Terence Blanchard’s “Champion,” about the fighter Emile Griffith, is the rare opera to engage with sports. A boxing consultant helped keep it gritty.Emile Griffith fought Benny Paret on March 24, 1962, in a highly anticipated welterweight championship bout at Madison Square Garden.In the 12th round, Griffith knocked Paret into the ropes and pounded him with more than a dozen unanswered blows. As The New York Times put it the next day, “The only reason Paret still was on his feet was that Griffith’s pile-driving fists were keeping him there, pinned against the post.”Paret never regained consciousness and died 10 days later. The fight and its terrible aftermath were high drama. One might even call the story operatic.There has been little overlap between the high drama of sports and the high drama of opera, beyond the bullfighting in “Carmen” or perhaps that odd singing competition in “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.” But in telling Griffith’s story, Terence Blanchard and Michael Cristofer’s 2013 opera “Champion,” which opened earlier this month at the Metropolitan Opera and streams live in movie theaters on Saturday, brings together the brutality of boxing with the soaring passions of opera.It helps that “Champion” is not just a tale of boxing, but also of Griffith’s life as a closeted gay man, an immigrant with a tough childhood and complicated relationship with his mother, and later an old age troubled by dementia and regret.But boxing is the catalyst for the story. The 1962 bout was the third between Griffith and Paret, who had split their first two fights. (Those earlier contests are omitted from the opera, keeping the focus on the fateful third.)Ryan Speedo Green, center, as Griffith after winning the fight against Paret (Eric Greene) in “Champion.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesIt was a time when big boxing matches were big news. Pre-fight hype was everywhere, with all aspects of the fighters’ preparations scrutinized. The Times marveled at Griffith’s “$130 a day suite with two television sets and a closet the size of a Y.M.C.A. room” in Monticello, N.Y., as well as the “turtleneck sweaters, seal coats and Ottoman club chairs” that surrounded the ring as he sparred.The terrible aftermath of the fight brought even more intense coverage. News of Paret’s serious condition made the front page of The Times, days after the fight, with the headline “Paret, Hurt in Ring, Given Little Chance.”At the time, the biggest controversy was the referee’s delay in stopping the contest. “Many in the crowd of 7,500 were begging” the referee to intervene, The Times reported. The referee, Ruby Goldstein, was later exonerated by the State Athletic Commission.But there was more to the story. Though Griffith said he was “sorry it happened,” he added, “You know, he called me bad names during the weigh-in” and during the fight, “He did it again, and I was burning mad.”“Bad names” was how Griffith, The Times and other newspapers described Paret’s taunts. The true nature of those words was not widely known at the time. But in the mid-2000s Griffith revealed the full story. Paret had called Griffith “maricón,” a Spanish slur for a gay man. Griffith was secretly bisexual.The opera’s second act deals with the fallout from the fatal punches, and Griffith’s later life, including a brutal beating he received outside a gay bar. Griffith died in 2013 at 75.The Met worked hard to get the details and the atmosphere of a prize fight right: the ring announcer (who acts here as a Greek chorus of sorts), the sound of the bell, the trophies and championship belts, a “ring girl” signaling the changing of the rounds and the macho posturing of the weigh-in. (The conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin emerges in the pit for the second act in a boxer’s hooded robe.)Helping to make it look accurate was Michael Bentt, a former professional world champion who served as the opera’s boxing consultant. “I’m not an expert on opera,” he said. “But I’m an expert on rhythm. And boxing is rhythm.”Bentt told the production team that there should be no stool in the ring before the first round, only between later rounds. And he thought that the boxing mitts, used by a trainer to block a fighter’s punches, looked too clean. “I said: ‘Make them look gritty. Rub them on the concrete to get them nasty looking.’ There’s nothing clean about the world of boxing.”The Met’s fight director, Chris Dumont, is used to working out sword fights. But for “Champion,” he had to choreograph fisticuffs and make them look convincing without anyone getting hurt.Champion. Griffith after winning the middleweight title in 1966.Larry Morris/The New York Times“For the body shots, they might make some contact with each other,” he said. “But you don’t want someone to get hit in the face. Even if it’s light, it won’t feel too good.”There are several ways to depict boxing: One is to simulate it as closely as possible, as some boxing movies do, by showing powerful punching and splattering blood. A more apt choice for the stage is stylization.“Since they have to sing, actually boxing through those scenes would wind them,” Dumont said of Ryan Speedo Green, who portrays the younger Griffith, and Eric Greene, who plays Paret. Most of the time, when a blow lands, the singers freeze, as if in a snapshot. Some parts are performed in slow motion.The show reaches its sporting peak with the re-creation of the 1962 fight, which ends the first act. The tension and anticipation operagoers may feel as the ring appears onstage is not all that different from the mood among fight fans or sportswriters in the moments before a big bout. All sports have some atmosphere of pregame expectation. But when the sport involves two combatants trying to hurt each other with repeated blows to the head, there is an added frisson of fear, or even dread.In “Champion,” Griffith goes down in the sixth round, and the shouts of a boisterous onstage crowd add to the tension. Then comes the fatal moment.Although the boxers’ blows onstage do not land, that does little to temper the grim moment when a flurry of unanswered shots floor Paret. “I watched the actual fight and tried to keep it as real as possible,” Dumont said. “The 17 blows are fairly close to what it was, in real time. We are not actually landing blows, but moving fast enough so the audience is tricked. It moves back to slow motion as he is falling to the mat.”And in the orchestra pit, the snare drummer looks up at the stage. Each time a blow falls, he raps a synced snare shot.A night at the opera can bring murder or war or bloodshed. But the historically and sportingly accurate depiction of a prize fight that ended with a man’s death has an unsettling quality all its own. As Goldstein, the referee, testified: “It’s the type of sport it is. Death is a tragedy that occasionally will happen.” Or, as Bentt said of “Champion,” “We can’t tiptoe around that it’s violence.” More

