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      36 Hours in Joshua Tree, California: Things to Do and See

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      7 a.m.
      Hike to the site of a real-life Western drama
      California’s high-desert scenery often feels like the backdrop of an old western (in Pioneertown, northwest of the park, a set used for many films of the western genre still stands). For the nonfiction version of Wild West-like drama, enter the park via the west entrance and hike to the site of a showdown near the Wall Street Mill, once used to process gold mined in the area. In 1943, two neighbors entered into a fatal duel over a property line disagreement along what’s now the trail. On the path, a sign commemorating the shootout reads, “Here is where Worth Bagley bit the dust at the hand of W.F. Keys.” The sign is a replica of the original one that Keys, the mill’s owner, made and installed himself. At the end of the path, you’ll reach the ruins of the mill, flanked by rusted-out antique cars. The relatively easy hourlong round-trip feels like traveling back in time. More

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      A Wedding That’s Also a Rave? More Couples Say ‘I Do.’

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      As the popularity of electronic music at weddings grows, it’s out with the hotel ballrooms and in with the raves — grandparents included.When Stephen Le Duc posted on a Reddit forum proposing a meet-up at a music festival, he had no idea he would meet his future wife.In 2019, Mr. Le Duc, a mechanical engineer, was headed solo to the Electric Daisy Carnival in Las Vegas, an annual dance music festival. He met up with Olivia Le Duc, then Olivia Brents, who had responded to his post, and soon realized they shared not only a love of raves, but also swing dancing and retro culture. At the festival, they fell in love.Two years later, at that same festival, Mr. Le Duc, now 38, traded “kandi” — beaded bracelets typically exchanged at a rave — with Ms. Le Duc, a 28-year-old e-commerce merchandiser. The beads spelled out “marry me.”The couple, who live in Long Beach, Calif., knew from the start that they wanted an unconventional celebration; their families did not. When his wife’s grandmother suggested a church wedding, “I was like, ‘Oh, no, that can’t happen,’” Mr. Le Duc said, with a laugh.In recent years, many couples have swapped out more traditional receptions for raves and all night dance parties, prioritizing the music over (almost) all else. Celebrations can range from rave-themed after parties to million dollar, multiday productions that rival a music festival. On The Knot, a wedding planning site and vendor marketplace, searches for electronic dance music genre D.J.s jumped 156 percent in the first nine months of this year from the same period a year ago.“I think couples are really feeling empowered to reimagine tradition,” said Hannah Nowack, the senior weddings editor at the Knot. “Weddings aren’t one size fits all.” Décor like disco balls, neon lights and LED dance floors — things that make dancing “a focal point” — are popular, she said.At the Le Ducs’ wedding this March at the Ace Hotel in Palm Springs, Calif., a piano rendition of their favorite EDM song sound tracked the bride’s walk down the aisle. In addition to rings, they traded aquamarine- and garnet-studded kandi bracelets during the ceremony, which included a mention of “PLUR,” a mantra popular in the rave community that stands for “Peace, Love, Unity, Respect.”In addition to rings, the Le Ducs traded “kandi,” or beaded bracelets, that spelled out “PLUR,” a mantra popular in the rave community that stands for “Peace, Love, Unity, Respect.”Jeff ThatcherFor a certain demographic, a massive festival-like wedding has long been popular. “The average wedding I do has a $3 million budget,” said Vikas Sapra, a D.J. who works with 4AM, a management company for D.J.s and producers, in New York. “They are well-traveled, so they’re hitting all the international party spots: Ibiza, Mykonos, St Barts, St Tropez — that whole ecosystem. And obviously Burning Man, Coachella.”Many couples he has worked with host their weddings at estates in Mexico, Israel and Morocco where there are fewer limitations — often in deserts where they can “basically build structures