Author: Ohart

After a turbulent U.S. presidential election and a rollercoaster start to President Donald Trump’s administration, this year’s Tribeca film festival will come with a statement.

Environmental, political and social issues all feature strongly in the 200-strong selection of feature films, documentaries, television shows and immersive installations on offer during the April 19-30 festival.

Co-founder Jane Rosenthal said choices for the 16th festival included themes of the environment “and the fact we are an open society and everyone is welcome here.”

“Artists can express things sometimes that no politician can,” Rosenthal told Reuters Television.

Films about food waste, the protests over the Dakota Access Pipeline and the endangered white rhino are among a dozen projects linked to Earth Day, which falls in the middle of the festival on April 22.

A retrospective documentary about Cuban boy Elian Gonzalez, who was at the center of a 2000 custody and immigration battle; a documentary on maverick political operative Roger Stone; and “Copwatch,” about the U.S. citizens who film police activity and arrests, are just some of the offerings tackling social and political issues.

On a lighter note, the festival will open next Wednesday with a documentary about record producer Clive Davis – the man behind the success of singers like Whitney Houston, Kelly Clarkson and Jennifer Hudson.

The closing weekend sees a 45th anniversary reunion and screening of the cast and director of Oscar-winning Mafia movie “The Godfather” and its 1974 sequel “The Godfather: Part II.”

Francis Ford Coppola, Al Pacino, Diane Keaton, Robert De Niro and Robert Duvall are all expected to join a conversation after the April 29 screenings.

The Tribeca film festival was founded in 2002 by De Niro and Rosenthal to revitalize lower Manhattan after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

 
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Lady Gaga will make history when she performs at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts festival this weekend, marking a decade since a solo woman has been billed as a headliner on the prestigious musical stage.

 

Beyonce had been slated to headline the festival in Indio, California, but backed out because she’s pregnant with twins. Bjork was the last solo female to headline Coachella in 2007, so it begs the question: Why has it taken so long?

 

Women have always performed at Coachella, which began Friday, since it was launched in 1999. In the last few years the number of female performers has grown, including acts that blend alternative and pop, such as Sia and Tegan & Sara, to mega genre-mashers like M.I.A., Janelle Monae and Santigold.

 

Coachella is known as the festival for cool kids — and musicians. That leaves little to no room for acts that dominate Top 40 radio, where women have a strong presence, from Katy Perry to Rihanna.

 

Halsey, the Grammy-nominated singer who is readying her second alternative album and had one of last year’s biggest pop hits with “Closer” alongside the Chainsmokers, performed at Coachella last year. The 22-year-old said women who perform alternative music are often billed as pop artists because of their sex.

 

“Festivals like Coachella, they pride themselves on being part of the counterculture, being tastemakers, upholding themselves to a certain standard of the artists that they include, and I think one of the problems is that female artists are so often tainted as pop artists even when they don’t necessarily intend to be,” Halsey said. “Female artists can put out the same style of a record as a male artist and when a male artist does it, it has a certain type of dignity, it has a certain type of edge … as soon as a woman puts out a record of the same caliber, it’s immediately filed as a pop record no matter what.”

 

Halsey said it’s something she’s experienced in her own career with the success of “Closer.”

 

“It was this giant pop record and immediately I was a pop artist even though I put out an alternative album, I played alternative festivals and I was on alternative radio,” she said. “As soon as [you] do one pop record it’s like the kiss of death for a female artist sometimes.”

 

Gary Bongiovanni, CEO of concert trade publication Pollstar, said he didn’t think the gap between male and female headliners at Coachella was calculated.

 

“I don’t see that there’s any sexism. There’s nothing more than trying to put together a bill of artists that the public wants to see. And we live in a world where a significant majority of the acts are either male or male-fronted bands versus females or female-fronted bands,” he said. “If you look at the level of business all of those artists do and you try to cobble together a lineup that’s going to be appealing, it’s difficult, and there are a lot of the female acts that may not lend themselves to performing in front of 60,000 or 80,000 people in an open field, versus headlining an area or more likely a theater.”

 

In last year’s Pollstar chart of the 100 top-grossing North America tours, women made up about 15 percent of the list, which was dominated by male acts and male-fronted bands. Only two women cracked the Top 10: Beyonce was No.1 and Adele came in fifth.

 

Coachella is sold out before the lineup is announced, so the festival has the luxury of picking performers instead of relying on acts to help sell tickets.

 

Along with Gaga, this year’s headliners include Radiohead and Kendrick Lamar, who released his hotly anticipated new album Friday. Some of the female performers include Lorde, Banks, Tove Lo, Kehlani, Nao, Kiiara and Bishop Briggs. Yukimi Nagano, who fronts Swedish band Little Dragon, is returning to Coachella for a third time.

 

Nagano said she was surprised that it’s been 10 years since a woman headlined the festival, adding: “I think it’s a really positive thing.”

 

Jason White, executive vice president of marketing at Beats by Dre, said the company is purposely, and exclusively, giving attention to women at the festival: Their space at Coachella will only feature female performers, including Erykah Badu, DJ Kiss, Ana Calderon, JCK DVY and Jasmine Solano.

 

“I think it really meshes incredibly well with what’s going on with Coachella because you do have Gaga, we’re excited about seeing Kehlani [and] there’s some really solid performers this year,” he said.

 

Halsey, who spoke over the phone Thursday as she drove to the desert to watch Coachella as a fan, said she was thrilled to see Gaga take the stage. She said the recent Super Bowl halftime performer is one of those pioneering female acts that haven’t been boxed into a genre, though she knows “the extremes [Gaga] has to go to maintain that counterculture are much greater than that of what a male artist has to do.”

 

“Drake is still considered a rap/rhythm artist even though he is essentially a pop artist when you look at the decisions that he makes and the climate that kind of surrounds his projects,” Halsey said.

 

“And when you have a female artist in the same lane, they get written off as a pop artist simply because they’re female, simply because the conversation with them, it goes to fashion, makeup or whatever, and those are questions and comments that don’t surround the brand and surround the career of a male artist.”
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Julian Lennon is looking to nurture a new generation’s commitment to the environment, with a little help from a white feather.

 

The firstborn son of the late John Lennon has co-authored “Touch the Earth,” a picture book for kids as young as 3 about the world’s water problems, from polluted oceans to the need for clean drinking water in the developing world.

 

Out later this month, the book from Sky Pony Press has a group of kids loaded into a plane called the White Feather Flier as they span the globe and learn about the need for filtration, irrigation and ocean life protection. With illustrations created both by hand and computer, it’s the first of three children’s books he plans, in line with the environmental and humanitarian work of his White Feather Foundation.

