For a band named after time wasted in a cannabis fog, Green Day sure is lame at vegging out.
Despite his Viennese heritage and training, Grant Park Music Festival principal conductor Carlos Kalmar has never been keen on the grand orchestral works of Austria's Anton Bruckner. One hopes that this gifted musician will, in time, give the pious visionary a second look. Under guest conductor Hans Graf, the Grant Park Orchestra demonstrated Wednesday night at the Pritzker Pavilion that it has the chops to take on these giant and mystical works.
For a band named after time wasted in a cannabis fog, Green Day sure is lame at vegging out.
GARY -- If Tuesday's glittery service at Los Angeles' Staples Center was an homage to Michael Jackson's reign as the king of pop, his hometown mini-spectacular Friday recalled the local talent shows that launched his career.
Kid Rock has shifted gears on his next album, hooking up with producer Rick Rubin and saying, "We won't release anything until we both agree that every song on it is great." Rock had previously fast-tracked the record and predicted having it out later this year. But after the double-platinum showing of 2007's "Rock N Roll Jesus" and the chart-topping success of the single "All Summer Long," Rock says he's anxious to maintain that momentum with what he does next.
LONDON -- Robert Plant received a royal honor from Prince Charles at Buckingham Palace on Friday, putting the former Led Zeppelin front man a notch above his old band mate Jimmy Page.
Jim DeRogatis: Though it garners less attention than some of the summer's hipper or more-hyped music celebrations, the Chicago Folk & Roots Festival, sponsored by the Old Town School of Folk Music, always has some of the most diverse and surprising bookings, as well as by far the most family-friendly vibe.
In between bites of a Cobb salad, Gwen Stefani is explaining why No Doubt is on tour for the first time in five years and has no new album to promote.
Camilo Lara, the man behind the Mexican Institute of Sound, knows both sides of the business. By day, he's an exec at EMI Mexico, and by night, he fronts MIS, one of the leading groups in the "Mexitronica" movement, which fuses electronica, hip-hop and Latin sounds.
With an impressive collection of pop hits as both a solo artist and with the Jackson 5, you would expect the late Michael Jackson to be well-represented in music and rhythm video games. But music by the Gloved One has been elusive. Can a “Karaoke Revolution presents Michael Jackson” or “Rock Band: Michael Jackson” be far behind?
Even Jordin Sparks knows how giddy she sounds. As the 19-year-old singer rattles off a list of favorite tracks from her new album, "Battlefield" -- out July 21 -- her excitement is contagious.
Even though Soulja Boy had the world doing his eponymous dance two years ago thanks to the No. 1 sensation "Crank That (Soulja Boy)," the teenage rap star still was dismissed as a lightweight and even a joke in some rap circles, and some wondered if he would be able to match the success of his smash hit.
The sudden passing of Michael Jackson has led people to stampede into their local record shops or troll eBay to snap up anything and everything related to the King of Pop, including video games.
Despite his Viennese heritage and training, Grant Park Music Festival principal conductor Carlos Kalmar has never been keen on the grand orchestral works of Austria's Anton Bruckner. One hopes that this gifted musician will, in time, give the pious visionary a second look. Under guest conductor Hans Graf, the Grant Park Orchestra demonstrated Wednesday night at the Pritzker Pavilion that it has the chops to take on these giant and mystical works.
Those in attendance Thursday night at Millennium Park will behold the remarkable partnership between British rock guitarist Justin Adams and Gambian griot Juldeh Camara.
If Wicker Park had a soundtrack, it would be indie rock. At least that's a safe guess, given the number of 20- and 30-somethings who fill the bars and clubs in the hip, Northwest Side neighborhood centered at the intersection of Damen, Milwaukee and North avenues.
Jazz fusion music fans should take note of a concert by Steve Smith and Vital Information on Tuesday night at Martyrs' on the North Side.
Big band jazz music by the Fatum Brothers' Jazz Orchestra is on tap Sunday at the Skokie Theatre in north suburban Skokie.
Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor says the band will play "a handful of shows" -- including one at Chicago's Aragon -- before going on hiatus later this summer.