from scratch to hold all the speakers and the lighting and the sound,” Mr. Sapras said. One wedding with more than 400 guests in Mexico that he D.J.’d went until 9:30 a.m. and involved pyrotechnics, a drone show and a replica of the Colosseum. “There’s also generally a lot of substances at some of these weddings — to go until 9 in the morning, to make it like a 15-hour day, it requires a little help,” Mr. Sapra said. “These days, psychedelics are much bigger.”In the United States, cities like Palm Springs are popular for more alternative outdoor weddings. Trish Jones, a wedding planner in Palm Springs, has organized parties with CO2 guns, cold sparklers and many neon lights. “I have friends that are planners in L.A. and Pasadena and Orange County and their weddings are all really basic,” she said. “They’re a lot of times in hotels, ballrooms — you can’t really modify those very much. You’re kind of working with the template. Out here, we have a lot more freedom.”For Michelle Phu, a wedding planner in Dallas with a primarily Asian American clientele, couples have requested EDM music for their receptions for years. “But lately it’s been like, hey, let’s just forget about the father-daughter dance, forget about all this stuff — it’s just a full-time rager from the beginning to the end,” she said.“I’m Asian myself, and I feel like we value our parents’ opinions a lot,” Ms. Phu said. “With that, you just want to make sure your parents are happy with it, listening to their guidance on how to plan your wedding. Lately, a lot of my clients are like, let’s just do what’s best for us versus what’s best for our parents — that’s the biggest shift I think so far.”“If you put on Pitbull, your laptop is being thrown into the Hudson,” said Alison Kalinowski.Rachel Rosenstein“For at least a few minutes,” she wanted her wedding to William Arendt, in suspenders, “to feel like a nightclub in Berlin,” she said.Rachel RosensteinAlison Kalinowski, 29, bought her first Tiësto CD when she was 10 — her brother and Polish parents exposed her to dance music early on. So when it was time for Ms. Kalinowski, who works in health tech, to plan her wedding to William Arendt, a 29-year-old engineer, music was the priority. She knew what she didn’t want: “If you put on Pitbull, your laptop is being thrown into the Hudson.”Ms. Kalinowski, however, acknowledged that “if I did four hours of straight rave music, no one will have fun except me.” So, for their April 15 wedding at Maritime Parc in Jersey City, N.J., she told the D.J. that “for at least a few minutes, I want my wedding to feel like a nightclub in Berlin.”Some couples go straight to the source by simply getting married at a dance music festival. Adrian Rudow, a 29-year-old accountant, and her husband, Adam Rudow, a 30-year-old games programmer, have attended E.D.C. in Las Vegas nine times together. In May, the couple, who also live in Long Beach, married at a chapel on the festival grounds in a ceremony that took 15 minutes.Ms. Rudow wore a custom sparkling outfit with platform heels and fluffy earrings, while her husband wore a white sequin suit. Her two younger sisters, who acted as her maids of honor, were each clad in rainbow print. “I feel like there’s no rule book anymore,” she said. When they held a larger reception in October, the music turned to “everything that we really like — trance, progressive house,” Ms. Rudow said. “Seeing my grandma dance to that was the funniest thing.”Adam and Adrian Rudow have attended the Electric Daisy Festival in Las Vegas nine times together. In May, they married on the festival grounds. “I feel like there’s no rule book anymore,” Ms. Rudow said. Cozza MediaAnd that is often the couples’ intention: to expose their broader communities to their passions. At the Le Ducs’ wedding reception in Palm Springs, Moses Samuel — a friend they had met at a rave who acted as officiant — performed a 30-minute fire spinning set. Ms. Le Duc danced with her LED hula hoop and Mr. Le Duc took out his light-up baton. They also handed out light-up crowns, mini-fiber optic whips and light sticks — party favors that even their parents’ friends enjoyed.“I was concerned about my mom because she’s in her 70s and this is not quite her cup of tea,” Mr. Le Duc said. But “she pulled me aside and she goes, ‘I’m having the most fun I’ve ever had.’” More

