Dave Hoekstra: The vaudeville ghosts of the Chicago Theater were smiling on Thursday night. Dolly Parton hit the stage in a two-hour revue that was part Mae West, Dottie West and Key West, if you catch my flamboyant drift. The Country Music Hall of Famer won over the audience with her honeysoaked vocals, Vegas-like stage show and lots of cornball humor. • Photos: Dolly Parton performs
Dolly puts her money where she hopes her next hits are Parton connects with the new and keeps the old
Jim DeRogatis: The melancholia of Ministry's "final" tour came from the fact that the legendary industrial band did not use its advertised farewell jaunt to take
stock of his many accomplishments. Would it really have been too much to ask for some nod to those early singles
with the pioneering and now sadly defunct Chicago Wax Trax! label?With sympathy: Ministry kills off band on final tour
Jim DeRogatis: The melancholia of Ministry's "final" tour came from the fact that the legendary industrial band did not use its advertised farewell jaunt to take
stock of his many accomplishments. Would it really have been too much to ask for some nod to those early singles
with the pioneering and now sadly defunct Chicago Wax Trax! label?With sympathy: Ministry kills off band on final tour
Fans of the Chicago Sinfonietta have come to expect artistic adventures from the 21-year-old orchestra -- indeed, musical innovation is part of its mission. The last offering of the season, "Portraits of the Blues/Back into Space," which will be played Sunday at Dominican University in River Forest and Monday at Orchestra Hall, is not likely to disappoint.
An exhibit and sale of cloth-and-thread artwork depicting jazz instruments and musicians has opened at the Vale Craft Gallery in River North.
DMX was arrested on drug and animal-cruelty charges following an overnight raid on the rapper’s house today, authorities said.
The 37-year-old rapper, whose given name is Earl Simmons, initially
tried to barricade himself in his bedroom but emerged when a SWAT team
entered his north Phoenix home during the 3 a.m. raid.
Dave Hoekstra: The vaudeville ghosts of the Chicago Theater were smiling on Thursday night. Dolly Parton hit the stage in a two-hour revue that was part Mae West, Dottie West and Key West, if you catch my flamboyant drift. The Country Music Hall of Famer won over the audience with her honeysoaked vocals, Vegas-like stage show and lots of cornball humor. • Photos: Dolly Parton performs
Dolly puts her money where she hopes her next hits are Parton connects with the new and keeps the old
Dave Hoekstra: The vaudeville ghosts of the Chicago Theater were smiling on Thursday night. Dolly Parton hit the stage in a two-hour revue that was part Mae West, Dottie West and Key West, if you catch my flamboyant drift. The Country Music Hall of Famer won over the audience with her honeysoaked vocals, Vegas-like stage show and lots of cornball humor.
Radney Foster is the rare artist who is equally revered by mainstream country executives in Nashville and by alt-country hipsters in Austin.
Chicago will be the second -- and the third -- stop on Tina Turner's first tour in eight years.
Fans of the Chicago Sinfonietta have come to expect artistic adventures from the 21-year-old orchestra -- indeed, musical innovation is part of its mission. The last offering of the season, "Portraits of the Blues/Back into Space," which will be played Sunday at Dominican University in River Forest and Monday at Orchestra Hall, is not likely to disappoint.
An exhibit and sale of cloth-and-thread artwork depicting jazz instruments and musicians has opened at the Vale Craft Gallery in River North.
Madonna has announced a summer tour beginning Aug. 23 in Cardiff, Wales, and running between 50-60 shows total — including Oct. 26 at Chicago’s United Center. Tickets for the Chicago stop are priced at $55-350.
Performers for this summer’s 28th annual Taste of Chicago have been announced, including headliners such as Chaka Khan, Stevie Wonder and Chicago’s own Plain White T’s.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Eddy Arnold, whose mellow baritone on songs like ''Make the World Go Away'' made him one of the most successful country singers in history, died Thursday morning, days short of his 90th birthday.
Cheap Trick played a show when the Hard Rock Cafe Chicago opened in 1986, and the Rockford rockers perform again this week to celebrate the rock-themed restaurant's redecoration -- new trash, new treasures.
Just outside Athens, Ga., Jim White is sitting in the little cinderblock house in his backyard that he calls his studio. From there he can look out over the 40 undeveloped acres that butt up against his property. Occasionally a deer, a raccoon or a coyote stops by for a visit. At night there are millions of stars in the sky and silence, lots of silence.
