Alicia Keys reveals her joy and pain in trailer for ‘Noted: Alicia Keys The Untold Stories’ YouTube docuseries

Milan Zrnic

Alicia Keys is celebrating her 20th anniversary as a recording artist with a YouTube Originals docuseries.

The 15-time Grammy winner released a trailer for Noted: Alicia Keys The Untold Stories, on Wednesday, in which she talks about the joy and the pain of her life as a singer, mother, and wife.

“When I’m making music, I’m exposing all of my secrets, and I’m very uncomfortable being exposed — but I guess not so much anymore,” she says in the opening of the clip. “I am just inspired to be completely uninhibited in all my glory and greatness…We’re not holding back!”

In an emotional segment with her mother, Terria Joseph, Alicia reveals the pain of her father leaving them when she was two years old.

“As a kid, when someone doesn’t show up for you, it hurts,” the 40-year-old entertainer commented. “I didn’t want to be hurt anymore.”

Looking at Joseph, she continued, “You have always been my mother and my father, and I know its hard.”

The trailer features highlights from Keys’ entire life, including concert performances, recording sessions, and a look back at her wedding 11 years ago to husband Swizz Beatz.

“On this journey that I’m on, as an artist, as a mother, as a wife, I’m always fighting not to sacrifice any part of myself for success,” Alicia declares.

All four episodes of Noted: Alicia Keys The Untold Stories will premiere for free September 30 on Keys’ YouTube Channel.

Monday night, the “Girl on Fire” singer hosted an after-party for the Met Gala at Cipriani in New York City. Attendees included Queen Latifah, Michael Jordan, Lil Nas X, Leonardo DiCaprio, Zoe Kravitz, Channing Tatum, Serena and Venus Williams, Regina King, Lupita Nyong’o and Ciara, plus many more.

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Sheryl Crow to receive Missouri Roots Songbook honor

ABC/Eric McCandless

Sheryl Crow is receiving a special honor later this month in her home state.

The singer will be presented with the 2021 Missouri Roots Songbook honor on the final night of the Roots N Blues festival in Columbia, Missouri, on September 26. Sheryl is headlining that night of the three-day festival, which takes place in Stephens Lake Park.

The honor celebrates Sheryl’s musical and humanitarian accomplishments. She’ll be the first living recipient of the Missouri Roots Songbook honor and the first woman to receive it. Previous honorees were Chuck Berry in 2018 and ragtime composer John “Blind” Boone in 2019.

Tickets for the Roots N Blues festival are available now.

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Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine shares his mask thoughts: “This is called tyranny”

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Dave Mustaine apparently has some thoughts on wearing masks.

During Megadeth‘s concert Wednesday in Camden, New Jersey, Mustaine introduced the closing song “Holy Wars…The Punishment Due” by remarking how good it felt to be back playing for a crowd.

“Look around, you guys…look how wonderful this is,” Mustaine said. “We’re all here together…We’re not freaking out, and we’re not yelling at people, ‘Wear your f***ing mask.'”

In fan-shot footage of the show, which is streaming now on YouTube, you can hear members of the crowd respond in applause and cheers while someone yells “F*** Joe Biden!” and “USA! USA!”

Mustaine then added, “It starts with this kind of a sensation that we’ve built right now, when you feel together, when you feel like [there’s] strength in numbers. We feel like we are invincible. People will not be able to stop us.”

He continued, “Right now, what’s going on is tyranny. This is called tyranny. Look it up when you get home. And tyranny isn’t only in government. Tyranny right now is in the schools and tyranny is in the medical business.”

In an effort to slow the spread of COVID-19, especially given this summer’s rise of the Delta variant, the CDC currently advises “universal indoor masking for all teachers, staff, students, and visitors to K-12 schools, regardless of vaccination status.” The CDC also recommends public indoor mask wearing for non-vaccinated individuals, and for vaccinated individuals in an “area of substantial or high transmission.”

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Ken Jennings, Mayim Bialik to host ‘Jeopardy!’ for remainder of 2021

Sony Pictures Television/Jeopardy! Productions

Ken Jennings and Mayim Bialik will host the syndicated version of Jeopardy! for the rest of 2021, Sony Pictures Television announced Thursday.

The two will take the reins while the search for a new, permanent host to take over for the late Alex Trebek continues in the wake of Mike Richards‘ controversial exit.

Bialik, who has been named the host of Jeopardy! primetime specials and spin-offs, will host episodes airing from September 20 through November 5. After that, the Big Bang Theory star will split hosting duties with and Jeopardy! champ-turned-producer Jennings as their schedules allow.

Richards was named the new, permanent host of the syndicated version of Jeopardy! on August 11. After filming just a week’s worth of shows, he stepped down from the position on August 20 and, as of August 31, is no longer an executive producer for Jeopardy! or Wheel of Fortune.

Because Jeopardy! is filmed in advance, episodes featuring Richards aired this week, beginning on September 13. Richards’ final episode as host will be this Friday, September 17.