 

“We’ve failed miserably in looking after our environment. I think this is a great way to approach children into realizing what’s at stake, and to help educate and help them make decisions about the right things to do for the future,” Lennon said in a recent interview with The Associated Press. “It’s for those with inquiring minds who are asking why?”

 

Lennon has taken on environmental issues in song, including his 1991 “Saltwater,” and in film, including the 2006 documentary “Whaledreamers,” covering a gathering of indigenous and tribal leaders that explores connections among whales, dolphins and humanity.

 

Appealing to the next generation of prospective eco-warriors grew out of his friendship with co-writer Bart Davis after the two put aside plans — for now — for the 54-year-old Lennon to write a biography. But he hasn’t completely abandoned the idea.

 

“I feel time’s marching on, you know. A lot of my friends and people I know are popping their clogs,” Lennon laughed. “You know, who knows what’s next. It’s in the cards in the next few years, absolutely, before it’s too late.”

 

So what’s up with the white feather for Lennon, the former Beatle’s son with his first wife, Cynthia? He shares the story at the back of the book.

 

“On the odd occasion when I saw dad he mentioned once that should he ever pass, a way he would let me know that he was OK, or that we were all going to be OK, would be in the form of a white feather,” Lennon explained. “I thought that quite peculiar. I told mum about it, too, and we just sort of went on with life.”

 

Later, while on tour in Australia, he was presented with a white swan feather by an aboriginal tribal elder of the Mirning people.

 

“It was a freaky moment, but one I took to heart immediately,” he said. “I realized that this was about stepping up to the plate now and, you know, I can sing all I want about this stuff but am I actually going to do something about it? So I spent 10 years making a documentary about the Mirning people.”

 

It’s also when he established his foundation, visiting Ethiopia with the head of a clean water initiative and touring schools and health clinics in Kenya. A portion of the books’ proceeds will go the foundation, which now does a range of work, including providing scholarships for girls in Kenya.

 

Lennon’s father was shot to death in 1980. His mother died two years ago of cancer at age 75. Her loss remains tender. Lennon dedicates the book to Cynthia, and he established the Kenya scholarships in her name.

 

“I talk to her every night, pretty much,” Lennon said. “She has given me the strength to carry on. Where I’m at at the moment, I feel very strong, very zenlike. I just want to do the right thing. To try to continue to be the best that I can be. That was all based around wanting to make her proud. I try to continue all the work that I do in her name.” 
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Texas has a wealth of oil and gas production facilities, hundreds of ranches … and 14 national park sites that protect and preserve some of America’s most precious natural, cultural and historic land and waterscapes.

National parks traveler Mikah Meyer, who’s on a mission to visit all of the more than 400 sites within the National Park Service, crossed into Texas via its eastern border, eager to begin his ambitious adventures across the vast state.

Magical moments

First stop, Big Thicket National Preserve, which protects almost 45,780 hectares (113,121.96 acres) of land and water spread over seven counties in southeast Texas.

Mikah enjoyed the quiet beauty of a swamp cypress tupelo forest as he glided through one of its many rivers on a small boat. The dominant trees in most of the Big Thicket swamps are bald cypress and water tupelo which look primeval in appearance.

“There was something mystical and magical about the place even though it didn’t have the big sweeping vista that other parks might have,” Mikah observed.

Timeless beauty

Mikah found more natural beauty at Padre Island National Seashore near Corpus Christi, which protects 112 kilometers (70 miles) of coastline, dunes, prairies, and wind tidal flats, teeming with life.

To get to Padre Island, he had to travel through Houston, the most populous city in Texas, (which has no national park sites), and he said he couldn’t help but notice the contrast between the urban environment and the natural one.

“It was interesting to contrast this state that is so well known for oil… and then just to the southeast of this city known for oil production there’s the world’s longest undeveloped barrier island.”

“What I’m learning about the seashores is that what really makes them unique is that they present the opportunity to experience our coastal land as it was before human development,” Mikah said.

Timeless journeys

That seems to be the recurring theme as Mikah travels across the country from one national seashore to another.

“Everything from Cape Cod National Seashore to Canaveral National Seashore, Gulf Islands National Seashore and now Padre Island National Seashore — the consistency is that they offer the opportunity to experience undeveloped beaches,” he emphasized.

Near the park’s visitor center is an area where the tides come together, bringing with them literally tons of trash, which get swept up onto the beach. The park service uses that naturally occurring event as an opportunity to teach school children about conservation.

“They give them a trash bag and the kids can go out and pick up trash and they talk about conservation and taking care of the earth,” Mikah explained. “So it’s a cool way to see how the National Seashore is trying to involve the next generation in preserving and taking care of these lands,” he added.

A mammoth discovery

When people hear the name Waco, Texas, many associate it with the deadly siege carried out by federal agents of a compound belonging to the Branch Davidian religious group in 1993.

But the city was famous long before then for something a little more appealing.

As Mikah describes it, in 1978, two young friends, Paul Barron and Eddie Bufkin, were looking for old Native American arrowheads in the area near their homes when they found a bone sticking out of the ground. “So they started digging around it and it turned out to be a mammoth tusk,” Mikah explained.

The young men removed the bone and took it to Baylor University’s Strecker Museum (predecessor to the Mayborn Museum Complex) for examination. Museum staff identified the find as a femur bone from a Columbian mammoth. This extinct species lived during the Pleistocene Epoch (more commonly known as the Ice Age) and inhabited North America from southern Canada to as far south as Costa Rica.

That stunning discovery launched a massive archaeological dig “that produced the largest — and what I think is the only — find ever of an entire herd of mammoths,” Mikah said.

A lost world

Strecker Museum staff quickly organized a team of volunteers and excavation began at the site. The crews slowly excavated a lost world. Between 1978 and 1990, they uncovered the fossil remains of 16 Columbian mammoths. Their efforts revealed a nursery herd that appears to have died together in a single natural event. Six additional mammoths as well as the fossil remains of many other animal species have been excavated in the years since, including the tooth of a juvenile saber-toothed cat and a camel that lived approximately 67,000 years ago.

Waco Mammoth National Monument was designated as a new unit of the National Park System by President Barack Obama in 2015.

“When you hear the word Waco you think of compounds and biker gangs, so you know it’s good that they have some things a little less controversial to be known for,” Mikah observed.

Mikah invites you to join him as he continues his journey across the Lone Star state by visiting his website, Facebook and Instagram.

 
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The local publisher of Vogue Arabia has announced Manuel Arnaut as its new editor-in-chief a day after the surprise exit of its former editor.

