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      An Oklahoma Town’s Rescue Plan Has a Big Name: Reba McEntire

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      The country-music star is trying to revive her childhood home in Oklahoma with a restaurant, concert stage and lots of Reba memorabilia.ATOKA, Okla. — Year after year, eight million vehicles drove through this sleepy town just off U.S. Highway 75, which stretches from Texas to Canada. Almost none of them stopped.Atoka had fallen on hard times: Residents had moved away, and downtown buildings were decaying. Carol Ervin, its economic development director, began to plot how the city might lure even a small fraction of those drive-by travelers to visit.In the past two months, half a million guests have come to this southeastern Oklahoma community of 3,000. The reason can be summed up in four letters: Reba.Reba McEntire, the country-music star, grew up in Atoka County, and in January, she made good on a pivotal investment here. In a once-dilapidated former Masonic temple, she opened a restaurant, Reba’s Place — a 50-50 partnership with the Choctaw Nation, whose reservation includes Atoka. Upstairs is a gift shop selling Reba shot glasses and her clothing line for Dillard’s. Front and center is a concert stage, where Ms. McEntire headlined the grand opening with a performance of her greatest hits.In coming years, if all goes according to plan, Atoka will get an airport, a small water park, an amphitheater and boutique hotels. Several manufacturing and green energy companies are already setting up headquarters here.No one was more skeptical than Ms. McEntire when Ms. Ervin and her team broached the idea of a restaurant as a means of reigniting the local economy.“I thought it was a pipe dream,” the singer said over the phone from her home in Nashville as she prepared to kick off her 2023 nationwide tour. Yet “you have got to dream big to make it big.”Ms. McEntire signed on to the project because she thought it would help spur Atoka’s struggling economy.Choctaw NationCall it a convenient convergence: a music superstar, a well-resourced tribal nation, a heavily trafficked highway and an ambitious local government. “I put my money in on them,” Ms. McEntire said, “and they made things happen that I never thought could have happened.”The project is not so far-fetched in Oklahoma, which has a number of other celebrity-fronted businesses. In Pawhuska, where the Osage Nation is headquartered, the Pioneer Woman Mercantile, a restaurant opened seven years ago by the Food Network star Ree Drummond, draws about 6,000 guests a day. The country singers Blake Shelton and Toby Keith own bars within a two-hour drive of Atoka.But Ms. McEntire, 67, is arguably a bigger attraction than the others, with a 47-year career and 24 No. 1 hits on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart. She has starred in films, Broadway musicals and several TV series, including her own hit sitcom, “Reba.”On a Saturday afternoon this month, that star power was on display in downtown Atoka. Crowds of McEntire fans — many of them dressed in glittery tops and tasseled jackets to mimic her signature style — lined up outside a stolid three-story brick building whose only trace of glitz was a tall red electric sign reading “Reba’s Place.” The wait time for a table was four hours.Inside was a shrine to the singer. Under a soaring ceiling, diners packed into booths made from old church pews and gazed at posters showcasing Ms. McEntire’s albums, movies and shows, which have traded on her friendly, just-plain-folks image.Dresses from Ms. McEntire’s most famous performances are on display in the restaurant.Zerb Mellish for The New York TimesOn the third floor, guests can shop for all manner of Reba T-shirts.Zerb Mellish for The New York TimesMemorabilia from Ms. McEntire’s concerts, movies and television shows cover the restaurant’s walls.Zerb Mellish for The New York Times“Reba is about faith, she is about family, she is about culture,” said Gary Batton, the chief of the Choctaw Nation, the third-largest tribe in the United States. He knew Ms. McEntire from her performances in Choctaw casinos, and jumped at the chance to partner with her again.Diners lucky enough to snag a table dug into slabs of chicken-fried steak slathered in a pleasantly sweet gravy, and pinto beans served with a towering wedge of cornbread — Southern foods that reflect Ms. McEntire’s life and career. They ogled the bedazzled red dress the singer wore on her 1995 tour, one of several outfits on display. Onstage, a local musician, Wyatt Justice, crooned country songs next to a wall-size American flag.“I saw the big sign and then kind of slowed down,” said Donita Clay, who had driven about 90 miles from Broken Bow, Okla. “I am a Reba fan. Who isn’t?”Down the street, Boggy Bottom Antiques & Collectibles was filled with customers browsing “Dolly/Reba 2024” T-shirts while they waited for a table. Tracy Jones, a co-owner, said sales had at least doubled in the last two months. At the Vault, a wine bar across the street from Reba’s Place, Saturday sales had quadrupled, said the owner, Janny Copeland.“We are getting a Starbucks,” she said. “I don’t care what anybody says, we wouldn’t get a Starbucks here if Reba’s wasn’t coming here.”Atoka wasn’t always a small town. In the 20th century, it was home to a booming coal-mining industry and a stop along the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railway. In the 1970s, the furniture retailer Ethan Allen and the Wrangler jeans company opened factories in Atoka, but closed them in 2006. The city lost almost 600 jobs. Last October, according to census data, nearly one in five Atoka County residents lived in poverty.