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      ‘Buena Vista Social Club’ Review: Bringing a Classic Record to Life

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      A new Off Broadway musical adds the thrill of intimacy and the weight of history to the Cuban songs popularized on a 1997 album.The boleros, sons, danzóns and other popular Cuban song forms captured on the hit 1997 album “Buena Vista Social Club” — and in a 1999 Wim Wenders documentary about the musicians who made it — are a marvel: diabolically catchy, lively yet poetic, mesmerizingly complex beneath their seeming simplicity.Those are qualities that few jukebox musicals have going for them. Usually, if the borrowed tunes are catchy, they’re prosaic. Or if poetic then dreary. Or if complex then irrelevant.But the full-of-riches jukebox musical “Buena Vista Social Club,” which opened on Tuesday at the Atlantic Theater, avoids all those problems. Particularly in its rendition of the “Buena Vista” songbook — including eight numbers from the original album and seven from later iterations — the production, directed by Saheem Ali, enhances (instead of merely exploiting) the music with the thrill of its liveness. The social dancing that accompanies some songs is often just as exciting. And if the narrative draped over those high points is a bit droopy, and the staging a bit choppy, they also give contour and context to what would otherwise be just a concert, albeit a joyous one.Like the documentary, the musical’s book, by Marco Ramirez, uses the “Buena Vista” recording sessions, at a Havana studio in 1996, as its framework. There we efficiently meet the veteran musicians who have gathered under the direction of a young Cuban producer, Juan De Marcos (Luis Vega), to make an album of “songs from the old days.” These musicians include the singer-guitarist Compay Segundo (Julio Monge), the pianist Rubén González (Jainardo Batista Sterling), the tres player Eliades Ochoas (Renesito Avich) and the singer Ibrahim Ferrer (Mel Semé). Together they will prove, as De Marcos puts it, that “Mozart’s got nothing on us.”So far, so semi-true. But Ramirez soon begins his departure from the facts by establishing the singer Omara Portuondo (Natalie Venetia Belcon) as the star of the sessions and thus of the show. (In reality, though she was already a Cuban national treasure, she sang just one track on the original album.)Accurate to life or not — and perhaps it’s better to think of the musical as an adjacent story in the Buena Vista universe — she’s a fine theatrical creation: a musician of great emotion (Compay calls her “the Queen of Feeling”) and a woman of commensurate hauteur. When Juan tries to introduce an unexpected woodwind riff to her “scorching rendition” of the song “Candela,” she cuts him right down — and you don’t want to get cut down by the regal Belcon. “No one ever recorded a ‘scorching rendition’ of anything with a flute,” she says.Omara is the musical’s portal to the past, which Ramirez, best known for another quasi-historical work — “The Royale,” inspired by the prizefighter Jack Johnson — traverses at liberty. We thus meet Omara not only in 1996 but also 40 years earlier, as a young woman on the edge of stardom in a double act with her sister, Haydee (Danaya Esperanza).But while the Portuondo Sisters perform kitschy numbers for American tourists at the Tropicana nightclub, musical and political changes are brewing beyond its palmy grounds. Both can be found at the namesake Buena Vista Social Club, “a space where smoke and sweat fill the air,” according to a stage direction, and “where beer bottles keep clave rhythm.”The musical’s fizzy club dances, choreographed by Patricia Delgado and Justin Peck, are a delight, our critic writes.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesRamirez overburdens this past tense with heavy subplots: gunrunning, colorism, revolution, betrayal. The more contemporary scenes are correspondingly haunted by regrets and ghosts. (The main characters are all represented by younger versions of themselves; Omara and Haydee get dance doubles as well.) It’s too much story for a two-hour show, especially in the second act, when the weight of Cuba’s painful history threatens to smother the songs. They don’t need help to bare the sadness in their souls.Still, even if you don’t understand their Spanish lyrics, the songs prevail. Never forced into literal service as signboards for the plot but instead performed atmospherically by characters who would actually sing them, they lend coherence and depth to the story with their exquisite harmonies, delirious polyrhythms and raw brass. The exceptional music production — the work of a team led by Dean Sharenow and Marco Paguia — enhances that effect with arrangements appropriate to the new contexts and the intimate space of the Atlantic’s Linda Gross Theater. The blessedly live-sounding sound design is by Jonathan Deans.And though I was less impressed by a series of balletic duets for the young sisters, which feel labored, the fizzy club dances are a delight. As choreographed by Patricia Delgado and Justin Peck, they match and heighten the music with intricate close partnering as limbs find ever more intricate ways of closing the space between bodies.Ali’s staging, on a unit set by Arnulfo Maldonado that aptly suggests some of the cramped spaces in which the story transpires, does not yet reach that level. It is too often difficult, with 17 cast members and nine core musicians on the small and flatly lighted stage, to tell which location we’re in: studio, club, hotel, esplanade. Sometimes which era, too, though Dede Ayite’s taxonomy of caps and fedoras, high-waisted pants, flowy tunics and sock-hop skirts (not to mention showgirl kitsch) offers delightful clues.Cramped, too, is much of the action between the songs, lending a hectic feeling to material that wants more thoughtfulness or less bulk. Seeming to acknowledge that, the show ends weirdly and abruptly, as if cut off in mid-thought by a proctor’s stopwatch.But when the staging, singing and playing come together, whether in exuberance or sorrow, I was happily reminded of another musical about music that originated at the Atlantic: “The Band’s Visit.” (David Yazbek, that show’s songwriter, is credited here as a creative consultant.) In such moments — the hypnotic “Chan Chan,” the ear-wormy “El Cuarto de Tula,” the heartbroken “Veinte Años,” the gorgeous “Drume Negrita” — you really do feel the past harmonizing with the present. What Compay says is true: “Old songs kick up old feelings.” Even, as in the showstopping and, yes, scorching “Candela,” with a flute.Buena Vista Social ClubThrough Jan. 21 at the Atlantic Theater, Manhattan; atlantictheater.org. Running time: 2 hours. More

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      Nicki Minaj, a Role Model for Herself, and Others on ‘Pink Friday 2’