Arnaut is currently the editor-in-chief of Architectural Digest Middle East, which like Vogue Arabia, is a publication of Conde Nast International.

 

In a statement released Friday, Dubai-based publisher Nervora said Arnaut, who hails from Portugal, will begin as editor-in-chief of Vogue Arabia May 7.

 

The fashion magazine’s new edition for the Middle East had published just two print issues when it was reported Thursday that its editor-in-chief, Saudi Princess Deena Aljuhani Abdulaziz, was no longer in the post.

 

She was quoted in a statement to insider fashion website Business of Fashion saying she was fired because she refused to compromise on her vision for the magazine.
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On April 15, 2013, the Boston Marathon bombing shook the world. Two bombs that exploded 12 seconds apart near the finish line of the world famous race killed three people and injured an estimated 264 others who were treated at 27 hospitals. At least 14 people required amputations. 

Movies such as the feature film Patriots Day have offered a dramatized account of those events. But Jon Dunham’s documentary Boston, narrated by Boston native Matt Damon, looks beyond the bombings, weaving an uplifting narrative of the race from its inception in 1897 to 2014, the year after the attacks.

Watch: Boston Documentary Chronicles the History of Boston Marathon

A lot of grieving

By the size of the race, the sheer enthusiasm of the 36,000 racers and the community spirit during the 2014 Boston Marathon, no one would have guessed that the year before, the event, its participants and the city itself had been devastated by a terrorist attack. 

The bombings weighed heavily on filmmaker Jon Dunham, a marathon runner who had planned, for years before the attacks, to make a documentary about the history of the race.

“There were a number of feelings — there was certainly a lot of grieving for what had happened. I walked up and down Boylston Street every day as soon as I arrived here in Boston in January of 2014, and just thought about it every day,” the filmmaker said.

A history of the race

His documentary Boston does not focus on the pain and fear in 2013. Instead, it chronicles the Boston Marathon as an event that has fostered charity, unity and strength since its inception in 1897.

Dunham’s film follows the growth of the event through the decades. The race has become more selective, the runners faster. They come from all over the world to compete. One of them is Kenyan runner Wilson Chebet.

“Long time ago, when I was a child, I used to run to school. 3.7 kilometers. Lunchtime you come back, you go to school after lunch, and then in the evening you come home,” Chebet said.

War connection

The documentary shows how the race also has grown into a major fundraising event. 

It started with Greek Olympic athlete Stylianos Kyriakides, who won the Boston Marathon in 1946 and used his notoriety as a Boston Marathon champion to raise funds and put together supplies that aided Greece after WWI, Dunham said.

He says the history of the marathon has been intrinsically connected with war. 

“It is interesting to consider the marathon in the context of war, even if you want to go back to the whole idea of the marathon. … The Battle of Marathon in Greece and the Athenians having triumphed over the invading Persians and then the messenger being sent from Marathon to Athens to share new good news, that they had been victorious in this battle. That of course being the idea for creating a Marathon race came from,” Dunham said.

Ready for 2017

With just a few days before this year’s race, Boston is getting ready. T.K. Skenderian, director of communications at the Boston Athletic Association, is in the middle of the preparations.

“In the year that followed (the Boston Marathon bombing), and in the years that have followed, the sense of solidarity and community pride that has emerged from not just those injured but people locally, people from around the world, has been overwhelming. I mean that sense of civic pride, city pride, and pride in the sport of running has been enormous. Yeah, we got knocked down but we got back up in a big way.”

Two days before the 121st running of the Boston Marathon, Jon Dunham’s documentary is premiering in its namesake city.

“There are so many things we cannot control in life, but getting out and running, setting a goal like running a marathon, is something that can be done, and it really does change lives, and it is something very positive,” the Boston filmmaker said.
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More than 50 U.S. cities will be hosting Make Music Day, a free one-day outdoor festival celebrating music and music-making.

The annual event is June 21, the summer solstice.

Highlights of Make Music Day in the U.S. will include Sousapaloozas in Chicago; Cleveland; Madison, Wisconsin; Minneapolis-St. Paul; New York; and San Jose, California.

Part of Make Music Day is an event called Mass Appeal in which musicians play together in single-instruments groups. Featured instruments will include guitars, harmonicas, accordions, trombones, bassoons, French horns and harps. More than 150 are scheduled.

Street Studios in Atlanta; Chattanooga, Tennessee; Minneapolis-St. Paul; New York; and Philadelphia will give passers-by a chance to collaborate in producing original music.

The festival began in France in 1982 and has since spread to 750 cities across 120 countries.
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University of Michigan mechanical engineering students have made one of the most popular puzzle games much larger. And tougher to solve.

Seven former and current students unveiled a 1,500-pound Rubik’s Cube during a ceremony Thursday inside the G.G. Brown engineering building on the Ann Arbor campus. The massive, mostly aluminum structure is meant to be played by students and others on campus.

Four students came up with the idea three years ago and handed down the project to other students.

“It’s the largest solvable mechanical stationary Rubik’s Cube,” said Ryan Kuhn, a 22-year-old senior who helped assemble the giant puzzle this week. “It was kind of an urban myth of North Campus, this giant Rubik’s Cube that’s been going on for a while.”

 

The oversized version of the brain-teasing 3-D puzzle, which has flummoxed players since its heyday in the 1980s, is much harder to decipher than its diminutive counterpart, said Kuhn, who called it an “interactive mechanical art piece.”

The puzzle is solved when the player is able to manipulate the cube until all nine squares on each of its six sides display an individual color.

“It’s very reasonable that it could take at least an hour” to solve, said Martin Harris, who helped conceive the project in 2014 while hanging out in the College of Engineering honors office.
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Twenty years ago on April 13, 1997, American athlete Tiger Woods made history, winning one of golf’s most prestigious tournaments, the Masters, in Augusta, Georgia. He became the youngest golfer to win – and he did it by 12 strokes, a record that still stands.

​That day, Woods not only shot a 72-hole score of 18-under-par 270, but he also shattered the Masters record of 271 that Jack Nicklaus and Raymond Floyd had shared. 

By June 1997, Woods was ranked No. 1 in the world.

Two years later, he won eight PGA tournaments, earned a record $6 million in prize money and began a winning streak that eventually tied Ben Hogan’s in 1948, the second-longest in PGA history. 

Much of his success is owed to Tiger’s close relationship to his father, Earl, who coached his prodigal son since childhood.

In June 2000, Woods won his first U.S. Open, considered the most challenging golf tournament in the world. Woods shot a record 12-under-par 272 to finish 15 strokes ahead of his nearest competitors. 

It was considered the greatest professional golf performance in history, surpassing even his 1997 Masters’ triumph and the 1862 showing by Old Tom Morris. 

