Zooey Deschanel finds music a (Pooh) bear necessity

Actress Zooey Deschanel attends the GQ ''Men of the Year'' party in Los Angeles November 17, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/Phil McCarten

By Steve Pond

LOS ANGELES | Sun Jan 1, 2012 1:38pm EST

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Writing a song for a Disney animated film puts a songwriter into a long and legendary line that has produced 30 nominations and 10 wins going back to "When You Wish Upon a Star" in 1940.

And writing a song for a "Winnie the Pooh" movie is just as daunting a task, because it requires a songwriter to follow in the footsteps of Richard and Robert Sherman, who penned the well-known "Pooh" theme song and also wrote "Chim Chim Cher-ee," "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious," "It's a Small World" and "I Wan'na Be Like You," among many others.

"The tradition of music in Disney animated films is pretty spectacular. But I tried not to think about it, because I might be overwhelmed if I did," said actress and singer-songwriter Zooey Deschanel, who couldn't exactly ignore that history when she was drafted to contribute to this year's Disney version of the A.A. Milne stories.

Her initial task, after all, was to record a new version of the Sherman brothers' theme song. When that went well, she was asked to write and record an end-credits song, which turned out to be "So Long," one of the film's two Oscar entries. And after that, she was asked to contribute vocals to other songs in the film ... all while finishing a tour with her band, She and Him, and getting ready to begin filming her new TV series, "The New Girl."

"It kind of happened in little bits and pieces over the course of the year," Deschanel told TheWrap.

"That's the thing with music for me. Songwriting was always something that I did in my private time as a release, very much on my own. It didn't come out into the world until later in my life. But now, as my schedule has gotten so weird and so busy, I feel like I need to keep going back to it."

Deschanel first got involved with "Winnie the Pooh" when music supervisor Tom McDougall showed her a 10-minute segment that had been cut to a She and Him song, and asked if she'd record the title song. She enlisted bandmate Matt Ward (who goes by M. Ward) to produce, and settled on an approach to a song whose original version was recorded by a large chorus of anonymous singers.

"I think there was something that Matt and I saw in that song that we could pull out, that wasn't really focused on in the original recording," she said. "That was the warmth and the intimacy of the song.

We wanted it to feel very warm and sweet. I felt like it should welcome people into the story."

Her Oscar entry "So Long," though, ushers viewers out of the story through its placement in the final credits. "They showed me a rough cut of the movie, so I knew what was leading up to that song," she said. "I knew that I wanted to write a love song, but about friendship love."

Her models, she said, came from albums she loved both as a kid and as an adult: Harry Nilsson's "The Point," Carole King's "Really Rosie" and the compilation "Free to Be ... You and Me."

"I listened to all of those again," she said. "They all had classic chord progressions and catchy melodies with good lyrical hooks and very strong choruses. I wanted a song that was upbeat and made you feel happy walking out of the theater, and also one that kids would enjoy."

The discipline, she added, was dramatically different from writing for her own band, in which she's free to tackle any subject and take any approach.

"There's something overwhelming about being able to write about anything, which I can do in She and Him," she said. "This was like cracking a code. I had to think, 'How do I accomplish all these things for the movie, how do I tell the story without getting too literal or writing something totally off-topic?'

"But once I did crack the code, it was inspiring. And the movie people pretty much let me do my thing. They were extremely cool about letting me have my creative moment with the song."

So far, she adds, there's just one additional thing she'd like out of the experience -- and it's not an Oscar nomination, but a face-to-face with her predecessors in the "Winnie the Pooh" songwriting gig.

"I haven't met the Sherman brothers yet," she says. "I would love to, I'm such a fan."

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Singer Etta James breathing on her own again (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Soul singer Etta James, who is terminally ill with leukemia, has been taken off a respirator and is breathing on her own again, her friend and manager said on Friday.

Lupe De Leon said the "At Last" singer, 73, is soon expected to leave the intensive care unit of a hospital near her home in Riverside, east of Los Angeles.

"The hospital is preparing Etta for release from ICU to a step down unit. She is stable and breathing on her own. Her blood pressure is normal," De Leon said.

James was admitted to the hospital last week because she was struggling to breathe. She has been in failing health for several years and suffers from leukemia, kidney disease and dementia but had previously been cared for at her Southern California home.

Her live-in doctor said earlier in December that James was considered terminally ill, and that she communicates mostly with nods and simple words. The three-time Grammy Award singer earlier battled obesity and was addicted to heroin for many years.

James was a key figure in the early days of R&B music with hit songs like "The Wallflower" and "Good Rockin' Daddy". But it was her 1961 recording of the ballad "At Last" that put her on the map.

(Reporting by Jill Serjeant; Editing by Piya Sinha-Roy)

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Michael Buble defeats Young Jeezy's "Hustlerz Ambition"

Singer Michael Buble performs during the Z100 Jingle Ball in New York December 10, 2010.

Credit: Reuters/Lucas Jackson

LOS ANGELES | Wed Dec 28, 2011 2:49pm EST

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Michael Buble continued his "Christmas" reign at the top of the Billboard 200 album chart on Wednesday for the fifth consecutive week, keeping Adele and rapper Young Jeezy from the No. 1 position.

Buble's "Christmas" sold 467,000 copies in the run-up to the holiday weekend according to Nielsen SoundScan figures, edging out Adele's "21," which stayed put at No. 2.

The Canadian jazz singer's holiday album crossed 2.43 million sales, beaten only by Adele, who crossed 5.68 million sales of her album in the U.S. last week.

Only one new album entered the top 10 this week, with rapper Young Jeezy's fourth studio album "TM 103: Hustlerz Ambition" at No. 3, beating out Justin Bieber's "Under the Mistletoe" at No. 4 and Drake's "Take Care" at No. 5.

