Did you know Barbra Streisand had another album in mind to serve as her debut? Almost six decades later, the legendary singer is finally releasing Live at Bon Soir, which she had recorded in November 1962.
Rolling Stonereports Barbra was just 20 years old when she recorded the album over her three-night residency at the Bon Soir nightclub in Greenwich Village — a month after she signed with Columbia. The Grammy winner intended for this to become her debut album, but plans changed.
Barbra went on to redo several of the album’s songs as studio recordings and then compiled them into the 1963 effort The Barbra Streisand Album. She earned several Grammy wins with the project, including Album of the Year.
Now, 60 years after Live at Bon Soir was shelved, Barbra is finally sharing her original vision with her fans. The album was compiled from the master recordings that had been sitting in her personal collection.
As engineer Jochem van der Saag explained, some editing needed to be done in order to perfect the songs.
“There was a lot of leakage from the instruments into her vocal mic,” he said. “If we wanted to lower the volume of the piano for example, the vocal volume would decrease, too. To give listeners ‘the best seat in the house,’ we used cutting-edge spectral editing technology, clarifying the true artistry of Barbra and her band.”
Barbra hailed the album’s impending arrival on social media, writing, “Live at the Bon Soir… the way she was. This album, which was intended as her debut solo album, will be released November 4th.” The effort holds “Barbra’s earliest live recordings.”
She has since released the original version of “Cry Me a River,” which is now available to stream and download.
Kelsea Ballerini has always tried to share all sides of her life with her fans, and there’s an important reason for that.
“I just feel like it’s my responsibility as someone that people look up to and little girls look up to to show all sides of the human condition and all the sides of being a grownup, that experiences life as it happens,” the singer tells People.
That’s why she’s been so open about her recent divorce from fellow singer Morgan Evans. In the wake of her divorce announcement, she shared an emotional TikTok post of herself, teary-eyed, in a bathtub, lip-syncing along to Katie Gregson Macleod’s viral heartbreak ballad, “Complex.”
“And I’m happy on days that I’m happy and I’m sad on days that I’m sad,” Kelsea concludes.
Friday is likely a happy day for Kelsea: She’s releasing her new album, Subject to Change. The country star also performed the album’s first single, “Heartfirst,” on ABC’s Good Morning America.
Ryan Grantham, who as a young actor starred as Rodney James in 2010’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid, has been sentenced to life in prison for the 2020 shooting death of his mother, Barbara Waite.
CBC reports the 22-year-old Canadian actor, who pleaded guilty to second degree murder in June, won’t be eligible for parole for 14 years.
According to the CBC, Grantham shot his mother with a .22 rifle in the back of the head as she played piano in their home on March 31, 2020. The actor, who also appeared in Riverdale, recorded a confessional video and reportedly stocked up on weapons with the intention of going on a shooting and bombing spree but turned himself in to Vancouver cops instead.
The judge said Grantham was in a psychological “downward spiral” before the crime, smoking cannabis and watching violent content online. She also noted he has shown progress in a prison psychiatry program.
Kevin Winter/PW18/Getty Images for Parkwood Entertainment
The Beyhive may be able to hear their queen sing songs from her new Renaissance album live next year.
Beyoncé is reportedly booking stadiums for a world tour in the summer of 2023, according to Page Six.
The “Break My Soul” singer last went on tour in 2018 with her husband, Jay-Z, for The On The Run II Tour to promote Everything Is Love,their duo album as The Carters. They headlined 48 shows around the world for over two million fans, grossing over $250 million.
Beyoncé’s last solo tour was The Formation Tour in 2016, which promoted her sixth studio album, Lemonade.
One of the most popular songs on Renaissance is “Cuff It,” which inspired a viral dance challenge. Since summer has ended and cuffing season has arrived, Queen Bey chose 25 of her favorite “Cuff It” social media dance videos and posted them on Instagram Thursday under the title, “Cuff It Picks.”
There are myriad podcasts out there about crimes, mysteries and unbelievable stories, and evidently, the CIA wants in.
The Central Intelligence Agency has just launched The Langley Files, an official podcast featuring past and present agents as well as “special guests” telling stories — well, those “that they can” reveal — in an effort to “demystify” the mysterious agency.
“At CIA, there are truths we can share, and stories we can tell,” a voiceover says in a teaser recently uploaded to YouTube. “Stories of duties and dedication. Stories of ingenuity and mission. Stories beyond Hollywood scripts and shadowed whispers…”
According to the cast, “The mission of The Langley Files: A CIA Podcast is to educate and connect with the general public, sharing insight into the Agency’s core mission, capabilities, and agility as an intelligence leader…and to share some interesting stories along the way!”
The first guest is CIA Director Bill Burns, who, along with hosts Dee and Walter, tries “to dispel some common misconceptions about the CIA.”