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      On “Pink Friday 2,” the rapper remains a star navigating hip-hop on sometimes untested terms. But even as she’s receded from the center of the genre, her lessons remain.Before the arrival of Nicki Minaj in the late 2000s, only a handful of female rappers had ever released platinum solo albums: Lauryn Hill, Missy Elliott, Lil’ Kim, Foxy Brown, Da Brat, Eve. Despite their innovations and artistry — or maybe because of them — the genre had narrow expectations and accommodations for the expression of women, and often pitted them against each other, as if the space for anyone but men was zero-sum.If hip-hop wouldn’t make room, Minaj would, though. Minaj — a theater kid with a vicious tongue, a fierce freestyler, a polyvalent character actor — definitively broke that stalemate, becoming a pop superstar without having to strictly follow in the footsteps of any of those women. Instead, she expressed multitudes in her variety of song styles, her outfits, her accents and ultimately, the arc of her career. At times the latter has been in strict alignment with hip-hop’s center; sometimes it has taken her to pop excess; at other moments, it has found her pursuing a path of rap idiosyncrasy.More than a decade and a half after her first mixtape, Minaj, 41, is an elder stateswoman: still a cantankerous figure in the genre, and still a sometime hitmaker. This year, her two collaborations with Ice Spice — “Princess Diana” and “Barbie World” — cracked the Top 10, and last year, the Rick James-sampling “Super Freaky Girl” became her first solo No. 1.Last week, she released “Pink Friday 2,” her fifth studio album (coming five years after her last, “Queen”), an up-and-down collection that showcases spurts of impressive rapping, some baffling melodies and production that runs all the way from innovative to afterthought. But what’s most striking is that Minaj, more or less, is as she always has been: a star navigating hip-hop on sometimes untested terms.One of the best songs here is the shortest: “Beep Beep,” with a twinkling beat and a lyrical snarl. The cheeky “Cowgirl,” which features a saccharine hook by Lourdiz, nods back to Minaj’s 2011 hit “Super Bass.” On both tracks, Minaj, one of the most rhythmically flexible rappers of all time, plays with syllables in an unfettered way.But there are multiple Minajes on “Pink Friday 2.” It is a prototypical modern pop album, heavily — perhaps overly — reliant on big-tent samples that spark immediate familiarity (including her recent hit singles “Red Ruby da Sleeze” and “Super Freaky Girl”). In the last couple of years, instantly recognizable references have become cheat codes for pop and rap stars, but obvious sampling has also been a staple in emergent drill and club music scenes.On “Everybody” — which features Lil Uzi Vert and plays with the exuberant hook of Junior Senior’s “Move Your Feet” — Minaj is toying with the way those two approaches aren’t so dissimilar. It’s one of the most invigorating performances she gives here, because she is an elastic enough rapper to both rough up pop sheen and smooth out underground rowdiness at once.Understanding the genre as an identity playground has always been one of Minaj’s strengths, and often she’s showed off new versions of herself when collaborating. But the team-ups here with Drake (“Needle”) and Future (“Nicki Hendrix”) are surprisingly listless, though the pugnacious “RNB,” with Lil Wayne and Tate Kobang, is a standout.Minaj got married in 2019 and had her first child the following year, and perhaps unavoidably, there is also a streak of intense sentimentality on this album, a mode that Minaj, whose best verses are imagistic and eccentric, has struggled with. She raps softly and distantly on “Are You Gone Already?” which samples Billie Eilish; “Let Me Calm Down,” a duet with J. Cole about a troubled relationship; and “Last Time I Saw You,” about the death of her father in 2021. The best song in this mode is “Blessings,” which includes some deeply invested singing from the gospel star Tasha Cobbs Leonard.Songs like these tend to mark someone in a transition toward reflection and maturity. The Minaj of old still feels more present. In the five years since her last solo album, the scale of the playing field claimed by female rappers has grown exponentially. TikTok has created a springboard for a cornucopia of rising stars with breakout hits (or at minimum, breakout catchphrases). And because young performers often emerge on visual-driven social media, the next generation of stars tend to default toward more visually vibrant presentations. The territory that Minaj worked hard to carve out 15 years ago is now the default starting point.Even as Minaj has receded from the center of the genre, her lessons remain. She sometimes spars with Cardi B, but the two have much in common. Ice Spice, who channels Minaj’s cartoon-esque visual exaggeration, is on an arena tour with Doja Cat, a mainstream pop star with boom-bap bona fides who feels like Minaj’s clearest inheritor. Younger performers like Lola Brooke, Scar Lip and Sexyy Red seem like they’ve arrived fully formed.Just last week, XXL magazine released a special edition of its signature cipher series, this one including only women: Latto, Flo Milli, Monaleo, Maiya the Don and Mello Buckzz. All are under 25, and all have had some success, whether viral or on the pop chart. But their approaches vary widely.Mello Buckzz, from Chicago, served up brash, right-angled rhymes; Maiya the Don, from Brooklyn, rapped with ease, sometimes sauntering in just after the beat, unbothered; Flo Milli, from Alabama, deployed a whimsical tone while casually playing with flow patterns; Monaleo, from Houston, had a verse that was ferocious and punchline-heavy. Latto, from Atlanta, is the elder of this group, and she closed out the affair with a tart, wry and slick verse about the dueling powers of independence and alliance.It’s a snapshot, and a telling one — a reminder that there is no one way to be a woman in rap now, and that teamwork is preferable to turf war. These artists are aware of history but not beholden to it. They’re not doing Minaj cosplay, but she’s in them all.Nicki Minaj“Pink Friday 2”(Young Money/Republic) More