"TM 103" is Young Jeezy's last album in his "Thug Motivation" trilogy series, which began with 2005's "Let's Go Get It: Thug Motivation 101," and "The Inspiration" in 2006.

Critics received the rapper's fourth album positively, with Los Angeles Times' Jeff Weiss giving it three out of four stars and calling it "almost refreshingly relevant,". Rolling Stone magazine's Jonah Weiner gave the album three and half stars out of five, praising the rapper's charisma, saying "he rhymes with a luxuriously unhurried bravado that's contagious.

LMFAO held onto the top spot on the Digital Songs chart with "Sexy and I Know It" gaining sales from the holiday weekend, while Katy Perry's "One That Got Away" jumped from No. 6 to No. 2, boosted by the release of a B.o.B remix of the single.

Rihanna's "We Found Love" featuring Calvin Harris clocked in at No. 3, Bruno Mars' "Twilight: Breaking Dawn" single "It Will Rain" held at No. 4 and Jay-Z and Kanye West's "Ni**as in Paris" rounded out the top five.

(Reporting by Piya Sinha-Roy; Editing by Jill Serjeant)

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Fred Milano of Dion and the Belmonts dies at 72 (AP)

NEW YORK – Fred Milano, who made rock and roll history on doo-wop hits with Dion and the Belmonts in the 1950s and continued to perform while starting a late-in-life career with the New York City Department of Correction, has died. He was 72.

Milano died Sunday, three weeks after his lung cancer was diagnosed, said Warren Gradus, who joined the Belmonts in 1963. Milano lived in Massapequa, on Long Island, and died in a hospital, Gradus said.

Dion DiMucci, the lead singer who left the Belmonts in 1960, said on his Facebook page Tuesday, "May he rest in peace and rock on in heaven."

Milano and three friends from the Bronx formed the Belmonts in the mid-1950s, borrowing their name from the borough's Belmont Avenue. They became Dion and the Belmonts after DiMucci joined in 1958.

Milano sang tenor on hits like "A Teenager in Love" and "Where or When."

The Belmonts continued to perform and to record with different lineups after DiMucci left for a solo career. Gradus said Milano was performing with the Belmonts at casinos and other venues just weeks ago.

There was strife between DiMucci and Belmonts members, who were not pleased when DiMucci was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame without them in 1989.

In his Facebook posting, DiMucci said Milano "was very savvy with harmonies" and added, "We had our ups and downs through the years but that's how things go in families, even rock-and-roll families."

Milano went back school in middle age and joined the Department of Correction in 2003.

In his position as a legal coordinator at the Rikers Island jail complex, he helped inmates research their cases and taught a legal research class, said Karen Powell, director of law libraries for the department.

Powell said Milano had more energy than colleagues two decades younger and "was a person who really loved life."

"We'd know it was him coming through the door because we'd hear him singing and skipping up the stairs," Powell said.

Milano is survived by his wife, Lynn, two children and 10 grandchildren.

____

Online: http://www.thebelmonts.net

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Chris Cornell channels Woodie Guthrie for "The Keeper"

By Steve Pond

Tue Jan 3, 2012 5:43pm EST

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - On Thursday, members of the Academy's music branch will meet to view clips of the 39 eligible songs in this year's Oscar race, and to score those songs to determine this year's nominees.

This year's Oscar song race is full of refugees or emigres from the worlds of pop and rock music: Elton John, Elvis Costello, Mary J. Blige, will.i.am, OK Go, Sigur Ros' Jonsi, the Zac Brown Band and the National are among those who've contributed songs after establishing careers outside the movies.

Still, none of those are dyed-in-the-wool rockers to rank with Soundgarden's Chris Cornell, whose hard rock band was one of the most successful outfits in the Pacific Northwest's explosion of tough rock 'n' roll (they called it grunge, not that the participants liked that label) in the early '90s.

Cornell's highest-profile movie song to date,"You Know My Name," for the 2006 James Bond film "Casino Royale," was a typical rocker. But his entry in this year's Oscar race, "The Keeper" from "Machine Gun Preacher," is something else entirely: a sparse acoustic ballad inspired, he said, by Woody Guthrie.

But the route to that approach, he told TheWrap in an interview, was a circuitous one. "Because of the nature of the story, musically it could be all over the map," he said of Marc Forster's film, in which Gerard Butler stars as Sam Childers, a former biker who became a preacher and founded an orphanage that rescues orphans in war-torn Sudan.

"I didn't have any visuals to work with, so musically it could be anything," he added. "It could be rock, biker rock, gospel music, hip-hop, Sudanese music..."

Cornell said he initially wrote a song with a more gospel feel, but didn't feel as if its lyrics got to the heart of the story Forster was telling.

"'The Keeper' came from a feeling one day that I was missing it somehow," he said. "I decided that what I needed to do was to do something very sparse, with just an acoustic guitar and singing, and maybe a little tiny bit of percussion, and nothing else to get in the way of what I was trying to say."

The song's lyric perspective, he said, came almost immediately after he hit on that musical approach. "It's difficult to write a song about this man's life or the lives that he touches as an observer, because it's so intense," he said. "I haven't seen what Sam Childers has seen, and I haven't been through what these children or their families have been through.

"So at some point the perspective for me became, imagine that I'm Sam Childers, but Sam Childers is Woody Guthrie, and he's writing a song to these children.

He's telling them that although they may not have been able to count on anything, his intention is that until he drops dead, they can count on him."

After recording a demo for the song, Cornell played it over a gallery of images from Childers's Angels of East Africa website. (The site is currently being updated, and redirects to the Machine Gun Preacher site.)

"It felt like a perfect match," he said. "I never told anybody that I did that -- but in the film the song is laid over photos in the end credits, and some of the exact same photos are in there."

And if the result is not nearly as flashy as a James Bond opening-credits song, Cornell said that he felt a lot more pressure writing it than he did with "You Know My Name."

