesting time to portray the record industry because it’s in such transition. Are you guys paying attention to real life stories?

Yes! You’d be so surprised by the things we talk about and the things that we live with, and then what happens in today’s world. I mean, I can’t give too much away, but the parallels are unbelievable. I can’t wait for you to see it; I can’t say any more.

Do you have any musical talent yourself?

I sing and I dance.

Are we going to see any of that?

No! I don’t think so. You’d be surprised by some of the actors on the show who are able to sing or have musical talent—that will definitely shock you—but not me.

WRITTEN BY Adam Rathe

Majid Jordan - ''Forever'' official video

New dance track from the Canadian duo.

majidjordan.com

Linda Ronstant

The path for Morgan James to r&b stardom hasnt been conventional by any means, but it’s special all its own. After attending the prestigious Julliard School, she eventually landed on Broadway in The Addams Family and eventually the role of Teena Marie in Motown: The Musical. It wasn’t until Berry Gordy Jr. took notice of her there and connected her with LA Reid at Epic Records that her music career began to take off. Now equipped with the hit cover of Prince’s “Call My Name”, she will release her album “Hunter” this week. YouKnowIGotSoul sat down with Morgan James while she was performing at our Sol Village event and discussed the origins of her career, getting signed to Epic, Prince co-signing her cover, and much more.

YouKnowIGotSoul: Let’s start at the beginning. You’re originally from Idaho and eventually came to school at the Julliard here in New York City. How was the transition?

Morgan James: *Laughs* Well I moved to New York City when I was 18 from California. I lived in Idaho when I was a kid and we lived in California and then I moved all the way across the country to go to Julliard. I thought 59th street was downtown. I was so sheltered, but I wasn’t afraid because I knew I was supposed to be here. It’s what I wanted to do, it was my dream to go to Julliard. I was so excited to be here and I just took everything in.

YouKnowIGotSoul: After you had graduated from Julliard, where did you career take you?

Morgan James: My career took many, many twists and turns. I kinda thought I would graduate from Julliard and be a star. *Laughs* I thought I had this voice and this degree, and I had talent and dedication, I thought I would make it. It’s so much harder than that. I started auditioning for theater and singing in clubs and waiting tables and doing the things I needed to do to pay the rent. It was very difficult. After a few years I got on Broadway, I did four original companies on Broadway and I started doing commercials and TV and theater. Then I found my voice really. I think that’s the hardest part for an artist is finding their voice and learning how to write, finding what they have to say that is unique.

YouKnowIGotSoul: What do you think triggered that in you? Your career on Broadway took off first but then you branched into singing. What brought that out of you?

Morgan James: What really brought out the voice that I have, my soul voice and true voice, was really not getting any work and being very sad and being poor and having to sit with that. I think that’s where the blues comes from. I started singing out in clubs and I kinda just imitated other people, like Aretha or Mariah or Chaka or Sade. I would learn how to imitate these people but I really didn’t have my own sound. You have to spend time listening and singing and practicing and you have to put in the time. What really got my career started and brought me to the label was when I met Berry Gordy Jr., he is a mentor to me. He introduced me to LA Reid and he really saw something in me that maybe nobody else had ever seen.

YouKnowIGotSoul: What do you think it was that made Epic Records so interested in signing you?

Morgan James: At the time I got signed, I didn’t write music really. I really didn’t know what kind of record I was going to make. I knew I was a soul singer and I was going to make a soul record. When Doug Morris signed me to Epic Records and introduced me to LA Reid, we kind of experimented. I did a lot of demos and a lot of songs that people would go “Maybe not yet”. You have to experiment a lot before you find what you’re ultimately going to make. I sang a lot of shows with the band because I had to try out material. Over the last two years I sang a lot of shows. Some were hits, some were misses. *Laughs* I tried to figured out what kind of record I was going to make.

YouKnowIGotSoul: Introduce us to your “Hunter” album which will be your second release on Epic Records.

Morgan James: My album “Hunter” is going to be coming out on Epic Records November 11th and it features my single “Call My Name” which is a Prince tune. It’s currently on Urban A/C radio which I’m very happy about. I co-wrote 9 of the 14 songs. It’s a really, really rich soul album. I sang all of the background vocals. I did not tune one single note, there is no tuning on my record, it’s all real ingredients. Horns, whirly, organ, piano; it’s rich and soulful and funky and I hope there’s something for everyone on there. *Laughs*

YouKnowIGotSoul: “Call My Name” is the current single, and a Prince cover. What drew you to want to cover that song?