Burns does a pretty good job off the bat, explaining he’s no Jason Bourne: “…I’m most comfortable driving our 2013 Subaru Outback at posted speed limits and that, for me at least, the height of technological daring is when I can finally get the Roku remote to work at home,” he says in the premiere episode.
There’s also a practical aspect to the agency’s decision to go — sort of — public: recruitment. Burns explains that the agency takes all kinds of people to make it work, and he hopes the podcast could help boost diversity within the CIA’s ranks.
Fresh off the finale of her Las Vegas residency, Shania Twain returns this week with “Waking Up Dreaming,” her first new single since 2017’s Now.
The new song delivers Shania’s patented blend of uptempo country and feel-good, irrepressible pop. “So let’s start waking up dreaming / And dress up crazy like superstars / There ain’t no shaking this feeling / Tonight we’re making our way to Mars,” she sings in the chorus.
Speaking of “dressing up crazy like superstars,” Shania also dropped a music video to go along with her new song, and it features her playing the role of a retro glam rocker as she parties in a green room with a handful of her equally glamorous pals.
The singer dons a variety of glittery outfits and colorful wigs in the various scenes of the clip, which takes her onstage for an epic performance then out of the venue to greet her fans and hop in a car at the end of the night.
The song is a fresh start for Shania, as it’s her first release on her new label home, the recently-formed Republic Nashville.
“I couldn’t think of a better partner than Republic Nashville. I’m honored and excited to be the label’s first artist and lead the charge of this new and exciting chapter,” the singer says in a statement. “In this respect, it feels like a new beginning all around, and I’m embracing it wholeheartedly.”
Billy Idol‘s recently announced EP, The Cage, got its release Friday, September 23.
The EP is available on CD, digitally, and as a standard black-vinyl disc and a limited-edition red-vinyl disc.
The Cage features four new songs on which the veteran pop-punk rocker collaborated with his longtime guitarist, Steve Stevens.
Fans got their first taste of the record last month, when Idol released the track “Cage,” along with a companion music video.
The Cage‘s other songs are “Running from the Ghost,” which focuses on Billy overcoming drug addiction; “Rebel Like You,” a blues-rock tune that pays tribute to his 2-year-old granddaughter; and “Miss Nobody,” a spoken-word rap/R&B/funk-influenced track inspired by a feisty homeless woman he crossed paths with near the studio where he was working on the EP.
“These new songs are celebratory because Steve and I are enjoying ourselves,” Idol recently told Variety. “It’s kind of wild to still be making music we’re excited about.”
Meanwhile, Billy kicks off a new European tour Friday night in Halle, Germany. The trek is mapped out through an October 25 show in Leeds, England. When Idol returns to the U.S., he’ll launch a five-date Las Vegas residency at The Cosmopolitan that runs from November 11 through November 19.
(NEW YORK) — The Adams County Coroner’s Office in Colorado is set to release Elijah McClain’s amended autopsy report after several news organizations sued for its release on Friday.
The report was amended based on confidential grand jury information, according to the chief coroner for Adams County.
The release comes before the arraignment of five former Aurora police officers and paramedics in McClain’s 2019 death.
McClain, a Black 23-year-old massage therapist, died following an encounter with police in August 2019 while he was walking home from a convenience store.
A passerby had called 911 to report McClain was acting “sketchy” since he was wearing a ski mask on a warm night. The lawyer for the McClain family attributed this to the fact that McClain was anemic, which made him feel cold more easily.
Aurora police officers responded to the scene and confronted McClain. An officer can be heard saying in body camera footage that they put him into a carotid chokehold, which restricts the carotid artery and cuts off blood to the brain, according to the Department of Justice. McClain can be heard saying, “I can’t breathe,” in police body camera footage.
Paramedics arrived, giving McClain an “excessive” dose of ketamine, according to McCain’s lawyer, and McClain suffered from cardiac arrest shortly after in an ambulance, according to officials. McClain was pronounced dead three days later.
Former Aurora Police Officers Jason Rosenblatt, Nathan Woodyard and Randy Roedema as well as paramedics Peter Cichuniec and Jeremy Cooper were charged with 32 criminal counts, including manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide and assault charges.
Their arraignment is set for November.
CPR News filed a lawsuit against the Adams County Coroner’s Office on Sept. 1, arguing for the autopsy report to be released. Several other local news organizations joined the effort after open records requests to obtain the report were denied.
(WASHINGTON) — Democrat Stacey Abrams knows by exactly how many votes she narrowly lost to Republican Brian Kemp in the Georgia governor’s race four years ago — and, to hear her tell it, she knows exactly who can help her win in their rematch this fall.
“One-point-six million new voters are added to the rolls after 2018. The margin in the 2018 election was … 54,723 votes. We’ve got 1.6 million opportunities to cover a 54,000 vote spread,” Abrams told reporters at a campaign stop in Athens on Saturday.
