Performances by Rod Stewart, Roger Daltrey, Robert Plant, Neil Young, Lindsey Buckingham and a variety of other artists will be featured on the 2021 edition of Nordoff Robbins charity’s The Stars Come Out to Sing at Christmas concert special that will stream online for free this Sunday, December 19, at 2 p.m. ET.
The event will be hosted by Nile Rodgers of Chic, and also will feature performances by Rodgers and his band, Eurythmics member Dave Stewart, Tony Bennett, Shakira, Robbie Williams and many more.
Plant will be featured singing with his current band project Saving Grace, while Daltrey will team up with former Jam front man Paul Weller. Some of the performers also appeared on last year’s inaugural edition of The Stars Come Out to Sing at Christmas.
The 2021 presentation also will include footage of the Nordoff Robbins benefit holiday concert that took place Tuesday at St. Luke’s Church in London. The show was headlined by Rod Stewart, and featured a variety of other performers, as well as readings from actors Alice Eve and Clarke Peters.
The free program will be viewable at carols.nordoff-robbins.org.uk. Viewers are encouraged to make a donation to Nordoff Robbins, a U.K. music-therapy charity that focuses on helping people with physical disabilities and mental-health issues.
Lil Nas X is the latest celebrity to have tested positive for COVID-19. The “Industry Baby” rapper maintained his sarcastic attitude when letting fans know of his recent health battle.
“Now that i’m sure i won’t die from covid i will now begin making mildly funny jokes about having it,” he tweeted on Friday. A few minutes later he came out with his first zinger and quipped, “I’m not sure whether i’ve had the omarion or alicia keys variant of covid but this has not been a fun journey.”
He also declared, “i only talk to people who have covid now” and joked that people who have contracted the virus “run this s***!” He also provided an X-rated reason why “covid sucks.”
Earlier this week, the Grammy winner pulled out of the U.K.’s 2021 Jingle Bell Ball after some of his crew members tested positive for COVID-19. Coldplay also had to bow out for similar matters.
It was unknown at the time who within Lil Nas X’s camp contracted the novel coronavirus.
He now joins a list of other celebrities who have battled COVID-19, including Doja Cat, Charlie Puth, Ed Sheeran, Ashanti, DJ Khalid and many others.
now that i’m sure i won’t die from covid i will now begin making mildly funny jokes about having it
Mariah Carey said she couldn’t sit back when Britney Spears‘ conservatorship drama came to a head this year.
Speaking to NME, the Grammy winner touched upon her own struggles with her family and the music industry, but hinted her experiences are not the same as Britney’s.
“I’m not sure it’s an affinity,” Mariah began. “I think everybody on this planet deserves to be free and what they did to her, what I saw, was horrific.” The “Fantasy” singer said she was compelled to give Britney her support and “reached out to her through a mutual friend because I wanted her to know: ‘Guess what? You’re not alone.'”
“I just felt like it was the right thing to do,” she added.
Mariah then revealed how another music giant showed her the same kindness when she was dealing with her own public struggles in 2001.
“I remember when I was going through a lot of stuff years ago, Prince reached out to me and gave me a Bible and he talked to me for hours. He’s an amazing person and he cared about the music business and the industry being so screwed up — which it is,” the singer explained.
Prince’s gesture helped influence Mariah’s own outlook on life. “You’ve got to be a giving person,” she emphasized. “It doesn’t matter whether they’re my best friend or whatever.”
Twenty years ago Sunday — December 19, 2021 — director Peter Jackson brought us the first installment of the eagerly anticipated Lord of the Rings trilogy, as The Fellowship of the Ring opened in the U.S. It set global box office records when it first opened, and today, following re-releases, it’s estimated to have grossed just under $900 million worldwide.
Here are a few fascinating facts about this epic film:
—David Bowie was considered for the role of Elrond, the Elven-king of Rivendell, but his past role as the Goblin King in the movie Labyrinth apparently torpedoed his chances. The role went to Hugo Weaving.
—Jake Gyllenhaal auditioned — very unsuccessfully — for the role of Frodo, because he didn’t know he was supposed to do the part with a British accent. Elijah Wood won the role.
–Others who were considered for various roles: Vin Diesel, Russell Crowe, Uma Thurman and Liam Neeson.
–Before filming started in October of 1999, the main stars trained for six weeks in sword fighting and horse riding, and learned how to pronounce author J.R.R. Tolkien‘s words properly. The cast ended up feeling so bonded that at the end of the shoot, they all got matching tattoos: the word “nine” in Elvish, for the nine members of the Fellowship of the Ring.
–The script was constantly being revised — so often, the actors sometimes didn’t have time to learn their lines. In the Council of Elrond scene where Sean Bean‘s Boromir makes his famous “one does not simply walk into Mordor” speech, he’s seen looking down because the script was taped to his knee.