Morgan James: I’m a huge Prince fan and I had been singing “Call My Name” for several years. I sang it in the first show I ever did. It’s been in my body a long time. I arranged it and I just love it. I love it from a woman’s perspective; I think it’s very intimate and tender. His lyrics are very romantic and appeal to me. I played it for LA Reid and he loved it and he knew that it probably was not going to be approved because Prince doesn’t approve a lot of songs; he doesn’t like people covering his songs. His lawyer said no and we initially released “Hunter” without “Call My Name” on it. Finally LA Reid basically called Prince and asked him to listen to it and he did and he got right back to him and said he loved it; so we had clearance. We took it to radio immediately, we pulled the other version of “Hunter” so we could add “Call My Name” and that’s why “Hunter” is coming out in a month. Everything kinda changed with “Call My Name” because we took it to WBLS, they started playing it, and “Heart & Soul” started playing it and it’s had a life of its own. I feel really, really blessed that Prince gave me his blessing.

YouKnowIGotSoul: Talk about where you future aspirations lie now that you’ve had success in both singing and acting on Broadway.

Morgan James: Hmmmm. I take voice lessons still every week. My aspirations and dreams keep evolving. I think dreams evolve and I want to become a better songwriter. I want to do more collaboration within my genre and I want to continue to make records. I want to just keep getting stronger as a musician and make movies. *Laughs* Being a better songwriter, that’s top of the list because I think that is a very intimidating, difficult task. I really admire people that just continue to write and get stronger.

YouKnowIGotSoul: Anything you’d like to add?

Morgan James: I’m so happy to be here, thank you for having me. Thank you for the love everybody keeps showing “Call My Name”.

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Morgan James did the whole new album D'angelo live. She played Teena Marie in Motown The Musical:

Randall Roberts

Los Angeles Timesrandall.roberts​@latimes.com

"Vulnicura" is a new album by experimental pop singer Björk that was released with little notice. (One Little Indian)

In the opening measures of Björk's new album, "Vulnicura," the Icelandic artist offers a direct statement of purpose, one involving personal upheaval she describes as "a juxtapositioning fate." Mentioning "moments of clarity as so rare, I better document this," Björk directs her gaze in that first song, "Stonemilker," on the dissolution of a relationship.

At times devastated, others baffled, still others strong and determined, the artist on "Vulnicura" offers nine songs, six of which move in chronological order through that juxtapositional end and beyond. (Inez van Lamsweerde / Vinoodh Mat / Inez van Lamsweerde & Vinoodh Ma)

As she does so, what can be described only as Björkian strings and beats swirl around her. These drifting arrangements soar through tracks like birds spinning circles in prairie skies, even as the experimental pop singer, 49, lyrically crawls through the brush below in utter confusion. At times devastated, others baffled, still others strong and determined, the artist on "Vulnicura" offers nine songs, six of which move in chronological order through that juxtapositional end and beyond.

The artist's most personal record in a career full of vocal and emotional drama, "Vulnicura" is a self-described "complete heartbreak album," its title Björk's own invented word. What it defines, though, is as lyrically raw and shockingly direct as Marvin Gaye's "Here, My Dear" or Beck's "Sea Change," and seems to document the end of her relationship with the visual artist Matthew Barney.

Referring to herself in a Facebook post as being "kinda surprised how thoroughly I had documented this in pretty much accurate emotional chronology," the artist considered her creations to be "like 3 songs before a break up and three after." On early listens — the record arrived with little notice on Tuesday night — it's an exquisite, inspired and typically angular listen, filled with much texture and impatient roaming, with musical and vocal tones built into spatial structures that fearlessly trace the lyrical ordeals.

Though Björk, who has a daughter with Barney, never mentions her ex by name, she delivers lines about family — mothers, fathers and daughters in "Family" — that make it painfully apparent this is her take on a real-life situation. (Barney and Björk reportedly ended their decade-long relationship in 2013.)