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The three musicians will be battling it out for the Song of the Year honor, while Dua Lipa is up against Harry Styles, Lewis Capaldi, The Weeknd and Maroon 5 for Most Performed International Work.

Mar 31, 2021

AceShowbiz –
Tame Impala star Kevin Parker, Guy Sebastian and Amy Shark are preparing to battle it out for the Song of the Year honor at the 2021 APRA Awards.

“Lost It Yesterday” has earned Parker a nod, while Sebastian’s “Standing with You” and Shark’s “Everybody Rise” have also received recognition in the top category, alongside Tim Minchin’s “Carry You” and Midnight Oil’s “Gadigal Land”.

The peer-voted award is one of the highest honors given to Australian songwriters.

“Everybody Rise” and “Let Me Drink” will additionally go up against Tones And I’s “Never Seen the Rain”, Jessica Mauboy’s “Selfish” and “Break My Heart” by Dua Lipa for Most Performed Pop Work, as “Lost in Yesterday” competes for Most Performed Alternative Work.

Included in the Most Performed Rock Work shortlist are Wolfmother’s “Chase the Feeling”, Cold Chisel’s “Getting the Band Back Together” and Spacey Jane’s “Good for You”, with Martin Garrix and Dean Lewis’ “Used to Love” facing off with Joel Corry and MNEK’s “Head & Heart”, and “Rushing Back” by Flume featuring Vera Blue in the dance category.

The hip-hop/rap contenders include Day1’s “Boss, I’m Good?” by Hilltop Hoods and ONEFOUR’s “In the Beginning”, while Becca Hatch’s “2560”, “Rain” by The Teskey Brothers and Milan Ring’s “Say to Me” are in the running for the R&B/Soul accolade.

Meanwhile, The Kid LAROI, Mallrat, Miieha, Thelma Plum and Lime Cordiale are up for Breakthrough Songwriter of the Year, and Dua Lipa picks up another mention for Most Performed International Work for “Don’t Start Now”, which faces stiff competition from “Adore You” by Harry Styles, Lewis Capaldi’s “Before You Go”, The Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights” and “Memories” by Maroon 5.

The 2021 APRA Awards, organized by officials at the Australasian Performing Right Association, will take place in-person in Sydney on April 28, when the late Helen Reddy will be honored with the Ted Albert Award for Outstanding Services to Australian Music.