Ravinia is many things these days: top-level chamber music and vocal recitals in the gemlike Martin Theatre, an ever-expanding array of pops concerts, highly regarded training programs for young musicians, dance and music theater events, a site for picnicking and home to a beautiful new restaurant building. All as it runs a full 15 weeks from early June to mid-September.
Colombian alternative rockers Aterciopelados and Mexican-American singer-songwriter Lila Downs will be the headliners Aug. 29-30 for the 21st annual Viva Chicago Latin Music Festival at the Petrillo Music Shell in Grant Park. Organized by the Mayor's Office of Special Events, the free festival will be presented on two stages, along with a separate area for dancing. Due to funding cutbacks, fewer acts have been booked for the mainstage, where music will now begin at 5 p.m., two hours later than usual. The smaller Los Barrios stage, featuring local artists, retains its noontime start. Along with Latin Grammy winners Aterciopelados and Downs, another highlight will be a tribute headlined by Latin jazz greats Andy Gonzalez and Jimmy Bosch to bandleader-percussionist Manny Oquendo, who died in March. The founder and co-director of the acclaimed Latin band Conjunto Libre, Oquendo performed at the first Viva Chicago fest in 1988.
Jim DeRogatis: Though questions about Michael Jackson’s tawdry end and troubled life are certain to linger — possibly forever — most of the 2½-hour memorial service broadcast from the Staples Center in Los Angeles Tuesday kept the focus where it should have been: on the music.
A motorcade that began at the home of Michael Jackson’s parents reached a cemetery in the Hollywood Hills early today for a private service in advance of a star-studded memorial in downtown Los Angeles. Authorities shut down sections of freeways during the height of Los Angeles’ morning rush hour to allow the motorcade to pass.
With less than 15 minutes before the curtain at Los Angeles Opera, patrons cram the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion's mezzanine-level lobby. Leaning forward from their perches on chairs and stairs, they're fully engaged in the pre-performance lecture for Wagner's "Die Walkure," which, though rapturous, runs nearly five hours.
Tameka "Tiny" Cottle wants to jump start her career while taking care of a house full of kids and dealing with her fiance, rapper T.I., who's serving time. Antonia "Toya" Carter is trying to get her life back on track after a tumultuous divorce from rapper Lil Wayne. They are best friends, two women who can relate to parenting alongside two of hip-hop's biggest stars.
CLEVELAND---- Hours after the memorial service in Los Angeles, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland will honor Michael Jackson with a candlelight vigil.
The man producing Michael Jackson’s memorial service Tuesday says it will “not be a tribute, not a show,” but the star power set to take the stage is shaping up like a celebrity spectacle. For starters, Chicago’s Jennifer Hudson will be performing at the televised event at the Staples Center in Los Angeles
The official memorial service for late pop star Michael Jackson takes place Tuesday at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. But if you’d like to take part in a public tribute, we know of these upcoming events hailing the King of Pop.
The pop-punk outfit Panic at the Disco has seen its stable of musicians cut in half. In a statement on the group's official Web site, the band said that members Ryan Ross and Jon Walker have left to "embark on a musical excursion of their own." The two remaining members, frotnman Brendon Urie and drummer Spencer Smith will continue to make music under the moniker and will still participate in a summer tour with Blink 182.
It's probably a phrase that we each first heard as small children and tried to decipher: "Don't take it for granted ..."
Loudon Wainwright’s current album on store shelves and online sites is called “Recovery,” in which he digs up some of his old, old songs and re-records them. His next album digs up a bunch of songs that are even older — but not his. Wainwright is about to unleash an ambitious double-CD project: “High Wide & Handsome: The Charlie Poole Project,” due Aug. 25 on 2nd Story Sound Records.
The young Chicago pop quintet of vocalist Sars Flannery, guitarists Billy Friel and Eric Hehr, bassist Drew Potenza and drummer Adam James -- collectively known as the Yearbooks -- are remarkably Spartan with their presence on the Web: Their MySpace page, www.myspace.com/theyearbooks, doesn't include a bio, and they've posted only one track. But when the song is as strong as "Season of Love," a wonderfully effervescent bit of power pop that brings to mind the Zombies or the Byrds reimagined in the new millennium by musicians who've also listened to plenty of Matthew Sweet and Britpop -- you don't really need to hear a lot more or know the whole story to be hooked.