Nuanced and miraculously expressive, Bjork's vocal cords growl and scowl, soar like clarinets and wail like violins. (Petras Malukas / AFP/Getty Images)

Bjork has seldom minced lyrics. Her previous album, "Biophilia," was thematically linked through lyrics about nature and the environment; her mostly a cappella 2004 album "Medúlla," recorded while she was pregnant, was overtly political. Rising in the 1990s after gaining popularity as the singer of Sugarcubes, her solo career has drawn on experimental electronic dance music and contemporary classical music, tracing and mixing styles and collaborating with musicians eager to work with such a voice.

Nuanced and miraculously expressive, her vocal cords growl and scowl, soar like clarinets and wail like violins. Hinting at voices as varied as Meredith Monk, Kate Bush, Maria Callas and the guy who sang "Surfin' Bird," it delivers singular vibrations.

She has thrived within musical partnerships, even as her work has traveled far afield of so-called popular music. Over the decades and seven earlier studio albums (excluding her self-titled 1977 debut, released when she was a young Icelandic pop star), she has teamed with innovative creators including Tricky, Matmos, Matthew Herbert, Mouse on Mars, Zeena Parkins and Mark Bell. For "Biophilia," Björk worked solely with the British dubstep producers 16bit.

"Vulnicura" sees her collaborating with a new pair: the English ambient producer who makes music as the Haxan Cloak and the Venezuelan producer Arca, whose tracks with Kanye West and FKA Twigs have driven his rise. As usual, Björk arranges much of "Vulnicura" herself, with modernist string bursts, drifting, expansive patterns and punctuated squawks.

Those words are penned with a diary-esque honesty. "Stonemilker," for example, is accompanied in the liner notes with the descriptive, "9 months before." The next song "Lionsong" is described as occurring "5 months before." The brief "History of Touches" ("3 months before") hints at fading passion and a final bout of passion.

During the epic 10-minute centerpiece, "Black Lake" ("2 months after") after describing "my soul torn apart, my spirit is broken," Björk goes for the jugular: "You have nothing to give / Your heart is hollow / I'm drowned in sorrows / No hope in sight of ever recover / Eternal pain and horrors."

On "Notget," Björk hits hard: "Without love I feel the abyss / Understand your fear of death."

After those first six songs, the singer abandons time-stamping and moves through three closing pieces without markers. Suggesting that the end is evolving into a beginning, these works arrive like dawn after a thunderstruck night.

Collaborating with New York singer Antony, she sings of "fine-tuning my soul" in "Atom Dance," of letting "this ugly wound breathe" and "peeling off dead layers of loveless love."

During a beat-heavy highlight, "Mouth Mantra," the artist circles around and through Arca's rhythms with sheets of sampled, manipulated voice, while lyrically addressing writer's block.

"Vulnicura" is a serious, heavy journey through a rough ordeal, a work certainly too deep to fully absorb so quickly after its release. Like many of her recent records, it's not toe-tapping beat-based music. But fans like myself will find much to love as we explore its many peaks and valleys.

Whether the unnamed ex feels the same is another story.

CHARLIE WILSON

“Forever Charlie”

REVIEW

(P Music/RCA)

This is the pop-music moment of Women Are More Interesting, and in related news the grown-up, heart-wounded masculine R&B tradition has gone into a blind stagger. The romantic sensitivity of the middle-aged male is not a trending topic.

But here comes Charlie Wilson running into the room in his white suit. He’s laughing and whistling, with a lithe voice full of authority and cultural memory, and he could lord it all over you, but he won’t. He’s going to create mobility and flexibility. He’s going to stir up the molecules and raise the happiness.

Mr. Wilson, once the singer of the Gap Band, now an old-school talisman for Snoop Dogg, Pharrell Wilson, Kanye West and Bruno Mars, makes decent R&B records and remains a total treat as a live act; in both cases, he reminds you of his past as an important link between the epic, chanting funk of the ’70s and the clipped, efficacious, electronic funk of the ’80s.

His most hardheaded comeback record of recent years, “Charlie, Last Name Wilson,” produced in 2005 by R. Kelly, put him forward as a smooth player — a cliché that at this point would seem too sad and lonely for someone like Mr. Wilson. His new album, “Forever Charlie,” stays aboveboard.

