Workers at Milans La Scala plan strike
Springsteen remembers NJ boardwalk fortuneteller
Milan opera house workers threaten strike
Matthews Band sax player injured in ATV wreck
Musicians Hall of Fame announces new inductees
Jazz legends home saved from foreclosure, for now
Opera manager Edgar Vincent dead at 90
Lil Wayne joins Voodoo festival lineup
Donda West surgeon arrested in California for DUI
Dixie Hummingbirds lead singer Ira Tucker Sr. dies

By Victor R. Caivano (AP)

Soul diva Amy Winehouse sipped from a glass of red wine and looked a bit unsteady on her feet as she appeared in front of a large audience at the Rock in Rio music festival southeast of Madrid on Friday.

Then, as tens of thousands cheered, she threw off a pair of high stiletto heels in favor of white moccasins, donned a white electric guitar and settled into an intense rendition of some of her best known songs, including "Rehab."

Winehouse delivered a strong vocal performance accompanied by her octet plus two male backing vocalists.

There was no hint of the controversy...

By Julie Jacobson (AP)

A man has sued Eminem, claiming the rapper punched him two years ago while they were in the bathroom of a Detroit strip club.

The Detroit News reports Miad Jarbou of Royal Oak filed the lawsuit Thursday in Oakland County Circuit Court seeking more than $25,000 in damages. The suit claims Eminem punched him July 13, 2006, at Cheetah's On the Strip Gentlemen's Club.

A message seeking comment was left Friday by The Associated Press with an Eminem spokesman.

Eminem, whose real name is Marshall Bruce Mathers III, wasn't charged following reports of an incident at the club in...

By Matt Bostic (AP)

As thousands of singers converge on Nashville for an international convention of barbershop harmony music, the old-fashioned music style is facing discord among its fans.

The 70-year-old Barbershop Harmony Society moved to Tennessee last year from Kenosha, Wis., as a part of a move by leadership to recruit more youth and modernize the organization.

About 8,500 have been in Nashville this week to see the competitions and performances, concluding with an appearance Friday night at the Grand Ole Opry.

But traditionalists of the a capella chorus music that dates back to...

By BILL WAUGH (AP)

Brad Paisley says he got to mark a biggie off his wish list when Andy Griffith agreed to be in the video for his new single, "Waitin' On a Woman."

"He has influenced my life more than most people that I grew up with _ more than most people that I actually knew my whole life," Paisley said recently. "I wrote Andy a letter telling him what he has meant to me over the years and asked him to be in the video."

In the video, which began airing this week, the 82-year-old star of the long-running TV series "Matlock" and "The Andy Griffith Show" plays a kindly gentleman who ad...

By Evan Agostini (AP)

A-Rod and the Material Girl? That's a lot of hits.

Reports that Yankees superstar Alex Rodriguez and Madonna have become close just as their marriages are disintegrating have both the celebrity gossip industry and the sporting world _ each a chatty bunch _ buzzing with questions about the two "friends."

A third boldface name was added to the saga when Rodriguez' wife fled from New York to the Paris home of rocker Lenny Kravitz, who denied anything improper had happened with the slugger's wife.

The story began last week amid tabloid stories that Madonna, who is married...

By RICHARD LEWIS (AP)

Donna Summer says she approached her summer tour like a chocolate-chip cookie.

The 59-year-old singer said that for the first time, she is incorporating all the music from a new album and most of her hits into the show. In the past, she's used just a few new songs, but never all of them.

"I tried to put them in in a way that they still get the oldies mixed in, so that every few minutes it's like a familiar taste," she told AP Radio in a recent phone interview.

"Then it's like, `Ooh, this is good. I like this. Aw! There's a piece of chocolate!'" Summer said. "It'...

By Martin Keene (AP)

Britain has honored Australian singer Kylie Minogue for her services to music.

The 40-year-old pop star received an Officer of the Order of the British Empire, or OBE, from Prince Charles during a ceremony Thursday at Buckingham Palace in London.

She was lauded for a career that spans more than two decades.

Minogue first appeared on British television in the mid-1980s soap opera "Neighbors." She has since sold millions of albums. Her hits include "I Should Be So Lucky" and "Je Ne Sais Pas Pourquoi."

___

On the Net:

http://www.kylie.com/home

...

