Scotty McCreery had most of his new album, Same Truck, completed before the COVID-19 pandemic altered life in 2020. But the forced downtime allowed him to see the project from a new vantage point.
In an interview with People, the American Idol winner shares that the album previously consisted of songs penned by other songwriters. But being at home allowed him to tap into his own well of songwriting, with 10 of the 12 songs co-written by him, including current single, “You Time.”
“I had a lot of outside cuts actually the first time around. But then the world shut down and I had nothing but time to sit there and pick up a guitar and strum ideas and write songs,” he explains. “Faith is something I lean on daily. I’ve definitely had to lean on it a lot in the last year and a half, with the craziness of the world.”
“You Time,” inspired by Scotty’s wife, Gabi,” is inching its way toward the #1 spot on the Billboard Country Airplay chart.
The Rolling Stones may have just lost their legendary drummer, Charlie Watts, but they’re moving forward. On Wednesday at 1 p.m. ET, they’re apparently releasing a video for “Living in the Heart of Love,” one of the previously unreleased tracks that will appear on the 40th Anniversary Edition of Tattoo You.
The band announced the video on social media, adding the tagline, “Charlie is my darling.” That’s the title of a 1966 documentary about the Stones that was never released, due to legal issues and the fact that all the prints of the film were stolen from their then-manager Andrew Loog Oldham‘s office. In 2012, a new film with restored footage called Charlie Is My Darling — Ireland 1965 was released.
The Stones posted a black-and-white clip of the video, which incorporates archival footage of Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Watts in the Tattoo You era, along with new shots of young people dancing and making out, as well as a Stones record spinning on a turntable.
The video clip ends with the words “Charlie is my darling.”
The Stones’ tour kicks off September 26 in St. Louis, MO.
Ben Affleck heaped on the praise for his on-again squeeze Jennifer Lopez — but this was about her business acumen and her role as a role model for entrepreneurs of color.
Affleck told the trade Adweek that he’s “in awe” of Ms. From the Block, who was namedthe magazine’s 2021 Brand Visionary. The cover feature on Lopez features testimonials about her from colleagues and friends, including Affleck.
“I am in awe of what Jennifer’s effect on the world is,” Affleck enthused. “At most, as an artist, I can make movies that move people. Jennifer has inspired a massive group of people to feel they have a seat at the table in this country. That is an effect few people throughout history have had, one…I can only stand by and admire with respect,” Ben said.
The feature details not only Lopez’s cosmetics and fashion empire, but also her charity effort, Limitless Labs, which, along with Goldman Sachs, is boosting efforts of Latinx entrepreneurs.
“All I can tell you is that I have seen firsthand the difference representation makes because I have seen, over and over and over…women of color approach Jennifer and tell her what her example as a strong woman, and a woman succeeding and demanding her fair share in the business world means to them,” Affleck said.
Elsewhere in the feature, Lopez’s Hustlers co-producer and Nuyorican Productions partner Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas said, “Jennifer’s brand has always been about…not allowing anyone or anything to trivialize or marginalize or stop you.”
She added, “We try to pick projects with characters who are…empowered, and people are cast and our crews with as much diversity as possible, giving women and people of color an opportunity they did not have a few years ago.”
His hit collab with Dua Lipa, “Cold Heart (Pnau Remix),” rose from number 11 to number 10 on the chart this week, marking Elton’s first time in the chart’s top 10 since 2005.
“Cold Heart” extends his record for most top 10s on the Adult Contemporary radio airplay chart. He’s followed by Neil Diamond with 38 and Barbra Streisand, with 35.
Following the song’s release last month, it became Elton’s first entry on the Billboard Hot 100 since 2000 and his first entry on the Pop Airplay chart since 1998.
(NEW YORK) — More than a century ago, the globe was left devastated by a pandemic that has been described by experts as “the deadliest in human history.”
The 1918 influenza pandemic killed at least 50 million people worldwide, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, equivalent in proportion to 200 million in today’s global population. An estimated 675,000 of those deaths occurred in the United States.
Now, 18 months into the coronavirus pandemic, the virus has claimed more American lives than its counterpart a hundred years ago.
At this point, at least 675,446 Americans have been confirmed to have died since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University, with thousands of Americans lives still being lost each day.
Surpassing the 1918 death toll is a dismal milestone, but experts suggest there are key differences between both pandemics that must be taken into account, given modern day access to better medical treatments and vaccinations.
“These are two different viruses, two different times in history, at two different times of medical history, with what you have available to combat or treat it,” Howard Markel, professor of the history of medicine at the University of Michigan, told ABC News.
The influenza outbreak of 1918 began in the spring, with the novel H1N1 virus passing from birds to humans, and lasted for approximately two years. Approximately one-third of the world’s population at that time, or 500 million people, was ultimately estimated to have been infected, according to the CDC.
According to experts, it is important to recall, when comparing data from the two pandemics, that the numbers of deaths stemming from the 1918 pandemic are just estimates. In fact, according to Dr. Graham Mooney, assistant professor of the history of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, it is likely that these figures were significantly underestimated, because of non-registration, missing records, misdiagnosis or underreporting.