He’s going to praise you. He’ll assure you that he loves your good-night kisses. He’ll compliment your birthday dress — without innuendo — and sing “It’s your party, you can dance all you like.” He’s going to compare you to a priceless masterpiece, a glass of lemonade and, best of all, “that good potato salad.”

In sound, “Forever Charlie” plays lightly with nostalgia, befitting someone who suggests the indefinite past. The standout songs tend to be produced by the Cartoons, who go in more heavily for updating old-school details — Gap Band grooves, vocoders, 1950s-ballad triplets — and Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, who take hard right turns like putting sequencers and keyboard sounds on “Things You Do” to make you think of the “Miami Vice” soundtrack. You don’t necessarily see that coming. Here’s what you do see coming: A cameo by Snoop Dogg (on “Infectious”) and an easy-tempo reggae tune with Shaggy (“Unforgettable”). It doesn’t matter; they don’t hurt anything.

Above all, Mr. Wilson keeps it light. What a relief! A great singer who knows it’s not all about him. BEN RATLIFF

New All-Female 'Ghostbusters' Cast Chosen

The Paul Feig-directed reboot is eyeing a summer shoot in New York.

AP Images/Invision

Kristen Wiig, Leslie Jones, Kate McKinnon, Melissa McCarthy

The all-new, all-female Ghostsbusters are here.

Melissa McCarthy, who was already in talks for one of the leads, has signed on for the Paul Feig-directed reboot, and Sony is now negotiating with Kristen Wiig as well as Saturday Night Live players Leslie Jones and Kate McKinnon, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.

Negotiations are ongoing, but the quartet are expected to sign on as the specter-seeking, poltergeist-punishing, phantom-phollowing foursome in the reboot, which is eyeing a summer shoot in New York.

McCarthy and Wiig have worked with Feig before, both breaking out in the director’s Bridesmaids.

Jones, who is currently onscreen in Chris Rock’s Top Five, joined SNL early last year and this fall was promoted to feature player status.

McKinnon has been on SNL since 2012 and last year was nominated for an Emmy for her work.

The film is set for release on July 22, 2016, Feig said on Twitter.

The Ghostbusters reboot has endured a long development process. Original director Ivan Reitman was on board to return, but while original castmembers Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis and Ernie Hudson had agreed to reprise their characters, Bill Murray proved elusive. Reitman then bowed out of the project when Ramis passed away last year. Following Reitman's departure, Feig was approached to direct and reconceived the project as a reboot starring an all-female cast.

Wiig is repped by UTA, Odenkirk Provissiero Entertainment and Jackoway Tyerman. Jones is repped by APA and Integral Entertainment, while McKinnon is repped by UTA and Principato Young.

'Empire's' Taraji P. Henson on Cookie's Careful Planning, Loyalty and Greatest Vulnerability

The actress talks with THR about the universal appeal of the hip-hop soap and Cookie's second chance.

Chuck Hodes/FOX

"Boo Boo Kitty." "Goat ass." "Jump out the window and straight down." "The streets aren't made for everybody; that's why they made sidewalks." There is no question that Empire's Cookie Lyon is one of a kind — as is the woman who brings her to life every week on Fox, Taraji P. Henson. But though Henson was immediately as taken with Cookie as Fox's audience is after three weeks, the actress had some initial trepidation about taking on the role of the Lyon family matriarch.

"You don’t get these scripts often; I don’t get these scripts every day. I was trained; I’ve read some of the most amazing literature known to man; so I know good writing when I see it. I know a good script when I read it. So, I knew that, but at the same time, it scared the hell out of me," the actress tells The Hollywood Reporter. "I had to reel myself back in [saying], 'OK, Taraji, I don’t think everybody’s going to love me; I don’t think everybody’s going to love it; but at the end of the day, this is important work.' "

At the end of the day, Henson is an actress who likes to challenge herself and realized, like so many others do, that it was worth taking a risk to do something that scared her.

"The story we have to tell is big," Henson said. "There’s not an American who can’t identify with at least one of those characters. At the end of the day, this is important work. It’s challenging people to think. People are pissed; there are black people who think we can’t show this side of the race, but this is human; white people identify with this! This has nothing to do with color; people identify with this because it’s human stuff."