"You will never ever catch me," a sexy cartoon figure warns in the album art for Ciara's new "Fantasy Ride." She is called Super C, "which is also my nickname," says Ciara, 23, flipping through the CD jacket after a photo shoot. Unlike Mariah Carey's Bianca or Beyonce's Sasha Fierce, C is not her alter ego. "She's my superhero character, and the superhero in all of us. She's the inner strength and drive that we need to overcome obstacles."
NEW YORK -- Former music manager Allen Klein, a no-holds-barred businessman who bulldozed his way into and out of deals with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, has died.
Thursday's traditional program at Ravinia's Martin Theater, led by pianist Leon Fleisher and a host of friends, featured late works of Haydn, Mendelssohn and Brahms and promised another comfortable night on the north shore. But even if all the pieces seemed in place, the performances consistently lacked tightness and, at times, sparkle. Haydn's String Quartet in D Major, Op. 71 No. 2 was frequently cramped by a flat-sounding instrument.
Jim DeRogatis: Like millions of Americans, Christian Kiefer, a history teacher in Sacramento, Calif., spent last Nov. 4 glued to his television, watching as events unfolded in Chicago's Grant Park. Now, on Saturday, Kiefer will be onstage in the same park performing the song he wrote about Obama, "Someone to Wake," as part of Taste of Chicago's celebration of indie rock.
For the last three years, Mitchel Musso hasn't had much other than Montana on his mind. As in "Hannah Montana." The 17-year-old actor, who plays best friend Oliver Oken on the Disney Channel series, will get to spend the next three months touring with his rock band — including this weekend at Taste — in support of his recently released self-titled CD.
For city dwellers and visitors who don't need multi-hued pyrotechnics to feel patriotic this Fourth of July weekend, there's another lakefront option that might fit the bill.
Loudon Wainwright III brings his folk stylings to SPACE, 1245 Chicago Ave. in Evanston, for one concert on Wednesday night.
Milwaukee's Summerfest is living up to its billing as the "world's largest music festival" as the annual event gears up for the holiday weekend. The 42nd annual festival continues through Sunday with an eclectic music lineup, and 45 food vendors along the Wisconsin shore of Lake Michigan.
At the South by Southwest music festival two years ago, Booker T. Jones ended up performing with his old band and connecting with a new one.
The supergroup WPA was born out of the community of musicians who hang around the legendary Los Angeles club Largo. The collaboration began as a casual group of friends who simply wanted to play together. Then they realized they wanted to record an album. A year and a half after that goal was accomplished, they finally got around to picking a name for the band.
Pianist Yefim Bronfman, or "Fima" as he's less formally known, will serve up chamber and orchestra concerts of old classics at the Ravinia Festival on Sunday and Tuesday. But it's his work with living composers that keeps this virtuoso on his toes.
The new album by the Philadelphia-based folk-rock act mewithoutYou shows a richer, more complex side of the band, which was starting to rear its head during the sessions for 2006's "Brother, Sister."
The future of R&B looked bright Wednesday night at the Taste of Chicago, even though the cloudy skies tried to say otherwise. R&B artists Ne-Yo and Keri Hilson took to the Grant Park stage and heated up the overcast crowd with a string of club-bouncers and slow-jams that felt like a tour of the current R&B charts.
They say that good things come to those who wait, and after enduring a two-year wait for the release of her debut album, singer-songwriter Keri Hilson couldn’t agree more. “In a Perfect World ...,” which was released in March, hit No. 1 on the Billboard’s R&B/Hip-Hop albums chart and has a huge hit with the song “Turning Me On,” featuring Lil Wayne. She performs tonight at Taste of Chicago.
Few bands stay broken up anymore, even those that sucked the first time: Witness the return of Creed and Third Eye Blind. But like the best of their peers -- Mission of Burma, Wire and the Buzzcocks -- New Jersey art-punks the Feelies avoided the taint of nostalgia at the Pritzker Pavilion on Monday, their first Chicago show in 18 years.