"In writing a James Bond theme, it was an honor to be asked to do it, and it's a franchise," he said. "But it also begins and ends with fun. To me, this story has so much more weight to it -- socially, politically, spiritually, in every way. That's a lot to weigh on a three-minute song, but I took that seriously."

He also takes film songs in general seriously -- because even though he's now back on tour and in the studio with Soundgarden while at the same time doing solo shows, he is determined to continue writing songs for film.

"I think it's something that is important for me to do," he said. "It's an unpredictable and unique type of collaboration that's very different from any other that a songwriter can ever encounter. I can sit down with other writers or bandmates and write music in other combinations -- but with a film, you're collaborating with the director and the story and the film itself.

"It has its own life, and in a sense its own will. Your music is a character in the play, as opposed to the play, and it needs to co-exist. That's interesting, and it's the only time I can really have that kind of collaboration."

But on the other hand, he admitted, he's not actively looking for new films.

"It finds me more than I find it," he said. "I don't know how many opportunities I would have if I were out there beating the street looking. I'm not immersed in the film industry, so someone else is going to know about it first.

"It usually just sort of shows up, but that works for me."

View the original article here

Aretha Franklin is engaged to longtime friend (AP)

NEW YORK – Aretha Franklin is engaged to longtime friend William "Willie" Wilkerson.

The Grammy-winning singer told The Associated Press in a statement Monday that she and Wilkerson are considering a summer wedding, perhaps in Miami Beach, Fla. The Queen of Soul wants to follow the ceremony with a reception on a private yacht.

The 69-year-old jokes: "No, I'm not pregnant."

Franklin and Wilkerson became engaged over the holidays.

She is considering Vera Wang, Valentino and Donna Karan to design her dress.

Franklin has been married twice before.

___

Mesfin Fekadu covers entertainment for The Associated Press. Follow him on Twitter at http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/ap/ap_en_mu/storytext/us_people_aretha_franklin/44056117/SIG=110buqrft/*http://twitter.com/musicmesfin

View the original article here

Chris Cornell channels Woodie Guthrie for "The Keeper" (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – On Thursday, members of the Academy's music branch will meet to view clips of the 39 eligible songs in this year's Oscar race, and to score those songs to determine this year's nominees.

This year's Oscar song race is full of refugees or emigres from the worlds of pop and rock music: Elton John, Elvis Costello, Mary J. Blige, will.i.am, OK Go, Sigur Ros' Jonsi, the Zac Brown Band and the National are among those who've contributed songs after establishing careers outside the movies.

Still, none of those are dyed-in-the-wool rockers to rank with Soundgarden's Chris Cornell, whose hard rock band was one of the most successful outfits in the Pacific Northwest's explosion of tough rock 'n' roll (they called it grunge, not that the participants liked that label) in the early '90s.

Cornell's highest-profile movie song to date,"You Know My Name," for the 2006 James Bond film "Casino Royale," was a typical rocker. But his entry in this year's Oscar race, "The Keeper" from "Machine Gun Preacher," is something else entirely: a sparse acoustic ballad inspired, he said, by Woody Guthrie.

But the route to that approach, he told TheWrap in an interview, was a circuitous one. "Because of the nature of the story, musically it could be all over the map," he said of Marc Forster's film, in which Gerard Butler stars as Sam Childers, a former biker who became a preacher and founded an orphanage that rescues orphans in war-torn Sudan.

"I didn't have any visuals to work with, so musically it could be anything," he added. "It could be rock, biker rock, gospel music, hip-hop, Sudanese music..."

Cornell said he initially wrote a song with a more gospel feel, but didn't feel as if its lyrics got to the heart of the story Forster was telling.

"'The Keeper' came from a feeling one day that I was missing it somehow," he said. "I decided that what I needed to do was to do something very sparse, with just an acoustic guitar and singing, and maybe a little tiny bit of percussion, and nothing else to get in the way of what I was trying to say."

The song's lyric perspective, he said, came almost immediately after he hit on that musical approach. "It's difficult to write a song about this man's life or the lives that he touches as an observer, because it's so intense," he said. "I haven't seen what Sam Childers has seen, and I haven't been through what these children or their families have been through.

"So at some point the perspective for me became, imagine that I'm Sam Childers, but Sam Childers is Woody Guthrie, and he's writing a song to these children.

He's telling them that although they may not have been able to count on anything, his intention is that until he drops dead, they can count on him."

After recording a demo for the song, Cornell played it over a gallery of images from Childers's Angels of East Africa website. (The site is currently being updated, and redirects to the Machine Gun Preacher site.)

"It felt like a perfect match," he said. "I never told anybody that I did that -- but in the film the song is laid over photos in the end credits, and some of the exact same photos are in there."

And if the result is not nearly as flashy as a James Bond opening-credits song, Cornell said that he felt a lot more pressure writing it than he did with "You Know My Name."

"In writing a James Bond theme, it was an honor to be asked to do it, and it's a franchise," he said. "But it also begins and ends with fun. To me, this story has so much more weight to it -- socially, politically, spiritually, in every way. That's a lot to weigh on a three-minute song, but I took that seriously."

He also takes film songs in general seriously -- because even though he's now back on tour and in the studio with Soundgarden while at the same time doing solo shows, he is determined to continue writing songs for film.

"I think it's something that is important for me to do," he said. "It's an unpredictable and unique type of collaboration that's very different from any other that a songwriter can ever encounter. I can sit down with other writers or bandmates and write music in other combinations -- but with a film, you're collaborating with the director and the story and the film itself.

"It has its own life, and in a sense its own will. Your music is a character in the play, as opposed to the play, and it needs to co-exist. That's interesting, and it's the only time I can really have that kind of collaboration."

But on the other hand, he admitted, he's not actively looking for new films.

"It finds me more than I find it," he said. "I don't know how many opportunities I would have if I were out there beating the street looking. I'm not immersed in the film industry, so someone else is going to know about it first.

