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      Tyka Nelson, Sister of Prince Who Carved Her Own Path, Dies at 64

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      Out from under an imposing shadow, she recorded four albums as a singer and had two R&B hits before turning her focus to her brother’s legacy.Tyka Nelson, who was once called “the most famous unknown singer” as she followed her brother, Prince, into a four-album recording career, and who helped promote his legacy after his death in 2016, died on Monday in Robbinsdale, Minn. She was 64.Her death, in a hospital, was announced in a statement by her son President Nelson. He did not cite a cause.Tyka Evene Nelson, the only full sibling of Prince Rogers Nelson — who assumed his mononymic persona and began his rapid rise to fame in the late 1970s — was born on May 18, 1960, in Minneapolis to John L. Nelson, a factory worker who performed as a jazz pianist under the name Prince Rogers, and Mattie (Shaw) Nelson, a jazz singer.With her first album, “Royal Blue” (1988), Ms. Nelson drew comparisons to Anita Baker, Sade and Laura Nyro.NoneBy the time Ms. Nelson embarked on a music career of her own, her brother had been turning pop music inside out with his kaleidoscopic fusion of funk, rock, R&B and the color purple for a decade. With the release in 1988 of her debut album, “Royal Blue,” an adult contemporary rumination on love and relationships, The Minneapolis Star Tribune compared Ms. Nelson to Anita Baker, Sade and Laura Nyro.But it was another inevitable comparison that she found impossible to shake. “I was praying one day, I said, ‘Please, God, why can’t I sound like CeCe Winans?’” Ms. Nelson recalled in a 2018 interview with Australian television, referring to the star gospel artist. “Then people said I sound like him, so it’s definitely not intentional.” Still, she added, “If there’s anyone you can compare me to, c’mon, you might as well compare me to the best, right?”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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      9 Great Songs That Mention Baseball Stars

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      The playlist to get you through Major League Baseball’s long offseason.Bad Bunny has frequently mentioned baseball players in his songs.Caroline Brehman/EPA, via ShutterstockDear listeners,I’m back! A big thank you to Jon Caramanica, Marc Tracy and Dave Renard, the three guest playlisters who filled in for me while I took a few weeks off. The Amplifier returns to its regular schedule today, though, just in time for … I don’t know, anything important going on this week?Ah, yes, of course! It’s the first official week of Major League Baseball’s off-season.The M.L.B. playoffs were particularly thrilling this year, and for a moment it looked like we might get a New York miracle: a Subway World Series. Alas, it wasn’t to be. Despite deep postseason runs from the Yankees and my beloved Mets, the Los Angeles Dodgers ultimately prevailed and won it all. At least we Mets fans got to see The Temptations serenade Citi Field with the shortstop Francisco Lindor’s beloved walk-up song, “My Girl.”Those two great American pastimes, baseball and pop music, have long gone hand in hand. (Or is it hand in glove?) In honor of another great season in the books, today’s playlist is a collection of just a few of the many songs that refer to great ballplayers, with era-spanning tunes from The Treniers’ novelty hit about Willie Mays up through Bad Bunny’s many recent shout-outs to modern superstars. You’ll also hear tracks from the Beastie Boys, Faye Webster and Belle and Sebastian, among others.You certainly don’t have to know anything about baseball to enjoy this playlist. If you’re a fan, though, I hope it helps you endure the long offseason drought. When times get difficult, just remember: Pitchers and catchers report in mid-February.Life outside the diamond is a wrench,LindsayListen 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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      When Quincy Jones Worked With Michael Jackson, ‘We Had No Limitations’