In July 2000, Woods captured the British Open, and in August the PGA championship. At the age of 24, he was the youngest player ever to win all four major golf titles and just the second to win three majors in a year.

His winning streak slowed in the 2000’s around the time he married Elin Nordegren, a Swedish former model with whom he had two children.

The golfer won his 10th major, the British Open, in 2005. 

His performance fluctuated throughout the rest of the decade as he struggled with a torn ACL. His career took a further hit in 2009 in relation to a car accident outside his Florida home.

Later, several women came forward alleging they had affairs with the famous golfer. Nordegren divorced him in August 2010.

Woods’ last win took place in 2013.  

Woods planned to play throughout 2017, but a nagging back injury forced him to announce last month that he was withdrawing from the 2017 Masters. 
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Every night, the Inner Harbor in Baltimore, Maryland glistens with an array of lights from the waterside restaurants and shops, creating lovely water reflections. But during the Light City festival, illuminated sculptures and colorful interactive light displays add to the beauty along the waterfront.
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British actor Jude Law has been cast to play a young version of Hogwarts’ venerable headmaster Albus Dumbledore, a key character in the second film of J.K. Rowling’s Fantastic Beasts movie spinoff, Warner Bros. said Wednesday.

Law, 44, best known for his role as Dr. John Watson in the Sherlock Holmes action movies, will play Dumbledore decades before he became the beloved headmaster of Hogwarts, the school where Harry Potter and his friends learned to become wizards and fight dark forces in society.

Rowling, who created Dumbledore for her best-selling Harry Potter books, has said she thinks of him as a gay man who fell in love, when he was younger, with Gellert Grindelwald, who later turned out to be evil and violent.

She told reporters in New York last year that the second Fantastic Beasts movie would show Dumbledore “as a younger man and quite a troubled man — he wasn’t always the sage. … We’ll see him at that formative period of his life.”

Johnny Depp will play Grindelwald in the second movie, for which Rowling has written the screenplay, Warner Bros. said in a statement. Filming will start this summer.

The five-movie spinoff is set some 70 years before Harry Potter goes to Hogwarts and features some new and some familiar Potter characters. The story centers around Newt Scamander, a “magizoologist” with a suitcase full of strange creatures.

Several British actors were considered for the role of young Dumbledore, including Christian Bale, Benedict Cumberbatch and Jared Harris, according to Hollywood publication Variety.

“We are thrilled to have Jude Law joining the Fantastic Beasts cast, playing a character so universally adored,” said Toby Emmerich, president and chief content officer of Warner Bros. Pictures.

The first Fantastic Beasts film, released in November, made some $813 million at the global box office. The second of the movies, which is yet to be titled, is due for release in November 2018.

The eight Harry Potter movies made $7 billion at the global box office.
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American artist Ryan Mendoza, who has moved the former house of the late civil rights icon Rosa Parks from Detroit to Berlin, says he would like to return it to the United States one day.

Parks’ refusal in 1955 to give up her bus seat in Alabama for a white passenger became a symbol of the U.S. civil rights movement. She later moved to Detroit, where the house she lived in faced demolition until her niece, Rhea McCauley, bought it.

McCauley paid $500 for the two-story dwelling and in turn handed it over to Mendoza, who painstakingly stripped it into 2,000 pieces and paid $13,000 to move it to Berlin, where he has put it back together outside his studio.

Now he wants to move the house back to the United States.

“This house really belongs in the United States,” he told Reuters. “It doesn’t belong here, but since it is here, it encourages more people to think about why it was on the demolition list.”

Mendoza would also like to involve former U.S. first lady Michelle Obama in the project.

“It would be the perfect solution if Michelle Obama became the ambassador of this project,” he said. “She has the courage and she totally convinced me when she said what was so obvious: that the White House was built by slaves.”

Former U.S. President Barack Obama is due to join German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin in May as part of celebrations to mark 500 years of Protestantism in Europe.
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Bill O’Reilly is taking a vacation from his Fox News Channel show amid sponsor defections triggered by sexual harassment allegations.

Announcing the break at the end of Tuesday’s show, O’Reilly made a point of saying it was planned and long in the works. He said he will return April 24.

Around this time of year, “I grab some vacation, because it’s spring and Easter time. Last fall, I booked a trip that should be terrific,” he said.

His vacation announcement comes as about 60 companies said they won’t advertise on his show. The exodus followed a recent report in The New York Times that five women were paid a total of $13 million to keep quiet about harassment allegations.

The amount of advertising time by paying customers on “The O’Reilly Factor” has been cut by more than half since the Times report, according to an analysis issued Tuesday by Kantar Media.

But O’Reilly, cable TV news’ most popular personality, hasn’t been abandoned by his audience. His show averaged 3.7 million viewers over five nights last week, up 12 percent from the 3.3 million he averaged the week before and up 28 percent compared to the same week in 2016.

“O’Reilly Factor” drew an average of just under 4 million viewers for the first three months of 2017, his biggest quarter ever in the show’s 20-year history.

On Tuesday, the host offered his audience some general advice.

“If you can possibly take two good trips a year, it will refresh your life. We all need R&R. Put it to good use,” O’Reilly said.
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Musician J. Geils, founder of the J. Geils Band, known for such peppy early ’80s pop hits as “Love Stinks,” “Freeze Frame” and “Centerfold,” has died in his Massachusetts home at age 71.

Groton police said officers responded to Geils’ home about 4 p.m. Tuesday for a well-being check and found him unresponsive. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

“A preliminary investigation indicates that Geils died of natural causes,” police said in a statement.

The J. Geils Band was founded in 1967 in Worcester, Massachusetts, while Geils, whose full name was John Warren Geils Jr., was studying at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. The band, whose music bridged the gap between disco and new wave, released 11 studio albums before breaking up in 1985. They reunited off and on over the years.

The band had several Top 40 singles in the early 1970s, including a cover song “Lookin’ for a Love” by the family group the Valentinos and “Give It to Me.”

Their biggest hits included “Must of Got Lost,” which reached No. 12 on Billboard’s Top 100 in 1975, and “Love Stinks,” a rant against unrequited love, the title song on their 1980 album. Their song “Centerfold,” from the album “Freeze Frame” was released in 1981 and eventually charted at No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 in February 1982. It stayed there for six weeks and was featured on MTV.

When news of Geils’ death broke, fans turned to social media to offer condolences and to reminisce about the band’s songs and concerts.
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It’s been years since Isabell Meggett Lucas has been inside the tiny house she was born in, a former slave cabin where her ancestors sought refuge from the hot South Carolina sun.