Likewise, experts believe that the current COVID-19 death count could already be greatly undercounted, due to inconsistent reporting by states and localities, and the exclusion of excess deaths.
In comparing the pandemics, Markel said, it is important to remember that we now have many more people living in the U.S. than in 1918, when the population stood at approximately 105 million, according to census data, compared to 328 million people in 2019.
The U.S. currently has a coronavirus case fatality rate of 1.6%, compared to the 2.5% fatality rate for influenza in 1918, noted Mooney. Normally, the flu’s fatality rate is less than 0.1%. And thus, the rate of death in the United States, due to COVID-19, remains significantly below the one attributed to the 1918 pandemic.
Ultimately, when compared on a per-capita basis, the pandemic of 1918 was far deadlier than this one, according to Christopher McKnight Nichols, associate professor of history at Oregon State University.
“The difference is that 1 in 500 Americans have died now, and about 1 in 152 died in 1918, although our number keeps going up,” Nichols told ABC News.
Vaccinations and traditional intervention methods key to protection
Although the two pandemics were at first comparable, the introduction of the coronavirus vaccine made the differences between the two “stark,” said Nichols.
“People were desperate for treatment measures in 1918. People were desperate for a vaccine,” Nichols said. “We have effective vaccines now, and so what strikes me in the comparison, if you think about this milestone, this tragedy of deaths, is that same number but we have a really effective treatment, the thing that they most wanted in 1918 and ’19, we’ve got. And for a lot of different reasons, we botched the response.”
Similar to the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, no vaccines or treatments were available to protect people against the 1918 influenza. Thus, protection through non-pharmaceutical interventions was critical, Mooney said.
“The same kinds of measures — the so-called non-pharmaceutical interventions that were put on in 1918 — were the same that we saw last year: lockdowns, social distancing, hygiene masks, limits on gathering places,” Nichols said.
In fact, social distancing was also one of the great historical lessons learned from 1918, according to Markel, demonstrating that if done early, and for a long time, such measures can work.
Millions of different communities and demographics affected
One fundamental contrast between the two pandemics, according to Markel, is that different age groups were most significantly impacted. A disproportionate number of those who succumbed to the disease in 1918 were in the 18- to 45-year-old age group. Young children and the elderly were also significantly impacted.
However, in the coronavirus pandemic, the age group that has been the most affected is over the age of 65, who make up 78.7% of virus-related deaths.
Historical evidence suggests that racial and ethnic disparities, which have affected communities of color throughout the coronavirus pandemic, were also present during the 1918 pandemic.
Black Americans had higher case fatality rates from influenza in 1918-19 than whites, according to a 2019 study in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.
Similarly, Black Americans account for nearly 14% of COVID-19 related deaths, despite the fact that Black Americans only account for 12.5% of the population.
Becoming endemic
Domestically and globally, experts said, it will be crucial for vaccine uptake to increase, in order to blunt the impact of the coronavirus death toll.
“I’m a little pessimistic going into winter, given the fact that there’s such a large unvaccinated population that it is a lot like 1918,” Nichols said, adding that it will ultimately be “some combination of getting more of the population immune, with vaccines and with infections.”
Ultimately, although “it’s not the worst of all time, it’s pretty darn close,” Markel said of the COVID-19 pandemic. “It’s the worst of our lifetimes, and it’s changed our lives in so many ways.”
(WASHINGTON) — A decorated group of more than 500 current and former American women Olympians and professional and collegiate athletes is warning the U.S. Supreme Court in a new legal filing that eroding access to abortion care in America will be “devastating” to women’s athletics at all levels.
“If the state compelled women athletes to carry pregnancies to term and give birth, it could derail women’s athletic careers, academic futures, and economic livelihoods at a large scale,” the women write. “Such a fundamental restriction on bodily integrity and human autonomy would never be imposed on a male athlete, though he would be equally responsible for a pregnancy.”
Among the named signatories are U.S. soccer star Megan Rapinoe; Olympic water polo player Ashleigh Johnson; WNBA star Diana Taurasi; U.S. women’s soccer national team captain Becky Sauerbrunn; and, Layshia Clarendon, a former WNBA all-star and current vice president of the Women’s National Basketball Players Association.
The filing — known as an amicus, or friend-of-the-court, brief — was made in the case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a blockbuster abortion rights showdown scheduled or oral argument at the Supreme Court on Dec. 1.
The state of Mississippi has explicitly asked the court to overturn nearly 50 years of abortion rights precedent since the 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade, allowing states to set stringent new restrictions on early-term abortions, if not outlaw them entirely.
“As women athletes and people in sports, we must have the power to make important decisions about our own bodies and exert control over our reproductive lives,” Rapinoe said in a statement. “I am honored to stand with the hundreds of athletes who have signed onto this Supreme Court brief to help champion not only our constitutional rights, but also those of future generations of athletes.”
The signatories are all women who “have exercised, relied on the availability of, or support the constitutional right to abortion care in order to meet the demands of their sports,” according to the brief.
Women’s rights advocates said it was the first time a large group of female American athletes publicly took a stand in support of abortion access.