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      Their work on “Off the Wall,” “Thriller,” and “Bad” set records for commercial success and defined the sound of the 1980s.Quincy Jones first met Michael Jackson in the early 1970s at Sammy Davis Jr.’s house in Los Angeles, when the 12-year-old was still a bubble-gum soul singer leading his brothers in the Jackson 5.Jones and Jackson’s second meeting, at the end of that decade, proved the more pivotal, both for them and for the future of pop music. Jackson landed a role as Scarecrow in “The Wiz”; Jones had been hired as the music supervisor for the film.What came next cemented one of the most celebrated musical relationships of all time. The pairing of Jones, a noted composer, arranger and producer for jazz and R&B acts, and Jackson, the child star looking for a breakout sound, over three albums remains a career-defining arc that transformed pop music in the 1980s.Jones, who died Sunday at 91, spoke extensively about his working relationship with Jackson, telling The New York Times in a 2012 interview, “You’re looking at one of the most talented kids in the history of show business. Michael was very observant and detail-oriented. You put that together with my background of big-band arranging and composing, we had no limitations.”From left, Jackson, Diana Ross and Jones worked together on the 1978 film “The Wiz.”CBS, via Getty ImagesWith “Off the Wall,” Jackson’s solo debut released in 1979, Jones called on his wide-ranging network of studio musicians and collaborators, notably recruiting Rod Temperton from the band Heatwave to write songs for the album, including “Rock With You,” and “Burn This Disco Out.” “Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough,” the single that established the album’s polished disco grooves, won Jackson his first solo Grammy for best male R&B vocal performance.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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      ‘Love Is Blind’ Resets, ‘Survivor’ Stalls: A Reality TV Check-in

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      Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon MusicLong-running reality-television franchises — with their familiar rhythms, tensions and resolutions — can provide a wonderful way to pass the time while, say, waiting for votes to be counted.The seventh season of “Love Is Blind” recently concluded with a pair of storybook weddings and a handful of collapsed connections. Following a stretch of public scrutiny that included lawsuits about labor conditions, it felt like an effort to underscore the show’s potential as a generator of true love.“Survivor,” now on its 47th season, has become a show about people who have previously been obsessed with “Survivor,” creating an echo chamber regarding the strategies deployed, and narrowing the casting to a certain kind of obsessive fan-turned-player.On this week’s Popcast, a palate-cleanse conversation about some of the year’s biggest reality-television shows, how legacy franchises develop a kind of self-awareness that can lead to change, and whether shows can ever benefit from full reboots that erase their history.Guests:Joe Coscarelli, The New York Times’s pop music reporterCaryn Ganz, The New York Times’s pop music editorConnect 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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      Flo Wants to Reinvent the Girl Group for a New Generation

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      On the British R&B trio’s awaited debut album, “Access All Areas,” nostalgia meets ambition.Flo’s singles kept on coming, but where was a full-fledged album? When all its pop machinery was already in motion, the group dared to put its debut on pause.The initial plan was for the British R&B trio to release a full-length album in 2023 after a string of singles that began in March 2022 with “Cardboard Box,” a coolheaded, close-harmony kiss-off that has been streamed more than 54 million times on Spotify. After the release of a 2022 EP, “The Lead,” and a hyperactive performing schedule that demonstrated their real-time virtuosity, Flo was named best rising star at the 2023 Brit Awards; they went on to release collaborations with Missy Elliott and Stormzy.But Flo’s three members — the singers and songwriters Jorja Douglas, Renée Downer and Stella Quaresma — weren’t satisfied with their album tracks. They didn’t want anything that felt like filler. So amid tour dates for an ever-expanding audience, they took a risk, banking that fans would hold on a bit longer, and found time to continue writing and trying new collaborations. The group’s finished album, “Access All Areas,” will arrive on Nov. 15.“We just kept on making music — and we kept on making better music,” Downer said in a video interview from a couch backstage at Skyla Credit Union Amphitheatre in Charlotte, N.C., where Flo was opening on a headlining tour by Kehlani. They were casual before the sound check; slinky costumes and glossy styling would come later in the day.“Access All Areas” flaunts echoes of groups like Destiny’s Child, TLC and the Pussycat Dolls — music the three women, who are in their early 20s, have heard all their lives. “Back then, the standards were much higher,” Quaresma said. “Nowadays if you’ve got followers, you can be a singer. People can see that we’re really inspired by the real singers and the real artists. I think people are craving that.”But Flo is also determined to establish its own sound. “The melodies will always be nostalgic, because you’re a product of your environment,” Douglas said. “But we definitely have to be mindful of what’s more current at the moment.”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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      How Quincy Jones Brought Pop’s Greats to the Studio: Eddie Van Halen, Bob Dylan and More

