More stories

  • in

    Toby Keith Will Be Inducted Into the Country Hall of Fame This Year

    The organization behind the honors avoids electing artists in the year of their death, but the singer died in February just after this year’s vote closed.The country music star Toby Keith, who died last month after battling stomach cancer, has been selected for the Country Music Hall of Fame despite a rule against electing artists in the year of their death, the Country Music Association said on Monday.The induction is moving forward on a technicality: The vote closed on Feb. 2 — three days before the singer’s death on Feb. 5 at age 62.A few hours after officials at the association learned about the death of Keith, the artist behind No. 1 country hits like “Who’s Your Daddy?” and “Made in America,” they received the results of the vote, which included Keith as a chosen inductee.“My heart sank that Tuesday afternoon, knowing that we had missed the chance to inform Toby while he was still with us,” Sarah Trahern, the chief executive of the Country Music Association, said as the group announced the new inductees on Monday.It is not uncommon for inductees to be added to the hall of fame posthumously, but the association’s rule specifically disallows artists to be elected in the year of their death. “That doesn’t apply this year,” Trahern said.With a catalog that included both traditional honky-tonk and pop-country, Keith released 20 No. 1 Billboard country singles during his three-decade career. He was a political lightning rod at times, and many remember Keith, who wrote or co-wrote most of his material, for his post-9/11 song “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American),” which proclaimed that putting a “boot in your ass” is the “American way.”Chosen by an anonymous panel of voters, Keith will join more than 150 figures who have helped shape country music, a roster that includes Johnny Cash, Ray Charles, Dolly Parton, Elvis Presley and Charley Pride. The other two additions to the hall of fame that were announced Monday are the musicians John Anderson and James Burton, who will be inducted along with Keith in October at the CMA Theater in Nashville. More

  • in

    Steve Harley, ‘Make Me Smile’ Singer, Dies at 73

    Mr. Harley was the frontman of the 1970s rock band Cockney Rebel, which landed several hits on the British charts.Steve Harley, the 1970s British rock star who topped Britain’s music charts with the single “Make Me Smile,” died on Sunday. He was 73.He died at his home, his family said on Facebook. No cause was given but Mr. Harley had announced last month that he would step away from the stage to undergo treatment for cancer and previously canceled several concerts scheduled for this year.Mr. Harley was the frontman of the band Cockney Rebel, which he formed in the early 1970s.His biggest hit was the 1975 single “Make Me Smile,” in which Mr. Harley’s even-keeled vocals and melancholic lyrics cruise over instrumentals bearing the optimistic sound distinct to bands of the era. The song hit the top of the British charts in February of that year.Cockney Rebel graced the British charts with other releases, including the 1974 single “Judy Teen,” which peaked at No. 5 on the charts that year, and a funky cover of “Here Comes the Sun” by the Beatles in 1976.Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel in 1974.Gijsbert Hanekroot/RedfernsOther songs found success outside of Britain.“Sebastian,” a single featured on the band’s debut 1973 album, “The Human Menagerie,” wound up being a No. 1 hit in Belgium and the Netherlands, according to Mr. Harley’s website.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

  • in

    Gylan Kain, a Founder of the Last Poets and a Progenitor of Rap, Dies at 81

    He spun gripping portraits of the Black experience starting in the 1960s with the seminal Harlem spoken-word collective, laying a foundation for what was to come.Gylan Kain, a Harlem-born poet and performance artist who was a founder of the Last Poets, the spoken-word collective that laid a foundation for rap music starting in the late 1960s by delivering fiery poetic salvos about racism and oppression over pulsing drum beats, died on Feb. 7 in Lelystad, the Netherlands. He was 81.He died in a nursing home from complications of heart disease, his son Rufus Kain said. His death was not widely reported at the time.The Last Poets, which originally consisted of Mr. Kain, David Nelson and Abiodun Oyewole, were aligned with the Black Arts Movement — the cultural corollary to the broader Black Power movement of the 1960s and ’70s — of which the activist poet and playwright Amiri Baraka was a central figure.The Original Last Poets, as they were billed, in the 1970 film “Right On!” From left, Mr. Kain, Felipe Luciano and David Nelson. Herbert Danska, via Museum of Modern ArtWith their staccato wordplay and sinewy rhythms, the Last Poets were pioneers of performance poetry, spinning out portraits of Black street life that often bristled with the guerrilla spirit of revolution.They made their public debut on May 19, 1968, in Mount Morris Park, now Marcus Garvey Park, in Harlem, at a celebration of the slain civil rights leader Malcolm X. Less than two months after the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis, it was a fraught period in Black America, but also a time percolating with calls for dramatic change.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

  • in

    What to Know About Beyonce’s Country Album, ‘Cowboy Carter’