NASHVILLE, Tenn.---- Country music singer Gretchen Wilson has a mantel full of awards in her Lebanon home.
For a concert benefiting modern day laborers, the nearly four-hour conclusion of the Justice Tour felt inefficient and off topic. Organizer Tom Morello, the guitarist and activist behind Rage Against the Machine (who is also a Libertyville native), assumed the role as emcee for the show.
The reunited New Kids On The Block will release their first new music since 1994 on May 13, when the single ‘‘Summertime’’ will be made available via all digital music services, according to a blog post on the group’s official Web site. A Chicago-area concert date has been scheduled for Oct. 4 at the Allstate Arena.
From Bob Dylan's "Blood on the Tracks" to Marvin Gaye's "Here, My Dear," and from Liz Phair's "Exile in Guyville" to ... well, almost everything in the Rolling Stones' catalog, rock 'n' roll has never suffered from a shortage of great breakup records -- those "open your veins and let 'em bleed" chronicles of messy, nasty and profoundly sad romantic splits.
Five o'clock Friday evening is when most flee their downtown offices for the weekend. After all, who wants to stick around after that grueling work week?
The following list comprises the most popular songs in the Chicago market for the previous week, according to sales data compiled by Nielsen-SoundScan. Last week’s rankings are in parentheses.
Hailing from Melbourne, Australia, the Midnight Juggernauts bring their American tour to the Double Door in Wicker Park for a concert tonight.
An exhibit and sale of cloth-and-thread artwork depicting jazz instruments and musicians has opened at the Vale Craft Gallery in River North.
Jim DeRogatis: From Bob Dylan’s “Blood on the Tracks” to Marvin Gaye’s “Here, My Dear,” to Liz Phair’s “Exile in Guyville,” rock ’n’ roll has never suffered from a shortage of great breakup records. To this list we can now add “12 Angry Months,” the seventh album from those melodic but hard-rocking grunge veterans Local H.
What new can be said about the Lemonheads’ classic modern-rock album “It’s a Shame About Ray”? How about this: Polly’s in town! If you (like us) always assumed that was Juliana Hatfield on the “Ray” album cover, it’s actually Chicago-area actress Polly Noonan.
A Chicago man who fans say was heckling Fall Out Boy during a private show last summer is suing bassist and Wilmette native Pete Wentz, claiming the rocker and his security detail beat him after the show.
Terrence Howard is having a dream season for an actor, starring in one of the summer’s biggest movies with the superhero flick ‘‘Iron Man’’ and collecting critical acclaim for his Broadway role in ‘‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.’’ It would all be very exciting for Howard ... if acting was actually his true passion. What he really wants to concentrate on is singing.
Miley Cyrus isn’t the first teen singing sensation to be embroiled in a scandal, but as discussion of her revealing Vanity Fair photo shoot continues to make headlines, Cyrus is the only recent teen superstar who has had to manage such controversy in the midst of major success on several fronts.
British quintet Elbow last visited Chicago two years ago. Their cramped and muggy Double Door crowd was packed up close, but Park West hosted a more intimate performance on Tuesday. Frontman Guy Garvey greeted the devoted audience like family, inviting them into band moments and spinning the stories behind songs.
Social activism and music are not separate entities for Tom Morello. The Rage Against the Machine guitarist long has been an advocate of weaving his convictions into his vocation. With Rage and his solo folk moniker, the Nightwatchman, he's done just that. And now on his current tour, he and his fellow musicians are taking it a step further. Each date on the seven-city Justice Tour also has included a day of activism.
Sly & the Family Stone has canceled its concert scheduled for Saturday at Chicago's Vic Theatre.
A giant helium-filled pig didn’t drift off to hog heaven after it was released into the night sky during Roger Waters’ performance at the Coachella music festival. It’s been found — in pieces.
Have you seen this pig? It’s huge, inflatable, features the word ‘‘Obama’’ and it has lost its way in the California desert. Organizers for the Coachella music festival announced that the gigantic blowup swine, released into the night sky during Roger Waters’ headlining set Sunday, was still out there — and they want it back.
Jim DeRogatis: The idea is obvious: Bring together the top talents in hip-hop and R&B for one triumphant arena tour that raises the bar for the concert experience in both genres. Even better if you can pair one artist who really speaks to the ladies with another who all the fellas emulate.