As Abrams — a former state lawmaker-turned-voting rights advocate who would be the first Black woman governor in the country’s history — works to mobilize Georgians, she is focusing, she has said, on untapped communities: Asian Americans, Latinos and more.
She has also increasingly emphasized outreach to Black voters, particularly Black male voters, whose crucial support has been wavering, according to some polls.
“If Black men turned out in their numbers and support me at the level they are capable of, I can win this election,” Abrams said at an event in Atlanta earlier this month alongside popular radio host Charlamagne tha God, rapper 21 Savage and civil rights attorney Francys Johnson.
Before her event with Charlamagne and 21 Savage, Abrams campaigned at a Caribbean restaurant with Atlanta-native rapper Yung Joc.
“If you wanted a group of Black man to mobilize, you would not only want to kind of reach out to him and mobilize him but you want to also reach out to the people around him who are his kind of people,” Chryl Laird, an associate professor of government and politics at the University of Maryland at College Park, told ABC News.
In 2018, Abrams won 93% of Black voters, who make up 30% of the Georgia electorate. Black men comprised 14% of voters and chose Abrams over Kemp 88% to 11%, according to exit polling data from ABC News.
Black women made up 16% of Georgia voters and went for Abrams 97% to 2%.
That pattern may not repeat in November — a shift that, given Abrams’ close defeat in 2018, could be decisive.
Kemp led Abrams 50% to 48% according to a poll last week of likely voters conducted by Quinnipiac University. Quinnipiac found that Black men supported Abrams over Kemp 87% to 12%, a 1-point shift, and Black women backed Abrams 94% to 5%, a 3-point drop.
Black conservatives say the reason for the change is clear: They cite Kemp’s COVID-19 response and the state’s economic performance.
“For the Black Georgians who vote and have watched [Kemp] over his last four years, they understand that he’s been a good governor. And if it’s not broke, why do you need to fix it?” Camilla Moore, chairman of the Georgia Black Republican Council, told ABC News.
Out on the campaign trail, Kemp emphasizes that history in his appeal to voters of color.
“I told people from day one what I was gonna do when I ran in 2018. A lot of people didn’t really know who I was then. I got defined by a candidate that had twice as much money as I did, had the national media in her back pocket and never could really fight through that. And it’s a different story now. Because I have a great record that I think resonates with all Georgians,” Kemp said at a campaign stop at the University of Georgia on Sep. 10.
Abrams downplayed concerns about the polling while at an event over the weekend, arguing that the disengaged and newly registered voters were key to persuade.
Still, she acknowledged there was space to drive up Black voter turnout — and she linked their potential apathy to the state’s recent decades under GOP leadership.
“We know that there are still thousands and thousands of voters who are not engaged, especially Black voters. And we know that that is in part because of 20 years of Republican rule convincing Black voters that we’ve gotten everything we’re going to get,” she said.
‘If you show up, things really will change’
In recent weeks, as Abrams works to expand her base of support, she has hosted events with Asian-Americans, Latinos and voters with disabilities, among others.
“I’m not going to leave any community untouched and unconnected with,” she told reporters at the event with Charlamagne that was geared toward Black men.
On Sunday, Abrams led a fireside chat focused on gun violence in the Asian community, a group that has become the fastest-growing population of eligible voters in the country.
She was joined alongside families who’ve lost loved ones to gun violence, with much of the event centered around the Georgia spa mass shootings in March 2021.
“What is dismissed as a cultural conversation but must be understood as an issue of health care, of economics, of morality. We have the responsibility in the state to protect our people, and that protection should not be limited,” she said.
Abrams also spoke at Atlanta’s yearly celebration of Mexican Independence Day, attended the Asian Student Alliance Conference and has hosted several Latino-owned small business roundtables across Georgia.
Her campaign plans to use these events as an opportunity to earn the votes of communities that they feel have been left out of the political conversation, treating them as persuasion communities which, speaking to the 19th at the Buckhead Theater, Abrams described as people who need to be convinced to show up to the polls — not who to vote for.
“If you show up, things really will change,” Abrams said Monday.
She is right on the reality of Georgia’s changing electorate, which has given her campaign an opportunity to court new or infrequent voters.
Though Black voters still make up a significant share of voters, the number of active voters who are Hispanic and Asian grew in recent years to 4% and 3%, respectively, according to a report from Georgia’s secretary of state.
In the upcoming weeks, Abrams plans to hold a reproductive rights event focused on AAPI women, a Vietnamese roundtable, and speak at the Georgia Latino Film Festival.
“This is one of the first times that we’ve really had an opportunity to sit down with someone who was running for a major seat and talk about these issues,” Rhea Wunsch, a Georgia college student and gun reform activist told ABC News, during Abrams’ event with Asian Americans on Sunday.