    The singer and her collaborators have been dropping hints about “Cowboy Carter,” her upcoming album and first full-length foray into country music.It started with a western-style Grammys outfit, complete with a cream-colored cowboy hat, studded string tie and matching Louis Vuitton jacket and skirt.After a year and a half of Beyoncé’s “Renaissance,” the lauded dance music spectacular that included a world tour and a concert film, the awards show outfit signaled to fans that a new era was beginning. From the start, Beyoncé had described “Renaissance” as the first part of a three-act project, and fans wondered if the second act was on its way.One week later, the pop star made herself abundantly clear, this time in a Verizon ad that aired during the Super Bowl.“Drop the new music,” she said at the end of the intricately produced commercial, which featured the comic actor Tony Hale, a robot Beyoncé and the real version, who showed off 10 outfit changes.She had our attention.At her command, her team released a minute-long teaser video that culminated with a small crowd staring at a roadside billboard displaying another cowboy hat-wearing Beyoncé. Then came two new singles, “Texas Hold ’Em” and “16 Carriages,” filled with the kind of Southern twang and country instrumentation seldom heard in her catalog.Confirmation of the new album, Beyoncé’s eighth solo release, came via an Instagram post last week. “Cowboy Carter,” due on March 29, is her first full-length foray into country music. It is expected to tap into her Houston upbringing and reclaim the Black origins of the genre while challenging the largely white country music establishment.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

  • in

    The American Tenor Jonathan Tetelman, a Puccini Specialist, Arrives at the Met

    Jonathan Tetelman will sing in “La Rondine” and “Madama Butterfly” in New York. He trained as a baritone and worked as a D.J. before finding his “authentic voice” as a tenor.In the middle of last summer’s production of Verdi’s “Macbeth” at the Salzburg Festival, the American tenor Jonathan Tetelman brought down the house. As Macduff, Tetelman gave a searing rendition of “Ah, la paterna mano,” the heartbreaking aria after his character learns that the bloodthirsty monarch has slaughtered his wife and children.Tetelman’s performance in Krzysztof Warlikowski’s monumentally gloomy production was one of the festival’s highlights. Later this month, the 35-year-old tenor will make his Metropolitan Opera debut in Puccini’s “La Rondine.” He’ll also be heard at the Met as Pinkerton in a revival of the composer’s better-known “Madama Butterfly” that reunites him with his “Macbeth” co-star, the soprano Asmik Grigorian, in April and May. (There are planned Met Live in HD broadcasts of both productions.)In an email, the Met’s general manager, Peter Gelb, wrote that Tetelman had a “beautiful and big voice that is perfectly suited to the generous size of the Met’s auditorium, which is much larger than most European opera houses, and to these soaring Puccini roles.”Tetelman has swiftly risen to become one of his generation’s most in-demand lyric tenors and is particularly sought after for his Puccini. After singing Rodolfo in “La Bohème” for the first time in 2017 in Fujian, China, he reprised the role a year later at Tanglewood (replacing the Polish star tenor Piotr Beczala) and then on opening night of Barrie Kosky’s production at the Komische Oper Berlin in January 2019.Tetelman played Macduff in a performance of “Macbeth” at the 2023 Salzburg Festival.Bernd Uhlig/SFBut Tetelman’s path to the Met’s stage was anything but typical. Born in Chile, Tetelman was adopted by an American couple when he was 6 months old and grew up in Princeton, N.J. As an undergraduate at the Manhattan School of Music, he trained as a baritone but felt frustrated.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

  • in

    Shakira on the Pain Behind Her New Album, ‘Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran’

    With “Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran,” her first album in seven years, the Colombian superstar said she “transformed pain into productivity.”For Shakira, 2022 was a year of heartbreak. Decades of hit singles and groundbreaking Latin-pop crossovers couldn’t insulate the Colombian pop star from personal upheavals. In the glare of celebrity coupledom, she broke up with the soccer player Gerard Piqué, her partner for 11 years and the father of her two sons, Milan and Sasha. Her father was hospitalized twice for a fall that caused head trauma; he went on to require further brain surgery in 2023.Shakira was also facing charges of tax evasion in a long-running case disputing whether she had lived primarily in Spain from 2012 to 2014; she declared residency there in 2015. Last November, she settled for a fine of 7.5 million euros (about $8.2 million), citing “the best interest of my kids.” Just days earlier, Shakira had collected the Latin Grammy for song of the year for “Shakira: Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 53,” a collaboration with the Argentine producer Bizarrap with wordplay clearly aimed at Piqué and his girlfriend.The song was one of a string of singles Shakira released that referred directly to the breakup: the sarcastic “Te Felicito” (“I Congratulate You”); the regretful “Monotonía” (“Monotony”); the Bizarrap session, “Acróstico,” a ballad promising her children that she’d stay strong; and “TQG” (“Te Quedó Grande,” roughly translated as “I’m Too Good for You”), a taunting reggaeton duet with the Colombian star Karol G, who had been through her own public breakup. “TQG” has racked up more than a billion streams.Those songs reappear on Shakira’s first album since 2017, “Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran” (“Women No Longer Cry”), due Friday. All but one of its tracks deal with romantic ups and (mostly) downs, honed into crisp, tuneful pop structures. The LP continues Shakira’s career-long penchant for pulling together music and collaborators from across the Americas, dipping into rock, electro-pop, trap, Dominican bachata, Nigerian-style Afrobeats and regional Mexican cumbia and polka. Her guests include Cardi B, Ozuna and Rauw Alejandro. Not one of them upstages Shakira, who’s playful or raw as each moment demands.Shakira spoke about the album from her white-walled kitchen at her home in Miami, where an air fryer sat on the counter behind her; a pet bunny in a pen was at her side. Unlike Barcelona, Miami is a hub of Latin pop where, she said, “I have the feeling I’ll be making a lot more music now.” Wearing a black tank top, with her hair in long blond waves, Shakira spoke happily and volubly about an album that, for her, was “alchemical.” These are edited excerpts from the conversation.Shakira faced charges of tax evasion in a long-running case disputing whether she had lived primarily in Spain from 2012 to 2014. Last November, she settled for a fine of 7.5 million euros (about $8.2 million).Josep Lago/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesWe 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