INDIO, Calif.---- By the end of Coachella, over 100 bands had fanned out across five stages, more than 150,000 people had sweltered through the desert heat and at least as many bottles of water had been guzzled.
When you grow up with a mother named Nina Simone, music is just an everyday occurrence, something so natural you never give it a second thought. So it was inevitable that Lisa Celeste Stroud, who goes by the stage name Simone, would end up with a career in music.
BLUES-ROCK | Popa Chubby, "Deliveries After Dark" (Blind Pig) ¼¼¼A little of this kind of bone-crunching rock disguised as blues usually goes a long way, but a few artists can pull it off. Mountain's Leslie West was the prototype, and now another heavyset New York guitarist, Popa Chubby, has stepped forward to carry the mantle.
"No matter how hard I tried, everybody found out and gave me crap for riding my dad’s coattails. So I might as well ride my dad’s coattails." That's how Jesse Blaze Snider — the son of Twisted Sister singer Dee Snider — wound up reclaiming his identity and joining the cast of "Rock the Cradle."
Jim DeRogatis: Although she'll turn 50 in August, the mouthful of sweets that is Madonna Louise Ciccone Ritchie proves with her new album, "Hard Candy," that she's nowhere close to relinquishing her crown as the queen of dance-pop -- or abandoning her favorite role as pop music's most hot-to-trot coquette.
Stone Temple Pilots frontman Scott Weiland is recording his second solo album with famed Chicago rock producer Steve Albini and plans to release it in November.
More amusing irony this week. Last week, Alicia Keys reappeared on the Chicago chart with a song titled “Like You’ll Never See Me Again.” This week, Miley Cyrus pulls the same peek-a-boo with, of course, “See You Again.”
If you were going to build the perfect acoustic bluesman, he'd probably turn out looking and sounding exactly like Eric Bibb.
For the band Cloud Cult, every day is Earth Day. It's not unusual to find environmental politics mixed up in modern music, but Minnesota-based Cloud Cult finds a good balance between the two, making soft, pretty pop music that sounds spacious and intuitive -- very natural -- without the blatant lyrical moralizing that ruins many a well-intentioned song. Cloud Cult instead teaches by example, including recording their albums on their self-started green label, Earthology, which impressively lives up to the message that they (gently) advocate.
Huapangos, gustos and son jarochos are some of the lively regional music the audience will hear in Regional Journeys. The final concert in Chicago Sinfonietta's second annual Chamber Music Series will feature Chicago's own Mexican folk troupe, Sones de Mexico, at 7:30 tonight at the National Museum of Mexican Art, 1852 W. 19th St.
Pack your bags and head to Davenport's, 1383 N. Milwaukee, at 8 p.m. Saturday, where Becky Menzie and Tom Michael will present their new program, Postcards from the Road: The Travel Show.
A couple of young singers who, each in his own way, evoke the good old days of Sinatra and Bennett will perform at a benefit for a local charity, Kids Fight Cancer, at 8 p.m. Saturday at the Rosemont Theatre, 5400 N. River, Rosemont.
Mariah Carey earns her sixth No. 1 on the Billboard album chart this week as her ''E=MC2'' debuts with U.S. sales of 463,000 Nielsen SoundScan figures show, making it her biggest sales week ever.
Mark Guarino: When angry young men turn intellectual sophisticates, mass audiences typically yawn and wait for the requisite return to form. But for Joe Jackson, who fronted the British New Wave in the late 1970s alongside other knuckles-out romantics such as Graham Parker and Elvis Costello, it’s been a long wait.
Producer Warren Zide has picked up the rights to Jim Croce’s No. 1 song “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown” from 35 years ago in the hope of turning it into an action-comedy franchise.
World premieres by three young composers whose ages add up to just 92 and a salute to the 100th birthday of Elliott Carter led by another titan, Pierre Boulez, will highlight the 2008-09 season of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's highly popular MusicNOW series.
Only a few thousand families in Tennessee were able to see the Gospel Music Channel when it began less than four years ago. Now it’s television’s fastest-growing cable network — available in some 40 million homes. And Wednesday it carries live coverage of the annual Dove Awards.
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- Reggaeton star Don Omar and TV weather forecaster Jackie Guerrido have reportedly tied the knot in their native Puerto Rico.
The loss of Garifuna songwriter and guitarist Andy Palacio was a great blow for the world music community. Only 47, Palacio, who died in January, had worked tirelessly as a musical ambassador for the imperiled Garifuna culture of Belize, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua.