“A city is a living, breathing entity,” Ms. Ervin said. “It is either growing or it is dying. And we were dying.”She said she tried to persuade companies to set up shop in town, but they told her, “We need a place where our people will want to live, and that is not Atoka, Oklahoma.”A downtown street is named for Ms. McEntire, who grew up in Atoka County.Zerb Mellish for The New York TimesSince opening in January, Reba’s Place has attracted 500,000 visitors.Zerb Mellish for The New York TimesCarol Ervin, Atoka’s economic development director, saw Reba’s Place as the first step in an ambitious plan to redevelop the city. Zerb Mellish for The New York TimesAbout five years ago, Ms. Ervin and other city officials, including Mayor Brian Cathey, began working on a plan to revive downtown. Then the pandemic hit. Ms. McEntire moved home to take care of her mother, who was dying of cancer, and spent several months here in quarantine.The singer had a history of helping out locally. Starting in 1987, she staged several concerts in nearby Denison, Texas, to raise money for the Texoma Medical Center, whose rehabilitation clinic is known as Reba Rehab. Now she was looking for “a legacy project,” Ms. Ervin said.Presented with the proposal for Reba’s Place, Ms. McEntire agreed to put up half the money, and the Choctaw Nation provided the remainder. The total investment was “several million,” said Kurtess Mortensen, the restaurant’s chef and the Nation’s executive director of retail, brand and merchandising. Any profits will be split between the Nation and Ms. McEntire, but Mr. Mortensen said, “This is not going to be a big moneymaker.”Ms. Entire concurred. “I know it is a very tough industry.,” she said. “There is more to life than money.”The Choctaw Nation draws most of its revenue from its 22 casinos throughout Oklahoma, and plans to spend the earnings from Reba’s Place on health, education and housing initiatives for the reservation. In Atoka, the Nation has already established housing, a health clinic, a community center and opened franchises of chain restaurants, like Chili’s.At Reba’s Place, about half of the 134 employees are members of a federally recognized tribe. The restaurant also serves beef raised and slaughtered on the Choctaw Nation, and its gift shop will soon sell items made by tribal members. Mr. Batton, the chief, said he hopes to open more locations of Reba’s Place in other parts of the reservation.Gary Batton, the chief of the Choctaw Nation, said Reba’s Place is bringing jobs and revenue to the reservation, which includes Atoka.Choctaw NationThe city has also invested in the project. The Atoka City Industrial Development Authority bought the building for $200,000 in 2020, then turned it over to the restaurant in return for an equal value in payments and services. Reba’s Place also receives rebates on a portion of city sales tax. (Ms. McEntire provided the restaurant with her money, name and memorabilia, but is not involved in daily operations.)Mr. Mortensen, the chef of Reba’s Place, is no stranger to bringing a big-time restaurant to a small town. He ran the Pioneer Woman Mercantile for five years.With the Mercantile, he said, “we were creating Disneyland, Main Street U.S.A.” But many Pawhuskans were unhappy with the sudden surge in traffic. In Atoka, Mr. Mortensen has held several community meetings to allow residents to voice concerns.“I have been yelled at and thanked and everything in between,” he said.One of the restaurant’s signature dishes is chicken-fried steak, a favorite of Ms. McEntire.Zerb Mellish for The New York TimesThe charcuterie comes with country ham and boiled peanut hummus, and is served on a board shaped like Oklahoma.Zerb Mellish for The New York TimesThe cooks at Reba’s Place make well above the federal tipped minimum wage of $2.13.Zerb Mellish for The New York TimesMany people worried that there wouldn’t be enough parking. But others were excited by the prospect of jobs that paid more than the state and federal tipped minimum wage of $2.13 an hour. At Reba’s Place, servers start at $8 an hour, cooks start at $14 and every full-time employee is eligible for health benefits.Before she was hired as a server at Reba’s Place, Christy Pittman ran a spa that she had to shut down when the pandemic started.“I went to college, I had the degrees, I had everything I needed,” she said. But in Atoka, “there just wasn’t enough quality jobs.” She now makes enough to get her nails done.Wyatt Delay, who works in the gift shop, said he was amazed by how many people had traveled from outside the state to visit. “We have had somebody from the Virgin Islands, New York, Michigan, Oregon, Washington State.”Holly Gleason, a music critic in Nashville, said she wasn’t surprised, as Ms. McEntire has one of the widest audiences of any country star. “Everybody agrees on Reba: Black, white, Native American, Asian, L.G.B.T.Q., Bible-thumping Christians,” she said.And while other country musicians have collaborated with national corporations to open their establishments, Ms. McEntire chose a local partner in the Choctaw Nation. “She is really making it a tried-and-true, this-is-who-we-are experience,” Ms. Gleason said.Still, several locals said they can’t afford to eat at Reba’s Place. “Unless there were more cheaper prices for us common folk, I won’t be going over there,” said Ruby Bolding, a retired artist. She was eating dinner at Cazadorez, a Mexican restaurant where steak fajitas cost $12.99. At Reba’s Place, the chicken-fried steak is $27.