Houston Press : Steely Dan Still Shining, Still Reelin' in the Years (by Tom Richards) →

Donald Fagen led a crack band through Steely Dan's greatest hits Friday night at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion. Always keeping a low profile, never appearing in gossip columns, and definitely not wrecking any hotel rooms, Becker and Fagen minded their own business, cranking out songs that merged rock and pop with a heavy dose of jazz, coupled with lyrics that might be called subversive. They were, as Rolling Stone termed them, “the thinking fan’s top 40 band.”

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Inews Culture : Jane Birkin: ‘Identity is far more complicated if you have a daughter than if you have a son' (by Laura Barton) →

The Anglo-French singer’s new album is her most personal to date. She talks about her complicated relationship with her mother – and the echoes in her bonds with her own children. On her recent album, Oh! Pardon tu dormais… it is at its finest. Collaborating with Étienne Daho and Jean-Louis Pierot, she found a way to write and sing some of the most personal songs of her career, filling them with wit and pain and beauty. “Funnily enough singing in English, one’s so at ease,” she says. “It’s so lovely when it’s your own words.”

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Hollywood Reporter : How Hollywood Is Still Helping Ukraine (BY Kirsten Chuba) →

Checking in on the industry's aid efforts, with hands-on support from Bethenny Frankel, Hayden Panettiere, Liev Schreiber and José Andrés, four months after Russia’s invasion.

The Entertainment Industry Foundation has partnered with Dr. Irwin Redlener and Karen Redlener for the Ukraine Children’s Action Project to address the needs of more than 150,000 Ukrainian young people displaced in their own country. Michael Keaton and Joan Baez are among those on the UCAP’s advisory committee, as Irwin Redlener promises: “We will stick with this work for as long as it takes. Right now we need everyone’s support.”

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Newswires EIN : Iconic Actor Michael Keaton and Singer Joan Baez Join New Initiative to Support Children Impacted by War in Ukraine →

The Ukraine Children’s Action Project will provide urgently needed mental-health and school support for children who have fled combat zones in Ukraine. UCAP was founded by Dr. Irwin Redlener and Karen Redlener, leading public health advocates for children. Its advisory committee includes well-known professionals in education, media, government and entertainment, including actor Michael Keaton and singer-songwriter and human-rights advocate Joan Baez.

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Best Classic Bands : Kris Kristofferson, Now 86, Has Retired →

Kris Kristofferson, a truly legendary singer-songwriter as well as actor, has officially retired. The news, announced January 27, 2021, was revealed in an “oh, by the way” manner in a press release from Morris Higham Management (MHM), which will represent Kristofferson’s estate.

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Rolling Stone : Hear Christine and the Queens’ French Pop Perfection on Reunion Song ‘Je Te Vois Enfin’ (by Kory Grow) →

Christine and the Queens have released the spiritual sequel to their 2020-defining “People, I’ve Been Sad”: “Je Te Vois Enfin” whose title translates to “I Finally See You.” The track, which Chris sings entirely in French, is more upbeat than “People” with jittery synths soundtracking her layered vocals. Some of the lyrics translate to “My love rhymes with always” and “Oh, my love, here you are/I finally see you.”

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NPR : Eats and Beats: Gov’t Mule moves forward by stepping back into the blues (by Ryan Heinsius) →

Acclaimed rockers Gov't Mule released "Heavy Load Blues" in November 2021. It's their first album devoted solely to the blues and emerged from downtime during the pandemic. They recorded it simultaneously with another album that'll be released in the next year. According to frontman Warren Haynes (far right), the band spent afternoons working on their regular Gov't Mule album and then at night transitioned to a small adjacent room to record blues songs using small amplifiers in very close proximity to each other in order to get a grittier, more vintage sound.

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Houston Press : Steely Dan Still Shining, Still Reelin' in the Years (by Tom Richards) →

Always keeping a low profile, never appearing in gossip columns, and definitely not wrecking any hotel rooms, Becker and Fagen minded their own business, cranking out songs that merged rock and pop with a heavy dose of jazz, coupled with lyrics that might be called subversive. They were, as Rolling Stone termed them, “the thinking fan’s top 40 band.”

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Shorefire : Ibrahim Maalouf & Angélique Kidjo Fuse Middle Eastern and African Cultures On Soaring, All-Original New Album Inspired By The Myth Of Queen of Sheba →

May 31, 2022 – Ibrahim Maalouf and Angélique Kidjo have announced that their new album Queen Of Sheba will be released June 24. While these two superstars of international music have collaborated before, this is their very first album together.

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Hurryiet Daily News : Punk laureate Patti Smith granted France’s highest honor →

On May 21, the 75-year-old rock legend made good on that promise, as France’s ambassador to the United States Philippe Etienne bestowed her with the Legion d’Honneur, his country’s highest order of merit. “It’s an indescribable honor, I understand the gravity of it,” she told AFP backstage, after delivering a spirited performance alongside her daughter Jesse on piano and her long-time collaborator and guitarist Lenny Kaye.

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Punch : 2022 Headies: Angelique Kidjo receives Hall of Fame recognition →

Grammy-winning Beninese singer, Angelique Kidjo, is the recipient of the Headies Hall of Fame in its 2022 edition. This was announced on the Headies official Instagram page, alongside the full list of the nominations for the music award.

