Aurelia Butler

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    in Music

    Lulu Roman, Who Brought Big-Hearted Sass to ‘Hee Haw,’ Is Dead at 78

    Obesity was a source of trauma for her, but also of her comedy, which she showcased, along with gospel singing, on the long-running down-home variety show.Lulu Roman, who brought her big-hearted Texas sass and full-throated gospel vocals to the enduring variety show “Hee Haw,” known for its corn-pone comedy sketches and musical interludes provided by a constellation of country stars, died on April 23 in Bellingham, Wash. She was 78.Her son and caretaker, Damon Roman, said she died of heart failure at his home, where she had been living.Ms. Roman’s broad comedic skills and down-home persona proved a valuable asset to “Hee Haw,” which debuted on CBS in 1969 as a folksy heartland answer to NBC’s “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In,” a network take on contemporary mod culture known for its Day-Glo graphics and risqué one-liners delivered at Gatling-gun pace. It was originally a summer replacement for “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour,” an even edgier variety show that had run afoul of censors for its pointed takes on race relations, drugs, religion and the Vietnam War.But “Hee Haw” was the opposite of hip, and intentionally so. It was the television equivalent of a big country breakfast, heavy on the cheese grits. And it worked.While the show was initially blasted by critics, its mix of back-40 humor and musical appearances by Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn and seemingly every other Nashville star propelled it to television institution status. (Although CBS canceled the show in 1971, “Hee Haw” rolled on in syndication, lasting more than a quarter of a century in various iterations.)Ms. Roman, in the foreground, with her “Hee Haw” castmates in an undated photo.Tony Esparza for CBS/TV Guide, via Everett CollectionWe 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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    Going Back to Pavement’s Gold Sounds

    Hear 11 songs to prep for the band’s bizarro documentary, “Pavements.”Stephen Malkmus fronting Pavement.Chad Batka for The New York TimesDear listeners,This past Friday one of the more bonkers music documentaries ever to hit screens arrived: “Pavements,” the director Alex Ross Perry’s exploration of both the ’90s indie band Pavement and the ways we make myths around musicians. I talked to Perry and the Pavement frontman Stephen Malkmus about how the movie ended up taking the wild form that it did, using split-screen images to show Pavement’s most recent reunion tour as well as a jukebox musical (real), a Hollywood biopic (fake) and a museum exhibition (a bit of both). The Times critic Alissa Wilkinson called it all “delightfully destabilizing.”Along with its meta pranks, though, “Pavements” is full of great music. In our interview, Perry said he wanted the movie to “perform like a two-hour Pavement concert where it goes from an achingly beautiful, tender song, to a very loud and bratty punk song, to just an endless, sprawling, loose jam.” It’s an apt description of the band’s catalog, which filtered avant-garde rock influences — like the Velvet Underground, Pere Ubu (R.I.P. David Thomas), Can and especially the Fall — through the suburban California sensibility of Malkmus and Scott Kannberg, a.k.a. Spiral Stairs. “The whole record collection kind of melts into what you are,” Malkmus says in the documentary.You can’t talk about Pavement in 2025 without getting into the story of “Harness Your Hopes,” a non-album track that was boosted by the Spotify and TikTok algorithms until it became Pavement’s best-known song for younger fans. (“That’s really like a crazy, crazy thing that happened,” Malkmus said in a phone interview. “That’s pretty fun.”) The band’s record label had Perry shoot a music video to capitalize on its success; it features Sophie Thatcher from “Yellowjackets” and references all of Pavement’s old videos from the ’90s.If you like that one, just think what they actually put on the records! Here’s a Pavement primer where the beautifully tender rubs shoulders with the loud and bratty and the endless, loose jams.Hi-ho, Silver, ride,DaveListen along while you read.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 as Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’s Sex Trafficking Trial Begins in NYC