"It usually just sort of shows up, but that works for me."

View the original article here

`American Idol' finalist James Durbin marries (AP)

SANTA CRUZ, Calif. – "American Idol" finalist James Durbin has married longtime girlfriend Heidi Lowe in a New Year's Eve ceremony at the edge of a California redwood forest.

The couple says in a statement that the wedding in a Santa Cruz Mountains chapel was a perfect way to kick off 2012.

The Contra Costa Times ( http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/ap/ap_en_mu/storytext/us_people_james_durbin/44061624/SIG=10mae30ol/*http://bit.ly/vOxulV) reports the 85 guests included their 2-year-old son, Hunter, who was the ring bearer.

Other guests included fellow "American Idol" alums Haley Reinhart, Stefano Langone and Casey Abrams.

The "Idol" season 10 finalist turns 23 on Friday. His debut album, "Memories of a Beautiful Disaster," was released in November.

Durbin is from nearby Santa Cruz.

View the original article here

Walk this way, again: Steven Tyler is engaged (AP)

NEW YORK – Steven Tyler is ready to walk this way, again: The 63-year-old singer is engaged.

Tyler's representative confirmed Monday that the Aerosmith frontman is engaged to Erin Brady.

No other details were provided.

Tyler has been married and divorced twice.

He is one of the judges on the hit Fox TV show "American Idol."

View the original article here

Sinead O'Connor: crack cocaine ended 16-day marriage

Singer Sinead O'Connor performs with reggae legend Burning Speart at the 5th Annual Jammy Awards in New York, April 26, 2005.

Credit: Reuters/Shannon Stapleton

By Kurt Orzeck

Thu Dec 29, 2011 4:43pm EST

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Move over, Whitney and Bobby.

Sinead O'Connor is wasting no time elaborating on the reasons why she broke up with her husband after 16 days of marriage. One of them? Crack cocaine.

The Irish songstress previously revealed she and fourth husband Barry Herridge went on a search for marijuana on the night of their wedding in Las Vegas.

It seems the singer's decision to bring her new husband, a drug-abuse counselor, along for a marijuana search in a seedy portion of Las Vegas on the night of their wedding wasn't such a great call.

In fact, the way O'Connor tells it, the newlyweds ended up with a drug somewhat harder than pot.

Elaborating on the "wild ride," she told British tabloid The Sun: "We ended up in a cab in some place that was quite dangerous. I wasn't scared -- but a drugs counselor. What was I thinking?

"Then I was handed a load of crack," she added. "Barry was very frightened -- that kind of messed everything up a bit, really."

Crack aside, it doesn't sound like the marriage was meant to last anyway.

"It felt like I was living in a coffin," she also told The Sun. "It was going to be a coffin for both of us, and I saw him crushed. The whole reason I ended it was out of respect and love for the man."

It seems that the experience has crushed O'Connor too -- or damaged her libido, at least. The singer -- who famously went hunting for "a very sweet sex-starved man" earlier this year -- said she doesn't plan to date anyone for awhile.

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Senegal's N'Dour drops music for election "buzz"

Singer Youssou N'Dour performs at a concert called ''Africa Celebrates Democracy'' that pays tribute to Tunisian youth and the revolution that inspired the Arab Spring, in Tunis November 11, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/Anis Mili

By Mark John and Diadie Ba

DAKAR | Tue Jan 3, 2012 5:52pm EST

DAKAR (Reuters) - Senegal's Youssou N'Dour has taken his music to audiences around the world but says his decision to stop singing and run for president was prompted by a nagging sound straight from the streets of his West African nation.

"For over 15 years I have heard this buzz going about for me," N'Dour said at his headquarters in a chic suburb of the capital Dakar, adorned with awards including a gold-plated Grammy for his 2004 album "Egypt."

"An overwhelming majority of the Senegalese people have asked Youssou N'Dour to run as president ... I said 'yes' and I agreed to be a candidate," he said in an interview with Reuters and the African news agency APA.

After months of speculation, N'Dour, 52, announced his plan to run in a February 26 election late Monday. But whether the co-writer of the 1994 hit single "7 Seconds" has time to translate his domestic popularity into votes is far from certain.

A successful businessman with his own newspaper, television and radio channel, N'Dour already leads a grassroots citizen movement and has long been a conduit for criticism of incumbent President Abdoulaye Wade, who wants to extend his 11-year rule.

The 85-year-old Wade is a skilled political operator with decades of experience and his hands firmly on the machinery of power, while N'Dour must join a crowded pack of over a dozen presidential rivals.

In a country which treasures intellectuals and whose first post-independence president was the poet and linguist Leopold Sedar Senghor, N'Dour's relative lack of formal education is another potential handicap he knows he must overcome.

"For 50 years the people have seen Senegal run by what I would call traditional politicians and they have had enough," he said of a country where formal jobs are scarce and most of whose 12 million population are living on a few dollars a day.

"They want something new and I am the model," said N'Dour, peering through austere, thick-rimmed spectacles.

The February vote will be watched throughout Africa after a string of marred elections, from the deadly post-poll dispute that blew up in Ivory Coast just over a year ago to Democratic Republic of Congo's flawed attempt at democracy last November.

Wade's decision to run for a third term is in itself controversial, with opponents arguing it breaks rules limiting presidential terms to two mandates. Wade says a first term starting in 2000 pre-dated those rules and so does not count.

Government proposals last year to change election rules prompted opposition allegations it was trying to rig the election and were hastily dropped after they led to some of the worst street violence Senegal has seen.

Some fear more unrest if Wade is deemed eligible to stand again in a legal ruling due at the end of the month, or if the election itself is not seen as credible.

N'Dour, who like Wade predicts an easy victory for himself, said he rejected violence but warned the Senegalese were becoming impatient for change.