World music can never have too many champions. Enter Jacob Edgar, founder of Cumbancha, a new record label dedicated to bringing little known artists to a broader audience.
Velvet Revolver guitarist Slash said the band is creating a Web site to audition singers. The site will help Velvet Revolver replace Scott Weiland, whose April 1 dismissal from the band continued the public feud between the ex-frontman and his former bandmates. ''We're at that point of just listening to different things ... it's one of those kind of situations where you can't really explain it to anybody because you'll know it when you hear it," Slash said.
Danny Federici, the longtime keyboard player for Bruce Springsteen whose stylish work helped define the E Street Band’s sound on hits from ‘‘Hungry Heart’’ through ‘‘The Rising,’’ died Thursday. He was 58.
Oh, the irony. Alicia Keys finally dropped off the chart after a months-long reign early in the year. This week she pops back in with, of course, “Like You’ll Never See Me Again.”
A previously unreleased song featuring Lynyrd Skynyrd's original lineup may surface on the Southern rock band's next studio album, which is expected out in early 2009.
With touring winding down for the New Pornographers' latest effort, ''Challengers,'' principal member Carl Newman says he's already looking ahead.
Asia's new album, ''Phoenix,'' is the first to feature the group's original all-star lineup since ''Alpha'' in 1983.
Hype is a shifty critter. Without it, acts like Man Man and Yeasayer could scarcely hope to draw the several hundred fans who herded into Logan Square Auditorium to see them Wednesday night. After all, these bands started outside mainstream circles without any access to the industry apparatus, sounded odd by pop standards and looked scruffy, to boot.
Jim Skafish, whose self-named band was formed in 1976, is looking back on the ’70s history of his seminal East Chicago punk band — and the city's legendary scene.
The Chicago Sinfonietta is teaming up with the Shedd Aquarium for a pair of concerts that promise to be all wet, in the best possible way.
She wasn’t in the house, but Kellie Pickler went home the night’s top winner at the 2008 CMT Music Awards, held Monday night at Nashville’s Curb Event Center at Belmont University. Pickler grabbed three awards, including breakthrough video, performance and tearjerker video.
Foo Fighters, Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, Beck, Manu Chao, John Fogerty, David Byrne, the Raconteurs and the Mars Volta are among the top acts booked for the seventh Austin City Limits Music Festival, produced by Austin-based promoter/producer C3 Presents — the same folks behind the annual Lollapalooza festival in Chicago’s Grant Park.
LOS ANGELES---- Bill Cosby's path has taken him from pudding pops to hip hop.
Jim DeRogatis: If we're looking for one artist to blame as the model for the "American Idol" phenomenon -- where vocal bombast replaces affective singing and lowest-common-denominator popularity surpasses unique personality as the primary prerequisites for pop stardom -- we'd be hard-pressed to find a better candidate than Mariah Carey.
Kevin Allen: Chicago is a city perpetually eager to lift up its own. We take a certain unparalleled pride in our home-grown artists, and the delightfully unpredictable indie band Head of Femur is no exception -- as evidenced Friday night at Schuba's.
Prosecutors in the upcoming R. Kelly child pornography trial want to introduce evidence of other crimes allegedly committed by the R&B singer, court records show.
There was an age when the Ford Fairlane was the ride of choice, Ted Williams hit .388 to win the batting title, and CSO director Fritz Reiner believed that a first-rate chorus ought to compliment his world-class Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Even though those first two are no longer with us, that top-notch chorus carries on. A packed Symphony Center crowd slogged through the cold and rain Saturday night to celebrate its 50th anniversary.
If you think it's strange that a gas station convenience store would be the place to make video-game rock star dreams come true, you're not alone. "It was definitely a strange place to have a video-game competition," said Patrick Seastedt, one of two Chicago residents whose virtual riffs scored enough points to earn them spots in the "Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock" championship Monday at the House of Blues.
Dave Hoekstra: New Orleans jazz trumpet player Irvin Mayfield has been tested again and again. And now. Due to heavy spring rains, the governor of Louisiana has issued a state of emergency through April 22. The New Orleans Office of Emergency Preparedness is monitoring the flood stages of the Mississippi River and the New Orleans Levee system.
While "Guitar Hero" requires no actual knowledge of how to play the six-string version, we asked Jon Wall, a guitarist who works at the Old Town School of Folk Music's music store and has played "Guitar Hero," whether playing the real thing helps.