By Jae C. Hong (AP)

Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez and his wife have split less than three months after the birth of the couple's second daughter, according to a report in the New York Daily News.

The story on the newspaper's Web site comes amid reports linking Rodriguez to Madonna. Rodriguez refused to address the topic on three occasions Tuesday, once saying "no" when asked if he had any comment.

Yankees co-chairman Hank Steinbrenner also criticized the team's lack of hitting before an 18-7 win over the Texas Rangers on Wednesday night, suggesting "a little less outside distractions and a l...

By Matt Sayles (AP)

Live from Newport: it's Chevy Chase.

Chase, the comic actor and original cast member of "Saturday Night Live" will host the Newport Jazz Festival for the second year in a row.

The JVC Jazz Festival-Newport runs Aug. 8-10 at the International Tennis Hall of Fame and Fort Adams State Park.

Chase, a jazz fan and pianist, will introduce the musicians performing on the festival's main stage, including Aretha Franklin, Sonny Rollins and Herbie Hancock.

In college, Chase, 64, played drums in a jazz band with Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, who later became famous as Ste...

By Evan Agostini (AP)

From her rebuilt but not yet fully furnished home, Irma Thomas anchors her faith in the rebirth of New Orleans to the return of the Essence Music Festival.

The festival, which runs Friday to Sunday, celebrates black music and culture and moved to Houston in 2006 after Hurricane Katrina smashed New Orleans. It returned in 2007, and organizers say Essence is now re-establishing its place in the city.

An estimated 200,000 people attended the festival last year, supplying a needed injection of business into the city's hurricane-hammered tourism industry.

"The festival is so...

By Maricopa County Sheriff's Office (AP)

DMX has been arrested at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport on outstanding warrants.

Maricopa County Sheriff's Department spokesman Aaron Douglas says the rapper, 37, was taken into custody Wednesday morning after arriving from Florida.

DMX (real name: Earl Simmons) is being held on a $1,075 bond for driving with a suspended license and a $10,000 bond stemming from previous drug charges.

Douglas says DMX had failed to appear in court and warrants were issued. He is expected to appear before a judge late Wednesday.

His lawyer in Phoenix, Cameron Morgan,...

By Gus Ruelas (AP)

A rape charge against Rikki Rockett has been dropped after authorities determined that the Poison drummer was not in the state at the time of the alleged crime.

Authorities say they are now looking for a man with a history of passing himself off as a rock musician to pick up women.

Rockett was accused of raping a woman at a central Mississippi casino in September 2007 and arrested in March. The Neshoba County district attorney's office confirmed Tuesday that the charges were dropped.

Rockett said he was in California when the rape was alleged.

"I was with my...

By John Bazemore (AP)

When he was growing up, most of T.I.'s male role models were either selling drugs or locked up in jail; he ended up following in both of those paths. Even after T.I. started his rap career and became one of its biggest stars, he didn't abandon a life of crime: He recently pleaded guilty to federal weapons charges and faces almost a year in jail.

So T.I. would be the last person one would expect to be espousing the beliefs of Martin Luther King Jr. and reading the words of Andrew Young, the longtime civil rights leader, King compatriot and former U.N. ambassador.

But these...

By Mary Altaffer (AP)

Conductor George Manahan will remain a music director of the New York City Opera under incoming general manager Gerard Mortier, agreeing to a four-year contract through the 2011-12 season.

Manahan, 56, was hired as music director in 1996, effective with the 1997-98 season. In 2009-10, Mortier's first season, Manahan will conduct Stravinsky's "The Rake's Progress" and Britten's "Death in Venice." He is to conduct Szymanowski's "King Roger" in 2010-11, the company announced Tuesday.

"George is held in high esteem by the orchestra, singers and administration and gives m...

By MARIE-NOELLE ROBERT (AP)

Be afraid, be very afraid: David Cronenberg's 1986 horror flick, "The Fly," has undergone a bizarre metamorphosis. It's now an opera.

The new incarnation, with tenor Placido Domingo conducting a score by Oscar-winning composer Howard Shore ("The Lord of the Rings"), isn't as gory as the movie. Audiences will be spared close-ups of the title character's fingernails falling off as he makes the transition from mild-mannered scientist to giant insect.

Still, for an opera, it's pretty scary _ even if there are touches of dark humor. Giggles broke out among those invited to M...