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      Jelly Roll: The Popcast (Deluxe) Interview

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      Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTubeThis week’s episode of Popcast (Deluxe), the weekly culture roundup show on YouTube hosted by Jon Caramanica and Joe Coscarelli, features an interview with the rising country star Jelly Roll, the winner of the Country Music Association award for new artist of the year and Grammy nominee for best new artist, discussing:His early career as a rapper in Tennessee and hip-hop’s influence on his music-makingTurning to selling drugs as a teenagerGreat rap from Nashville and the power of independence in the music businessWhat it took to be accepted in country music with the hits “Save Me” and “Need a Favor”How his awards show speeches and social media posts have gone as viral as his music in recent monthsLearning to be comfortable crying in his mid-30sHis guest turn as a wrestler in the WWEFeeling a responsibility to leverage the power of the country music industry to help the less fortunate in NashvilleWhite rappers making rock musicSnack of the weekConnect 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. More

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      Beatles Biographer Grapples With the ‘Paradox’ of George Harrison

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      Philip Norman, the author of books about Paul McCartney, John Lennon and the Beatles as a group, discovers that Harrison was, among other things, a puzzle.In a new biography, Philip Norman writes about the “paradox” of George Harrison, a man who was “unprecedentedly, ludicrously, suffocatingly famous while at the same time undervalued, overlooked and struggling for recognition.”This was the central contradiction that made Harrison, the composer of classics like “Here Comes the Sun,” and “Taxman,” a fascinating figure, both as a Beatle and after the band broke up, as Norman explores in his book “George Harrison: The Reluctant Beatle.” Norman tackled his latest subject after writing celebrated biographies of Paul McCartney and John Lennon, as well as “Shout!: The Beatles in Their Generation,” a book that Harrison was critical of.Harrison lived several separate lives. He was a rock star. A follower of Hinduism. A prolific film producer who came close to financial ruin. A philanderer who had an affair with a former bandmate’s wife and once had a guitar duel with Eric Clapton (also the subject of a Norman biography) over Pattie Boyd, Harrison’s first wife, whom Clapton fancied and later married.Scribner“The complexity of his character was something that hadn’t really been noticed before,” Norman said, adding, “Actually taking the whole elusive man, a bundle of different personalities, that was what was fascinating.”Norman discussed his approach to Harrison in a recent interview.This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.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?  More

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      Rock Gods Call Andrew Watt When They Need a New Thunderbolt