 

But the 86-year-old woman never envisioned that when she finally returned, the wooden two-room house would be viewed by millions of people inside the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture as an example of what home life was like for slaves in the South.

 

Visiting the new museum, open for a little over six months now — gave Lucas and her family, a chance to share with museum curators a first-hand glimpse of how descendants of African slaves lived in the post-Civil War and Jim Crow South, their joys and pains and how they survived a hardscrabble life without electricity or other modern comforts.

 

“It’s my home. We all lived there together and we were happy,” said Lucas, speaking softly as she stood outside the weatherboard cabin used during slavery at Point of Pines Plantation on Edisto Island, South Carolina.

 

Smithsonian officials scoured the countryside looking for representations of slave cabins for years before choosing the Meggett family cabin on the coast of South Carolina, curator Nancy Bercaw said.

 

Lucas, her sister-in-law Emily Meggett and their family viewed the cabin Monday and Tuesday, where it was rebuilt as part of the “Slavery and Freedom” exhibition in the museum almost exactly as it was when the last occupant lived there in 1981. It is believed to be one of the oldest preserved slave cabins in the United States, and although the exact age of the cabin is not known, it sat on the Point of Pines Plantation from 1851 until it was moved plank by plank to the museum.

 

But Lucas, who lived there from birth until age 19, remembered something about the cabin that isn’t in the exhibit.

 

“It had a big long porch on the outside,” she said. “My momma would sit on that porch. The cool wind would be getting ready to blow off the rivers and such. The wind would blow and we’d sit on the porch … when we would get tired, everyone would lay on that porch under blankets and quilts and go to sleep.”

 

That’s the importance of having access to the people who lived in the house, because the porch was gone by the time the Smithsonian officials first saw the cabin, Bercaw said. People often think of history to be just about objects and things, when there’s so much more they can learn, she said.

 

“They can give us such insight to what life was like on Edisto Island,” Bercaw said. “Objects hold meaning within them, and as far as we’re concerned, that meaning comes from the family” that lived there.

 

The museum is still collecting information about the cabin, including the oral history of the Meggett family, recorded during their trip to Washington.

 

For example, the 84-year-old Meggett said she remembered coming over before she married Lucas’s brother, and remembered Sunday afternoon games of hopscotch, jump rope and baseball in the nearby grass, where a base would be an old brick, and the children could run free through the grass and fields.

 

But slowly, she said, people moved away and the cabin eventually was abandoned. Meggett said she would occasionally visit, however, and her last visit was only a month or two before they moved the cabin out of South Carolina.

“There were five deer standing up there in the cabin,” she said. “When they saw us, they jumped and ran. We stopped and watched them, and then we went on down to the landing and came back. Then I heard all of a sudden they were going to move the cabin, and when I got back, it was already gone.”

 

People should know how they had to live in the past, Lucas said. “We had to work so hard,” she said. “I hated it. I hated all farmwork, but I didn’t have a choice.”

 

But there were good times as well, and wonderful food, she said.

“We ate grits and rice and cornbread, biscuits. When I got big enough I had to cook … one thing I learned was how to fix biscuits. We had a fireplace. You see the fireplace here, they would build a fire in the fireplace and they would cook biscuits,” Lucas said.

 

The matriarch said she tries to tell her younger relatives about what life was like back then, to share their family’s history. Having the cabin in the museum will help people learn about what life was like in the past, she said.

“People can look at that house and the pictures around it and know that everything didn’t come easy back then,” she said.
…

China, Japan and South Korea may have their differences, but they mostly see eye-to-eye on cherry blossoms.

In all three north Asian countries, people flock to parks, gardens and temples to enjoy the beauty of the pinkish-white petals, often in the lingering chill of early spring.

The shared natural heritage has been a minor source of conflict: Japan is the most well-known for cherry blossoms, but researchers in South Korea and China have argued that their country is the birthplace of the cherry tree.

The horticultural disagreement seems far removed from the “oohs” and “ahs” of the admiring crowds, busy taking selfies and photographs.

In a series of triptychs, Associated Press photographers in Beijing, Seoul and Tokyo capture the ways people in each country interact with the blossoms. Each set of images focuses on a theme: architecture, children, couples, picnics and others. The combined photos are notable as much for their similarities as their differences.

PHOTOS: Cherry Blossoms from North Asia
…

Silence and stillness settled over the deep, sunbaked gorge as a pair of photographers sat on a cliff, waiting. 

Then the rumbling started. As it grew louder, they scrambled into position.

Within seconds, a thunderous roar reverberated from the steep, narrow canyon as an F-18 fighter jet streaked through it, passing beneath their feet. It came so close they could see the pilots’ expressions.

This deafening show that was over in a flash is a fairly common sight at Death Valley National Park, 260 miles (415 kilometers) east of Los Angeles, where U.S. and foreign militaries train pilots and test jets in the gorge nicknamed Star Wars Canyon.

Photographers — some capturing images for work, others for fun —  along with aviation enthusiasts and others have been traipsing to the remote 4,688-square-mile (12,142-square-kilometer) park in growing numbers to see the jets soaring below the rim of what’s officially called Rainbow Canyon, near the park’s western entrance.

It earned its nickname because its mineral-rich soil and rocky walls in shades of red, gray and pink draw to mind a landscape in a galaxy far, far away — Tatooine, the home planet of Star Wars character Luke Skywalker.

The unusually close-up view of military planes zooming through the craggy gorge has become so popular the National Park Service is considering making it an attraction, with informational signs about the training that dates back to World War II.

Park Service officials recently discussed erecting signs and possibly paving a spot for cars, park spokeswoman Abby Wines said.

Wines understands the rush people get from seeing the jets up close. Once she was doing technical canyoneering, hanging from a rope on a 180-foot vertical, when a jet roared over her head but below the canyon rim.

“It’s the loudest thing I have ever heard in my life,” she said. “It was a scary experience since I was holding onto the rope and not anything else.” She also felt a sense of awe.

But on days when one jet passes after another, the noise gets to her.

Elsewhere in the park, the jets also have made it tough when performing the living history show at Scotty’s Castle, a Spanish mission-style villa reflecting early California architecture. The villa recently closed until further notice because of flood damage. But when it was open, it was “disruptive to act like it is 1939 while two military jets are circling, pretending to be in a dogfight above your head,” Wines said.

On a February day, planes careened through Star Wars Canyon 18 times. One pilot performed barrel rolls over the pass.

Jets zip through the gorge at 200 to 300 mph (322 to 483 kph) and can fly as low as 200 feet from the canyon floor. But the canyon’s walls are so steep, the aircraft are still several hundred feet below the rim.