  • in

    Review: ‘The Shell Trial’ Seeks a Guilty Party in Climate Change

    Ellen Reid and Roxie Perkins’s new opera, about events still in progress, finds fault and complicity in every player of a global blame game.The climate activist was tired. Protests at the house of Shell’s chief executive had led to little more than free cookies and the police being called to break things up. The same thing had happened the week before. And the week before that. And the week before that.“I don’t wanna be perfect,” they screamed into a loudspeaker in Ellen Reid and Roxie Perkins’s “The Shell Trial.” “I just don’t wanna die,” the activist added, with an expletive for emphasis.It was a moment of one person speaking for many, and for “The Shell Trial” itself, which premiered at the Dutch National Opera on Saturday. (Among the commissioners is Opera Philadelphia, where it will travel in a future season.) A Brechtian cri de coeur about climate change and complicity, this is an ambitious, passionate show that seems more interested in being heard — in truly reaching its audience — than in being an impeccably crafted work of art.Finding new ways to make old points, and powerfully laying out a vision for a future in which the world changes but we do not, “The Shell Trial” has much to admire. Remarkable, too, is the effort of the Dutch National Opera, which has taken a major step toward operating as a carbon-neutral house with this staging and its Green Deal, an initiative to weave sustainability into its productions, limit travel and calculate ways to offset its carbon footprint.Opera in the past century has become globalized in a way that, unsurprisingly, has made it a target of activists. The Dutch National Opera, like the creators of “The Shell Trial,” views climate change as an ethical issue as well as a political one. And as the company does its part to help, the wider industry should take note.The chorus of children was made up of performers from local schools and community programs.Marco Borggreve/Dutch National OperaWe 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

  • in

    Ariana Grande’s ‘Eternal Sunshine’ Is the Biggest Album of 2024 Yet

    The pop singer’s sixth No. 1 album opens at the top with the equivalent of 227,000 sales in the United States.Ariana Grande’s long-awaited new album, “Eternal Sunshine,” opens at the top of the latest Billboard chart with the biggest debut of the year so far, kicking off a season of expected blockbusters from Beyoncé, Taylor Swift and Dua Lipa.“Eternal Sunshine,” Grande’s seventh studio album and her first in almost four years, starts at No. 1 with the equivalent of 227,000 sales in the United States, including 195 million streams and 77,000 copies sold as a complete package, according to the tracking service Luminate. After a first single, “Yes, And?,” went to No. 1 in January, the full album arrived with Grande performing on “Saturday Night Live” and then — along with Cynthia Erivo, her co-star in the upcoming two-part “Wicked” film — appearing as a presenter at the Oscars.“Eternal Sunshine” is Grande’s sixth No. 1 album. All of her studio LPs have gone to the top except “Dangerous Woman” in 2016, which was held at No. 2 by that year’s juggernaut, Drake’s “Views.”Since her last album, “Positions” (2020), Grande has been shooting an adaptation of the Broadway musical “Wicked,” in which she will play Glinda the Good. Production on the film was delayed first by the coronavirus and then by last year’s SAG-AFTRA strike; the first “Wicked” film is now set to be released in November.Grande’s first-week numbers are the best for any new album this year by a decent margin, topping Ye and Ty Dolla Sign’s “Vultures 1” (148,000). More big figures are on the horizon for Beyoncé’s country pivot, “Cowboy Carter,” due at the end of this month; Swift’s “The Tortured Poets Department,” in April; and then Lipa’s “Radical Optimism,” in May.Also this week, Morgan Wallen’s “One Thing at a Time,” which hit No. 1 for the 19th time last week, falls to No. 2. Noah Kahan’s “Stick Season” is No. 3, “Vultures 1” is No. 4 and SZA’s “SOS” is No. 5. More