LONDON — The promoter who booked Michael Jackson for a sold-out comeback tour said Tuesday that footage of the singer’s rehearsals may be released in future, and that an all-star tribute show based on his canceled concerts is likely to take place.
Promoters say fans who bought tickets to Michael Jackson's 50 canceled concerts in London will receive a full refund.
A year ago, Jeremih Felton was at Columbia College Chicago working on a degree in music. That was before "Birthday Sex" hit the airwaves. Thanks to the success of the salacious breakout single, he's now an up-and-coming artist known by his first name and signed to industry powerhouse Def Jam Records. "It's been surreal," said Jeremih, 21, during a phone conversation from Wilmington, Del.
Dave Hoekstra: There was some bad stuff going around the Ravinia Festival Sunday night as the North Shore institution celebrated the 40th anniversary of Woodstock. The chardonnay was flat, man. Who processed my cheese? Headliner Joe Cocker -- who was making his Ravinia debut before a nearly sold-out house -- performed at the 1969 Woodstock music festival, flying through his whacked-out cover of the Beatles "With a Little Help From My Friends."
Fans began gathering hours early for a public tribute to Michael Jackson on Tuesday at Harlem’s Apollo Theater, the fabled venue that helped make a 9-year-old Jackson a star. Thousands were expected to pay their respects at the theater, which planned to let them in 600 at a time to listen to his music, watch a video tribute and leave flowers and memorabilia.
Two weeks before he died, Michael Jackson wrapped up work on an elaborate production dubbed the "Dome Project" that could be the final finished video piece overseen by the King of Pop, The Associated Press has learned.
You can't accuse the Grant Park Music Festival of ignoring American music, not with its annual Independence Day celebration on the horizon this weekend or the return Tuesday of emcee Bill McGlaughlin's musicological exposition "Made in America."
Near the corner of Columbus and Jackson on Saturday, you could find gigantic turkey legs, street preachers by the dozen and some of the tackiest Chicago merchandise you’ll ever care to lay eyes on. But the most interesting thing you could find at this particular corner on this particular evening was crow — Counting Crows, to be precise.
They say that good things come to those who wait, and after enduring a two-year wait for the release of her debut album, singer-songwriter Keri Hilson couldn't agree more.
All around the Chicago area, the answer was the same. "We're out of it. And you won't find any anywhere else either," said Qubah Rahsan, manager of George's Music Room, a record store at 5700 S. Cicero. "People have been calling and coming in. Everyone's asking for it," repeated Allison Keane, assistant manager at Disc Replay in Skokie, which sells used records.
With millions around the world mourning his death and some commentators hitting outlandish heights of hyperbole while trying to assess his cultural impact, Michael Jackson poses two fascinating questions for students of popular music. Where does the self-professed King of Pop fit in the pantheon of musical greats? And will his recordings continue to endure 10, 20 or 50 years in the future?
Born in nearby Gary, Michael Jackson was no stranger to the Windy City. Some highlights from his many trips here:
LOS ANGELES -- The final act of Michael Jackson's life came into clearer focus Friday, a picture of a fallen superstar working out with TV's "Incredible Hulk" and under the care of his own private cardiologist as he tried to get his 50-year-old body in shape for a grueling bid to reclaim his glory.
Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue and Joe Cocker's Mad Dogs and Englishmen tours provided the models for the "Saturday Night Rebel Rockers Traveling Circus and Medicine Show" that Counting Crows will stage this summer. "I wanted to show people a whole night of music, with everybody playing together and separately, too, and a lot of collaboration," says Crows frontman Adam Duritz.
The late pop star Michael Jackson led what could only be called an eccentric life. After all, they didn't call him "Wacko Jacko" for nothing.
For years, comedians have made Michael Jackson a punch line. In deference to the beloved pop star's family and fans, though, many treated his death differently.
Donning a single white glove was one of the many fashion twists pioneered by Michael Jackson.
A couple years ago, Michael Jackson was doing the dad thing — taking his kids sightseeing in Washington, D.C. They toured the Smithsonian (where the kids said “cool” a lot) and visited the National Museum of the American Indian. They went to the zoo to look at the pandas. A spokesman for the National Zoo told People magazine how he was struck by “how considerate and nice and normal they all were.’’