Training at the canyon doesn’t happen every day, so the photographers who make the trek to see them sometimes sit in folding chairs, waiting in the heat, and spy no jets at all.

Jason Watson, who works in information technology at Stanford University’s law school and does freelance photography, recently made his seventh trip to the gorge.

He’s seen as many as 30 photographers spread out across the mile-long rim at different vantage points.

“You can meet anyone from anywhere in the world there,” Watson said.

The photographers develop a comraderie as they share in the thrill of standing above the speedy jets.

The aviators interact with them too, giving a thumbs-up or even flashing a “Hi Mom” sign as they whiz by.

“They know the photographers are there,” Watson said. “They’re aware of the following.”
…

“At the actual breakup of the Beatles, it was painful,” Paul McCartney said during a 1990 television interview. “We likened it to a divorce.”

Twenty years earlier on April 10, McCartney signaled the end of the Fab Four during his unveiling of his solo album “McCartney.”

On April 9, McCartney released a Q&A package to the British press in which he explained his reasons for making his solo album. Compiled with the help of Apple executives, the self-interview also contained questions McCartney imagined he would be asked regarding the possibility of the Beatles splitting up.

While stopping short of saying that the band was finished, McCartney stated that he did not know whether his “break with the Beatles” would be temporary or permanent.

It didn’t quite feel real, in part, because of the way McCartney phrased it — and also, the Beatles’ final album “Let It Be” was yet to be released.

From the group’s first studio contract in 1962, it was clear that John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr were something special.

The Ed Sullivan Show

In February 1964, the group made their first appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show” during their first American tour. It took no time at all for “Beatlemania” to overtake America.

As Billboard Magazine put it in its 2016 year end issue, under the section called “Greatest of All Time:”  

“It’s hard to convey the scope of The Beatles’ achievements in a mere paragraph or two.

They synthesized all that was good about early rock n’ roll, and changed it into something original and even more exciting. They established the prototype for the self-contained rock group that wrote and performed its own material.

As composers, their craft and melodic inventiveness were second to none, and key to the evolution of rock from its blues/R&B-based forms into a style that was far more eclectic, but equally visceral.”

During a 1971 interview on The Dick Cavett Show, John Lennon addressed the non-stop controversy that Yoko Ono, John’s partner and wife, was responsible for the group’s demise.

“She didn’t split the Beatles because how could…one woman? The Beatles were drifting apart on their own.”

Business disagreements had much to do with the split, which led to an awkward legal suit filed by Paul dissolving the group’s business partnership.

And McCartney himself has said there were ill feelings on all sides.

In the May 14, 1970 issue of Rolling Stone, John Lennon lashed out.

“He ((McCartney)) can’t have his own way, so he’s causing chaos,” John said. “I put out four albums last year, and I didn’t say a f***ing word about quitting.”

All of the Beatles had begun working on their solo careers before the official split.

McCartney went on to form the wildly successful band “Wings;” Lennon moved to New York City with Yoko, had a son, and recorded his one collaboration with his wife, “Double Fantasy;” Harrison also made recordings as did Beatles drummer Ringo Starr.

In December 1980, Lennon was shot and killed outside his New York City apartment. He was 40 years old.

Lung cancer killed 58-year-old Harrison in 2001.
…

The biggest U.S. news story of 2016 — the tumultuous presidential campaign — yielded a Pulitzer Prize on Monday for the Washington Post reporter who not only raised doubts about Donald Trump’s charitable giving but also revealed that the candidate had been recorded crudely bragging about grabbing women.

 

David A. Fahrenthold won the prize for national reporting, with the judges citing stories that examined Trump’s charitable foundation and called into question whether the real estate magnate was as generous as he claimed.

 

Fahrenthold’s submission also included his story about Trump’s raunchy behind-the-scenes comments during a 2005 taping of “Access Hollywood.” His talk about groping women’s genitals rocked the White House race and prompted a rare apology from the then-candidate.

 

In another election-related prize, Peggy Noonan of The Wall Street Journal won the Pulitzer for commentary for columns that “connected readers to the shared virtues of Americans during one of the nation’s most divisive political campaigns.”

 

The judges said Fahrenthold’s reporting “created a model for transparent — journalism,” a model he built partly by using Twitter to publicize his efforts and let Trump see what he was doing. The president “can expect to see more of me on Twitter,” said Fahrenthold, now part of a team looking at Trump businesses.

 

American journalism’s most distinguished prizes also recognized work that shed light on international financial intrigue and held local officials accountable.

 

The New York Daily News and ProPublica won the Pulitzer in public service for uncovering how authorities used an obscure law, originally enacted to crack down on prostitution in Times Square in the 1970s, to evict hundreds of people, mostly poor minorities, from their homes.

 

“Thanks to this investigation, New York now sees how an extremely muscular law, combined with aggressive policing, combined with a lack of counsel, combined with lax judges produced damaging miscarriages of justice,” Daily News Editor in Chief Arthur Browne said. The Daily News reporter credited with most of the work was Sarah Ryley.

 

ProPublica’s managing editor, Robin Fields, said the project was “the type of collaboration that ProPublica had in mind” when the independent, nonprofit organization was launched nine years ago.

 

The New York Times’ staff received the international reporting award for its work on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s efforts to project Moscow’s power abroad. The award in feature writing went to the Times’ C.J. Chivers for a story about a Marine’s descent into violence after returning home from war.

 

Winners ranged from partnerships spanning hundreds of reporters to newspapers as small as The Storm Lake Times, a twice-weekly, 3,000-circulation family-owned paper in Iowa. Co-owner Art Cullen won the editorial writing award for challenging powerful corporate agricultural interests in the state.

 

Cullen said he was stunned by the win. “Nobody’s ever heard of us before,” he said with a laugh.

 

The prize for explanatory reporting went to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, McClatchy and the Miami Herald, which amassed a group of over 400 journalists to examine the leaked “Panama Papers” and expose the way that politicians, criminals and rich people stashed money in offshore accounts.

 

Meanwhile, the Herald’s Jim Morin won the award for editorial cartooning. He also won in 1996.

 

Eric Eyre of The Charleston Gazette-Mail received the investigative reporting prize for articles showing that drug wholesalers had shipped 780 million hydrocodone and oxycodone pills to West Virginia in six years, as 1,728 people fatally overdosed on the painkillers. Eyre obtained Drug Enforcement Administration records that leading drug wholesalers had fought in court to keep secret.

 

The staff of the East Bay Times in Oakland, California, received the breaking news reporting award for its coverage of a fire that killed 36 people at a warehouse party and for its follow-up reporting on how local officials hadn’t taken action that might have prevented it.