"The last thing I want to do is set fire to this country I love so much ... But do you think the people will accept a rigged election? No."

(Writing by Mark John; Editing by Matthew Jones)

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Jennifer Hudson credits dead brother for comeback

By Tim Kenneally

Fri Dec 30, 2011 5:31pm EST

Jennifer Hudson surprised many when, just months after a family tragedy that saw her mother, brother and nephew murdered, she returned to the stage to sing the Star-Spangled Banner at Super Bowl XLIII.

But as the "Dreamgirls" star and former "American Idol" favorite sees it, she didn't have a choice -- her murdered brother wouldn't have it any other way.

Hudson appears on the January 8 edition of NBC's "Dateline" to discuss the tragedy, among other topics, and tells the show's Lester Holt that she heard her brother Jason's voice, which urged her to undertake the comeback performance.

"I felt as though I had to," Hudson tells Holt. "ust the same as I hear my mother's voice in my head, I can hear my brother's voice in my head. And he-- they, like, everybody, it's like, is she ever gonna sing again? Is she gonna-- you know? And what was I gonna say to that-- I could hear him, like, 'Jennifer--' he would always say, 'Knock it off, Jenny,' if I was cryin' about somethin' or if I was upset, discouraged, mad, 'Jenny, knock it off.' That's what I hear in my head. And it's like, 'Okay, well, what they want me to do? I can either just sit here and mope around, or do what I know that would make them proud.' And that's what I did."

During the interview, Hudson also reveals how she would have been on the scene at the time of the murders were it not for her fiance, professional wrestler David Otunga.

"I remember it like yesterday," Hudson recalls. "I was literally pickin' up my bags to walk out the door to go to my mother's house. And he called me, like, 'Can you come out here instead of going, you know?' And I was like, 'Okay, sure.' And that one decision, that one thing, I wouldn't be sittin' here."

Hudson's mother, Darnell Donerson, along with her brother Jason, were found shot to death in Donerson's Chicago home on October 24, 2008; Donerson was 57, and Jason 29. After a search, Hudson's 7-year-old nephew, Julian King, was found in a parked car, after dying of what the medical examiner's office determined to be multiple gunshot wounds. William Balfour, the estranged husband of Hudson's sister Julia, pleaded not guilty to the murders and awaits trial in February.

View the original article here

How Gaga and Bieber could win the White House

Singer Lady Gaga and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg kiss each other during celebrations at the New Year Eve ball in Times Square in New York, January 1, 2012.

Credit: Reuters/Eduardo Munoz

By Lucas Shaw

Tue Jan 3, 2012 1:42pm EST

NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) - With Twitter becoming indispensable for news and politics, the Washington Post has climbed aboard the speeding train, launching a new metric for tracking presidential candidates -- @MentionMachine.

@MentionMachine monitors Twitter and other media outlets for the number of times a candidate is mentioned, thus tracking his or her position in the national conversation. In other words, forget about the antiquated metrics like polling or endorsements and go straight to the source.

And if Twitter endorses a Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber ticket? So be it.

In introducing the new app, the Post showcases all the ways it can be used to evaluate how engaged readers are with certain candidates.

"Growth in number of legitimate followers or a high recurrence of retweets are both indicative of growing grass-roots support," the Post notes. "A spike in the number of times a candidate is mentioned on Twitter might signal an event that could alter a campaign."

How can the reader see whether a candidates is experiencing a surge of support? There's a toolbar on its campaign coverage page to show "scores" for each candidate, with each score representing the number of times that candidate was mentioned on Twitter in the past week.

One can also go in depth on a specific candidate, looking at the progression of mentions over different time periods. And what good would it be without the ability to compare candidates?

This is not the first time the Post has put some of its eggs in the social media basket. It launched the "Social Reader" for the revamped Facebook, enabling users to read their post stories from their profile rather than having to hop over to the Post's site.

With its parent company coming off a ghastly fiscal year and an "uneasy" newsroom, these forward-looking measures have to help, right?

At the very least, they could signal progress. With eight out of the top 10 most followed on Twitter being women, the era of a female president may be just around the corner.

View the original article here

The top 10 songs and albums on the iTunes Store (AP)

iTunes' Official Music Charts for the week ending Jan. 2, 2012:

Top Songs:

1. "Sexy and I Know It," LMFAO

2. "We Found Love (feat. Calvin Harris)," Rihanna

3. "It Will Rain", Bruno Mars

4. "Set Fire to the Rain", ADELE

5. "Good Feeling", Flo Rida

6. "The One That Got Away", Katy Perry

7. "Ni(asterisk)(asterisk)as in Paris", Kanye West, JAY Z

8. "Party Rock Anthem (feat. Lauren Bennett & GoonRock)", LMFAO

9. "Someone Like You", ADELE

10. "Young, Wild & Free (feat. Bruno Mars)", Wiz Khalifa,Snoop Dogg

___

Top Albums:

1. "21", ADELE

2. "Own the Night", Lady Antebellum

3. "Ceremonials", Florence + The Machine

4. "Take Care", Drake

5. "Mylo Xyloto", Coldplay

6. "Sorry for Party Rocking", LMFAO

7. "Bangarang", Skrillex

8. "19", ADELE

9. "El Camino", The Black Keys

10. "Torches", Foster the People

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(copyright) 2011 Apple, Inc.

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Aretha Franklin joins list of stars getting engaged (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – "Queen of Soul" singer Aretha Franklin has become the latest celebrity to announce an engagement over the holidays, joining a list including "Aerosmith" frontman Steven Tyler and basketball superstar LeBron James.

Franklin, 69, and her friend William 'Willie' Wilkerson hope to marry later this year on a sandy Miami beach with a private party to celebrate afterward aboard a yacht, a spokeswoman for Franklin confirmed on Monday.

"We're looking at June or July for our date, and no I'm not pregnant, LOL!," Franklin said in a statement.