Michael Jackson had a complicated relationship with his blackness.
When the Feelies last performed in Chicago, at the Vic Theatre in 1991 during a show broadcast live on WXRT-FM (93.1), the legendary New Jersey art-punks were at the end of the second phase of their career.
Jammin' at the Zoo continues its tradition of featuring bands whose music has played a prominent role in the soundtrack of Chicagoans' lives. Tonight at 7:15 and 10 p.m., the group is Sister Hazel, a band that came out of Gainesville, Fla., in the mid-1990s with hits like "All for You" and "Change Your Mind."
What's behind those pale, featureless masks of the Jabbawockeez dance troupe?
The capital of Mali, Bamako, is a city rife with poverty that finds its riches in music. Over the years, it has been home to such great artists as Amadou & Mariam, Toumani Diabate and Ali Farka Toure.
Burt Bacharach and Barry Manilow each gets his own act when 3Girls3 bring their celebration of these two stellar songwriters to Drury Lane Water Tower Place, 175 E. Chestnut.
Switching labels and playing its 1988 masterpiece "Daydream Nation" in its entirety two years ago got Sonic Youth "excited" about making its just-released new album, "The Eternal," according to guitarist Lee Ranaldo.
After several years of touring together and a new joint charity single, Chicago and Earth, Wind & Fire are contemplating a full-scale collaborative album project.
Jim DeRogatis: On a scene that's too often about poses and posturing, the Roots have spent two decades focusing on the music, and they've never had much competition for the title of the best live band in hip-hop. Rather than empty boasts about bling and bitches, racial identity and the need for community are the topics drummer and producer Ahmir "?uestlove" Thompson and rapper Tariq "Black Thought" Trotter have most often explored since they first connected.
Authorities say ex-Wilco member Jay Bennett died of an overdose of a pain killer, and they’re investigating his death as an accident.
PHOENIX -- Rapper Lil Wayne appeared in court for a pretrial update on the investigation into drug possession and weapons charges he faces in Yuma County, Ariz.
Adam Lambert says an album of tunes he recorded before "American Idol," coming out this summer, won't be anything like what he's planning now. The songs are slated to be released on the album "On with the Show" from Hi Fi Recordings and Wilshire Records, beginning with the single "Want."
In a deal that kept him out of jail, Chris Brown pleaded guilty to one count of felony assault on pop star Rihanna. Brown entered his plea before a preliminary hearing was scheduled to start in Los Angeles on Monday. Rihanna had been on standby to testify. Brown will be sentenced on Aug. 5.
There is a heavenly metaphor in every measured step that guitarist Vino Louden takes to the upstairs dressing room at Buddy Guy's Legends. Louden was the senior member of Koko Taylor's Blues Machine, having joined her band in 1992. He also is a solo artist and former sideman with soul great Otis Clay and the late bluesman Mighty Joe Young. On this mid-June night he is the opening act for the Recording Academy Chicago Chapter's annual kickoff jam for the Chicago Blues Festival.
This is to say, Tortoise never intended to reinvent the wheel, just have fun spinning it 'round in the studio. Sometimes the results were brilliant -- "Djed" from "Millions Now Living Will Never Die" (1996) remains its "21st Century Schizoid Man" or "Close to the Edge" -- and sometimes they evoked that annoying hipster Muzak that plays in the lobbies and elevators of W hotels. And the group's sixth proper album and first release in five years does not depart from that mix.
MINNEAPOLIS -- The $1.92 million verdict against a Minnesota woman accused of sharing 24 songs over the Internet could ratchet up the pressure on other defendants to settle with the recording industry -- if the big fine can withstand an appeal.
Summerfest is like a stretch limousine that gets great gas mileage. It sounds like a myth, but it does exist. Summerfest is gigantic yet accessible, glitzy yet affordable. Milwaukee's annual music festival, now in its 42nd year, has evolved into a gargantuan event that still manages to be fan-friendly.
Three-time Grammy Award-winning band Los Lobos is targeting early 2010 for the release of its 18th album now that the group has found a new label home at Shout! Factory.
'I was going to call these albums 'Heaven' and 'Hell,'" Charlie Louvin says in his smooth Southern drawl.