 

Executive Editor Neil Chase said the award was “tremendously humbling,” but “you have to pause and realize that 36 people died in the fire, and this story should have never happened.”

 

The staff of The Salt Lake Tribune received the local reporting award for its work on how Brigham Young University treated sexual assault victims. The series prompted the Mormon school to stop conducting honor code investigations into students who reported being sexually assaulted.

 

Hilton Als, a theater critic for The New Yorker, won in the criticism category. The judges praised how he strove to connect theater to the real-world, “shifting landscape of gender, sexuality and race.”

 

Freelancer Daniel Berehulak received the breaking news photography award for his images, published in The New York Times, documenting Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s crackdown on drug dealers and users. Berehulak won the feature photography Pulitzer in 2015 for his work on the Ebola outbreak in Africa.

 

This year’s feature photography winner was E. Jason Wambsgans of the Chicago Tribune, for his portrayal of a 10-year-old boy who had been shot.

 

Amid concern about fake news and the role of the media, “it’s just a very important time to try to help people see the importance of great journalism in their lives and in the democracy,” prize administrator Mike Pride said as the awards were announced at Columbia University .

 

Arts prizes are awarded in seven categories, including fiction, drama and music. Among the arts winners, Colson Whitehead took the fiction prize for “The Underground Railroad,” a novel that combined flights of imagination with the grimmest and most realistic detail of 19th-century slavery. Playwright Lynn Nottage won her second drama Pulitzer, for “Sweat.”

 

This is the 101st year of the contest, established by newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer. Public service award winners receive a gold medal; the other awards carry a prize of $15,000 each.
…

Herbie Hancock has twice before visited Havana to perform intimate solo-duet concerts with his Cuban counterpart Chucho Valdes, but at the end of April the two renowned jazz pianists will be collaborating on a grander scale.

 

Hancock and Valdes will be serving as artistic directors for the 6th International Jazz Day.

On Monday, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization announced that Havana will be the global host city for the event, culminating with an all-star concert on April 30 at the recently renovated 19th-century Gran Teatro de La Habana.

The concert will be broadcast live on Cuban television and live streamed by UNESCO.

 

Last year, Washington was the host city with President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama hosting the global concert at the White House.
…

Rapper Drake and EDM duo The Chainsmokers are the top contenders at the Billboard Music Awards with 22 nominations each.

 

Dick clark productions announced Monday that the performers set a record for most nominations in a year. The 2017 awards show will air live May 21 from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

 

Other big contenders include twenty one pilots (17 nominations) and Rihanna (14).

 

Nominees for the biggest award, top artist, include Adele, Beyonce, Justin Bieber, the Chainsmokers, Drake, Ariana Grande, Shawn Mendes, Rihanna, twenty one pilots and the Weeknd.

 

Albums from Beyonce, Drake, Rihanna, twenty one pilots and the Weeknd are up for top Billboard 200 album.

 

The Billboard Awards have 52 categories. The show will air live on ABC.

 

 
…

Veteran Spanish golfer Sergio Garcia finally captured his first major title, winning Sunday’s Masters championship in Augusta, Georgia, in a sudden death playoff over Britain’s Justin Rose.

The two players are long-time friends and they both finished regulation at 9-under-par. On the first extra hole, where they again played the par-4 18th, Rose hit his shot off the tee into the rough and was unable to reach the green in two shots. He made a bogie 5.

Needing only to two-putt the hole to win, Garcia finished in style by sinking his 12-foot (4m) putt for a birdie 3. He had missed a putt from about the same distance on the same hole that would have given him the win in regulation.

After he hugged his caddie, the crowd loudly chanted “Sergio, Sergio, Sergio!” Garcia pumped his arms and pounded his fist into the grass in elation, and then his fiancee joined him on the green for a tight hug and kisses.

“It’s been such a long time coming,” said the 37-year-old Garcia, after a two decade wait in which he played 73 majors. “I thought I had it on 18 (in regulation). I felt today the calmness I have never felt in a major on a Sunday. Even after making a couple bogies, I felt very positive.”

Sunday’s win has added meaning

“Disappointed,” said Rose, last year’s Rio Olympics gold medalist and 2013 U.S. Open champion. “I lost a wonderful battle with Sergio. But he deserves it. He’s had his fair share of heartbreak. I played well, but he rallied.”

It was a fairy tale-like story, because Garcia’s first major golf championship came on what would have been the 60th birthday of his idol Seve Ballesteros, his fellow Spaniard and former world No. 1 who won five major championships, including Masters victories in 1980 and 1983. Ballesteros died six years ago from brain cancer.

“It’s amazing,” said Garcia. “To do it on his 60th birthday and join him and José María Olazábal, my two idols.”

Like Ballesteros, the Spaniard Olazábal won two Masters championships, in 1994 and 1999. Garcia said Olazábal sent him a text message before the Masters began, telling him what he needed to do and that he believed in him.

Tight battle

The 36-year-old Rose and Garcia were co-leaders to start the fourth and final round Sunday at six-under-par, and both played the first nine holes at two-under-par. Garcia fell two shots behind after bogies at the 10th and 11th holes, but got one back with a birdie on the 14th. He tied Rose with an eagle 3 on the 15th while Rose had a birdie 4.

Rose went back ahead with a birdie on the 16th, but fell back into a tie with a bogie on the 17th, setting up the dramatic finish.

Throughout the final day, the two golfers acknowledged one another’s well-played shots.

“I think at the end of the day we’re both trying to win, but we’re both people and we both have to represent the game the way we should,” said Garcia. “We’re good friends so we were respectful of one another and cheering each other on. We wanted to win, but we didn’t want the other to make mistakes.”

“I think it will be a tournament I will win one day,” said Rose. “It’s my favorite tournament of the year. I have a bunch of years left in my tank, and I think this is one I will knock off.”

 
…

Chuck Berry fans are getting their chance to pay their respects to the rock ’n’ roll visionary, roughly three weeks after his death at age 90 near his hometown of St. Louis.

 

Fans of the legend behind such classics as Johnny B. Goode, Sweet Little Sixteen and Roll Over Beethoven can file past his casket Sunday at The Pageant, a St. Louis club where he frequently performed. The public viewing will be followed by a private service for family and friends, including those in the music industry.

 

Charles Edward Anderson Berry, who died March 18, was the first artist in the inaugural 1986 class to go into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and he closed out its concert in 1995 to celebrate that Cleveland building’s opening. The Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards said at Berry’s induction ceremony that Berry was the one who started it all.

 

Berry, whose core repertoire included about three dozen songs, had a profound influence on rock ’n’ roll, from garage bands all the way up to the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.