The list of 2021 APRA Music Awards nominees is below.

Peer-Voted APRA Song of the Year:

Missy Higgins, “Carry You” (Writer: Tim Minchin; Publisher: Kobalt Music Publishing)
Amy Shark, “Everybody Rise” (Writers: Amy Shark / Joel Little; Publishers: Mushroom Music / Sony Music Publishing)
Midnight Oil, feat. Dan Sultan, Joel Davison, Kaleena Briggs & Bunna Lawrie “Gadigal Land”, Writers: Joel Davison / Rob Hirst / Bunna Lawrie, Publishers: Sony Music Publishing / Universal Music Publishing)
Tame Impala, “Lost in Yesterday” (Writer: Kevin Parker; Publisher: Sony Music Publishing)
Guy Sebastian, “Standing with You” (Writers: Guy Sebastian / Jamie Hartman / Greg Holden; Publishers: Universal Music Publishing / Mushroom Music obo Reservoir / Warner Chappell Music)

  See also…

Breakthrough Songwriter of the Year:

Charlton Howard pka The Kid LAROI (Publisher: Sony Music Publishing)
Grace Shaw pka Mallrat (Publisher: Kobalt Music Publishing obo Dew Process)
Miiesha Young pka Miiesha (Publisher: Sony Music Publishing)
Louis and Oli Leimbach (Lime Cordiale) (Publishers: Universal Music Publishing obo Chugg Music)
Thelma Plum (Publisher: Sony Music Publishing)

Most Performed Australian Work:

Dua Lipa, “Break My Heart” (Writers: Andrew Farriss / Michael Hutchence / Dua Lipa / Jordan Johnson / Stefan Johnson / Ali Tamposi / Andrew Watt; Publishers: Warner Chappell Music / Universal Music Publishing / BMG Rights Management / Mushroom Music obo Reservoir / Kobalt Music Publishing)
The Rubens, “Live in Life” (Writers:Scott Baldwin / Elliott Margin / Sam Margin / Zaac Margin / William Zeglis; Publishers: Mushroom Music obo Ivy League Music)
Tones And I, “Never Seen the Rain” (Writer: Toni Watson; Publisher: Kobalt Music Publishing)
Flume ft. Vera Blue, “Rushing Back” (Writers: Harley Streten / Celia Pavey / Eric Dubowsky / Sophie Cates; Publishers: Kobalt Music Publishing obo Future Classic / Universal Music Publishing / Kobalt Music Publishing / Sony Music Publishing)
Martin Garrix & Dean Lewis, “Used to Love” (Writers: Dean Lewis / Martijn Garritsen / Kristoffer Fogelmark / Albin Nedler; Publishers: Kobalt Music Publishing / Universal Music Publishing)

Most Performed Alternative Work:

The Rubens, “Live in Life” (Writers: Scott Baldwin / Elliott Margin / Sam Margin / Zaac Margin / William Zeglis; Publishers: Mushroom Music obo Ivy League Music)
Tame Impala, “Lost in Yesterday” (Writer: Kevin Parker; Publisher: Sony Music Publishing)
Lime Cordiale, “Robbery” (Writers: Louis Leimbach / Oli Leimbach / Shane Abrahams / Daniel Choder / Jonathan Pakfar; Publishers: Universal Music Publishing obo Chugg Music / Downtown Music / Kobalt Music Publishing)
DMA’s, “Silver” (Writers: Matt Mason / Tommy O’Dell / Johnny Took / Thomas Crandles / Joel Flyger / Liam Hoskins; Publishers: Mushroom Music / Sony Music Publishing)
Birds of Tokyo, “Two of Us” (Writers: Ian Berney / Ian Kenny / Glenn Sarangapany / Adam Spark / Adam Weston; Publisher: Mushroom Music)

Most Performed Blues & Roots Work:

Ash Grunwald ft. The Teskey Brothers, “Aint My Problem” (Writer: Ash Grunwald; Publisher: Mushroom Music)
Dope Lemon, “Give Me Honey” (Writer: Angus Stone; Publisher: Sony Music Publishing)
Busby Marou, “Over Drinking Over You” (Writers: Thomas Busby / Jeremy Marou / Ivy Adara / Jon Hume / Lindsey Jackson; Publishers: Sony Music Publishing / Kobalt Music Publishing / Native Tongue Music Publishing)
Tash Sultana, “Pretty Lady” (Writers: Tash Sultana / Matt Corby / Dann Hume; Publishers: Kobalt Music Publishing obo Tash Sultana / Sony Music Publishing)
Ziggy Alberts, “Together” (Writer: Ziggy Alberts; Publishers: Kobalt Music Publishing obo Alberts & Co Music)

Most Performed Country Work:

Casey Barnes, “A Little More” (Writers: Casey Barnes / Michael Delorenzis / Michael Paynter; Publisher: Mushroom Music)
Morgan Evans, “Diamonds” (Writers: Morgan Evans / Evan Bogart / Chris de Stefano; Publishers: Warner Chappell Music / Kobalt Music Publishing / Sony Music Publishing)
Brad Cox, “Give Me Tonight” (Writers: Brad Cox / Joseph Mungovan; Publisher: Sony Music Publishing)
The McClymonts, “I Got This” (Writers: Brooke McClymont / Mollie McClymont / Samantha McClymont / Andy Mak; Publishers: Sony Music Publishing / Native Tongue Music Publishing)
Melanie Dyer, “Memphis T-Shirt” (Writers: Melanie Dyer / Emma-Lee / Karen Kosowski; Publisher: Sony Music Publishing)

Most Performed Dance Work:

PNAU ft. Ollie Gabriel, “All of Us” (Writers: Nick Littlemore / Sam Littlemore / Peter Mayes / Oli Gabriel; Publisher: Universal Music Publishing)
Joel Corry & MNEK, “Head & Heart” (Writers: Jonathan Courtidis / Neav Applebaum / Joel Corry / Daniel Dare / Robert Harvey / MNEK / Kasif Siddiqui / Lewis Thompson; Publishers: Sony Music Publishing / Universal Music Publishing / Mushroom Music obo Minds on Fire / Warner Chappell Music / Kobalt Music Publishing)
Flume ft. Vera Blue, “Rushing Back” (Writers: Harley Streten / Celia Pavey / Eric Dubowsky / Sophie Cates; Publishers: Kobalt Music Publishing obo Future Classic / Universal Music Publishing / Kobalt Music Publishing / Sony Music Publishing)
Dom Dolla, “San Frandisco” (Writer: Dominic Matheson; Publishers: Sweat It Out Publishing administered by Kobalt Music Publishing)
Martin Garrix & Dean Lewis, “Used to Love” (Writers: Dean Lewis / Martijn Garritsen / Kristoffer Fogelmark / Albin Nedler; Publishers: Kobalt Music Publishing / Universal Music Publishing)

Most Performed Hip Hop / Rap Work:

Day1, “Boss” (Writers: Bailey Rawiri / Tuhi Montell)
No Money Enterprise, “German” (Writers: Semisi Alosio / Vaha’i Finau / Junior Leaupepe / Schneider Leaupepe)
Hilltop Hoods, “I’m Good?” (Writers: Barry Francis (DJ Debris) / Matthew Lambert (Suffa) / Daniel Smith (Pressure) / Paul Bartlett / John Bartlett; Publisher: Sony Music Publishing)
ONEFOUR, “In the Beginning” (Writers: Spencer Magalogo / Jerome Misa / Pio Misa / Salec Su’a; Publisher: Sony Music Publishing)
Youngn Lipz, “Misunderstood” (Writer: Filipo Faaoloii)

Most Performed R&B / Soul Work:

Becca Hatch, “2560” (Writers: Becca Hatch / Maribelle Anes / Jamie Muscat / Willie Tafa / Solo Tohi; Publisher: Sony Music Publishing / Universal Music Publishing)
Winston Surfshirt, “Nobodylikeyou” (Writers: Jack Hambling / Lachlan McAllister / Brett Ramson; Publisher: BMG Rights Management)
The Teskey Brothers, “Rain” (Writers: Josh Teskey / Sam Teskey / Liam Gough / Brendan Love; Publisher: Mushroom Music)
Milan Ring, “Say to Me” (Writers: Milan Ring / Blessed Joe-Andah; Publishers: Universal Music Publishing / BMG Rights Management)
Miiesha, “Twisting Words” (Writers: Miiesha Young / Stephen Collins / Mohamed Komba; Publishers: Sony Music Publishing / Mushroom Music)

Most Performed Pop Work:

Dua Lipa, “Break My Heart” (Writers: Andrew Farriss / Michael Hutchence / Dua Lipa / Jordan Johnson / Stefan Johnson / Ali Tamposi / Andrew Watt; Publishers: Warner Chappell Music / Universal Music Publishing / BMG Rights Management / Mushroom Music obo Reservoir / Kobalt Music Publishing)
Amy Shark, “Everybody Rise” (Writers: Amy Shark / Joel Little; Publishers: Mushroom Music / Sony Music Publishing)
Guy Sebastian, “Let Me Drink” (Writers: Guy Sebastian / M-Phazes / Olubowale Akintimehin; Publishers: Universal Music Publishing / Warner Chappell Music)
Tones And I, “Never Seen the Rain” (Writer: Toni Watson; Publisher: Kobalt Music Publishing)
Jessica Mauboy, “Selfish” (Writers: Jessica Mauboy / Antonio Egizii / Isabella Kearney-Nurse / David Musumeci; Publishers: Universal Music Publishing / Sony Music Publishing)

Most Performed Rock Work:

Wolfmother ft. Chris Cester, “Chase the Feeling” (Writers: Andrew Stockdale / Chris Cester / Jason Hill; Publishers: BMG Rights Management / Universal/MCA Music Publishing)
Cold Chisel, “Getting the Band Back Together” (Writer: Don Walker; Publisher: Sony Music Publishing)
Spacey Jane, “Good for You” (Writers: Ashton Hardman-Le Cornu / Caleb Harper / Kieran Lama / Peppa Lane; Publishers: Kobalt Music Publishing obo Dew Process)
Hockey Dad, “I Missed Out” (Writers: Will Fleming / Zach Stephenson; Publisher: BMG Rights Management)
The Amity Affliction, “Soak Me in Bleach” (Writers: Joel Birch / Ahren Stringer / Daniel Brown / Joseph Longobardi; Publishers: Kobalt Music Publishing / Native Tongue Music Publishing)

Most Performed International Work:

Harry Styles, “Adore You” (Writers: Harry Styles / Amy Allen / Thomas Hull / Tyler Johnson; Publishers: Universal Music Publishing / Kobalt Music Publishing / Native Tongue Music Publishing)
Lewis Capaldi, “Before You Go” (Writers: Lewis Capaldi / Thomas Barnes / Peter Kelleher / Benjamin Kohn / Philip Plested; Publishers: BMG Rights Management / Sony Music Publishing)
The Weeknd, “Blinding Lights” (Writers: Abel Tesfaye / Ahmad Balshe / Oscar Holter / Max Martin / Jason Quenneville; Publishers: Kobalt Music Publishing / Warner Chappell Music / Universal/MCA Music Publishing)
Dua Lipa, “Don’t Start Now” (Writers: Dua Lipa / Caroline Ailin / Ian Kirkpatrick / Emily Schwartz; Publishers: Universal Music Publishing / BMG Rights Management / Warner Chappell Music / Kobalt Music Publishing)
Maroon 5, “Memories” (Writers: Adam Levine / Jonathan Bellion / Vincent Ford / Jacob Hindlin / ordan Johnson / Stefan Johnson / Michael Pollack; Publishers: Universal/MCA Music Publishing / BMG Right Management / Kobalt Music Publishing / Warner Chappell Music)