He's working a new best-of compilation, a fresh remix of his first big hit, an iPhone app, a video-game score and a North American tour with 17 shows in 17 days, including Saturday night at the Congress Theater. But Paul van Dyk is most excited about his next album.
The Kohl Children's Museum in north suburban Glenview is presenting an outdoor fund-raising concert tonight featuring Ralph's World.
The Horror Society is celebrating its one-year anniversary with a Zombie Disco on Saturday at the Viaduct Theater on the North Side.
It is a cruel irony when an artist begins to lose his greatest gift to the clutches of disease.
Radio host Garrison Keillor will broadcast his show A Prairie Home Companion live on Saturday afternoon from the Ravinia Festival in north suburban Highland Park.
When European street performer Clarence Bekker was asked to participate in an album of mashed-up performances by anonymous musicians from around the world, he didn’t think much of its prospects for success. But Grammy-winning music producer Mark Johnson’s grand vision for the global, street-level tapestry of seminal songs became clear to Bekker the first time he saw footage of “Stand by Me.”
Billy Joel and wife Katie Lee say they have decided to separate.
Bill Zwecker: When Mary J. Blige's new song "Stronger" leaked out this week, there was some music industry praise for the styling on her duet with Chris Brown, but that pairing has also raised a bit of controversy. While Brown has yet to be convicted of beating Rihanna in that now-infamous Grammy weekend incident, Blige's own past history as a victim of abuse has people grumbling about the timing of her recording with Brown.
The Museum of Contemporary Art's performance program has evolved into one of Chicago's finest and most continually surprising showcases of all things international, experimental, multidisciplined, multiethnic and flat out intriguing. In fact, its theater might just be the strongest and most alluring component of the museum as a whole.
Jim DeRogatis: In these times of harrowing financial uncertainty, most major U.S. corporations are struggling to determine how to stay profitable in the face of a skittish and turbulent marketplace. In this regard, Disney's reigning teen-pop behemoth the Jonas Brothers is no different than General Motors.
It shouldn’t be a surprise that the conversation with the band 1997 turns to numbers. Like, 25 hours a day, eight days a week. Those are the figures they agree on when asked how much time they devote to their music. “Literally, we do as much as we can without leaving to eat,” bassist Matt Wysocki says.
Blues before sunset isn’t natural, but on the final day of the Chicago Blues Festival, it was providence. The 31st edition of the annual festival closed Sunday after three days of free blues music on multiple stages, all representing different factions of the musical root, from swing to soul to heavy funk.
The eighth annual Bonnaroo Music Festival offered, if nothing else, an expanded view of what it means to jam. Though Bonnaroo -- held on a giant farm in the Tennessee hills -- was founded as a roots rock, jam band festival, it years ago adopted a wider musical spectrum that draws from all genres.
Kenny Chesney sells concert tickets by the tractor-load. Even in this bad economy, the country superstar filled Soldier Field on Saturday night, just as he did last June. The enormously popular singer, who concluded his regular set with the 1999 hit "She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy," headlined a seven-hour concert that was a mini-festival on the lakefront. Also on the bill were country acts Sugarland, Montgomery Gentry, Miranda Lambert and Lady Antebellum.
Art Brut won't expand your mind, overwhelm your senses or even move your body beyond a possible fist-pump. The UK outfit is "just" a rock band, four guys and a girl who follow the arch anti-style of fun-loving forebears the Ramones and Modern Lovers. But like those bands, it's Art Brut's total lack of pretense and self-regard that, even so, makes them great.
Even before a note sounded on a chilly Friday night at Ravinia, it was easy to rag on Ramsey Lewis' programmatic tribute to America's most visible politician of all time: Abraham Lincoln.
An old man with a guitar, harmonica and complaint about being done wrong: This is an archetype of the blues that is repeated virtually every night in every city in every club that promotes the blues. But at the 31st edition of Chicago’s annual blues festival, the gender role was distinctively reversed. Headliners at the Petrillo Music Shell stage this year were predominantly women
At their invigorating best, as on the rollicking "See Her Dead" or the anthemic "Sinners on a Sunday," the Chicago quartet TAxi offers yet another take on that never-gets-old brand of tuneful Midwestern garage punk, with a focus on melody that barely (just barely) contains the chaos threatening to erupt. Other times, as on "Chinatown," the band plays it a bit too safe, and the polish veers dangerously close to Dave Matthews Band territory. Thankfully, those moments are in the minority.
