Aurelia Butler

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    He’s Ringo. And Nobody Else Is.

    In the summer of 1985, Ringo Starr’s friend and fellow drummer Max Weinberg flew to England for the former Beatle’s 45th birthday.Though the pair had become chummy since meeting five years earlier in Los Angeles, backstage at a concert Weinberg was playing with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Weinberg remained somewhat intimidated by his boyhood hero in the early stages of their friendship. (The ever-amicable Starr offered advice: “Sometimes it helps if you call me Richie.”)While celebrating at Tittenhurst Park — the sprawling estate outside London that had previously belonged to John Lennon and Yoko Ono — Starr turned to his younger friend, then 34, and said something that remains an inside joke between them: “Well, Max, I’m going to be 45. Doesn’t that make you feel old?”That line is classic Ringo — a dryly clever, double-take koan from rock ’n’ roll’s Yogi Berra, the man whose tossed off “Ringo-isms” became immortalized in Beatles song titles like “A Hard Day’s Night” and “Tomorrow Never Knows.”Each year, Starr would update the line for Weinberg, until its recitation became something of an annual tradition. “I imagine if I was speaking to him on July 7,” Weinberg said in a phone interview, “him saying to me, ‘I’m 85.’ And it doesn’t sound so old anymore.”Ringo Starr will be the first Beatle to turn 85, and like his surviving bandmate Paul McCartney, he never retired. We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Jury in Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Trial Reaches Verdict on All Counts but Racketeering Conspiracy

    The jury will keep deliberating on a racketeering conspiracy charge in the morning after saying there were “unpersuadable opinions on both sides.”A jury in Manhattan reached a partial verdict on Tuesday in the federal case against the music mogul Sean Combs, but it did not announce its decision because it was deadlocked on a final charge of racketeering conspiracy. The jury left for the night and will return to continue deliberating on Wednesday morning.The jury, comprising eight men and four women, said there were members “with unpersuadable opinions on both sides” on the racketeering count. After deliberating for more than 12 hours, they reached a verdict on the four other counts in the case, two each of sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution.Mr. Combs has pleaded not guilty to all charges, and his lawyers have denied that any of his sexual activities with the women in the trial were nonconsensual.After the jurors alerted the court to the partial verdict at about 4:05 p.m. on Tuesday, Judge Arun Subramanian, who is presiding over the case, brought them into the courtroom and encouraged them to continue their discussions.“I ask at this time that you keep deliberating,” Judge Subramanian said.He reread the panel an excerpt from the jury instructions that said “no juror should surrender his or her conscientious beliefs for the purpose of returning a unanimous verdict.”At that point, the jury decided to conclude its deliberations for the day and return on Wednesday at 9 a.m.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Judge Dismisses Jay-Z’s Suit Against Lawyer He Said Extorted Him

    Lawyers for the rapper had accused Tony Buzbee of making false assault claims. Another federal suit Jay-Z has filed against Mr. Buzbee and his client continues.A judge in Los Angeles on Monday allowed for the dismissal of a months-old lawsuit filed by Jay-Z, in which the rapper had attempted to sue a lawyer he said had tried to blackmail him with false claims of sexual misconduct.In November, lawyers for Jay-Z (born Shawn Carter), brought a suit that accused the lawyer, Tony Buzbee, of extortion, defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress. He sued after Mr. Buzbee, who has filed a number of lawsuits that accuse Sean Combs of sexual assault, reached out to explore a complaint from an anonymous accuser who said that Mr. Carter and Mr. Combs sexually abused her.Mr. Buzbee subsequently filed suit accusing Mr. Carter of raping the anonymous accuser with Mr. Combs when she was 13.That lawsuit accusing Mr. Carter of sexual misconduct was later withdrawn by the woman. Now Mr. Carter’s suit against Mr. Buzbee in Los Angeles has been dismissed.Still ongoing is a separate lawsuit filed by Mr. Carter against Mr. Buzbee in federal court in Alabama, the home state of the anonymous woman who initially sued Mr. Carter on sexual assault grounds.Mr. Carter’s lawyers have asserted in their filings that the woman and her lawyers knew the allegations they were making were false but proceeded with the claim anyway. In the Los Angeles case, Mr. Carter’s lawyers have said he received a letter from Mr. Buzbee threatening to “immediately file” a “public lawsuit” against him unless he agreed to resolve the matter through mediation for money.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    10 Songs of Rebellion and Defiance for the Fourth