While Abrams may downplay the polling, surveys show her push to persuade voters has some limits that Kemp doesn’t face: A Monmouth University poll released Thursday found that she has a smaller ceiling to gain swayable voters’ support compared to her opponent. Kemp had a lower unfavorable rating, according to Monmouth, and more Georgia voters had definitely ruled out voting for her (46%) over him (37%).
However, that poll showed Abrams has greater support from her party than Kemp does form his: 83% of Democrats said they will definitely vote for Abrams while 73% of Republicans said they will definitely back Kemp.
Abrams also sees a pathway to victory through infrequent voters and has been working for years on the ground to register voters — efforts that other Democrats have credited, in part, with driving up turnout in the 2020 election cycle that saw both Senate seats flip blue.
“It’s not about whether they’re voting Republican or Democrat. It’s whether they believe voting can work for them. And I want them to know that if they vote for me for governor, things that are going to be different,” Abrams said Saturday.
Low-propensity voters are who, some experts say, will make the difference in the gubernatorial election, and it’s a bloc that may not be reflected in polls.
“This race is going to come down to a few thousand votes. And so when you look at which candidate is going granular and finding — literally meeting — every eligible voter, it is Stacey. And the polls aren’t going to represent that granularity,” said Hillary Holley, executive director of Care in Action, a nonpartisan group advocating for domestic workers.
But Black voters — and Black male voters — remain key
Some advocates emphasize that courting Black voters will also be crucial for Abrams
“I don’t want voters of color, Black voters and brown voters, to carry that weight by ourselves like the fate of democracy is just on Black voters here in Georgia,” Cliff Albright, co-founder of Black Voters Matter, told ABC News.
“You could not have seen the ‘Georgia miracle’ in the last election cycle without the turnout and participation from Black voters,” Albright said, referring to the victory of Democratic Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock.
“It’s going to take Black voters to have large turnout in order for this state to continue on the Democratic path,” he said.
Throughout her campaign, Abrams has sought to energize Black male support through “Stacey and the Fellas” events and by touting policies geared toward them such as expanding Medicaid and establishing a small business investment fund in her “Black Men’s Agenda.” (The campaign also plans in the coming weeks to release agendas for Georgia’s Latino and Asian American and Pacific Islander communities.)
At Abrams’ event with Charlamagne and others, a crowd of mostly Black men packed a production studio warehouse, filled with food, music and apparel. Community members cheered Abrams as she discussed a host of topics, from free technical college to supporting Georgia’s booming entertainment industry.
“What Stacey has done as far as mobilizing people and bringing people together to come out and vote has been incredible,” Charlamagne said.
Some voters said they, too, were encouraged.
“She understands the challenges of Black men in America but especially here in Georgia,” said Paul Grant, a teacher in Lawrenceville. “And I think of all the candidates running, I don’t know of anyone who will have a better understanding of what’s needed to help Black men in Georgia. I know it’s a priority.”
Dontay Palmer, a nursing student at Georgia State University, agreed in lauding Abrams’ efforts but noted that it may not translate to more ballots bearing her name.
“I like it. I think it’s really cool. It’s just getting everybody out,” Palmer told ABC News of the outreach.
“We just don’t have the information or access,” Palmer continued. “So I love it that even if they’re not going to vote for her, she’s like, ‘Hey, get information about the election.'”
Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for The Recording Academy
Dua Lipa‘s At Your Service podcast returned Friday with Monica Lewinsky as the first guest of the new season.
The women discussed a myriad of topics, including public shaming, the #MeToo movement and former President Bill Clinton.
News broke in January 1998, when Dua was only 2, that then-President Clinton engaged in an extramarital affair with Lewinsky, who was 24 at the time.
Lewinsky revealed her parents experienced intense pain and fear that she was “being publicly humiliated to death.”
The Clinton-Lewinsky scandal became the focus of American Crime Story: Impeachment, of which Lewinsky served as a producer. As for why she decided to be a part of the production, Lewinsky explained, “When you’ve gone through the kinds of things I’ve gone through, you come to recognize that any input in something around your narrative is better than nothing… [My] goal was really to shift a collective consciousness in a way that this couldn’t happen to another young person again.”
The two discussed feminism and why the idea of a “perfect victim” is harming the cause. Lewinsky said feminists tend to attack and “dehumanize” women who don’t “tick every box” because they think that makes it harder “to know what the right course of action is.”
“No matter what, somehow we managed to always point fingers at the woman, whether there was a mistake that happened there or not” Dua agreed. “We’re always found with the woman picking up the pieces.”
Both expressed optimism that progress is being made but were unsure if it’s happening quickly enough. Dua cited the reversal of Roe v. Wade, which she says created “a really scary time” because women’s rights have gone “10 steps backwards.”
Lewinsky expressed hope that Dua’s generation will stay informed and committed to change things for the better.