Crissy Perham, a double gold medalist and captain of the 1992 U.S. Olympic swim team, offered one of several personal testimonies in the brief attesting to her experience obtaining an abortion.
“When I was in college, I was on birth control, but I accidentally became pregnant,” she wrote. “I decided to have an abortion. I wasn’t ready to be a mom, and having an abortion felt like I was given a second chance at life.”
“That choice ultimately led me to being an Olympian, a college graduate and a proud mother today,” Perham wrote.
Several athletes described the importance of the Supreme Court precedent in laying the groundwork for more women to participate in athletics and as a “safeguard” in case birth control failed.
“As a victim of rape during my junior year of college, I was comforted in the fact that if I were to fall pregnant and need an abortion, I would have access to that service,” a Division I field hockey player, who was not identified by name, wrote in the brief.
Ashleigh Johnson, the first Black woman on the U.S. Olympic water polo team and member of the gold-medal 2016 and 2021 Olympic teams, said she wants the justices to see abortion access a matter of racial justice.
“It is well-established that women of color experience real disparities in accessing health care services, including contraceptive, abortion and other reproductive care,” Johnson said in a statement. “I hope we can have a real conversation as a country about valuing Black women’s autonomy.”
The case will be argued in December and is expected to be decided by the end of June 2022.
Emmy-winning producer Lorne Michaels was officially mum about it backstage at the awards show, but he strongly hinted that Ted Lasso winner Jason Sudeikis might return as Saturday Night Live‘s first host of its upcoming 47th season.
“I’m so happy for Jason,” Michaels said, adding, “He’ll be coming back soon, which is sort of an answer to the [first host of the season] question,” he laughed. “In no particular order.”
Sudeikis left SNL in 2013 after 10 years, and went on to big-screen projects like the Horrible Bosses films and We’re the Millers. That said, he’s returned to the Studio 8H stage a few times, notably playing Joe Biden in 2019 and 2020.
Perhaps lending some weight to the theory that Sudeikis will be the new season’s first — or failing that, the second — host, is that Saturday Night Live returns on Oct. 2, and Ted Lasso‘s second season finale streams Oct. 8 on Apple TV+. So the hosting gig would be a nice promotional boost for Sudeikis’ show.
Ice Cube is one of the many fans mourning the loss of Friday star Anthony “AJ” Johnson. The comedian and actor died on Monday at the age of 55, a rep confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter. A cause of death has not been reported.
“Sad to wake up to the news about AJ Johnson passing away,” Cube tweeted. “Naturally funny dude who was straight outta Compton at the same time. Sorry I couldn’t bring your character Ezal back to the big screen in Last Friday…”
Best known for his breakout role of Ezal in the 1995 comedy Friday, Johnson first emerged on the scene as E.Z.E. in the 1990 Kid’n Play film House Party. He returned for the third installment, House Party 3 in 1994, and also made a mark in other films and TV shows including B.A.P.S., Menace II Society, Lethal Weapon 3, The Players Club, I Got the Hook Up, The Jamie Foxx Show, and Martin. Johnson is survived by his wife, Lexis, and his three children.
In other in news, ICYMI, BET has announced a season two return date for Twenties: Wednesday, October 13 at 10 p.m ET. According to the show’s creator, Lena Waithe, season two will include aTwenties After-Show hosted by media personality B. Scott. As previously reported, Twenties follows Hattie, a “queer black girl” who dreams of becoming a major screenwriter. She’s joined by her heterosexual best friends, Nia and Marie, who are also trying to succeed in their careers as they navigate life. Twenties stars Jonica “JoJo” T. Gibbs, Gabrielle Graham and Christina Elmore, among others.
Ahead of the October 15 release of the Special Edition packages of The Beatles‘ Let It Be, four more tracks have been released digitally for your streaming pleasure.
Each track is taken from a different CD from the five-CD/Blu-ray Super Deluxe edition of the album. “Across the Universe” is from the new stereo mix of the original album; “One After 909” is from the CD called Get Back — Apple Sessions; “Get Back” is from the CD called Get Back — Rehearsals and Apple Jam; and “I Me Mine” is from the CD titled Let It Be EP.
These four tracks follow the three that dropped when the project was first announced in August: “Let It Be (2021 Stereo Mix),” “Don’t Let Me Down (first rooftop performance),’ and “For You Blue (Get Back LP Mix)”.
As previously reported, the new three-part documentary The Beatles: Get Back, created by director Peter Jackson from unseen footage shot during the Let It Be sessions, will premiere on Disney+ on November 25, 26 and 27.
Following last week’s surprise San Francisco concert, Metallica has announced another intimate, last-minute show.
Tonight, the metal legends will play the 1,100-capacity Metro club in Chicago. Tickets will cost just $20 and will only be available in-person at the venue. Proof of full COVID-19 vaccination is required.
You can start lining up at the Metro to buy tickets at 6 p.m. local time.
Last week’s S.F. show marked Metallica’s first full, live and in-person concert in 738 days. Following the Chicago stop, the band will hit this weekend’s Louder than Life festival in Louisville, Kentucky, during which they’ll perform two distinct headlining sets.
