Michael Been, vocalist and guitarist for the 1980s band The Call, suffered a heart attack in Belgium on Thursday and died. He was 60 years old. Been had been touring with his son’s band, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, serving as a sound engineer, when he was stricken backstage at the Pukkelpop Music Festival in Hasselt. The Call produced 10 albums between 1982 and 2000, including 1989′s Let the Day Begin, the title track of which later became a campaign song for Al Gore in 2000.
Tag: Music Biz (41-50 of 199)
Aug 20
2010
08:37 AM ET
Aug 18
2010
07:48 AM ET
Courtney Love settles Nirvana profits lawsuit
Courtney Love has settled a $1 million lawsuit with the company that sued her two years ago over the profits from the sale of Nirvana’s publishing catalog. The Associated Press reports that lawyers for Love and the plaintiff, London & Co., told a judge last Wednesday that the two sides had come to an agreement, and the case was dismissed.
Aug 14
2010
07:48 PM ET
Jazz singer Abbey Lincoln dies at 80
She acted opposite Sidney Poitier, spoke out for civil rights, and had a singing voice so full of emotion and passion it reminded some of Billie Holiday. Jazz singer Abbey Lincoln died on Saturday at her Manhattan home at age 80. Lincoln, an idiosyncratic and fiercely independent performer, influenced a generation of younger vocalists, including singer Cassandra Wilson, who told The New York Times, “I learned a lot about taking a different path from Abbey,” she said. “Investing your lyrics with what your life is about in the moment.”
Lincoln was born as Anna Marie Wooldridge in Chicago in 1930. Her stage name was suggested by fellow musician Bob Russell in the ’50s as a fusion of Westminster Abbey and Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln recorded her first album, “Affair…A Story of a Girl in Love” in 1956 and that same year appeared in the classic Jayne Mansfield movie comedy The Girl Can’t Help It, directed by Frank Tashlin. Lincoln also lent her voice to Max Roach’s politically incendiary 1960 album: “We Insist! Max Roach’s Freedom Now Suite”. Shortly after the collaboration, she married Roach.
Soon after, she starred in the seminal 1964 African-American movie drama Nothing But a Man, and in 1968, she shared the screen with Poitier in the romantic comedy For Love of Ivy. In the ’80s, Lincoln took up singing full time again and her voice was as strong — if not stronger — than ever, maybe because she’d lived and now had more to say. Her 2007 album “Abbey Sings Abbey” is considered a jazz classic. As is the woman it’s named after.
Jul 23
2010
08:57 AM ET
Billy Corgan 'blacks out' on stage
Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan, who stumbled on stage Wednesday night during the band’s concert in Tampa, revealed on Twitter that his spill was actually the result of blacking out. “And for those that saw me fall last night during Bullet [With Butterfly Wings] that wasn’t a stage move or clumsiness, that was me blacking out and wiping out.” A second tweet added, “I have no memory of falling against the drum riser and my guitar cabinet, but I can tell you I’ve got quite a good bruise + am moving slow.” Corgan recovered to perform 11 more songs that night, and the slip went unnoticed in most concert reviews.
Jul 12
2010
06:18 AM ET
Walter Hawkins, Grammy-winning gospel singer, dies at 61
Gospel singer-composer and pastor Walter Hawkins died in his California home on Sunday after a battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 61. Hawkins won a Grammy Award in 1980 for his album The Lord’s Prayer. His last album was 2005′s A Song In My Heart, and he was planning a new Love Alive CD concert recording for this fall, according to the AP.
Jun 17
2010
05:45 AM ET
ABC pulls ads from Perez Hilton over Miley Cyrus scandal
Perez Hilton is losing advertisers two days after posting a revealing photo of 17-year-old pop star Miley Cyrus on his blog, reports MSNBC. A banner for ABC’s The View has been pulled from the blogger’s site over the scandal, which began when Hilton posted a photo that depicted Cyrus getting out of a car without underwear. (Hilton later said that the picture was a fake.) Cyrus has not yet issued a statement on the matter.
Jun 14
2010
12:01 AM ET
Jimmy Dean, country music legend, dies at 81
Jimmy Dean, the country music icon and famous sausage entrepreneur, died in his home in Henrico County, Virginia, on Sunday at the age of 81, the Associated Press reports. Dean’s wife, Donna Meade Dean, told the AP that her husband had suffered some health problems, but nothing that indicated he was near death. He was eating in front of the television this evening, and his wife left the room. When she returned, he was unresponsive. She told the AP that he was pronounced dead at 7:54 p.m.
Dean’s biggest country music hit was “Big Bad John,” a 1961 classic about a coal miner who saves his co-workers when the mine collapses, and it earned Dean a Grammy award.
The singer, who was born in 1928 in Plainview, Texas, grew up to have his own television show, first on CBS and then on ABC in the 1960s. In 1969 he founded The Jimmy Dean Meat Co., and for many years served as the folksy voice and friendly face of Jimmy Dean sausage in national television commercials. He sold his company to Sara Lee in 1984. In 2003 he got into a public battle with the company when it fired him as the brand’s spokesman.
Last year, a fire destroyed Dean’s home on his 200-acre estate outside Richmond. He and his wife had only recently moved back into their rebuilt house. His wife told the AP that he liked boating and watching the sun set over the James River.
Dean had just been inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame this February. He is survived by his wife, three children, and two grandchildren. Dean’s wife said the memorial service would be private.
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