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      For decades, he had many of the pop world’s best players on call — and knew how to coax out their sharpest performances.“Quincy called me.”That is the opening line of the best stories told by some of the best musicians in the world over the last half-century or so, as they recount being recruited for recording sessions by Quincy Jones, the super-producer whose work was often as much a matter of casting as of capturing sounds on tape.Eddie Van Halen got the call one day in 1982, to add a pyrotechnic guitar solo to Michael Jackson’s “Beat It.” He declined credit for it, but after Jackson’s death in 2009, Van Halen said that session was one of the “fondest memories in my career.”Greg Phillinganes, the synthesizer virtuoso who began his career with Stevie Wonder, got many such calls as an in-demand session player, working on Jones-helmed albums by Jackson, Donna Summer and James Ingram, among others.“By virtue of getting a call,” Phillinganes recalled this week, “that was the endorsement that you were worthy of being there” — an induction into an elite circle that included both big stars and supremely skilled but lesser-known musicians, each chosen with intention by Jones for what they could bring to a project.Jones, who died on Sunday at 91, was the master of a nearly vanished mode of record-making that relied on groups of talented musicians working under the finely attuned ear of a producer. For decades, he had many of the pop world’s best players on call, and — in what could be a career-making enlistment or just the umpteenth studio gig — would hire them to spice up a track with a guitar lick, or smooth its contours with a synthesizer part, or ground it with just the right beat.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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      The Musician Building the Great Native American Songbook

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      The musician Tim Long was sitting at his dining room table on a September morning, looking at old family photos and talking about how good can sometimes emerge from suffering.Long’s mother, Stella, a member of the Choctaw Nation, grew up destitute in rural eastern Oklahoma. When she was young, her widowed mother remarried and moved nearby, leaving Stella and her four brothers to fend largely for themselves. The Oklahoma government put the children in boarding school, where Stella caught tuberculosis. One of her lungs had to be removed, and she endured two stints in quarantine that lasted a total of five years.One thing that gave her solace was her discovery of a classical music station on the radio. She developed a special fondness for Beethoven.“Without that, I wouldn’t be in music,” Long, 56, said over cups of oolong tea. “My life would not have happened if she — if my parents — had not had that broader outlook.”Long’s family in Yeager, Okla., before he was born. His father, Fred Long, is in back; his mother, Stella Long, is on the left, with relatives.via Timothy LongLong’s wide-ranging life in music has included playing the violin and piano, conducting, coaching singers and teaching. And now, he has taken on a new role, perhaps the most significant yet: commissioning.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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      Philharmonic Dismisses 2 Players Over Sexual Misconduct Accusations

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      The orchestra said an inquiry found credible claims against the musicians of sexual assault and harassment. They denied the charges.The New York Philharmonic said on Monday that it had dismissed two players after an inquiry uncovered what it described as credible claims against them of sexual assault and harassment.The players — the associate principal trumpet, Matthew Muckey, and the principal oboist, Liang Wang — had previously been accused of misconduct, and the Philharmonic tried and failed to fire them in 2018.But the musicians were put on paid leave in April when the orchestra fielded new questions about that case. An investigation that began then has now turned up additional claims of misbehavior, the Philharmonic said.The orchestra last month informed the players that they would be dismissed at the start of the next season. They will remain on paid leave until then.“We have done the right thing and we have followed the letter of the law,” said Deborah Borda, the Philharmonic’s interim leader. “The facts strongly supported our case.”Ms. Borda said the inquiry had uncovered “patterns of sexual misconduct and abuse of power” by the two men. She added that Mr. Wang had engaged in inappropriate relationships with students and had improperly tried to influence decisions about tenure. In total, 11 women came forward with accusations against Mr. Wang, the Philharmonic said, and three against Mr. Muckey. The orchestra said the accusations ranged from inappropriate remarks to assault.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