    The music mogul known as Puffy and Diddy is facing federal charges of racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking. He has pleaded not guilty.Jury selection for Sean Combs’s federal criminal trial began this week, and opening statements from prosecutors and Mr. Combs’s lawyers are slated for Monday.The trial is being held at the Federal District Court in Lower Manhattan and is expected to last eight weeks. Here’s a primer on the charges and what’s at stake for the music mogul.Who is Sean Combs?Mr. Combs, 55, is one of the most successful producers and entrepreneurs in the history of hip-hop, who helped make artists like the Notorious B.I.G. and Mary J. Blige into household names. Under the name Puff Daddy, he had a No. 1 smash of his own in 1997 with “I’ll Be Missing You,” a tribute to B.I.G. that sampled the 1980s band the Police. He dated Jennifer Lopez, threw glittery parties in the Hamptons and was a gossip-column fixture for decades.Music was just one part of what became a multifaceted empire for Mr. Combs. He entered the fashion business in 1998 with his Sean John line, which remained hugely popular for years. His MTV reality show “Making the Band” made him a regular TV presence in the 2000s. Later, he founded a media company, Revolt, and promoted the popular vodka brand Ciroq through a deal with the spirits giant Diageo. At one point, his net worth was estimated as high as $1 billion.Mr. Combs has long been accused of violence or serious misconduct, but largely avoided serious consequences as his career ascended. Among those incidents: a charity basketball game in 1991, where nine young people were crushed to death in a stampede (Mr. Combs paid about $750,000 in private settlements). The beating of a rival music executive in his office in 1999 (Mr. Combs attended a one-day anger management course). The threatening of a choreographer on “Making the Band” in 2007 (the two reconciled, and no criminal charges were brought).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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    Theo Von, Andrew Schulz, Joe Rogan: A ‘Manosphere’ Just Asking Questions

    Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTubeSo long Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert? The next generation of celebrity interviewers has emerged, auguring their eventual replacement. On YouTube, a wave of comedians-turned-podcasters, many of them immature verging on boorish, have created a new media mainstream, where actors, musicians and crucially, politicians, sit for loose, extended conversations that are quickly becoming the new norm.Some of the best known of these new chatters are Theo Von, Andrew Schulz and Joe Rogan. Loosely, they’re part of the so-called “manosphere,” a set of social media figures who tilt rightward. But really, they’re a more diverse lot, with varying strengths, interests and politics.On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about the generation of male comedians who have remade themselves as the interlocutors of the day, how politicians have weaponized them for their purposes, and how they’re reshaping how celebrity is approaching the post-monoculture landscape.Guest:Dan Adler, a staff writer at Vanity FairConnect With Popcast. Become a part of the Popcast community: Join the show’s Facebook group and Discord channel. We want to hear from you! Tune in, and tell us what you think at popcast@nytimes.com. Follow our host, Jon Caramanica, on Twitter: @joncaramanica.Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. More

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    André 3000 Drops Surprise Album After Met Gala Piano Statement

    The rapper and musician’s miniature Steinway teased his new album, “7 piano sketches,” which he released on Monday.It can be a challenge to make an impression on the Met Gala’s red carpet, especially when the competition includes Diana Ross wearing a feathered overcoat with an 18-foot-long train, Bad Bunny toting a bag fit for a bowling ball, and Rihanna arriving fashionably late — with a baby bump.But there are spectacles and there are spectacles, and André 3000 fit nicely into the latter category when he showed up to the festivities on Monday night with a grand piano strapped to his back.“I’m sorry,” the actress Natasha Lyonne said while being interviewed on the red carpet, “there’s a piano coming.”It was a statement piece and a nifty bit of marketing by André 3000, a rapper and musician whose appearance at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute Benefit coincided with the release of his new album, “7 piano sketches,” which he described in an Instagram post as “improvisations” and included a drawing of himself in a version of his Met Gala outfit. The instrumental piano album follows one in which he focused entirely on the flute — a sharp departure from his days in the rap duo Outkast.Beyond the promotion of his new album, his outfit on Monday was carefully planned, both to highlight the event’s theme, which centered on Black style and dandyism, and its dress code, “Tailored For You.”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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    Soprano Patricia Racette to Lead Opera Theater of St. Louis