By LOUIS LANZANO (AP)

Boy George's plans for a North American tour have run into some bad karma.

The Culture Club singer, whose given name is George O'Dowd, has canceled his summer plans after U.S. authorities denied him a visa to enter the country.

O'Dowd, 47, had planned to officially kick off his 25-city tour in Aspen, Colo., on July 10, and was to throw in a free concert at the New York City Department of Sanitation's Family Day in August. He worked for the department in 2006 while performing court-ordered community service in a drug case.

That didn't appear possible, though, when last...

By (AP)

A Beatles interview from the 1960s in which John Lennon and Paul McCartney discussed the way they composed songs together was broadcast on British radio Tuesday after it was found in a film can in a damp garage in south London.

The Beatles were at the height of their immense popularity when the tape was recorded at Scottish Television studios on April 30, 1964. The band had recently toured America, winning huge audiences on the Ed Sullivan show and shooting to the top of the charts on both sides of the Atlantic.

The interview was only broadcast in Scotland and sat in a film...

By ECKEHARD SCHULZ (AP)

Germany's annual Bayreuth opera festival is going digital, streaming video and audio of its opening performance of "Die Meistersinger von Nuernberg" live via the Internet. The catch is the price _ $77.

Organizers hope the online screening will draw new fans to an annual event devoted entirely to the 10 mature stage works by Richard Wagner, where fans often wait seven years or more for the opportunity to buy tickets.

"Those are complicated hoops, and it can be crazy to jump through them all," said Katharina Wagner, a great-granddaughter of Richard Wagner, who is staging the ...

By (AP)

Angel Tavira, a one-handed violinist who dedicated his life to Mexican folk music and won a Cannes Film Festival award for his first movie at age 82, has died. He was 84.

Tavira died of kidney problems Monday in a Mexico City hospital, said Eugenia Montiel, a spokeswoman for Camara Carnal Films, the company that co-produced Tavira's 2005 film "The Violin."

Tavira was born on July 3, 1924, into a family of musicians in the southwestern town of Corralfalso, and started playing the violin at age 6. When he was 13, he lost his right hand while setting off fireworks at a fair. He ...

By (AP)

The British Broadcasting Corp. will air a long lost Beatles interview featuring John Lennon and Paul McCartney talking about the day they met and their songwriting partnership.

The precious film sat forgotten for 44 years in a garage in south London until film fan Richard Jeffs realized a piece of pop history was contained inside.

Experts were surprised to find the audio portion still usable for radio broadcast.

The nine-minute interview was recorded at the Scottish Television studios in April 1964 during the early days of Beatlemania. It will be broadcast for the first...

By Evan Agostini (AP)

A weekend fire that destroyed a childhood home of Madonna has been deemed suspicious by arson investigators.

The Oakland County Sheriff's Arson Unit and the Rochester Hills Fire Department are investigating the Friday night blaze.

A passer-by had noticed flames coming out of the unoccupied house in the Detroit suburb of Rochester Hills and called the fire department.

Rochester Hills Fire Chief Ron Crowell told The Detroit News and Detroit Free Press the fire appears to have started in the living room area. He said it caused extensive smoke and fire damage throughout the...

By Manuel Salazar (AP)

Bon Jovi will perform free concert July 12 in Central Park.

It's billed as a prelude to the July 15 All-Star baseball game, which will highlight the final season at Yankee Stadium.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Jovi will help ensure it goes out in a blaze of glory, hopefully a blaze in late October at the World Series.

Bon Jovi's hits include "Livin' on a Prayer," "Bad Medicine" and "Blaze of Glory." Lead singer Jon Bon Jovi said playing Central Park is a dream come true.

___

On the Net:

http://www.bonjovi.com/bonjovi/

...

By Dan Steinberg (AP)

Court records show Britney Spears is house-hunting _ preferably for something greener, quieter and with a bigger backyard.

Documents released Monday show that Spears seeks a house with a larger yard that's closer to parks and recreation areas for her children, Sean Preston and Jayden James. She also wants a "less trafficked" locale than her paparazzi-stalked Beverly Hills home, which she bought for nearly $7 million early last year.

Spears' father, James, requested the sale in mid-June, and a court commissioner agreed. James Spears is acting as his daughter's conservator fo...

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