New home for this blog, VOAMusic

Hello and warm greetings to those of you select beings who have been reading/accessing/browsing on this BlogSite over the past months. Tonight/this morning it was astonishing---as well as rewarding--to find a comparatively large number of hits on a site that hasn't until now been updated since March after a period of relatively low access by viewsers.

In the interests of efficiency, this blogsite will in the near future be merged with www.VOAWorldMusic.com, or alternatively, with VOAWorldMusic.blogspot.com. For those of you on Facebook, there is a related but in other ways soon to become very different site on the Facebook VOAWM unique page.

This change has been made to facilitate a one-stop Web option for surveying and savoring the rich range of work done by many VOA journalists on musical topics, as well as for (at the same time) providing access to your humble VOAWM's host's multiformat musings on musical matters.

And last of all: Please, please do post your comments either on www.VOAWorldMusic.com and/or the Facebook VOAWM unique page: The energizing lifeblood of operations such as this is that old key buzz word, interactivity.

Keep searching/reading/browsing at your convenience the above sites, in your quest for musical treasures and anomalies, and we will appreciate your valuable comments and suggestions, as well as sharing of new musical joys and discoveries. And and of course rants as you are so moved. (what would the Internet be without controversy?)

Gratefully,

Brian Q. Silver, your committed host.

Music news notes from VOA's Mary Morningstar

Click here to more details on the following musical updates:

One of the stranger news stories developing around the time of the Grammy Awards last month was the report that rhythm and blues star Chris Brown had assaulted his girlfriend, singer Rihanna, the day before the two were scheduled to perform at the Grammy Awards ceremony. Recent news has surfaced that the two have reconciled and are spending time together.

The supergroup U2 will release a new album this week, and will perform for five consecutive nights on the late-night David Letterman show.

Steven Page, the lead singer for Barenaked Ladies, has left the band in order to pursue a solo career.

For the first time in nine years (since Carlos Santana's "Supernatural" album), country singer Taylor Swift's latest CD, "Fearless", has spent its 10th non-consecutive week in the Number One position on the Billboard 200 chart for the week ending March 7.

A new band, Tinted Windows, has been formed, including keyboardist Taylor Hanson.

Also see:

Selected new album releases as of March 3;

Awards presentations and winners; and

Who is going on tour (Fleetwood Mac, Elton John and Billy Joel, and Britney Spears).

The Oscar's musical awards go to India

The usual excitement around this year's Academy Awards included a groundswell of interest in the film "Slumdog Millionnaire" after the film, shot in Mumbai, India, received a total of ten nominations--second only to the thirteen nominations for "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button." As it turned out, the latter film received only three Oscars, while "Slumdog" emerged as a winner in eight fields, including not only Best Picture and Best Director, but in the musical categories--thanks to the prodigious talents of A. R. Rehman--Best Soundtrack and Best Song. Listen to Anjana Pasricha's report from Delhi, and watch Penelope Poulou's report and video feature from Washington.

You can also listen to Marsha James' radio story in the American Life series on how a passion for music was the major motivating force in bringing Chilean Marjorie Garces to the U.S. to study at Dillard University.

More recent VOA programs on music

Sarah Hickman is a singer-songwriter from Austin Texas, whose life involves more than making music. Watch, or listen to Greg Flakus' feature, part of the VOA series "Making A Difference", on how she and her family are active in a variety of charities helping other people.

You can also hear Greg Flakus' radio report on how, in the year marking the two hundredth anniversary of the birth of composer Felix Mendelssohn, one diligent music professor at Texas' Southwestern University tracked down the original manuscript, somewhat fragmented, at the St. Petersburg Conservatory in Russia. The piece will be performed this Saturday for the first time in more than 175 years by the Austin Symphony Orchestra. Flakus notes that only 160 of the composer's more than 400 works exist in published form, partly due to the influences of anti-Semitism following the composer's death in 1847; performance of his works were banned altogether under the Nazi regime.