THR caught up with Henson to discuss the breakout drama so far and what's in store for Cookie and her boys.

See more 'Empire': How Lee Daniels... 'Dynasty'

How important was it for you to show Cookie's lighter side — with so many quotable lights — and seeing her smile after serving a 17-year jail sentence?

She’s a real person, and real people laugh at themselves sometimes — I hope. She’s multilayered; she’s not just one thing. That’s something [co-creator] Lee Daniels really strived and wrote for, and it’s something the writers really pushed as complications because life is complicated. Why we do some of the dumb stuff we do, I will never try to explain [but] it’s called being a human. We don’t come with a book and a map that says, “This is how you live your life perfectly.” I don’t even know what perfect is; I don’t want the pressure of perfect — whatever that is. Because at the end of the day, I know I’m human and I’m going to make the wrong choice sometimes. I’m going to listen to the wrong person; I’m going to take the bad advice when I know I should have listened to my instincts. That’s what I stick to with Cookie — playing those human moments — and I think that’s why some people have taken to her. At the end of the day, she’s real, and she’s honest. She’s honest with herself, and she’s not hiding anything.

She certainly has secrets — specifically just how she got out of jail early.

Don’t we all? (Laughs.) That whole situation in working with the feds — first of all, there is no way you’re getting out early on a federal charge. Once the feds step in, it’s a wrap; you’re doing your time. No need for a lawyer; you’re going away. They have all the evidence they need; they’ve been watching you; there’s nothing you can do to worm your way out of it — except if you snitch. So she’s got some deal going on; she was supposed to do 30 years, but she got out in 17, so something’s going on. But the rule of the street is you don’t snitch. And here you have a woman who is watching her empire — she’s in jail, but she’s seeing it go public, and it’s bigger than she ever could fathom it’d be. And she’s not going to sit around and lose out. But there’s a reason why it was scripted that she goes to the door with a gun [in the pilot].

How worried is she about people in her life finding out she snitched?

Cookie feels like she can take on the world; she thinks she can take on that whole empire. This is a woman who has nothing to lose. She’s not second-guessing nothing. She got a second chance at life [so she’s] balls to the wall, doing anything. Everybody else is scared and afraid; Cookie is not [because] she lived in the worst of the worst for 17 years. It’s do or die for her.

Where is her focus, coming up? She hasn't wasted any time trying to find her place in society, let alone her family.

I think Cookie’s smart enough to know not to put all her eggs in one basket, so she’s trying to do a lot of things all at once. This is a woman who has lost 17 years, so time is something that she doesn’t take for granted, and I believe that in 24 hours she’s trying to do 10,000 things while a normal person is just trying to do three. She's had 17 years to think about this!

The world is very different now, though, and she does have her ups and downs with it. Where is she most vulnerable, and what is her greatest adjustment?

Family. Anything in life she can get through; nothing can hurt her out on the streets; her family is the only thing that has her heart. That’s all she has; that’s all she can claim that’s hers. Everything she did was for her fam ily. [Her greatest adjustment though is] acclimating herself back to society, catching up — Twitter, Instagram, what the f— is viral? What are you talking about? What is this stuff?

She should have hired a savvy assistant to help with those things!

Cookie sticks to what she knows. I made up the backstory. They write these characters in, and for me, I’ve got to make it believable, so I was like, “Why? Why is Porscha [Ta'Rhonda Jones] her assistant?” I had to make that reason up in my head so I could believe it. So I said, “OK, Cookie doesn’t really have a lot of money, and she’s not that savvy yet, having been gone for a long time. All she knows is the hood, so when she comes back, where’s the first place she goes back to? The hood. So she goes, and she finds this girl at this hole in the wall strip club. She needs somebody loyal, who’s going to be owing to me because I saved [her] life. So she got this girl off the pole, probably making $20 a night in ones." And so, this girl owed her, and she’s loyal, and that’s the thing about the streets: you’ve got to have somebody in your right hand who’s going to be loyal to you. That’s huge for Cookie because she’s loyal [too].

Going back to family being a vulnerability for Cookie — clearly that's a spot where loyalty is key, too. She's closest to Jamal (Jussie Smollett) right now, but will she take active steps to bring the other boys in more?