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AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyTony Rice, Bluegrass Innovator With a Guitar Pick, Dies at 69The nimble king of flatpicking had enormous influence on a host of prominent musicians. And he could sing, too, until he could no longer.Tony Rice in about 2000. “I don’t know if a person can make anything more beautiful” than his guitar playing, the singer-songwriter Jason Isbell said.Credit…Stephen A. Ide/Michael Ochs Archives, via Getty ImagesDec. 28, 2020Updated 6:26 p.m. ETTony Rice, an immensely influential singer and guitarist in bluegrass and in the new acoustic music circles that grew up around it, died on Saturday at his home in Reidsville, N.C. He was 69.The International Bluegrass Music Association confirmed his death. No cause was specified.“Tony Rice was the king of the flatpicked flattop guitar,” the singer-songwriter Jason Isbell said on Twitter. “His influence cannot possibly be overstated.”Mr. Isbell was referring to what is commonly known as flatpicking, a technique that involves striking a guitar’s strings with a pick or plectrum instead of with the fingers. Inspired by the forceful fretwork of the pioneering bluegrass bandleader Jimmy Martin, Mr. Rice’s flatpicking was singularly nimble and expressive.“I don’t know if a person can make anything more beautiful,” Mr. Isbell went on to say in his tweet, describing Mr. Rice’s fluid, percussive playing, in which feeling, whether expressed harmonically or melodically, took precedence over flash.Mr. Rice left his mark on a host of prominent musicians, including his fellow newgrass innovators Mark O’Connor and Béla Fleck, acoustic music inheritors like Chris Thile and Alison Krauss, and his flat-picking disciples Bryan Sutton and Josh Williams.“There’s no way it can ever go back to what it was before him,” Ms. Krauss said of bluegrass in an interview with The New York Times Magazine for a profile of Mr. Rice in 2014. She was barely a teenager when Mr. Rice first invited her onstage to play with him.Starting in the 1970s with his work with the group J.D. Crowe and the New South, Mr. Rice built bridges that spanned traditional bluegrass, ’60s folk songs, jazz improvisation, classical music and singer-songwriter pop.He was a catalyst for the newgrass movement, in which bands broke with bluegrass tradition by drawing on pop and rock sources for inspiration, employing a more improvisational approach to performing and incorporating previously untapped instrumentation like electric guitar and drums.The bluegrass association named him instrumental performer of the year six times, and in 1983 he received a Grammy Award for best country instrumental performance for “Fireball,” a track recorded with J.D. Crowe and the New South.Not only a virtuoso guitarist, Mr. Rice was also a gifted singer and master of phrasing. His rich, supple baritone was as equally at home singing lead in three-part bluegrass harmony arrangements as it was adapting the troubadour ballads of Gordon Lightfoot under the newgrass banner.But his performing career was abruptly cut short beginning in 1994, when he learned he had muscle tension dysphonia, a severe vocal disorder that robbed him of the ability to sing in public and compromised his speaking voice. He would not sing onstage or address an audience again until 2013, when the bluegrass association inducted him into the International Bluegrass Hall of Fame.Not long after that diagnosis, Mr. Rice learned that he also had lateral epicondylitis, commonly known as tennis elbow, which made it too painful for him to play the guitar in public anymore as well.A 1975 album by the band J.D. Crowe and the New South, with Mr. Rice on guitar, modernized bluegrass in ways that shaped the music into the 21st century. From left, J.D. Crowe, Ricky Scaggs, Bob Slone and Mr. Rice. David Anthony Rice was born on June 8, 1951, in Danville, Va., one of four boys of Herbert Hoover Rice and Dorothy (Poindexter) Rice, who was known as Louise. His father was a welder and an amateur musician, his mother a millworker and a homemaker. It was her idea to call her son Tony, after her favorite actor, Tony Curtis. Everyone in the Rice household played or sang bluegrass music.After the family moved to the Los Angeles area in the mid-1950s, Mr. Rice’s father formed a bluegrass band called the Golden State Boys. The group, which recorded several singles, included two of his mother’s brothers as well as a young Del McCoury at one point, before he became a bluegrass master in his own right. The band inspired Mr. Rice and his brothers to form a bluegrass outfit of their own, the Haphazards.The Haphazards sometimes shared local bills with the Kentucky Colonels, a band whose dazzling guitarist, Clarence White — a future member of the rock band the Byrds — had a profound influence on Mr. Rice’s early development as a musician.