And listen to Henok Semaegzer Fente's radio feature on young Ethiopan-American Wayna Wondwossen, a nominee for Best Urban/Alternative Performance in the recent Grammy Award competition. Born in Ethiopia, she had immigrated to the U.S. at the age of three; she graduated from the University of Maryland, and subsequently worked as a writer-researcher for the administration of former President Bill Clinton, but later turned to music. She has her own Website, where you can hear her music and watch one of her videos. (See also www.VOAWorldMusic.com for more postings on the international dimensions of the Grammy Awards.)

Music news notes from VOA's Mary Morningstar

Click here to more details on the following musical updates:

Superstar Madonna emerged at the head of Billboard's Moneymakers of 2008, with $242.2 million in sales in various formats.

Denver-based rock group The Fray debuts at Number One on the Billboard 200 this week with its second album.

Advertisers have pulled Chris Brown spots, and radio stations have stopped playing his music after his alleged assault on Rihanna just prior to the Grammy Awards, in which the duo were scheduled to perform.

Following the previous week's record of 335,000, set by Rihanna and T.I., a new record of 418,00 digital downloads in one week has been set by Eminem, Dr. Dre and 50 Cent's single "Crack A Bottle," which shot from 77th place to Number One on Billboard's Hot 100 chart.

Rap artist Lil' Kim, and pop singers Belinda Carlisle and Jewel will be competing in upcoming season of Dancing with the Stars.

Also see:

Selected new album releases as of February 17;

Awards presentations and winners; and

Who is going on tour.

Recent VOA programs on music

Liyana is a remarkable band of seven disabled Zimbabwean musicians who capture audiences with their inspired, and inspiring performances. Listen to Lonny Shavelson's moving radio report from Palo Alto, California, and see videos demopnstrating the group's extraordinary spirit and musicianship. (You can hear further examples of their music on their Website.)

Faiza Elmasry has done a fascinating radio feature on "The Soloist", a new film starring Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr., and based on the true story of the discovery by Los Angeles Times newspaper columnist Steve Lopez of Nathaniel Ayers, a homeless African-American street musician who had developed schizophrenia when he was studying at the prestigious Julliard School in New York.

And finally, you can hear Doug Levine's story on prominent blues singer and composer Taj Mahal, who celebrates his 40th anniversary as an award-winning recording artist with the release "Maestro, a new CD in which he performs with some well-known collaborators in a mix of American roots, blues and world music.

Music news notes from VOA's Mary Morningstar

Click here to see more details on the following musical updates:

Bruce Springsteen makes a Number One debut on the Billboard 200 chart this week with his new album, "Working on a Dream."

John Rich, of the Country duo Big & Rich, enters the Country Singles chart at Number 34.

Jennifer Hudson's Super Bowl XLIII performance of "The Star-Spangled Banner" is now available on the iTunes Website.

Elton John will close his Las Vegas show, "The Red Piano," which has been running since 2004, on 22 April.

The Country Music Hall of Fame has announced its 2009 inductees: Charlie McCoy, Roy Clark and Barbara Mandrell.

Also see:

Selected new album releases as of February 10;

Awards presentations and winners; and

Who is going on tour.

Grammy roundup from VOA's Mike O'Sullivan in Los Angeles and Ray MacDonald in Washington

Robert Plant and Allison Krauss won the most awards--five--followed by Lil Wayne with four.

You can find Mike O'Sullivan's radio report here, and can listen to Ray McDonald's roundup here.

World Music contenders for the 2009 Grammy Awards

For a comprehensive rundown of this year's contenders in the World Music categories, click here.

Superstar Kevin Costner breaks into the music field

See Larry London's television interview of two-time Academy Award winning actor Kevin Kostner, who recently released his first western music CD, "Untold Truths", with his band, Modern West.

Other VOA programs on music

Listen to Doug Levine's report on the new CD released by the husband and wife duo, guitarist Tuck Andress and singer Patti Cathcart, who have been collaborating for nearly thirty years.