Absolutely. She loves all her boys; it’s just that she knows Jamal better than the rest of them. It’s not that she loves him more; she just knows him more. He’s the one who came to visit her when she said don’t come. He still fought to know his mother. So they have a familiarity that she doesn’t have with the other sons, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t want it [with them, too]. Whenever she sees a chance to try to make some headway, she’ll try to take it, but she doesn’t push it. She can pull back; she’s not going to force it. Sometimes as a parent, your kids hurt you— your family hurts you, they do that — and everything can’t be a big blowout because you’d be dead; you would just die from stress. If I blew up every time my child hurt my feelings (laughs.) Think about it, Cookie has learned how to keep her emotions together. Being in jail, I mean, you can’t be acting a fool because it would make it harder for you when you want to get out. So she’s had to learn how to keep her emotions in check. She’s not going to fly off the handle; it would make her weak.

Empire airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m. on Fox. What are you looking forward to seeing — and what's your favorite Cookie one-liner? Sound off in the comments below. Stay tuned to THR's The Live Feed for more Empire coverage after Wednesday's episode.

Don Harron, Canadian Writer and Actor, Dies at 90

Alex Stedman News Editor, Variety.com

Don Harron, a Canadian actor and writer who brought laughter to Canadian and American audiences alike with his alter ego Charlie Farquharson, died Saturday. He was 90.

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According to the Associated Press, his daughter Martha said Harron died in his Toronto home surrounded by his family. He had chosen not to undergo treatment for cancer.

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Martha said he didn’t lose the wit he was known for at the end of his life.

“He was still sharp. He was still capable of being funny even though his voice was barely above a whisper,” she told the AP. “It’s horribly sad, but it’s beautiful too.”

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Harron first introduced Farquharson, a country bumpkin who took any chance to make fun of all things Canadian, on a CBC television revue in 1952. He would go on to appear as the character on U.S. television variety show “Hee Haw.”

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Farquharson was an author as well — Harron penned several books under the name.

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Harron was also known for helping to bring the Lucy Maud Montgomery novel “Anne of Green Gables” to a CBC TV production in 1955. Nine years after it aired, “Anne of Green Gables” was also turned into a stage production, which has been performed for 50 consecutive years at the Charlottetown Festival on Prince Edward Island.

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Harron made many appearances on American television in the 1960s, including roles in “Mission Impossible,” “The F.B.I.,” “The Outer Limits,” “12 O’Clock High” and “Dr. Kildare.”

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Born in Toronto in 1924, Harron started his career as a cartoonist, drawing caricatures in the 1930s. He turned to showbiz when he landed an audition for CBC Radio.

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The actor and writer pursued educational interests as well. The University of Toronto feted Harron with scholastic awards for his pursuit in philosophy.

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Later in his life, Harron served as an advocate for seniors. In recent years, he appeared as Farquharson in PSAs encouraging the elderly to use walking aids.

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Harron is survived by his partner Claudette Gareau and three daughters. His daughters have also taken to showbiz: Mary Harron has directed such films as “American Psycho,” and Kelly Harron is working on turning “Anne of Green Gables” into a film.

Miles And Steve.

Companies are turning Katy Perry's halftime show into an online shopping event

• By Dante D'Orazio

• on February 1, 2015 10:02 am

When you think about buying things during the Super Bowl, one thing comes to mind: those championship T-shirts, hats, and DVDs that go on sale directly after the last down. But halftime performer Katy Perry and a slew of companies are working to find a new way to get you to spend money during the game.

Shop 'till you drop

The artist will sell limited edition products branded with her name during the game and the halftime show through a host of connected TV apps and other outlets, reports Variety. Instead of relying on a costly TV ad during the Super Bowl, Katy Perry, Universal Music Group, and Pepsi will use a service called Delivery Agent to try to sell the products to fans.

The products will be promoted on Samsung and LG smarts TVs, as well as on Roku devices. Promoted tweets from another partner — Visa — will use Twitter's new buy feature to let users purchase directly from their feeds. Anyone who looks up Katy Perry's music with the Shazam app will also have an opportunity to buy, as will those who turn to the Vevo YouTube channel to listen to more of her music.

There's no word yet on exactly what kind of products they'll be selling, but the "limited edition" goods will be sold until February 3rd — or until supplies run out.