Jim DeRogatis: The best blues always is a little frightening: As the greats pour their souls into a cathartic purging, a listener often is just a little bit worried that all of that pain and anger might backfire in their direction.
The goal of a composer-themed festival is to dig deep and try to find lessons, patterns and connections through immersion in a single creative voice that might not be apparent in the occasional performance or listening.
Hundreds of mourners honored the memory of late blues legend Koko Taylor at her funeral by singing her signature song "Wang Dang Doodle" and remembering why she was known as the "Queen of the Blues."
Jim DeRogatis: Though it has garnered much less attention than many of the albums in her stellar career, the first disc that PJ Harvey released as a full-on collaboration with frequent sideman and multi-instrumental wizard John Parish, "Dance Hall at Louse Point" (1996), stands as one of the most creative of her career.
Here's a look at some highlights of this year's Summerfest music lineup. For a complete music schedule, or to purchase tickets for Marcus Amphitheater concerts, visit www.ticketmaster.com.
Some people think the eyes are a window to the soul. But any good slide guitarist knows it's the sound that reveals the most. Jeremy Spencer agrees. "There's a lot of truth in that," says the founding member the first Fleetwood Mac -- a bluesier, less flamboyant band than the Buckingham-Nicks hitmaking spinoff. "That's especially true of something with a lot of heart like blues."
ATLANTA -- Court records show singer Usher has filed for divorce from Tameka Foster Raymond after less than two years of marriage.
Kelly Clarkson can't stop saying she's sorry. Having shown up 10 minutes late for a morning interview -- she had trouble dozing off the night before, then overslept, she explains -- the normally punctual singer spends much of the next 10 minutes apologizing for everything from her tardiness to her appearance.
Anthony Hamilton made fans wait three years for his latest album, 2008's "The Point of it All." But he promises that won't be the case for his next effort.
The new Black Eyed Peas album reveals a group that has been working hard and playing harder.
Passion Pit's Ayad Al Adhamy knows the speed with which his Boston-based electro-pop group has ascended from MySpace anonymity to buzz-bin ubiquity tends to make for prime backlash fodder.
It was all the buzz this last week of school -- the Kanye West benefit concert for CPS was Thursday. And 3,000 Chicago Public Schools students were the envy of peers at the six high schools selected. A two-hour concert and Q-and- A with the megastar was reward for meeting academic, attendance and discipline goals. What a reward.
Ever since their calculated reinvention from a politically conscious, bargain-basement version of the Roots into a pop-conscious, genre-blurring hip-pop combo circa "Elephunk" (2003) -- their third studio album but first with Stacy Ferguson on vocals -- the Black Eyed Peas have been the modern equivalent of those '70s cartoon bands like Josie and the Pussycats and the Banana Splits, devoted to sugary hooks, silly lyrics and lowest-common-denominator dance grooves.
Ziggy Marley wants to get in touch with the future leaders of our nation. That's why his latest album is a children's CD.
The blues was upbeat Thursday at Operation PUSH headquarters as blues singers, musicians and fans turned out to celebrate their queen. Professionals gathered to pay tribute to Koko Taylor -- many performing the hits of the blues legend, who died June 3 -- before getting to their own gigs on the eve of the busiest weekend for the genre and its performers in Chicago.
LONDON — They were childhood chums. Then they drifted apart, lost touch completely, and only renewed their friendship decades later, when illness struck.
At the launch of its 75th anniversary season, the Grant Park Music Festival is riding high.
Lovers of smooth jazz should enjoy a concert by Acoustic Alchemy tonight at the Beverly Arts Center on the Southwest Side.
A series of free classical music concerts "with a twist" kicks off Monday at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park.
A generous lineup of musical entertainment -- and plenty of food, ice-cold beer and wine -- are on tap today through Sunday at St. Michael's church in Old Town.