–In 2002, The Fellowship of the Ring was nominated for 13 Oscars and won four, for Cinematography, Visual Effects, Makeup and Original Score. The second installment, The Two Towers, won two Oscars. The third installment, 2003’s The Return of the King, won all 11 Oscars for which it was nominated, including Best Picture.
–This year, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring was selected for preservation in the Library of Congress National Film Registry for being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”
As the cause of death for the 10 victims that died as a result of the Astroworld Festival tragedy was revealed Thursday, festival organizer and headliner Travis Scott has been meeting with mayors across the country to improve concert safety.
The “Highest in the Room” rapper has spent the past three weeks working with the United States Conference of Mayors to implement new safety procedures at festivals, according to Billboard. He also plans to involve representatives from the music industry, public safety, emergency response, event management, health care and technology, to create standardized health and safety measures at festivals nationwide.
A source says Scott has specifically reached out to officials of Live Nation, AEG, Spotify and Apple and other prominent companies in the music business.
The plan to be developed is titled “Festival Safety,” and is expected to be compiled between January and June 2022. It will be sent to 1,400 cities and will be publicly available online at the United States Conference of Mayors website.
As previously reported, the Harris County Medical Examiner’s office ruled all victims of the Astroworld tragedy on November 5 died of “compression asphyxia.” Of the 10 victims, only one, Danish Baig, 27, had a “contributory cause” due to the “combined toxic effects of cocaine, methamphetamine and ethanol,” the report states, according to ABC Houston affiliate KTRK.
In addition to Baig, the remaining identified victims were Rodolfo “Rudy” Peña, 23, Madison Dubiski, 23, Franco Patiño, 21, Jacob Jurinek, 20, John Hilgert, 14, Axel Acosta, 21, Briana Rodriguez, 16, Bharti Shahani, 22, and Ezra Blount, nine.
Kane Brown has had plenty of cross-genre collaborations, but “Memory,” his summer 2021 duet with pop songwriter/producer blackbear is extra special because it addresses some important subject matter.
“I don’t really talk about it a lot, but it’s hard for an artist to go through depression because for us, we have to be on our A game 24/7,” the singer points out in a new conversation with Kelleigh Bannen for Today’s Country Radio. “If we’re out pumping gas and a fan comes up, and I’m just having one of those bad days, I have to put on a smile and there’s no off time.”
“Memory” addresses the anxiety that comes along with living and partying in overdrive, while worrying about when the repercussions will hit. “Help me now, I’m running on empty / And I don’t wanna be a memory,” Kane and blackbear harmonize in the chorus.
“So that’s why I like that song, especially just saying for everybody that goes through depression or anxiety, ‘You’re not alone,’” the country superstar continues. “There’s many people out there. You just got to find them and talk to them.”
He adds, “That was my way of saying, ‘I go through it as well. You’re not alone in the world.’”
In the interview, Kane also reveals that he’s hard at work on his next album, though he didn’t specify exactly what the timeline is for its release. In the meantime, the singer’s still riding high from his chart-topping Chris Young duet, “Famous Friends,” which recently topped the year-end chart for Billboard’s Country Airplay songs.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden on Friday dug into Republican opposition to advancing federal voting rights legislation during a commencement address at South Carolina State University.
His remarks came ahead of a renewed push on voting rights, even as he acknowledged Thursday night that another major legislative priority of his administration, the Build Back Better social spending bill, will need to wait until 2022.
“I’ve never seen anything like the unrelenting assault on the right to vote. Never,” Biden said Friday during his address to the graduates.
Showing some clear frustration, Biden said, “We have to protect that sacred right to vote, for God’s sake.”
The president mentioned his key role in getting an extension of the original Voting Rights Act passed with bipartisan support in 1982, saying that at the time he thought the nation was “finally beginning to move.”
“But this new sinister combination of voter suppression and election subversion, it’s un-American, it’s undemocratic, and sadly, it is unprecedented since Reconstruction,” he said.
He said his administration has supported Democratic efforts to reform voting rights since “day one” and that there is “unanimous support” within the party, but with the filibuster in Congress blocking its efforts, Biden again criticized Republicans for not even wanting to debate voting rights legislation.
“But each and every time it gets to be brought up, that other team blocks the ability even to start to discuss it. That other team — it used to be called the Republican Party. But this battle is not over. We must pass the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. We must!” Biden said.
Earlier this year, Biden expressed support for altering filibuster rules to pass voting rights legislation, but he did not make the same call Friday.
The president also focused on “hate and racism” in his remarks.
There is currently a “reckoning on race not seen since the 50s and 60s,” he said, adding that the graduates are entering a “tumultuous and consequential moment in modern American history.”