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Far Out Magazine : U2 in Ukraine: Bono and The Edge play 'freedom' concert in Kyiv metro (by Eoghan Lyng) →

U2 songwriters Bono and The Edge performed a pastoral set in Ukraine, setting up in one of Kyiv’s subway stations, now doubling as a bomb shelter, on the invitation from Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky.

“The people in Ukraine are not just fighting for your own freedom, you are fighting for all of us who love freedom,” U2 vocalist Bono told the audience, veteran soldiers included. “We pray that you will enjoy some of that peace soon.”

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Ultimate Classic Rock : Patti Smith Performs at Night Two of Bob Dylan Center Opening (by Allison Rapp) →

Patti Smith performed last night at Cain's Ballroom in Tulsa, Okla., marking the second evening of festivities related to the opening of the Bob Dylan Center.

The Bob Dylan Center will officially open to the public on May 10, featuring hundreds of items from the singer-songwriter's vast archive, including handwritten lyric sheets, letters from fans, instruments and other various interactive installations.

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A-State News : A-STATE HOLDS SPRING COMMENCEMENT; AWARDS HONORARY DOCTORATE TO ROSANNE CASH →

JONESBORO — Arkansas State University held its 2022 spring graduation ceremony Saturday morning along with conferring an honorary doctoral degree upon one of America’s great singer/songwriters, women of letters, and historic preservationists, Rosanne Cash.

The Board of Trustees voted in March 2020 to award the honorary Doctor of Humane Letters, but the presentation was delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic. “It is with deep gratitude that I accept this honor and the beautiful acknowledgement that goes with it that I am an ancestral daughter of Arkansas,” said Cash as she addressed the graduates and the audience in Centennial Stadium.

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Rolling Stone : Carly Simon on Rock Hall Induction: ‘It Must Be the House of Pancakes I Got Into’ (by Angie Martoccio) →

Carly Simon has faced her fear of flying before. In 1971, she forced herself to board a plane to Los Angeles for her first-ever show at the Troubadour, where she opened for Cat Stevens. In 1989, she made another momentous trip there, this time to attend the Academy Awards, where “Let the River Run,” from Working Girl, won her a Best Original Song trophy. And this fall, she’ll return to L.A. for the 2022 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, where she’s finally being inducted after being eligible since 1996.

“There’s that first thought of, ‘I don’t believe it. It must be the House of Pancakes I just got into,'” says Simon. Simon spoke to RS about getting into the Hall of Fame, the upcoming film adaptation to her 2015 memoir Boys in the Trees, and the 50th anniversary of No Secrets.

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Washington Post : Angélique Kidjo’s new musical theater work comes to the Kennedy Center (by Mark Jenkins) →

Eclectic singer-songwriter Angélique Kidjo was born in 1960 on the cusp of a new era: Her homeland, now called Benin, was just two weeks away from becoming independent from France. But her ancestral village, Ouidah, remained haunted by its past. It was one of the most notorious centers for transport of enslaved people to the Americas.

That history is the inspiration for “Yemandja,” a musical theater piece conceived by Kidjo; Jean Hébrail, her husband; and Naïma Hebrail Kidjo, their daughter. Angélique Kidjo leads a cast of 10 in the central role of a Yoruban orisha (or spirit) in the production, which makes its Washington bow May 6 and 7 at the Kennedy Center’s Eisenhower Theater.

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France 24 : Belgian rock icon Arno dies aged 72 →

Veteran Belgian singer Arno, a rock icon known for his husky voice and unruly hair, died on Saturday from cancer at the age of 72, his agent announced. Arno, born Arnold Hintjens, was a national icon in Belgium, his gravelly voice compared to that of US singer-songwriter Tom Waits. Arno had announced in February 2020 that he was suffering from pancreatic cancer. "We'll all miss him, but he'll always be here thanks to the music that kept him going until the end," his Belgian agent Filip De Groote said in a statement.

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NME : Lucy Boynton on playing Marianne Faithfull: “She is an extraordinary woman” (by Gary Ryan) →

Don't stop her now! The 'Bohemian Rhapsody' star teases her biggest role yet.

Lucy Boynton is no stranger to musicians. She played Freddie Mercury’s former fiancée and best friend Mary Austin in Bohemian Rhapsody, getting to know Queen rock stars Brian May and Roger Taylor in the process. She holds raucous karaoke sessions with actor-singer Ben Platt, her co-star on Netflix‘s The Politician. And when she was cast as Marianne Faithfull in an upcoming biopic, the ‘60s icon gave Boynton her personal seal of approval.

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Chronogram : Suzanne Vega at Levon Helm Studios (by Peter Aaron) →

With her massive late ’80s hits “Luka” and “Tom’s Diner” and their parent albums, Suzanne Vega (1985) and Solitude Standing (1987), singer-songwriter Suzanne Vega returned folk rock to the mainstream, opening the door for up-and-coming artists like Tracy Chapman, Edie Brickell, and Ani DiFranco. Vega visits Levon Helm Studios on April 23 at 8pm.

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Pittsburgh Post Gazette : Music in Motion #7: Why the Carly Simon, Bob Marley shows at the Stanley became historic, Millvale Fest, more →

It also appears on abcnews.com describing how the “pop queen” responsible for such hits as “You’re So Vain,” “Anticipation” and “Nobody Does It Better” fell ill during the first of two shows there that night. ''I had two choices,'' Simon told The New York Times. ''I could either leave the stage and say I was sick or tell the audience the truth. I decided to tell them I was having an anxiety attack, and they were incredibly supportive. They said, 'Go with it — we'll be with you.'

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