You can hear Kari Jensen's fascinating radio feature from Hong Kong on an innovative program that brings brings disabled individuals into the mainstream of arts expression, under the sponsorship of the Hong Kong Federation of Handicapped Youth and Arts with the Disabled Association, Hong Kong. Her report focuses on collaborations between wheel-chair-bound individuals and "abled" dancers who perform, in a compelling celebration of differential abilities, a range of dance styles: Chinese, ballet, jazz, social dance, the cha-cha, rumba, jive and Latin. Some of the dancers are slated to perform next month in Beijing.

February 3 marked the fiftieth anniversary of the tragic airplane crash in a small Iowa cornfield which claimed the lives of early rock pioneers Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. Richardson, known as "The Big Bopper". Greg Flakus reports from Lubbock, Texas--Buddy Holly's home town--on commemorative activities at the Buddy Holly Center, including interviews of both fans and friends, as well as the Director of the Center. Holly was only 22 when he died, but his influence on American popular music was enormous. The 1978 Academy Award-winning film on his life, "The Buddy Holly Story", remains one of the most successful and popular cinema biographies of any American musician. Holly's iconic status, moreover, was reinforced by singer Don McLean's chart-topping elegiac tribute, "American Pie", with the haunting refrain, "the day the music died".

The Nashville-based band Old Crow Medicine Show has a repertoire that defies easy categorization, ranging from Bluegrass to Punk. Katherine Cole introduces us to the versatile group's latest CD, "Tennessee Pusher."

And finally, listen to Jim Stevenson's radio report from Tampa (written before the now-past cliff-hanger football game between the Arizona Cardinals and the Pittsburgh Steelers), on the appearance during halftime of the Superbowl by Rock mega-star Bruce Springsteen--an occasion much anticipated by most of his fans but criticized by others (see the Washington Post Magazine article by Liz Clark.)

VOA's previews of the Grammy Awards

The forthcoming 51st annual Grammy Awards ceremony for excellence in musical achievement, which will take place on Sunday, February 8, dominated the past week's music coverage by VOA.

The term "American roots music" is used to identify such uniquely indigenous musical styles as bluegrass and the blues. While the Grammys have no single inclusive slot for this umbrella category, Katherine Cole's comprehensive radio report cites the nomination of numerous American roots musicians, not only in the traditional roots sub-categories of folk and gospel, but also in such mainstream fields as Album of the Year; the contenders for 2009 include Alison Krauss, Robert Plant, Dr. John, Solomon Burke, Taj Mahal, Ry Cooder, Joan Baez, and Emmylou Harris, among others.

Mary Morningstar devotes an entire report to George Strait, who after more than thirty years in the country music field has never won an award, but has again been nominated this year.

In his radio feature, Ray MacDonald highlights nominees in the pop, rock, and Rhythm-and-Blues/Hip-hop categories. Leading contenders include rapper Lil Wayne, singer-songwriter Leona Lewis, the British rock quartet Coldplay, and teen heartthrobs the Jonas Brothers.

Finally, Doug Levine runs down some of the competitors in the jazz niches: Cassandra Wilson for the Best Jazz Vocal, guitarist Pat Metheney for the Best Jazz Instrumental Solo, and the Yellowjackets for the Best Contemporary Jazz Album.

Stay tuned to this blog for the results in these varied Grammy Award categories!

Music news from VOA's Mary Morningstar

Click here to see more details on the following musical updates:

Kelly Clarkson's new single, "My Life Would Suck Without You," jumped via 280,000 Internet downloads from Number 97 to Number One on the Hot 100 chart for the week ending February 7, setting a new record for the largest one-week leap in the chart's 50-year history.

Former Lynyrd Skynyrd keyboardist Billy Powell died of an apparent heart attack at his Florida home on January 28, at the age of 56.

John Landis, the co-writer and director of Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' video, has sued the artist following reports that a Broadway musical would be made with the song as its basis, claiming that Jackson lacks the rights for such a sale.

American Idol's fifth season runner-up Katharine McPhee recently signed a new recording deal with Verve Records.