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      After producing hits for Justin Bieber, Dua Lipa and Miley Cyrus, Andrew Watt has become a go-to for new music by rock legends: Ozzy. Elton. Mick and Keith. Even Paul.One cool night in September, Eddie Vedder stood onstage at the Ohana Festival in Dana Point, Calif., looking out at a sea of expectant faces.Vedder and his band the Earthlings had paused their headlining set so medics could make their way to an audience member in distress. Once the situation appeared resolved, he conferred with the band; they’d start again from the top.“Uh, this one,” Vedder began to say — and then the Earthlings launched back into the song, taking their frontman by surprise and stepping on his reintroduction.Vedder started singing, like a man chasing a bus as it pulls away. He stopped, grinned and let fly an expletive in the direction of his lead guitar player, a 33-year-old with a bleach-blond buzz cut who happens to be the producer of Vedder’s last solo album and the next one by Vedder’s other band, Pearl Jam.The music clattered to a halt. Vedder, smiling but stern, pointed at the guitarist and began to admonish him for jumping the gun.“This is Andrew Watt,” Vedder told the crowd. “He produces the records. But up here, young man? I’m in charge. I’m in control. I’m the boss.”In the studio, it’s a different story. When he’s not playing live with Vedder — or as part of some other all-star outfit, like Iggy Pop’s backup band, the Losers, featuring the Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith and the Guns N’ Roses bassist Duff McKagan — Watt, born Andrew Wotman, is one of modern rock and pop’s most in-demand producers.His first hits were songs for generational peers like Justin Bieber, Dua Lipa and Miley Cyrus. But he’s also become a first-call producer of new music by elder-god rock stars, working with performers so legendary they’re on a first-name basis with the entire world. Ozzy. Elton. Mick and Keith. Even Paul.(Yes, that Paul.)“If they’re showing up to do it with you, they want feedback,” Watt said of the artists he produces.Adali Schell for The New York TimesAnd although Watt would never put it this bluntly, sometimes a big part of that job is being unafraid to tell mythic musical icons what they should do. (Or at least — since another big part of the job is diplomacy — suggesting what might be cool to try.)“This artist is working with a producer because they want to be produced,” Watt said in an interview at his Beverly Hills home a few months before the Ohana show. “If they’re showing up to do it with you, they want feedback.”They’re rock stars, after all. If they live long enough, they usually start to second-guess themselves. They fall prey to self-consciousness, complacency, the creative consequences of festering internecine beef, or all of the above, and wander away from what they’re best at. Sooner or later, they need someone to step in and guide them back onto the path.This is not the only thing Watt is good at, of course. In interviews, his collaborators praised his alacrity, his ability to communicate musician-to-musician, and particularly his unflagging energy. (Watt compares his in-studio demeanor to Richard Simmons, the relentlessly cheery ’80s exercise guru: “It might make someone laugh, or think I’m a maniac, but I’m me, and I’m genuinely happy to be there.”)“He’s not one of those guys that gets in awe of people,” said Paul McCartney, who presumably knows awe when he sees it. “He just gets on with it.”Elton John said he’s never seen anything like Watt’s presence in the studio, likening him to “a live wire.” “For someone of my age, it’s really, really infectious, and it’s really important that I feed off of someone like that,” he added.“He takes every single session as seriously as if it’s Game Seven of the World Series and everybody is going to play like it’s Game Seven,” said the songwriter Ali Tamposi, a longtime friend who’s worked with Watt on some of the biggest songs he’s produced, including hits by Bieber and Camila Cabello. “He knows what to do and say to bring that out of everyone that he’s working with.”But the most important asset Watt offers his clients, particularly those who’ve lived in the fog of their own legend for longer than he’s been alive, may be the encyclopedic enthusiasm of a fan who knows exactly what he’d want to hear on a present-day recording by his idols — and has the self-confidence to voice those preferences to their faces.There is, after all, a crucial difference between “what you think other people want from you, versus what your fans really love about you,” said the singer-songwriter Brandi Carlile. Carlile, who’s worked with Watt on albums like John’s “Lockdown Sessions” from 2021, said Watt has a knack for helping wayward rock legends see their own light again.“He has that in common with Rick Rubin,” she said. “They both have that ability to big-picture understand, culturally, how an artist has impacted the world, and bring them face to face with that. It might be his greatest superpower.”As more and more iconic artists have sought out his perspective, Watt’s life has grown more and more unreal. Creative connections have blossomed into friendships. He talks to John every day. “Elton taught me about china,” Watt said. “Not the country — porcelain. The right plates, the right tablecloth. The right napkin rings. He’s a beacon of taste.”(“I learned it from Gianni Versace,” John said, “so I’m passing it along to Andrew.”)And Watt has spent so much time with Mick Jagger — in late 2022 and early 2023, while producing the Rolling Stones’ latest album, “Hackney Diamonds,” and during the long professional courtship that led to that gig — that sometimes, when the photo app on his iPhone serves him a slide show of his “memories,” the memories are of Mick Jagger.In an interview, Jagger also praised Watt’s energy, crediting him with helping the Stones overcome the inertia that had kept the band from completing an album of new material since 2005. (The Stones and Watt are up for best rock song at the Grammys in February for that album’s single “Angry.”)