(Mr. White was killed by a drunken driver while loading equipment after a show in 1973. Afterward, Mr. Rice tracked down Mr. White’s 1935 Martin D-28 herringbone guitar, which he purchased from its new owner in 1975 for $550. Restoring the guitar, he started performing with it, affectionately calling it the “Antique.”)The Rice family moved from California to Florida in 1965 and then to various cities in the Southeast, where Mr. Rice’s father pursued one welding opportunity after another.He also drank, creating a tumultuous home life that forced Mr. Rice to move out when he was 17. Tony Rice struggled with alcohol himself but, by his account, had been sober since 2001.Dropping out of high school, Mr. Rice bounced among relatives’ homes before moving to Louisville in 1970 to join the Bluegrass Alliance. The band’s members, including the mandolinist Sam Bush, went on to form much of the founding nucleus of the progressive bluegrass band New Grass Revival.Mr. Rice joined J.D. Crowe and the New South in 1971. Three years later, Mr. Skaggs signed on as well, replacing Mr. Rice’s brother Larry in the group. The dobro player Jerry Douglas also become a member of the New South at this time. In 1975, the band released an album titled simply “J.D. Crowe and the New South” (but commonly known by its first track, “Old Home Place”), which modernized bluegrass in ways that shaped the music into the 21st century.Mr. Rice, Mr. Douglas and Mr. Skaggs left the group in August 1975. Mr. Rice then moved to San Francisco and helped found the David Grisman Quartet, a trailblazing ensemble featuring bluegrass instrumentation that fused classical and jazz sensibilities to create what Mr. Grisman called “dawg music.”“The music laid out in front of me was like nothing I’d ever seen,” Mr. Rice told The Times Magazine in 2014. “At first I thought I couldn’t learn it. The only thing that saved me was that I always loved the sound of acoustic, small-group, modern jazz.”After four years with Mr. Grisman, Mr. Rice established his own group, the Tony Rice Unit, which was acclaimed for its experimental, jazz-steeped approach to bluegrass as heard on albums like “Manzanita” (1979) and “Mar West” (1980).Mr. Rice also recorded more mainstream and traditional material for numerous other projects, including a six-volume series of albums that paid tribute to the formative bluegrass of the 1950s.“Skaggs & Rice” (1980), another history-conscious album, featured Mr. Skaggs and Mr. Rice singing seamless, soulful harmonies in homage to the brother duos prevalent in the pre-bluegrass era.Mr. Rice performing in 2009 with his band the Tony Rice Unit at the Bonnaroo music festival in Tennessee. Credit…Jason Merritt/FilmMagic, via Getty ImagesMost of Mr. Rice’s releases after 1994, the year he got his vocal disorder diagnosis, were instrumental projects or collaborations, like “The Pizza Tapes,” a studio album with Mr. Grisman and Jerry Garcia of Grateful Dead fame; Mr. Rice contributed acoustic guitar.His survivors include his wife of 30 years, Pamela Hodges Rice, and his brothers Ron and Wyatt. His brother Larry died in 2006.Mr. Rice cut a dashing figure onstage, complete with finely tailored suits and a dignified bearing, as if to gainsay the lack of respect bluegrass has sometimes received outside the South, owing to its hardscrabble rural beginnings.Mr. Rice was as conscious of these cultural dynamics as he was of the limitless possibilities he saw in bluegrass music.“Maybe the reason I dress like I do goes back to the day where, if you went out on the street, unless you had some sort of ditch-digging job to do, you made an effort to not look like a slob,” he told his biographers, Tim Stafford and Caroline Wright, for “Still Inside: The Tony Rice Story” (2010).“Back in the heyday of Miles Davis’s most famous bands, you wouldn’t have seen Miles without a tailored suit on,” he went on. “My musical heroes wear suits.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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The 2009 single from the ‘Wrecking Ball’ hitmaker is reported to get more than 313,000 views on Spotify, and has re-emerged on the U.S. iTunes top 200 list following Donald Trump’s defeat.