He pointed to the Orangeburg, South Carolina, massacre of 1968 and the mass shooting at Mother Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015. He said there was a “through-line” of hate and racism that extended to the 2017 white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Those marchers were “carrying torches and Nazi banners, screeching [the] most antisemitic and anti-Black rhetoric in history,” Biden said.
Referencing former President Donald Trump, he said that “when asked what he thought about it, Trump said, ‘well there’s some very good people there.'”
“Hell very good people! They’re racist, they’re fascist,” Biden said.
Biden also invoked the Jan. 6 insurrection on the U.S. Capitol, saying that he gets asked by world leaders, “Is America going to be alright” after witnessing those scenes play out.
After his speech, Biden was presented with an honorary doctorate from the university.
The university also gave a degree to Rep. Jim Clyburn, a Democrat representing South Carolina. Clyburn graduated from South Carolina State University in December 1961 but only received his diploma by mail and did not walk across the aisle until Friday’s ceremony.
In remarks before Biden spoke, Clyburn told the audience about how his late wife, Emily Clyburn, who he met after they were both jailed for civil rights demonstrations while students at the university, encouraged him to support President Joe Biden in the 2016 Democratic primary.
“Not long before she passed away a little over two years ago, she said to me: If we want to succeed in this upcoming election, we’d better nominate Joe Biden,” Clyburn said.
“She passed away before the South Carolina primary, but what she said to me in that night stayed on my mind… And I followed her directions, just I had for the fifty-eight years that we were married.”
Clyburn’s endorsement of Biden in 2020 is credited as a deciding factor in helping him clinch the presidency.
Doja Cat has been teaming with some heavy hitters in the music industry as of late, such as The Weeknd and Ariana Grande, but the “Say So” singer reveals she almost bagged a duet with Billie Eilish long before the two stepped into the limelight.
In her wide-ranging interview with Rolling Stone, Doja admits she and Billie tried working on a collaboration but her writer’s block got in the way.
The 26-year-old says the two crossed paths when they were first releasing music on the audio platform Soundcloud and became fans of each other. Eventually, Billie reached out to ask if she’d like to contribute a verse on her upcoming single at the time, “Bellyache.”
“I remember thinking it was so cute. I loved it. I just couldn’t think of anything to write… It was one of my writer’s-block moments,” the Grammy nominee recalled. The single went on to become a success, but Doja says she is not kicking herself over missing out on what could have been.
“I remember seeing that song blow up and thinking, ‘Good for her. That’s awesome,'” she revealed and hinted the song was probably better off without her because, “I don’t think the song was for me, though. It was quite hard to write to.”
Speaking of her collaborations, Doja referenced her “I Don’t Do Drugs” single, which featured Ariana, and said it’s about her quitting caffeine and cigarettes after a bad acid trip. The singer admits that experience “made me quit a lot of my habits,” which she finds remarkable because “I’m a very habitual person.”
“I haven’t been able to smoke a cigarette since then. It’s unbearable to smoke one. It’s very interesting how that worked,” she remarked.
(NEW YORK) — The Kellogg Co. said it’s reached a tentative agreement that could end the ongoing strike of some 1,400 workers, as lawmakers and even President Joe Biden have weighed in to support members of the Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union.
The work stoppage commenced Oct. 5. Union members are set to be presented with the new tentative deal this weekend and vote at the local level, with results expected to be released by Tuesday, according to Corrina Christensen, director of public relations and communications for the BCTGM union. The union declined to comment on the details of the new agreement at this time.
Kellogg’s said in a statement that the new contract includes $1.10 per-hour wage increases plus cost of living adjustments and more. The company also said employees at its U.S. cereal plants are among the highest paid in the industry, with average earnings in 2020 for “the majority of hourly employees” approximately $120,000.
“We value all of our employees. They have enabled Kellogg to provide food to Americans for more than 115 years,” Chairman and CEO Steve Cahillane said in a statement. “We are hopeful our employees will vote to ratify this contract and return to work.”
The strike at the company that produces breakfast staples such as Corn Flakes and Rice Krispies comes as an apparent labor shortage has given workers new leverage in negotiating with employers while the pandemic ebbs in the U.S.
News of the new tentative deal also comes after Kellogg’s signaled in a statement on Dec. 7 that it plans to “hire permanent replacement employees in positions vacated by striking workers,” saying the prolonged work stoppage “has left us no choice.”
The move to replace striking workers drew condemnation from Biden late last week, and progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., announced that he will be in Battle Creek, Michigan, on Friday to meet with union members.
“Collective bargaining is an essential tool to protect the rights of workers that should be free from threats and intimidation from employers,” Biden said in a statement last week. “That’s why I am deeply troubled by reports of Kellogg’s plans to permanently replace striking workers from the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International during their ongoing collective bargaining negotiations.”