    Tracy Chapman, Björk, Public Enemy and more songs for rabble-rousing and celebrating revolution.Tracy ChapmanAmy Sussman/Getty ImagesDear listeners,Jon Pareles here, chief pop critic, dropping by The Amplifier while Lindsay is on leave. The Fourth of July is just a few days away. And its celebratory fireworks and parades, lest we forget, commemorate a manifesto of principled rejection of authoritarian rule, which became the foundation of a successful revolution. It’s a good moment to crank up some songs about defiance, rebellion, justice and collective action. Here are a few for starters.Rip the mic, rip the stage, rip the system,JonListen along while you read.1. Tracy Chapman: ‘Talkin’ Bout a Revolution’“Poor people gonna rise up and take what’s theirs,” Tracy Chapman predicted on her 1988 debut album. With a churchy organ looming behind her strummed guitar chords, she envisioned economic discontent that could build from a whisper to a movement — and she welcomed it.▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube2. The Isley Brothers: ‘Fight the Power, Pts. 1 and 2’Frustration energized the funk in this 1975 hit by the Isley Brothers. Tautly contained rhythm guitars and pithy drumming back up the brothers’ growls and falsettos as they rail against red tape, against people who say their “music’s too loud” and generally against a barnyard profanity that was still a rarity in that era of R&B. For the last two minutes of a five-minute track, they bear down directly on their message, vehemently repeating, “Fight it, fight the power!”▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube3. Public Enemy: ‘Fight the Power’In 1989, Public Enemy latched onto the Isley Brothers’ title and refrain for “Fight the Power,” which appeared on the soundtrack to Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing” and on Public Enemy’s album “Fear of a Black Planet.” Chuck D declares, “From the heart, it’s a start, a work of art / To revolutionize, make a change,” over the Bomb Squad’s dense, deep funk production — a bristling pileup of samples from James Brown and many others. Decades later, it still sounds uncompromising.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    What to Know About Bob Vylan, the Band at the Center of a Scandal

    British police are investigating and the band lost its U.S. visas after a member called for “death” to Israel’s army at a festival.Before this weekend, Bob Vylan was a rising punk band with about 273,000 monthly listeners on Spotify — hardly a household name.Now, after leading chants of “Death, death to the I.D.F.” in reference to Israel’s army at the Glastonbury festival in England, it has become punk rock’s latest notorious act.On Monday, British police opened a criminal investigation into the chant, shortly after Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Jewish groups condemned it as hate speech.In the United States, the deputy secretary of state, Christopher Landau, said that the State Department had revoked visas for Bob Vylan’s members, meaning the band can no longer play a planned U.S. tour.Despite all the attention now focused on the group, many people had never heard of it before. Here’s what you need to know.Who is in Bob Vylan and what’s its music like?A British punk-rap duo known for fast-paced, politically provocative songs, the group uses pseudonyms and deliberately obfuscates other biographical details. The singer goes by Bobby Vylan and the drummer by Bobbie Vylan.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Neil Sedaka Executed One of Pop’s Great Comebacks. Now, He Just Plays.

    After the man in a dark cashmere sweater and tortoise shell glasses sat down at a piano and leaned into the microphone, his first words were a declaration: “Sedaka’s back … again!”It was late March and the lounge at Vitello’s — an old-school Italian restaurant in the heart of Studio City, Calif. — was packed for a show by the irrepressible 86-year-old singer and songwriter Neil Sedaka. He had booked a series of semiregular Sunday night appearances here to mark the golden anniversary of his professional resurrection.Fifty years ago, Sedaka completed one of the most remarkable comebacks in pop music. A smiling star of the teen idol era, he’d made his name with run of hummable hits — “Oh Carol,” “Calendar Girl,” “Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen,” “Breaking Up Is Hard to Do” — but his bubbly tunes, sung in a high tenor, were soon swept away, first by the arrival of the Beatles and then by the turmoil of the 1960s.In the difficult years that followed, Sedaka lost his fortune, his record deal and his sense of self. At his lowest, he would walk down the street and people would ask: “Didn’t you used to be Neil Sedaka?”Neil Sedaka gave up his classical pursuits after hearing the Penguins’ 1954 hit “Earth Angel,” and instead learned his trade as a pop songwriter at the Brill Building.Philip Cheung for The New York TimesIn the early ’70s, Sedaka exiled himself to England, where he gradually rebuilt his career, playing small clubs as he rediscovered his muse and a new group of collaborators. A fellow piano man and avowed fan, Elton John, eventually midwifed his return to the American charts in 1975, helping release the hit LP “Sedaka’s Back,” which has just been reissued in a deluxe vinyl package.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    ‘Jurassic World Rebirth’ Review: Wonder, Gone Extinct