Nov 10, 2020
AceShowbiz – Miley Cyrus’ 2009 hit “Party in the U.S.A.” soared back into the charts over the weekend (November 07-08) following the results of the U.S. election.
As scored of Americans celebrated Joe Biden’s presidential victory, the singer’s classic hit provided the soundtrack to the revelry, receiving a boost of more than 313,000 views on Spotify, reported the New York Post’s Page Six gossip column.
The hit, which came in at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 during its initial run on the charts, also re-emerged on the U.S. iTunes top 200 list following Donald Trump’s defeat, which came four days after the election began.

  See also…

Democrat Joe was declared the winner of a tense election battle after he picked up the 270 electoral votes necessary to make him president-elect as vote tabulation continues in some states.
Showing off her video editing skills, Miley celebrated in her own way by sharing a mash-up showing Biden bopping to her hit single, alongside which she wrote, “Now THIS is a PARTY IN THE USA!”

Miley continued to play a role in the surge of “Party in the U.S.A.” streams as she later retweeted several videos of fans all across the country using the feel-good track to celebrate Biden’s win. In one video, a large crowd gathered in New York City’s Time Square and could be seen singing along to the track, while another video showed a group of people dancing to the song outside of the White House in Washington, D.C.

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This obituary is part of a series about people who have died in the coronavirus pandemic. Read about others here.Fred the Godson, who for more than a decade was a respected figure in New York hip-hop, an understated master of wordplay with a signature flow, died on Thursday in the Bronx. He was 41. His death, at Montefiore Medical Center, where he had been hospitalized since early April, was confirmed by his publicist, Matthew Conaway, who said the cause was complications of the coronavirus.Back when mixtapes were still the coin of the realm in New York rap circles, Fred the Godson was a reliable, forceful presence. He had a husky voice, but it was nimble, too — all the better for the kind of wordplay-heavy punch-line-filled bars that thrived in those settings. Double entendres, homophones, homonyms, assonance — he always found a way to bend a rhyme.Take his 2012 freestyle on Funkmaster Flex’s Hot 97 radio show, a regular showcase for high-finesse wordsmiths, in which his verse evolves line by line, one subtle tweak at a time:They see me on the block with the Lincoln parkedThey know I’m selling rock like Linkin ParkFar as flow, they click on my link and watchYou see me with the big Cuban link and watch“He was really committed to the wittiness and the bar work — he stood on that,” said Justin Harrell, a rapper who records as 38 Spesh and who was among Fred the Godson’s closest friends. Mr. Harrell recalled that Fred wrote all his rhymes with a silver Uni-ball pen on unlined yellow paper in a wholly illegible scribble. After he would record in the booth, he’d leave the paper behind, unworried about anyone filching his rhymes. “He knew no one would be able to read it,” Mr. Harrell said.DJ Clark Kent, a seminal figure in New York rap, praised Fred the Godson’s wordplay in a tribute on Instagram: “He was easily one of the most dangerous MC’s around.”Frederick Thomas was born on Feb. 22, 1979, and grew up in the Bronx, where hip-hop began. (Big Bronx was one of his nicknames.) He emerged in New York rap in the 2000s as a potent freestyler, spilling reference-dense lines over beats from other rappers’ songs, a New York tradition.He quickly released a pair of impressive mixtapes — “Armageddon” in 2010 and “City of God,” part of DJ Drama’s Gangsta Grillz series, in 2011. He was named a member of XXL magazine’s 2011 Freshman class, an annual collection of hip-hop up-and-comers.In the decade since, Fred the Godson had steadily released strong music and performed regularly, becoming an avatar of a hip-hop style that wasn’t always at the genre’s center. He collaborated widely, with Pusha T, Jadakiss, Cam’ron, Raekwon and many others.Mostly he favored hard-boiled subject matter, sometimes tragic and sometimes leavened with triumph, as on “Toast to That,” his 2011 collaboration with Jadakiss. But he also touched on matters of the heart, most memorably that same year on the savage and wry payback tale “Monique’s Room”: “We sent a vid to your Facebook/I wish I seen how your face looked.”Fred the Godson’s survivors include his wife, LeeAnn Jemmott, and two daughters. More