“He’s very enthusiastic,” Jagger said, “to the point of being too enthusiastic, sometimes.” At one of their earliest meetings, Jagger remembered, “I said, ‘Look, I can deal with this, but when you meet Ronnie and Keith, you have to dial it down a little bit.’”The experience of walking into a room with practically nothing and coming out with a song never gets old, Watt said. Adali Schell for The New York TimesWATT GREW UP in Great Neck, Long Island, but these days he lives in a spacious steel-and-glass house, surrounded by rock memorabilia. Even his art collection has a musical bent — it includes a clown painting by Frank Sinatra, a Warhol of Mick Jagger and a self-portrait in acrylic by David Bowie.A visitor pointed out a photograph: a 13-year-old Watt onstage, on his knees, in dress shoes and shirt sleeves, soloing on a gold-top Gibson. It was taken at Watt’s bar mitzvah at the Copacabana in New York. The party’s theme was “Andrew Rocks”; he played Weezer’s “Say It Ain’t So” and Prince’s “Purple Rain.”Watt smiled at the picture, an image of an inner child he’d done right by. “That,” he said, “is the most valuable thing in here.” (It was propped up between two Grammys.)As a kid, he’d wanted to do nothing but play rock music; after dropping out of N.Y.U. to pursue it full-time as a solo artist, he struggled. But when he was offered a gig backing the Australian pop singer Cody Simpson, who was set to tour as Bieber’s opening act, he balked.“I’m like, I don’t want to do pop,” Watt recalled. “I’m a rock and roller and I play in these nightclubs. Then they told me I would get $1,500 a week, and I was like, ‘I’m there.’”Before shows, Watt would linger onstage after sound check, jamming to empty arenas for as long as the crew would let him. One day in Dublin, he began playing “Sunday Bloody Sunday,” imagining himself as part of U2. Suddenly, he heard drums. He turned, and saw Bieber sitting behind the kit. They jammed for 45 minutes without speaking, and a friendship was born.Bieber and Watt began working on songs together. Two of Watt’s first production credits were bonus tracks for Bieber’s 2015 album “Purpose”; his first major hit as a songwriter and co-producer was “Let Me Love You,” with Bieber singing over a track by the French EDM producer DJ Snake.Even after he’d demonstrated a knack for pop production, Watt plugged away at a career as a solo rocker; scroll far down enough on his Facebook page, and you’ll find a photo of a longhaired Watt signing a contract with John Varvatos Records, the music-mad men’s wear designer’s Universal Music imprint, which released a Watt EP called “Ghost in My Head” in 2015.“I went back to touring in a van and sharing hotel rooms,” Watt said. “The tour was costing me money out of pocket that I didn’t have.”In November of that year, on the way to open for the British rockers the Struts in Reno, the van carrying Watt and his band hit a deer. They hitchhiked to the nearest phone, rode on each other’s laps in a tow truck, and made it to the venue in time to get heckled by Struts fans. Watt began to wonder what would be so wrong with pursuing pop production as a career.Within three or four years, he’d built a Rolodex and a résumé, producing songs for Cabello, Bebe Rexha, Avicii, Rita Ora, Selena Gomez, 5 Seconds of Summer and Cardi B. But he’d also struck up a working friendship with Post Malone, whose music muddles rock, pop and hip-hop. In 2019, while making his third album, “Hollywood’s Bleeding,” Malone recruited Travis Scott and Ozzy Osbourne to guest on a track called “Take What You Want,” which Watt produced.As more and more iconic artists have sought out his perspective, Watt’s life has grown more and more unreal. Adali Schell for The New York TimesWhen this led to an offer from Osbourne to make an entire album together, Watt — who’d come to understand himself as a pop producer — balked once again.“I love this music,” he remembered thinking, “but I don’t make this kind of music.”He accepted the gig anyway, and together they made the 2020 album “Ordinary Man,” on which Osbourne — still recovering from health issues, including a broken neck — sounded both newly vulnerable and invigorated, as if he’d dined on fresh bat for the first time in years.That album led to a second Osbourne album, “Patient Number 9” the next year, and to a Grammy for best rock album — and, in a broader sense, to Watt’s current position as rock’s premier boomer-whisperer, and therefore to days like the one Watt had last year, when a certain well-known guest came over for a cup of tea and a chat and Watt ended up writing an as-yet-unreleased song with Paul McCartney.“He’s very resourceful,” McCartney said. “I said, ‘I’d like to show you something on guitar, but I haven’t got my guitar with me. And he said, ‘I’ve got a guitar.’ And I said, ‘Yeah, but I’m left-handed.’ He said, ‘Well, I’ve got a left-handed guitar.’”They jammed, and McCartney returned the next day with lyrics and a vocal melody. “Suddenly,” he said, “we had a song. From a cup of tea to a song. Doesn’t it sound easy?”(In a subsequent interview, Watt — who is left-handed in all things except guitar — admitted that he’d jolted awake in a cold sweat the night before McCartney’s visit, realizing that he had no left-handed guitars on hand, and began feverishly calling around until he found a friend to loan him a clutch of lefty Hohners, Martins and Rickenbackers, just in case a cup of tea led to something more.)Watt still enjoys making pop music; over the summer he spent some time in the studio with Jung Kook, of the Korean pop juggernaut BTS. Jung Kook speaks some English, but not fluently, and Watt speaks no Korean. So he acted out what he wanted, they sang to each other, Watt did his Richard Simmons routine, and when the song was released in late July it went straight to No. 1.The experience of walking into a room with practically nothing and coming out with a song never gets old, Watt said. But of course it feels different to share in the creative process of an Elton, a Mick or a Paul.“There’s people in the industry who say to me, ‘Why do you work with people that are so much older than you?’ But I don’t care what anyone thinks,” Watt said. “I want to do what makes me happy. And getting to work with the guys who wrote the book — you get to learn so much. They still have so much to offer the world.”“For a while,” Watt added, “I always thought I was born in the wrong generation. Like, ‘Man, if I was born when my dad was born, or a little after, I would be in some rock band now. And that would’ve been great.’ And recently, within the last year or two, my perspective on that has completely changed. And I feel I’m right where I’m supposed to be.” More