Richards came under fire after controversial remarks that he made on The Randumb Show, a podcast he hosted from 2013 to 2014, resurfaced. These since-deleted episodes included disparaging comments about women, for which Richards has apologized.

This also brought to light a 2010 lawsuit in which a former model on The Price Is Right, during Richards’ tenure on that program, alleged that her contract was not renewed after she gave birth. 

Of the discrimination case, which was settled out of court without any admission of wrongdoing, Richards said the allegations “don’t reflect the reality of who I am.”

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Frank Grillo on working with his production partner and “mad genius” Joe Carnahan on ‘COPSHOP’

Elevation Pictures/STX Films

Frank Grillo was recently heard voicing his Marvel movies baddie character Brock Rumlow/Crossbones in Marvel Studios’ What If…? on Disney+, but he’s back in theaters again this weekend in the gritty action film COPSHOP.

It’s Grillo’s sixth movie with writer-director Joe Carnahan, and has Grillo playing a man bun-wearing sleazy con man on the run from Gerard Butler‘s hitman, Bob, who was hired by the crooks from which Grillo’s character stole. Grillo’s Teddy is in so much trouble that he gets himself arrested by punching out a small-town rookie cop — stand-out newcomer Alexis Louder — but things take a turn when Butler’s character also gets himself locked up just to get at Teddy.

“It’s me and Butler, in a police station for the first two acts,” Grillo tells ABC Audio. “I mean, a lot goes on, but it’s this weird kind of 70s thriller until the third act is a full-blown action movie.”

Grillo’s work with Carnahan going back to 2011, in the acclaimed Liam Neeson man-vs.-wolves flick The Grey. The pair has since partnered up in their own production company, Warparty, for which they’ve made in rapid-fire a series of “elevated” genre movies starring Grillo, including Wheelman on Netflix, and Boss Level, which was a success for Hulu. 

Lock in some corrupt cops, and a deliciously psychotic competing hitman played by Toby Huss, and COPSHOP is a pulpy, bloody nod to John Carpenter‘s classic Assault on Precinct 13.

Grillo adds with a laugh of his buddy Carnahan, “I mean, the guy’s a mad genius. Crazy as a loon, but a genius.” 

 

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SpaceX successfully launches first all-civilian flight into Earth’s orbit

Eva Marie Uzcategui/Bloomberg via Getty Images

(MERRITT ISLAND, Fla.) — The first all-civilian flight to Earth’s orbit successfully launched Wednesday.

The Falcon 9 rocket took off as scheduled at the start of the five-hour window for launch at 8:02 p.m. ET. It reached orbit about 12 minutes later.

The crew said goodbye to their families, suited up and were driven in Teslas to Kennedy Space Center’s historic pad 39A Wednesday afternoon.

SpaceX’s Inspiration4 mission is the third recent billionaire-backed space launch, but it’s gone where neither Richard Branson nor Jeff Bezos could — into orbit.

SpaceX tweeted at just before 11 p.m. that the crew had reached an orbit of 535 km, or about 363 miles, the farthest any civilian has traveled from Earth.

That is even further than the International Space Station, which orbits at 240 miles.

Commanding the mission is 38-year-old billionaire Jared Isaacman, an experienced pilot. He founded a payment process company called Shift4 Payments and purchased all four seats on the flight for an estimated $220 million.

Isaacman wants this launch to benefit St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. He has already donated $100 million to the cause.

One seat was reserved for 29-year-old St. Jude ambassador Hayley Arceneaux. Arceneaux is a bone cancer survivor and will be the youngest American to go to space as well as the first pediatric cancer survivor.

The third occupant will be Dr. Sian Proctor, 51, who said she has dreamed of going to space since she was a child. She burst into tears when she heard she was chosen as a member of the Inspiration4 mission.

She will become the fourth Black female American astronaut to travel into space.

The final crew member is Chris Sembroski, 41, an Iraq War veteran and engineer with Lockheed Martin, who won the final seat through a lottery that required a St. Jude donation to enter.

The four will orbit the Earth for three days with no set destination. They said they will conduct some science experiments while on board and auction off items in space for St. Jude.

There is always risk launching into space and coming home. While these passengers have been trained by SpaceX, they are not professional astronauts.

The SpaceX Crew Dragon will also be tested for the first time at this distance.

They cannot go much longer than three days without running low on fuel, food and water. And while past missions could make changes on the return because of bad weather on Earth due to astronauts on board, this ship won’t have quite as much flexibility.

After three days of orbiting Earth, they will prepare to splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida late Saturday or early Sunday.

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Katy Perry goes baby-item shopping with Oprah and Gayle

HUY DOAN

Katy Perry joins Oprah Winfrey and her bestie Gayle King for the second episode of Oprah Daily’s OG Chronicles: Joy Ride.

In this installment of the Oprah and Gayle roadtrip series, Katy meets them at a children’s store called Chicken Little in Santa Barbara, CA, where she helps Gayle shop for her daughter, who’s about to have a baby.