Franklin, 69, was sidelined by a mysterious ailment at about this time last year, but overcame her health scare in January and shed 85 pounds on the road to better health. The legendary singer of 1960s hits like "Chain of Fools" and "Baby I Love You" sang at her own 69th birthday party in March.

Tyler, 63, rocked longtime girlfriend Erin Brady, 38, with a proposal, too, his representative confirmed to celebrity media, but no details were given.

In recent days ahead of New Year's Eve, the two have been photographed in Hawaii with Brady showing off a new diamond engagement ring wrapped around her finger. Tyler and Brady have been together since 2006. It will be his third marriage.

James and his longtime girlfriend Savannah Brinson also became engaged over the New Year holiday weekend.

(Reporting by Bob Tourtellotte; Editing by Greg McCune)

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Palestinians block show by Israeli-Arab singer (AP)

JERUSALEM – A popular Israeli-Arab singer had to cancel a show on New Year's Eve in the West Bank because of threats from Palestinian activists opposed to coexistence with Israel, the performer and police said.

It was the latest in a string of cancellations after threats and other pressure tactics by Palestinians groups promoting a boycott of virtually anything connected with Israel. The boycott movement says its tactics are a nonviolent way to protest Israeli policies. Israeli officials denounce the efforts as "delegitimization" of Israel's right to exist.

Sharif, who uses only one name, said he was expecting to perform before thousands of Palestinian fans at a New Year's Eve concert in Ramallah, the west Bank administrative capital, but he was told the day before that his concert was being canceled because of a threat to his life.

"I'm an artist and I want to sing before all audiences," said Sharif, a member of Israel's Arab Druse minority who sees himself as a bridge between the two sides. "I'm a man of peace, not politics. I just want to bring my music to my fans."

Palestinian activists campaigned against his concert because he has performed before Israeli soldiers.

Palestinian police said the decision to cancel the show was based purely on security concerns. They said once they became aware of the opposition, which was organized in a Facebook campaign, they ordered the concert canceled.

"When we see people bracing to bar a controversial party like this, we interfere to prevent any tension or violence," said Adnan Damari, a police spokesman.

Sharif said he separates his performances from politics, noting he has played in the West Bank and Gaza before and dreams of performing in Syria and Lebanon.

"I'm surprised that this was done against me — I belong to both sides," said Sharif, 32, who performed earlier last year in the West Bank. "I've got to get back there and I hope it happens soon." The Druse sect is part of the larger Israeli-Arab minority.

It wasn't the only controversy in Ramallah on New Year's Eve.

Palestinian singer Basel Zayed was prevented from completing his concert after he performed a song that mocked the Palestinian leadership. Under pressure from Palestinian police, organizers shut down the event.

The New Year's incidents follow two other events in which Israeli-Palestinian dialogue meetings were thwarted because of Palestinian pressure. The activists behind the move oppose any "normalization" between Palestinians and Israelis as long as peace talks between the sides are deadlocked. Negotiators sat down in Jordan Tuesday for their first meeting in 15 months.

"The movement in Jerusalem will always demonstrate against any joint meeting as long as the peace process is stalling," said Hatem Abdel Qader, an adviser to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Jerusalem affairs.

Palestinian government spokesman Ghassan Khatib said the meetings were local initiatives — his government was not involved and did not oppose them. Even so, among the Palestinians who objected to the Israeli-Palestinian meeting were senior members of Abbas' Fatah movement.

Palestinian activists have long called for boycotts of Israel, hoping such pressure will achieve what years of negotiations and violent uprisings have not: end Israel's occupation of the West Bank and east Jerusalem and bring about creation of a Palestinian state.

In recent years, the Palestinians have scored several small victories, persuading some European pension funds to divest themselves of firms involved in West Bank settlement construction, for example. Several international artists, including Elvis Costello and the Pixies, have canceled performances in Israel to protest Israeli policies.

Another band, Boney M, was ordered by Palestinian concert organizers not to sing its hit "Rivers of Babylon," which quotes a biblical passage referring to the Jewish people's yearning to return to the biblical land of Israel.

Israel says the economic impact of the boycott campaign has been negligible and accused the activists of promoting hatred against the Jewish state.

Yossi Kuperwasser, the director general of Israel's Strategic Affairs Ministry, said "anything happening to promote peace," such as musical performances or academic conferences, "should be accepted by the Palestinians." Instead, he said the cancellation of such events reflects a campaign by the Palestinians to delegitimize Israel.

"They don't accept Israel as a Jewish state as a fact, let alone its right to exist," said Kuperwasser, whose office monitors what it says is incessant incitement against Israel in Palestinian society.

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Mohammed Daraghmeh contributed to this report from Ramallah, West Bank.

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Sinead O'Connor: crack cocaine ended 16-day marriage (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Move over, Whitney and Bobby.

Sinead O'Connor is wasting no time elaborating on the reasons why she broke up with her husband after 16 days of marriage. One of them? Crack cocaine.

The Irish songstress previously revealed she and fourth husband Barry Herridge went on a search for marijuana on the night of their wedding in Las Vegas.

It seems the singer's decision to bring her new husband, a drug-abuse counselor, along for a marijuana search in a seedy portion of Las Vegas on the night of their wedding wasn't such a great call.

In fact, the way O'Connor tells it, the newlyweds ended up with a drug somewhat harder than pot.

Elaborating on the "wild ride," she told British tabloid The Sun: "We ended up in a cab in some place that was quite dangerous. I wasn't scared -- but a drugs counselor. What was I thinking?

"Then I was handed a load of crack," she added. "Barry was very frightened -- that kind of messed everything up a bit, really."

Crack aside, it doesn't sound like the marriage was meant to last anyway.

"It felt like I was living in a coffin," she also told The Sun. "It was going to be a coffin for both of us, and I saw him crushed. The whole reason I ended it was out of respect and love for the man."