Triple Grammy nominee Jennifer Hudson made her first public appearance since the murders of her mother, brother and nephew in Chicago last October, singing the national anthem at the Super Bowl. She is also slated to sing at the upcoming Grammy Awards.

Also see:

Selected new album releases as of February 3;

Notable musical events, festivals, and benefits;

Awards presentations and winners; and

Who is going on tour.

The pipe organ goes virtual at the hands (and feet) of Cameron Carpenter.

February 8th will mark the 51st annual Grammy Awards, in which musicians from all over the world will be competing in 31 different categories. One of the contestants in the category of best instrumental solo performance is Cameron Carpenter, a 27-year-old New Yorker who has invented a twenty-first century version of the venerable pipe organ, using electronic equipment and techniques to create the sounds of the instrument at a fraction of the cost of the original.

You can read Roseanne Skirble's story on this enterprising young artist, and listen to excerpts of her interview with him (and see a YouTube video of his performance, including some most extraordinary footwork) on the VOA Website.

You can also read a brief profile of Carpenter in the 15 December issue of one of America's most distinguished weekly magazines, the New Yorker, and hear him in an October National Public Radio feature (the Web page of which includes an interesting series of comments).

Musical events during President Barack Obama's inauguration

Music was featured prominently in the inaugural celebrations for Barack Obama as the 44th American President, as noted in the following VOA reports:

The opening event in the inaugural celebrations was on Sunday night, with an open-air concert at the Lincoln Memorial, with appearances by superstars Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Wonder, Bono, Garth Brooks, James Taylor, Beyoncé, and John Mellencamp, among others. VOA's Michael Bowman reports on the President-elect's speech on this occasion. More details on the concert itself can be found in an article from the New York Times. The concert was broadcast live to an audience of millions on HBO, and included a special guest appearance by America's greatest living folk singer, Pete Seeger, mentioned often in previous entries in my VOA World Music blog.

Monday was of course a national holiday, Martin Luther King Day, with two night-time concerts at the Kennedy Center. "Let Freedom Ring" featured "The Queen of Soul", Aretha Franklin (who also sang in the inaugural ceremony itself--see below). Listen to the curtain-raiser by VOA's Peter Clottey on the similarly titled "Let Freedom Swing," (which began an hour after the earlier concert), a jazz celebration organized by trumpet legend Wynton Marsalis. On this page you can also hear Clottey's interview with Ghanaian master drummer Yacub Addy, who collaborated with Marsalis in the composition of the two-hour suite "Congo Square," a portion of which was performed in the program.

From the parade preceding the actual inauguration of the new President, see Chung-wei Hsu's compelling report (in print and video) on the University marching band, which was one of some 80 bands selected from the more than 1,400 who applied to participate, and Carolyn Weaver's lively television feature on the Brooklyn "Steppers" Marching Band.

Ceremonial music for the inauguration itself was provided, as always, by the United States Marine Band. The San Francisco Boys Chorus and the San Francisco Girls Chorus together sang "America the Beautiful", "An American Hymn", and the "Hymn to Freedom;" and the United States Navy Band “Sea Chanters” chorus concluded the event with the U.S. National Anthem.

Other musical highlights included an inspired version of"My Country 'Tis of Thee" by Aretha Franklin, and the premier of an original arrangement by John Williams of "Air and Simple Gifts," featuring Itzhak Perlman on violin, Yo-Yo Ma on cello, Gabriela Montero on piano, and Anthony McGill on clarinet. In actuality, it was subsequently reported by the New York Times that the latter "performance" was in fact pre-recorded, since the musicians felt that it would be impossible to perform live in tune, given the near-freezing tempuratures--a fact that has given rise to some controversy, as noted in an NPR piece by Anya Grundmann, which also includes audio clips of some of the above performances. The controversy is similar to, though much less intense than the furor surrounding the lip-synched performance by the young Chinese girl in the opening ceremony of the 2007 Beijing Olympics (see my first entry in my VOA World Music blog).

Finally, though not directly referenced to the inauguration itself, and completed three days before the event, listen to Adam Phillips' fine radio feature on Yo-Yo Ma.