    Patricia Racette, who has a recent history of performing in and directing productions with the company, will begin as its artistic director this fall.The soprano Patricia Racette has performed on some of the world’s biggest stages, but she has long felt a special connection to Opera Theater of St. Louis, where she made her debut in 1993.Now Racette, 59, will deepen her ties to St. Louis: She will lead Opera Theater as its next artistic director, the company announced on Tuesday.Racette, who has directed productions for the company and overseen its young artist program for six years, said she was excited by the challenge of working to keep opera fresh and relevant.“It feels like a very natural evolution for me,” she said. “I feel we all have a stake in this.”She begins her tenure in October and will succeed James Robinson, who departed last year to lead Seattle Opera as general and artistic director.Racette said she would build on Opera Theater’s reputation for experimentation. The company, founded in 1976, has given the premiere of works like Terence Blanchard’s “Fire Shut Up in My Bones,” which later became the first work by a Black composer to be presented by the Metropolitan Opera. She said that she hoped to work with a variety of contemporary composers, including Kevin Puts, Jonathan Dove and Missy Mazzoli.“I have a perspective and passion for new works, and I’m going to enjoy applying that perspective and passion again on the other side of the curtain,” she said.Racette, who made her debut at the Met in 1995, is known for her portrayals of Puccini heroines. She has also ventured into other genres, including cabaret, which she said she hoped to bring to St. Louis. She said opera companies should not fear crossover repertoire.“These are our stories and traditions,” she said. “It’s an opportunity for accessibility, relevance and impact.”Many opera companies, including Opera Theater of St. Louis, are grappling with rising costs and the lingering effects of the pandemic. The company has benefited from a robust endowment, which is currently valued at about $100 million, and is exploring building a new home at the former headquarters of a shoe company in Clayton, a suburb of St. Louis. (Its theater is in another suburb, Webster Groves.)Racette said she was not daunted by financial challenges.“We’re just going to have to get more creative,” she said. “The arts in troubling times are more important than ever.” More

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    ‘Giants of the Earth’ Opera Returns at Last in South Dakota

    The South Dakota Symphony Orchestra is making a fresh case for Douglas Moore’s “Giants in the Earth,” a Pulitzer Prize-winning but long obscure opera.After the mayor issued a musical proclamation, and after Norway’s ambassador to the United States gave a speech about her country’s far-reaching history in the Midwest, Jennifer Teisinger, the executive director of the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra, came out with a look of pleasant surprise, and more than a little pride.“How many orchestras,” she asked from the stage of Mary W. Sommervold Hall in Sioux Falls, “have the mayor and the ambassador of Norway onstage for the same concert?”True, orchestral concerts don’t usually get that kind of attention. But on a recent Saturday evening, the South Dakota Symphony was offering something extraordinary enough to warrant it: the first performance of Douglas Moore’s opera “Giants in the Earth” in over 50 years.An adaptation of O.E. Rolvaag’s novel, a Midwestern classic about Norwegian immigrants who settle near present-day Sioux Falls in the late 19th century, Moore’s opera premiered in 1951, quickly won the Pulitzer Prize for music, then practically disappeared. It was never recorded, and the full score was never published. A revised version was performed at the University of North Dakota a couple of decades later. But that, too, came and went with little notice or consequence.Before the South Dakota Symphony’s concerts last month, “Giants” hadn’t been heard since then. In Sioux Falls, it has been painstakingly restored, with a recording on the way and its manuscript score engraved at last, ready for publication. Delta David Gier, the orchestra’s transformative music director, has referred to the opera as “a diamond on the side of the road.” Now, it’s more like a gemstone on display.Even so, will people notice it? “Giants” is far from perfect, but in style and subject matter is American opera in its essence: a grand, dramatic treatment of the promise and agony of this country’s melting-pot identity, as precarious and unresolved for immigrants in the 19th century as it is now.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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    Milestone Films Will Be Given Away to Maya Cade of the Black Film Archive

    The distributor’s owners, Amy Heller and Dennis Doros, made the unusual choice to give it away. Their successor is Maya Cade of the Black Film Archive.Milestone Films is a small but mighty distribution company dedicated to discovering works that have been lost to history, restoring them and reintroducing them to anyone willing to watch. It has been run out of the New Jersey home of Amy Heller and Dennis Doros for the last 25 years, but now both are preparing to retire.“One of the things we’ve come to realize is that we are not immortal,” Heller said. As the company’s sole workers, “we are it. It’s the two of us and we want it to continue.”How to keep it going after they step down is something they’ve been discussing for a decade, and now they’ve hit on a novel solution. They’re giving the company away, to Maya Cade, the noted programmer behind the Black Film Archive.Heller and Doros said that last summer they had discussed with Cade, who volunteered herself, the idea of simply handing over their company.“When we met Maya, we just thought, ‘Oh, well, we found her,’” Heller said. “We found the person who we really love and trust and can enthusiastically make this move.”Heller and Doros started Milestone Films in 1990 in their one-bedroom New York apartment shortly after marrying. Since then, it has grown into an internationally recognized distributor that helps bring lost or little-seen films back to prominence. For the last 18 years, the company has been focused on work by and about directors who are Black, Native Americans, L.G.B.T.Q. or women — artists from segments of the population that are underrepresented in the canon.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