It seems that the experience has crushed O'Connor too -- or damaged her libido, at least. The singer -- who famously went hunting for "a very sweet sex-starved man" earlier this year -- said she doesn't plan to date anyone for awhile.

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Wendi Deng Twitter account found to be a fake (AP)

LONDON – A Twitter account purported to be linked to the wife of media mogul Rupert Murdoch has turned out to be bogus.

Twitter officials say they "mistakenly verified" the Wendi_Deng account as genuine for a short time. Twitter spokeswoman Rachel Bremer said Tuesday the company apologizes for the confusion.

The person who opened the Wendi_Deng account tweeted Tuesday that it had been a hoax.

News International spokeswoman Daisy Dunlop said while the Wendi_Deng account was fake, the Twitter account opened over the New Year's weekend by News Corp. chief Rupert Murdoch was genuine.

The Associated Press and other news organizations including the Guardian and the Telegraph newspapers quoted the Wendi_Deng account in earlier stories.

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NYC mayor: Girlfriend's kiss better than Gaga's (AP)

NEW YORK – New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg wants the world to know that while he might have shared a New Year's kiss with Lady Gaga it was nothing compared with the one he got later from his longtime girlfriend.

The 69-year-old politician and the youthful pop star locked lips shortly after leading a Times Square crowd in a final-minute countdown to midnight. They made quite a pair: He was in an old-fashioned American-flag sweater; she had her eyes hidden behind a sparkly mask.

When asked about the kiss Tuesday, Bloomberg said he'd "be remiss" if he didn't say "the best kiss of the night came after that," from girlfriend Diana Taylor.

Bloomberg also called Gaga "a young lady," noting she's about the same age as his daughter Georgina, who's in her late 20s.

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Jennifer Hudson credits dead brother for comeback (Reuters)

Jennifer Hudson surprised many when, just months after a family tragedy that saw her mother, brother and nephew murdered, she returned to the stage to sing the Star-Spangled Banner at Super Bowl XLIII.

But as the "Dreamgirls" star and former "American Idol" favorite sees it, she didn't have a choice -- her murdered brother wouldn't have it any other way.

Hudson appears on the January 8 edition of NBC's "Dateline" to discuss the tragedy, among other topics, and tells the show's Lester Holt that she heard her brother Jason's voice, which urged her to undertake the comeback performance.

"I felt as though I had to," Hudson tells Holt. "ust the same as I hear my mother's voice in my head, I can hear my brother's voice in my head. And he-- they, like, everybody, it's like, is she ever gonna sing again? Is she gonna-- you know? And what was I gonna say to that-- I could hear him, like, 'Jennifer--' he would always say, 'Knock it off, Jenny,' if I was cryin' about somethin' or if I was upset, discouraged, mad, 'Jenny, knock it off.' That's what I hear in my head. And it's like, 'Okay, well, what they want me to do? I can either just sit here and mope around, or do what I know that would make them proud.' And that's what I did."

During the interview, Hudson also reveals how she would have been on the scene at the time of the murders were it not for her fiance, professional wrestler David Otunga.

"I remember it like yesterday," Hudson recalls. "I was literally pickin' up my bags to walk out the door to go to my mother's house. And he called me, like, 'Can you come out here instead of going, you know?' And I was like, 'Okay, sure.' And that one decision, that one thing, I wouldn't be sittin' here."

Hudson's mother, Darnell Donerson, along with her brother Jason, were found shot to death in Donerson's Chicago home on October 24, 2008; Donerson was 57, and Jason 29. After a search, Hudson's 7-year-old nephew, Julian King, was found in a parked car, after dying of what the medical examiner's office determined to be multiple gunshot wounds. William Balfour, the estranged husband of Hudson's sister Julia, pleaded not guilty to the murders and awaits trial in February.

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Singer Etta James breathing on her own again

Jazz singer and songwriter Etta James arrives as a guest at the premiere of the film ''Cadillac Records'' in Hollywood, California, in this November 24, 2008 file photograph.

Credit: Reuters/Fred Prouser/Files

LOS ANGELES | Fri Dec 30, 2011 7:42pm EST

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Soul singer Etta James, who is terminally ill with leukemia, has been taken off a respirator and is breathing on her own again, her friend and manager said on Friday.

Lupe De Leon said the "At Last" singer, 73, is soon expected to leave the intensive care unit of a hospital near her home in Riverside, east of Los Angeles.

"The hospital is preparing Etta for release from ICU to a step down unit. She is stable and breathing on her own. Her blood pressure is normal," De Leon said.

James was admitted to the hospital last week because she was struggling to breathe. She has been in failing health for several years and suffers from leukemia, kidney disease and dementia but had previously been cared for at her Southern California home.

Her live-in doctor said earlier in December that James was considered terminally ill, and that she communicates mostly with nods and simple words. The three-time Grammy Award singer earlier battled obesity and was addicted to heroin for many years.

James was a key figure in the early days of R&B music with hit songs like "The Wallflower" and "Good Rockin' Daddy". But it was her 1961 recording of the ballad "At Last" that put her on the map.

(Reporting by Jill Serjeant; Editing by Piya Sinha-Roy)

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Aretha Franklin joins list of stars getting engaged

Singer Aretha Franklin arrives at the Candie's Foundation 10th anniversary Event to Prevent benefit New York May 3, 2011. The aim of the organization is to prevent teenage pregnancy.

Credit: Reuters/Eric Thayer

LOS ANGELES | Tue Jan 3, 2012 5:20pm EST

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - "Queen of Soul" singer Aretha Franklin has become the latest celebrity to announce an engagement over the holidays, joining a list including "Aerosmith" frontman Steven Tyler and basketball superstar LeBron James.

Franklin, 69, and her friend William 'Willie' Wilkerson hope to marry later this year on a sandy Miami beach with a private party to celebrate afterward aboard a yacht, a spokeswoman for Franklin confirmed on Monday.