Katy herself became a new mom last year to Daisy Dove, and she tells Oprah and Gayle, “It’s everything I was looking for. I climbed all the mountains and then I found the view.”

While shopping for baby things, Katy shows the two women how to swaddle a baby and how to use a collapsible stroller. She also recommends her favorite products and weighs in on what Gayle’s future grandson will call her. For the record, Gayle wants to be called Gaia instead of grandma, but Oprah thinks it’s “pretentious.”

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The Black Keys announce 10th anniversary ’El Camino’ reissue

Nonesuch Records

The Black Keys have announced a reissue of the band’s 2011 album El Camino in honor of its 10th anniversary.

The super-deluxe edition will be released as a five-LP and four-CD package, as well as via digital outlets, on November 5. The track list includes the original El Camino remastered, a full, previously unreleased live recording from a 2012 concert in Portland, Maine, as well as a sessions with BBC Radio 1 and from the Los Angeles Electro-Vox studio.

Physical editions of the super deluxe will also include a photo book, poster and lithograph, along with a “new car scent” air freshener.

If that’s a little rich for your blood, you can also get the three-LP, less-super but still deluxe reissue, also due out November 5. That edition just includes the remastered audio and the live Portland recordings.

Following 2010’s commercial breakthrough, Brothers, El Camino cemented The Black Keys’ transformation from beloved alternative band to arena-headlining rock stars. The album spawned the singles “Lonely Boy,” “Gold on the Ceiling” and “Little Back Submarines,” and has been certified double-Platinum by the RIAA.

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50th anniversary reissue of Zombies singer Colin Blunstone’s solo debut, ‘One Year,’ due out in November

Sundazed Records

An expanded, 50th anniversary version of Zombies frontman Colin Blunstone‘s 1971 debut solo album, One Year, will be released November 5.

The reissue, which will be available on CD, as a two-LP vinyl set, digitally and via streaming, features the original 10-track album, plus a 14-song bonus album dubbed That Same Year.

Blunstone recorded One Year over a 12-month period following the breakup of The Zombies and their post-demise success with the single “Time of the Season.” Colin’s Zombies band mates Rod Argent and Chris White co-produced One Year, and co-wrote three of the album’s songs, while Blunstone penned four tracks.

The album also includes covers of tunes by Tim Hardin, ex-Manfred Mann singer Mike d’Abo and longtime Wings member Denny Laine.

His version of Laine’s “Say You Don’t Mind” from the album became a top-20 hit in the U.K. in ’72.

The bonus album, That Same Year, features recordings that Blunstone was preparing for possible consideration for One Year, nine of which are previously unheard.

One of the tracks, a stripped down tune called “I Won’t Let You Down” that features Argent on piano, has been released as an advance digital single.

The reissue, which you can pre-order now, features new liner notes penned by Colin, and rare photos from that time period.

Blunstone will celebrate the One Year reissue’s release with two special concerts, scheduled for November 2 in Los Angeles and November 8 in New York City. At the shows, Colin will perform the entire album live for the first time ever, accompanied by a 20-piece musical ensemble led by composer Joe Wong, and also featuring Roger Waters touring drummer Joey Waronker, Helium‘s Mary Timony and a chamber orchestra.

Here’s the One Year track list:

“She Loves The Way They Love Her”
“Misty Roses”
“Smokey Day”
“Caroline Goodbye”
“Though You Are Far Away”
“Mary Won’t You Warm My Bed”
“Her Song”
“I Can’t Live Without You”
“Let Me Come Closer to You”
“Say You Don’t Mind”

And here’s the That Same Year track list:

“Are You Ready”
“I’ve Always Had You”
“Sing Your Own Song”
“Caroline Goodbye”
“I’d Like to Get to Know You Better”
“Though You Are Far Away”
“Too Much Too Soon Last Night”
“I Wonder If You Know What You’ve Begun”
“I Won’t Let You Down”
“You Gave Me a Reason”
“I’m Coming Home”
“I Really Do Love You”
“Let Me Come Closer”
“You Really Were a Surprise”

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Carly Pearce was “fearful” no one would let her release “29”

Allister Ann

When Carly Pearce had the idea to tell her truth in the song, “29,” she had no idea that it would become the launching pad for her next album. Carly wrote the song with Shane McAnally and Josh Osborne, even though at the time she wasn’t sure if anyone would ever hear it.

“I remember when that song was written, being almost fearful that there was no way anybody would ever let me put that song out,” Carly says in an interview held at the Grammy Museum. “And I remember when people first heard it, even some of my band members, when I first played it for them, there was kind of like [a gasp].”

It’s the opening line of the chorus, which calls 29 as the age that she got married and divorced, that became the pivotal moment of the song.

“There’s kind of like that pause,” Pearce says. “All these things that were my reality of owning my story. And I feel like I’m the most proud of that song because that song opened my heart wide open to create the rest.”

29: Written in Stone is out on Friday.

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