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      Sara Tavares, Portuguese Singer Who Prized Her African Roots, Dies at 45

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      She drew on rhythms from across the African diaspora and sang in Portuguese, English, Cape Verdean Criolo and Angolan slang.Sara Tavares, a Portuguese songwriter, singer and guitarist with a gentle voice and an ear for global pop, died on Nov. 19 in Lisbon. She was 45.Her label, Sony Portugal, announced the death, in a hospital, on social media. She had been diagnosed with a brain tumor in 2009.Ms. Tavares began her career in the pop mainstream, singing R&B-influenced songs in Portuguese and English. But as she found her own style, she came to embrace her African roots.Her parents were from Cape Verde, a nation of islands off the coast of Senegal, and Ms. Tavares increasingly drew on rhythms from across the African diaspora: Cape Verdean morna, funaná and coladeira, Brazilian samba and bossa nova, and Angolan semba, as well as funk and salsa.She often defined rhythmic fusions with her own intricate guitar picking, and she sang in Portuguese, English, Cape Verdean Creole (known as Criolo) and Angolan slang. In “Balancê,” the title song of her 2005 album and one of her biggest hits, she sang in Portuguese about wanting to share “A new dance/A mix of semba with samba, mambo with rumba.”Sara Alexandra Lima Tavares was born on Feb. 1, 1978, in Lisbon; her parents had moved to Portugal from Cape Verde earlier in the decade. She grew up admiring American singers like Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder and Donny Hathaway; learned English; and delved into gospel music.At 16, she won a nationally televised contest, “Chuva de Estrelas,” singing the Whitney Houston hit “One Moment in Time.” She went on to represent Portugal at the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest.Her debut EP, “Sara Tavares & Shout,” released in 1996, emulated American pop-R&B and featured a gospel choir called Shout. Her 1999 album, “Mi Ma Bo” (“You and Me”), was produced by the Paris-based Congolese songwriter Lokua Kanza and dipped into an international assortment of styles. It was certified gold in Portugal.Ms. Tavares fully came into her own with the albums she released in the 2000s, which she produced or co-produced herself: “Balancê” in 2005, “Xinti” (“Feel It”) in 2009 and — after a hiatus following her diagnosis with a brain tumor — “Fitxadu” in 2017, which was nominated for a Latin Grammy Award. (“Fixtadu” is Criolo for the Portuguese “fechado,” which means closed.) Intricate, transparent and seemingly effortless, carried by acoustic guitars and percussion, her songs offered yearning introspection, thoughts about love and socially conscious admonitions.Ms. Tavares in performance in Lisbon in 2018 with the Brazilian hip-hop artists Emicida, left, and Rael.Jose Sena Goulao/Epa-Efe/Rex, via Shutterstock In an interview promoting the release of “Balancê,” she said: “When I walk around with my friends, it’s a very, very interesting community. We speak Portuguese slang, Angolan slang, some words in Cape Verdean Criolo, and of course some English. In Criolo there are already English and French words. This is because slaves from all over the world had to communicate and didn’t speak the same languages.”She added: “I want to be a part of a movement like the African Americans were, like the African Brazilians were. Instead of doing the music of their ancestors, they have created this musical identity of their own. And it is now respected. It is considered whole and authentic and genuine. It will be a long time before the people from my generation do not have to choose between being African or European. I think you shouldn’t have to choose.”Between her own albums, Ms. Tavares collaborated widely, recording with the Angolan electronic group Buraka Som Sistema and the Portuguese rapper and singer Slow J, among others. Her last release, in September, was “Kurtidu,” a single that used electric guitars and programmed beats. Her voice stayed friendly and airborne on every track she sang, sailing above borders.Information on survivors was not immediately available.Ms. Tavares received online tributes from the presidents of both Portugal and Cape Verde, where she had won Cabo Verde Music Awards for best female voice in 2011 and for “Fitxadu” in 2018.President José Maria Neves of Cape Verde said on Facebook:“Sara Tavares, through her voice, her smile, her glance, was able to plant peace, friendship and brotherhood among Cape Verdeans, and also between Cape Verdeans and the world.” He added, “Your light will illuminate the path that still lies with us, in this land that temporarily welcomes us.” More