"We're looking at June or July for our date, and no I'm not pregnant, LOL!," Franklin said in a statement.

Franklin, 69, was sidelined by a mysterious ailment at about this time last year, but overcame her health scare in January and shed 85 pounds on the road to better health. The legendary singer of 1960s hits like "Chain of Fools" and "Baby I Love You" sang at her own 69th birthday party in March.

Tyler, 63, rocked longtime girlfriend Erin Brady, 38, with a proposal, too, his representative confirmed to celebrity media, but no details were given.

In recent days ahead of New Year's Eve, the two have been photographed in Hawaii with Brady showing off a new diamond engagement ring wrapped around her finger. Tyler and Brady have been together since 2006. It will be his third marriage.

James and his longtime girlfriend Savannah Brinson also became engaged over the New Year holiday weekend.

(Reporting by Bob Tourtellotte; Editing by Greg McCune)

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Michael Buble defeats Young Jeezy's "Hustlerz Ambition" (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Michael Buble continued his "Christmas" reign at the top of the Billboard 200 album chart on Wednesday for the fifth consecutive week, keeping Adele and rapper Young Jeezy from the No. 1 position.

Buble's "Christmas" sold 467,000 copies in the run-up to the holiday weekend according to Nielsen SoundScan figures, edging out Adele's "21," which stayed put at No. 2.

The Canadian jazz singer's holiday album crossed 2.43 million sales, beaten only by Adele, who crossed 5.68 million sales of her album in the U.S. last week.

Only one new album entered the top 10 this week, with rapper Young Jeezy's fourth studio album "TM 103: Hustlerz Ambition" at No. 3, beating out Justin Bieber's "Under the Mistletoe" at No. 4 and Drake's "Take Care" at No. 5.

"TM 103" is Young Jeezy's last album in his "Thug Motivation" trilogy series, which began with 2005's "Let's Go Get It: Thug Motivation 101," and "The Inspiration" in 2006.

Critics received the rapper's fourth album positively, with Los Angeles Times' Jeff Weiss giving it three out of four stars and calling it "almost refreshingly relevant,". Rolling Stone magazine's Jonah Weiner gave the album three and half stars out of five, praising the rapper's charisma, saying "he rhymes with a luxuriously unhurried bravado that's contagious.

LMFAO held onto the top spot on the Digital Songs chart with "Sexy and I Know It" gaining sales from the holiday weekend, while Katy Perry's "One That Got Away" jumped from No. 6 to No. 2, boosted by the release of a B.o.B remix of the single.

Rihanna's "We Found Love" featuring Calvin Harris clocked in at No. 3, Bruno Mars' "Twilight: Breaking Dawn" single "It Will Rain" held at No. 4 and Jay-Z and Kanye West's "Ni**as in Paris" rounded out the top five.

(Reporting by Piya Sinha-Roy; Editing by Jill Serjeant)

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U2 has the edge: Band had 2011's highest-grossing tour

Bono (L) and Adam Clayton of Irish band U2 perform during their first concert at Azteca stadium in Mexico City May 11, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/Henry Romero

By Kurt Orzeck

Thu Dec 29, 2011 2:27pm EST

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - U2 is No. 1 when it comes to touring. The band had the highest-grossing tour both in North America and worldwide in 2011.

Bono, the Edge and company grossed $156 million in North America on the strength of 1.7 million tickets sold, according to Pollstar, which covers the concert industry. They grossed $231.9 million worldwide off 2.39 million tickets.

Rounding out the top five highest-grossing touring acts in North America were Taylor Swift ($97.7 million), Kenny Chesney ($84.6 million), Lady Gaga ($63.7 million) and Bon Jovi ($57.1 million).

As for the worldwide top five, U2 were followed by the reunited Take That ($224 million), Bon Jovi ($148.8 million), Swift ($104.2 million) and Roger Waters ($103.6 million). Tickets on U2's 360 Degrees tour sold for an average of $97.15 worldwide and $91.67 in North America.

The year's top 25 biggest tours grossed a combined $2.1 billion worldwide, which is roughly the same as in 2010. In North America, there was a 4 percent dip among the top 25, which grossed $1.19 billion.

Still, the entire concert industry had a 15 percent increase in ticket sales compared with 2010, despite 20 percent fewer reported shows, according to Billboard.

U2's success in 2011 was bolstered by the rescheduling of postponed concert dates from 2010 due to a back injury frontman Bono suffered that year.

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Bonnie Raitt preps 1st album in 7 years for April (AP)

By CHRIS TALBOTT, AP Entertainment Writer Chris Talbott, Ap Entertainment Writer – Tue Jan 3, 1:24 pm ET

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Bonnie Raitt is releasing a new album in 2012, her first in seven years.

"Slipstream," out April 10, follows a long break from studio work for the Grammy-winning Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member. She lost her parents, her brother and her best friend.

"I hadn't stopped moving in a very long time so I really wanted to take a total break and not concentrate on making a new record or what I was going to do next," Raitt said. "So that was really valuable because I waited until I was really ready to come back."

"Slipstream" is the 62-year-old slide guitarist's first album since 2005's "Souls Alike" and will be the first release on her own record label, Redwing Records. The 12-track album will feature four songs recorded with producer Joe Henry and his musicians, which she describes as experimental. The remainder of the album is self-produced with her touring band.

She says she's thrilled with the resulting eclectic mix of blues, rock and soul that even includes a dash of reggae and Celtic sounds. She covers Bob Dylan's "Million Miles" and "Standing in the Doorway," and Loudon Wainwright III's "You Can't Fail Me Now" as well.

"It's just a new batch of great songs," Raitt said.

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Online:

http://www.bonnieraitt.com

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Follow AP Entertainment Writer Chris Talbott at http://www.twitter.com/Chris_Talbott.

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