    With its seventh entry, the popular dinosaur franchise is starting to show signs of wear.In the 32 years since dinosaurs started roaming the earth again — that is, since “Jurassic Park” opened in theaters — a list of required ingredients for entries in the franchise has evolved. They always center on scientists and adventurers, usually bickering with one another. There’s always some shadowy billionaire, or billion-dollar corporation, lurking in the background. Kids are always in peril. And of course, there are always dinos.Save for the dinosaurs, this could describe pretty much any summer Hollywood blockbuster. But the “Jurassic” movies — of which the new film, “Jurassic World Rebirth,” is the seventh — have a particularly distinctive quality, something I rarely encounter in big-budget cinema. They’re action-packed and filled with peril, yes. But each movie also gives way, however briefly, to a sense of quiet awe.Cinema is well-suited to provoking wonder. In the art form’s early days, just seeing moving images left viewers astonished (and, in some cases, panicked). It has always felt a little like magic, the experience of watching another world emerge, drawn with lights, through a frame hung on a wall. Adding sound to the experience made it even more amazing, and most cinematic innovations over the past century — everything from Smell-o-Vision to 3-D to 4DX — try to wow the audience even more.Jonathan Bailey and Scarlett Johansson in “Jurassic World Rebirth.”Jasin Boland/Universal Pictures and Amblin EntertainmentBut mainstream movies have often leaned more on spectacle (a shark chomping in the water, superheroes zooming through the air, Tom Cruise hanging off the side of a plane) than awe, which is a quieter thing. Awe makes us feel small, and it feels good. The first “Jurassic Park” movie introduces the dinosaurs in a way that makes the characters, and the audience, stop talking and thinking about anything else and just stare. These giant, stately creatures — the franchise is especially fond of the sort with long, curving necks — are tremendous to behold, and John Williams’s score swells to symphonic heights. Yeah, you know that’s not a real dinosaur. But who cares? You feel small and hushed in the presence of something great, and ancient, and achingly beautiful.Every “Jurassic” movie has repeated this moment, trying to re-evoke in the audience that feeling of awe, with somewhat diminishing returns. But sometimes they still manage it. For instance, the 2022 installment, “Jurassic World: Dominion,” is not a very good movie. But it succeeds on this one specific front by moving the big dinosaur moment to a wintry landscape. Two Brachiosauruses have wandered into a place where loggers are working. They’re being slowly led away from the spot, and the burly men are silently watching. These animals can’t move quickly, but they’re not in a hurry either. Their ancestors were here long before ours, and their bodies carry the memory of a land before time.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    100 Years After His Death, Will We Ever Understand Satie?

    If you’ve ever looked up a playlist to help you relax, focus or fall asleep, you’ve probably come across the music of Erik Satie.Most likely, you will have heard his “Gymnopédie No. 1”: a swaying foundation of chords that seem to step forward yet stay in place, somehow both independent of and supporting an instantly alluring melody.This piece’s popularity transcends genre, exemplifying the composer Virgil Thomson’s idea that Satie is the only composer “whose works can be enjoyed and appreciated without any knowledge of the history of music.”But Satie, while one of the most popular composers, is also one of the most enigmatic. He was a mystery to many during his lifetime and, a century after his death, remains elusive: a house of mirrors full of tricks, distortions and dead ends.Satie’s caricature of himself.API/Gamma-Rapho, via Getty ImagesThe more you try to understand Satie, the more difficult it becomes. His “Gymnopédies” are just a taste of a much bigger, stranger collection of works that are rarely heard. They were composed outside any fashion, and beyond traditional forms like the symphony and concerto, with scores idiosyncratic to the point of absurdity. To some they are a joke; to others they are disarming, a way to clear your mind and allow it to question the nature of music and performance. More