A New Sound of Music

“It’s the first day of camera blocking for a rehearsal of NBC’s live broadcast of the original stage version of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music,” USA reports.

When NBC shows “The Sound of Music Live!,” it will be the first time in more than 50 years that a broadcast network has mounted a full musical for live TV. Good thing it has theater veteran Stephen Moyer and country star Carrie Underwood in the cast.–Seattle Times website says.

Live acting. Live singing. One night only. No do-overs.

“No one does this on television,” says Neil Meron, who is producing the one-of-a-kind event with his longtime showbiz partner Craig Zadan. “There’s no safety net.”– The New York Daily News says.

Here is a preview of the new Sound of Music:

And the old:

The Music of Thanksgiving

Previous to the voyage of the Pilgrims to America, the music of England was limited to mostly classical.

“It’s difficult to tell from the cover of this disc what you’re getting inside, for it is neither a disc entirely by the English Cornett and Sackbut Ensemble nor a survey of music in London between 1580 and 1620. Actually, it’s somewhere in between, and that makes it noteworthy. It’s a sampling of music from the age of Elizabeth and James, tilted toward the music that might have been played by “waits,” or civic musicians,” All Music reports.

During that same time, other places of the world, like the Netherlands, this was the popular music:

But there was a huge shift to spirituality and hymns once the voyage was made to America.

1620 The Pilgrims (or Separatists) land in Provincetown and establish a colony in Plymouth, Massachusetts. The psam book they sing from is The Book of Psalms by Henry Ainsworth, 1612. One of the best known psalm tunes sung is Old 100th sung to Psalm 100 (“Shout to Jehovah all the earth).

1640 The first edition of The Whole Booke of Psalmes Faitfully TRANSLATED into ENGLISH Metre (also known as The Bay Psalm Book) was printed in Cambridge, Massachusetts without music. This was the third publication in British Colonial America, American Music Preservation says.

If you fast forward to today, during the Macy’s day parade, you can see how far we’ve come.

Happy Thanksgiving, now go get eat till you’re in a turkey coma.

 

 

Hit me baby one more time

The wait for Britney Spears‘ new album is over, presuming you were waiting: Britney Jean is streaming on iTunes a week before the official December 3rd release date. The album, Spears’ eighth, includes 10 tracks on the standard edition, with an additional three songs and a remix on the deluxe edition, Rolling Stone reports.

The 31-year-old “Work B**ch” singer unveiled her eighth studio record title as “Britney Jean” during a London radio interview Tuesday.

“It’s a personal album, and all my family, they always called me Britney Jean,” Spears, whose middle name is Jean, explained to 95-106 Capital FM.

Here is a preview of the album:

However, Spears might never be as successful as in 1999, when the pop roster and her fellow former Mouseketeers: Christina Aguilera and ‘N Sync’s Justin Timberlake, Pitchfork critiques.

Macklemore and Ryan Lewis promote “Civil Rap”

Courtesy of sites.psu.edu

Macklemore and Ryan Lewis accepted the favorite rap/hip-hop album award via live satellite from Miami. Upon receiving the honor, they got serious, talking about racial profiling and citing the Trayvon Martin case, CBS reports.

Ben Haggerty said in his acceptance speech via satellite, “Due to the fact that we are in Florida tonight accepting this award I want to acknowledge Trayvon Martin and the hundreds and hundreds of kids each year that are dying due to racial profiling and the violence that follows it. This is really happening. These are our friends, our neighbors, our peers and our fans, and it’s time that we look out for the youth and fight against racism and the laws that protect it,” Hollywood reporter quotes.

The Associated Press wrote, “Rather than thanking a list of friends and colleagues, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis used their American Music Awards acceptance speech to send a message of tolerance on Sunday night.

Here is an example of how the group works to represent those seeking “equal representation.”

Of musicians Madonna makes the most mooolah

From: http://www.themagazinnews.com

Rolling Stone says, Madonna is the highest-paid musician in the world for 2013, according to a new ranking in Forbes, besting runner-up Lady Gaga by $45 million. Madonna has made an estimated $125 million over the past year, the majority of which came at the end of her MDNA tour, which grossed $305 million. Her revenue streams also included concert merchandise, her Material Girl clothing line and her Truth or Dare fragrance.

“Bon Jovi lands in third place with a close $79 million. “All in all, the group earned more than Kanye West, Skrillex and Carrie Underwood,” Forbes noted, in what might make little sense to anyone born after 1990. Meanwhile Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift, Elton John, Beyonce and more make respectable cameos on Forbes’ Highest Paid Musicians 2013 list,” The Huffington Post reports.