 

Well before the rise of Bob Dylan, Berry wedded social commentary to the beat and rush of popular music.

 

“He was singing good lyrics, and intelligent lyrics, in the ’50s when people were singing, ‘Oh, baby, I love you so,’” John Lennon once observed.

 

“Everything I wrote about wasn’t about me, but about the people listening,” Berry once said.
…

Family, friends and fans paid their final respects to the rock `n’ roll legend Chuck Berry on Sunday, celebrating the life and career of a man who inspired countless guitarists and bands.

The celebration began with a public viewing at The Pageant, a music club in Berry’s hometown of St. Louis where he often played. Hundreds of fans filed past Berry, whose beloved cherry-red Gibson guitar was bolted to the inside of his coffin’s lid.

“I am here because Chuck Berry meant a lot to anybody who grew up on rock n’ roll,” said Wendy Mason, who drove in from Kansas City, Kansas, for the visitation. “The music will live on forever.”

Another fan, Nick Hair, brought his guitar with him from Nashville, Tennessee, so he could play Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode” while waiting in line outside.

Bill Clinton sends a letter

After the public viewing, family and friends packed the club for a private funeral service and celebration of Berry, who inspired generations of musicians, from humble garage bands up to The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. The service was expected to include live music, and the Rev. Alex I. Peterson told the gathering they would be celebrating Berry’s life in rock ’n’ roll style.

Former President Bill Clinton sent a letter that was read at the funeral by U.S. Rep. Lacy Clay because Berry played at both of Clinton’s presidential inaugurations. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that Clinton called Berry “one of America’s greatest rock and roll pioneers.”

“He captivated audiences around the world,” Bill Clinton wrote. “His music spoke to the hopes and dreams we all had in common. Me and Hillary grew up listening to him.”

Simmons takes the stand

Gene Simmons of the rock band Kiss wasn’t scheduled to speak but someone urged him to take the podium. Simmons said Berry had a tremendous influence on him as a musician, and he worked to break down racial barriers through his music.

When Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards spoke about Berry at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s 1986 induction ceremony — Berry was the first person inducted from that inaugural class — he said Berry was the one who started it all.

That sentiment was echoed Sunday by David Letterman’s former band leader, Paul Shaffer, who spoke to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch outside the club.

“Anyone who plays rock ’n’ roll was inspired by him,” Shaffer said.

Berry’s standard repertoire included about three-dozen songs, including “Johnny B. Goode,” “Sweet Little Sixteen” and “Roll Over Beethoven.” His songs have been covered by country, pop and rock artists such as AC/DC and Buck Owens, and his riffs live on in countless songs.

Berry’s lyrics special

The head of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Greg Harris, said “anybody who’s picked up a guitar has been influenced by him.”

 

Well before the rise of Bob Dylan, Berry wedded social commentary to the beat and rush of popular music.

 “He was singing good lyrics, and intelligent lyrics, in the ‘50s when people were singing, “Oh, baby, I love you so,’” John Lennon once observed.

“Everything I wrote about wasn’t about me, but about the people listening,” Berry once said.
…

Late rapper Tupac Shakur and 1960s protest singer Joan Baez were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on Friday on a night where nostalgia was mixed with calls to political action.

Former Journey frontman Steve Perry reunited on stage with his “Don’t Stop Believin'” bandmates for the first time in 25 years to screams and hugs of joy, while Roy Wood of Electric Light Orchestra turned up for the New York ceremony 45 years after leaving the English band.

But one of the strongest moments came from Baez, 76, who linked her lifelong record of social activism and non-violence with a rallying call for resistance today.

“Let us together repeal and replace brutality and make compassion a priority. Let us build a great bridge, a beautiful bridge, to welcome the tired and the poor,” Baez told the Hall of Fame audience.

A comeback for Baez?

Baez then played an acoustic version of the traditional spiritual “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” and ended with the hope that the song’s band of angels were “coming for to carry me, you, us, even Donald Trump, home.”

Baez enjoyed a new round of fame this week with a protest song called “Nasty Man” about U.S. President Donald Trump.

It was her first songwriting effort in 25 years and has been viewed some 3.3 million times since it was posted on her Facebook page on Tuesday.

Shakur is sixth rapper to be inducted

Emotions ran high for the induction of Shakur, the Harlem-born rapper who was gunned down at age 25 in a 1996 drive-by shooting in Las Vegas that has never been resolved.

Shakur, whose songs about social and racial injustice still resonate today, was only the 6th rap act to be inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in its 30-year history.

Fellow rapper Snoop Dogg recalled he and Shakur in the early 1990s as “two black boys struggling to become men.”

“Tupac’s a part of history for a reason — because he made history. He’s hip hop history. He’s American history,” Snoop said.

“Tupac, we love you. You will always be right with us. They can’t take this away from you homie,” he said, accepting the statuette on Shakur’s behalf.

British progressive rock group Yes, and Seattle-based grunge band Pearl Jam were also among the 2017 inductees, who were chosen by more than 900 voters drawn from the music industry.

Chuck Berry, Prince also honored

Disco producer Nile Rodgers, the man behind 1970s hits like “Le Freak” and “We Are Family,” was presented with a special award for musical excellence.

Artists are eligible for induction 25 years after the release of their first recording.

Tributes were also paid on Friday to Chuck Berry, who died last month at age 90 and who was the first person ever to be inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986, and Prince, who died of an accidental painkiller overdose in April 2016.

The 2017 induction ceremony will be broadcast on cable channel HBO on April 29.

 
…

Pearl Jam, Tupac Shakur, Joan Baez, Electric Light Orchestra, Journey and Yes will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on Friday night.

 

Nile Rodgers will receive a special honor at the event held at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.

 

Presenters inducting the 2017 class include David Letterman, Snoop Dogg, Pharrell Williams, Dhani Harrison, Pat Monahan, Jackson Browne and Alex Lifeson of Rush.

 

Shakur, the prolific rapper, was shot and killed at his peak in 1996. “Keep Ya Head Up,” “Life Goes On,” “Ambitionz Az a Ridah” and “Changes” are among his best-known songs.

 

After Nirvana just three years ago, Pearl Jam is the second band with roots in Seattle’s grunge rock scene to make it into the Rock Hall. The band exploded in popularity from the start in the early 1990s behind songs like “Alive,” “Jeremy” and “Even Flow.”

 

Shakur, Baez, Pearl Jam and ELO were all elected in their first year as nominees.

 

To be eligible, all of the nominees had to have released their first recording no later than 1991. Inductees will eventually be enshrined in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame museum in Cleveland.
…