The president called permanently replacing striking workers an “existential attack on the union and its members’ jobs and livelihoods.” He expressed his “unyielding support for unions” and urged “employers and unions to commit fully to the challenging task of working out their differences at the bargaining table in a manner that fairly advances both parties’ interests.”
In what many view as a show of solidarity from fellow workers across the U.S., one Go Fund Me page launched to support the striking workers has raised nearly $140,000 from over 3,000 donors.
Sanders blasted Kellogg’s in an op-ed published by Fox News on Thursday as the “poster child for the culture of corporate greed.”
“Last year, Kellogg’s made over $1.4 billion in profits. It paid its CEO, Steven Cahillane, nearly $12 million in total compensation, a significant increase over recent years,” Sanders wrote. “One of the reasons that Kellogg’s had such a profitable year during this pandemic was the extraordinary sacrifices made by their employees who, in significantly understaffed factories, were asked to work an insane number of hours.”
The senator lamented how these workers are now being treated as “disposable” after they were revered as “heroes” for helping feed America during the coronavirus pandemic.
“The workers’ struggle against Kellogg’s is a lot more than just 1,400 employees on strike in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Nebraska,” Sanders wrote. “It’s about what this country and our economy is supposed to stand for.”
(WASHINGTON) — Roger Stone, longtime adviser to former President Donald Trump, appeared Friday before the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, where he said he invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in response to every question asked of him.
“I did invoke my Fifth Amendment rights to every question, not because I have done anything wrong, but because I am fully aware of the House Democrats’ long history of fabricating perjury charges on the basis of comments that are innocuous, immaterial, or irrelevant,” Stone said after emerging from his hour-long session with the committee.
The committee on Nov. 22 subpoenaed Stone for records and testimony, along with four other people linked to the planning of pro-Trump rallies in Washington on Jan. 5 and Jan. 6, prior to the Capitol attack.
Investigators are interested in Stone’s involvement planning and attending the events, as well as his soliciting of donations to pay for security at the Jan. 6 “Stop the Steal” rally, the committee said.
Stone was also seen outside Washington’s Willard Hotel on the morning of Jan. 6 with members of the Oath Keepers militia group, including some members who were later at the riot on Capitol Hill.
Stone has denied any involvement in the attack on the Capitol and has said he had no “advance knowledge” of the march on the Capitol or efforts to disrupt the counting of electoral votes.
“I stress yet again that I was not on the Ellipse [at the rally preceding the Capital attack],” Stone said following his appearance Friday. “I did not march to the Capitol. I was not at the Capitol, and any claims, assertion or even implication that I knew about or was involved in any way whatsoever, with the illegal and politically counterproductive activities of Jan. 6 is categorically false.”
Stone also criticized the committee’s probe into the Jan. 5 rally where he spoke.
“What disturbed me is an investigation into my activities on Jan. 5, which is constitutionally protected free speech, the constitutional right of free assembly, and the constitutional right to redress the government regarding grievances,” he said. “I don’t like to see the criminalization of constitutionally protected political activity. I think it is a slippery slope.”
In February 2020, Stone was sentenced to 40 months in prison after he was found guilty of obstructing justice, witness tampering and five counts of lying to Congress in connection with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. However his sentence was commuted in July of 2020 by then-President Trump.
Also questioned this week by the Jan. 6 committee were Dustin Stockton and Jennifer Lawrence, two activists involved in planning the rallies in Washington ahead of the riot.
In an interview with CNN, Stockton said “the buck’s got to stop at President Trump” and that he “knew better” than to rally supporters about the election results and encourage them to march on the Capitol.
Other witnesses, including Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and Trump spokesperson Taylor Budowich had their sessions postponed as they “engage” with the committee over subpoenas for records and testimony, the committee said.
On Thursday, the committee subpoenaed Phil Waldron, a retired colonel linked to a controversial 36-page PowerPoint presentation titled “Election Fraud, Foreign Interference & Options for 6 Jan,” that was prepared prior to Jan. 6.
A 38-page presentation with the same title that is available online includes several proposals for challenging and overturning the election results, including recommendations to declare a “national security emergency” or declare all electronic ballots “invalid.”
The document also recommends that Vice President Mike Pence, who presided over the certification of electoral votes on Jan. 6, reject electors from states “where fraud occurred,” and that he recognize alternate electors sent to Washington by GOP legislators, or that he delay the certification of the election.
A committee aide declined to comment on the document, which the committee obtained from former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, including whether it resembled the presentation with the same name available online.
The committee has issued more than 50 subpoenas and conducted more than 300 interviews as part of its inquiry, and is expected to begin “weeks” of hearings in the new year, according to committee members.