Just 50 years ago, the musical Bye Bye Birdie, The Beatles, Bob Dylan, and Doris Day were making their marks upon the world, and generating some of the greatest income of the 1960’s according to Wikipedia.

The link below shows the evolution of music, but who’s to say what is next.

Cancer Can’t Take a Joke

Good read.

Guitarist Steve Vai to play in Tulsa, Oklahoma tonight

The Story of Light Tour brings Vai to Cain’s Ballroom at 7 p.m. tonight.

A majority of Vai’s music sounds like a mix of the Jeopardy theme song and would be close to Cartoon Networks “Metalocalypse” if it wasn’t so damn peppy. Listen to at:

“After listening to Jimmy Page‘s solo on Led Zeppelin‘s Heartbreaker, Vai began playing guitar in 1973, at the age of 13. In 1974, he took guitar lessons from guitarist Joe Satriani and played in local bands, one of which was called “The Steve Vais” an exclusive interview reports.”

In 1989, Vai joined Whitesnake, replacing Vivian Campbell. When Adrian Vandenberg injured his wrist shortly before recording was to begin for the album Slip of the Tongue, Vai played all the guitar parts. Vai played on the Alice Cooper album Hey Stoopid, along with Joe Satriani on the song “Feed my Frankenstein.” In 2010, Vai released several “VaiTunes” singles of tracks that were previously recorded and later finished. They are available on Vai.com, iTunes and Amazon.com. On September 14, 2010, Steve released “Where The Wild Things Are” as double vinyl through his label Favored Nations and made a guest appearance with Rickey Minor and The Tonight Show Band on NBC, Wikipedia says.

Tickets are $25-40 bucks depending on access restrictions and can be bought at Tickectfly.com

Arcade Fire To Tour Soon

Courtesy of the Guardian

       On the heels of the chart-topping debut of its Reflektor album, Arcade Fire today unveiled plans for its 2014 Reflektor Tour, launching March 6 in Louisville.

     The tour, produced by Live Nation, will take the Canadian indie band to 28 cities in North America, including Philadelphia, Houston, Atlanta, Denver, Nashville, Seattle, Boston and Chicago. Dates are confirmed through Aug. 30 in Montreal, and tickets go on sale Nov. 22. More stops will be added, USA Today writes.

     It will be the bands first big push to have their music in huge arenas, Rollingstone.com says.

      To buy tickets, or see album prices of Arcade Fire’s new album on the bands homepage, Click here.

Lost Grateful Dead Tape Found

 

For the first time in 15 years a Grateful Dead“lost” tape has shown up. The first time this happened was in 2005, when singer Donna Godchaux, who left the band in 1979, returned a sizable box of reels that had belonged to her late husband, Dead keyboardist Keith Godchaux. Similar batches came from two different crewmembers years later, Rolling Stone says.
Lemieux and the Dave behind “Dave’s Picks 6,” have found tapes before and turned them into three-CD’s.  The tapes were missing for more than 40 years and rose to great success, marinij.com says.

Every time a tape surfaces, the whole world voices in an uproar of excitement, The Brain Times reports.

Grateful Dead fans who think they’ve heard it all are in for a treat. On November 29th, Rhino will issue 7,500 vinyl copies of a “lost show” recently discovered. The acoustic show took place at the Family Dog at the Great Highway in San Francisco on April 18th, 1970 and was originally billed as “Mickey Hart and His Heartbeats and Bobby Ace and His Cards from the Bottom of the Deck.” A CD version will be available at Dead.net on the same day, with plans for a digital version in the future, Rollingstone reports.
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WordPressers in the Press

Cute.

WordPress.com News

Last week, Ben offered a snapshot of another great month on WordPress.com. Our bloggers continue to bask in the spotlight, with viral hits and cross-platform success. Here’s a glimpse at what your fellow WordPressers are doing on the web.

Parenting blogger hits the New York Times 

Parenting blogger and writer Kristen Hansen Brakeman is busy these days. We’re happy to see one of her pieces (“When Do ‘Family Rules’ Change For Teenagers?”) on Motherlode, the parenting blog of the New York Times.

She was also named a finalist in Blogger Idol, a contest where bloggers respond to writing prompts and are eliminated weekly. One of the posts for the contest, “Don’t Hate Me Because I Can’t Hear You,” made it to the Huffington Post.

Awards and mentions

Oliver Booth and the Evil Socialite, the book by The Rich Life blogger David Desmond, was selected as…

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