“But that doesn’t mean I am not glad it is here,” she added, “because it does bring in a lot of people. I love Reba, and I so relate to her.”The illuminated sign for Reba’s Place is visible from U.S. Highway 75. Zerb Mellish for The New York TimesMax Lane, a retired teacher who was attending service at Cornerstone Church — where Ms. McEntire’s brother-in-law Mark Eaton is the pastor — said a “fancy” spot like Reba’s Place didn’t attract him. “I would rather go to the Dairy Queen.”Ms. McEntire defended the restaurant’s prices. “It is not quick, out of a bag, throw it in a microwave — it is quality, handmade food,” she said.Plenty of others agree. In February, Reba’s Place made about $130,000 a week in revenue, and since the restaurant started taking reservations in early March, “people have been calling pretty constantly,” Mr. Mortensen said. This month, a speakeasy will open on the third floor.Could Reba’s Place grow to become the next Dollywood, Dolly Parton’s Tennessee amusement park? “I don’t know if I could ever touch that,” Ms. McEntire said.Ms. Ervin, who helped hatch the project, is more optimistic. “I think Reba’s could be bigger than Pawhuska or Tishimingo,” she said, referring to Ms. Drummond’s and Mr. Shelton’s businesses. With the highway running through it, Atoka already has more drive-by traffic than those towns.And most important, she said, it has Reba.Follow New York Times Cooking on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok and Pinterest. Get regular updates from New York Times Cooking, with recipe suggestions, cooking tips and shopping advice. More

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      The Exquisite Darkness of Depeche Mode

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      SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — Martin Gore, who is now 50 percent of Depeche Mode, works in a studio on a low hill near Santa Barbara, hidden behind jungle-green foliage and fragrant flowering shrubs.On a Tuesday morning in January, he sat at a console in the center of the control room, which was spacious and orderly and full of California winter sunshine — a clean, well-lighted place to make songs about power, desire, faith and a world spinning ever further off its axis.Gore wore black clothes and spotless black boots. He looked like an Englishman who’s spent decades in California — vibrant tan, straight white teeth. He had the haircut you’d get if you asked a knowledgeable barber to give you “the Martin Gore”: high and tight, with several inches of unruly tuft up top.Two summers ago Gore turned 60, and it “really slapped me in the face,” he said with a morbid chuckle. “I don’t particularly feel like I’m 60, but you have to accept the facts. It feels like you’ve got one toe in the grave, at least.”On Friday Depeche Mode will release its 15th album, mostly recorded in this studio, by a pandemic-era skeleton crew: Gore, the vocalist Dave Gahan, the producer James Ford (Florence + the Machine, Arctic Monkeys) and an engineer/co-producer, Marta Salogni. As always, the sound is foreboding and sleek, sardonic yet soulful — music for lovers in black-leather-upholstered bullet-train compartments, racing toward ominous destinations.The title is “Memento Mori,” and the dominant theme is mortality — which isn’t, in itself, a departure. “Death is everywhere,” Gore wrote years ago, in a song called “Fly on the Windscreen,” whose narrator goes on to beckon, “Come here, kiss me, now,” because you never know.“Memento Mori,” though, is death-obsessed even by Depeche standards, with lyrics full of ghosts, angels and funeral flowers. Gore said that his own mortality had been on his mind, along with Covid-19, which was still cutting a swath through the world’s population as he wrote in 2020.But Gore knows the album and its title are destined to be read through a different lens. In May 2022, Andy Fletcher, known as Fletch, died at 60, suddenly and quickly, of an aortic dissection. Fletcher was a founding member of Depeche Mode; he and Gore had been friends since grade school.From left: Gahan, Andy Fletcher, Gore and Alan Wilder. Depeche Mode’s breakthrough in the U.S. came with the album “Some Great Reward” in 1984 and the single “People Are People.”David Corio/Redferns, via Getty ImagesNominally a keyboardist, Fletch’s true role in the band was nebulous, yet spiritually indispensable — somewhere between manager, quality-control supervisor and designated superfan.“Without Andy, there would be no Depeche Mode,” the longtime radio broadcaster and Depeche fan Richard Blade said in a video interview. “He was not the one composing the music, but he was the one pulling them together.”Gore saw Fletcher in person for the last time in 2019, at a wedding in England. He died just weeks before the band was scheduled to begin recording “Memento Mori,” the first collection of Depeche Mode songs he will never hear.Gore and Gahan say they both questioned whether they could or should continue without him. But Depeche Mode has survived potentially band-extinguishing events before — beginning with the departure of Vince Clarke, a founding member who left the group in 1981 after the release of its debut album, “Speak & Spell,” on which he’d been the principal songwriter.In the ’90s the band weathered the rise of grunge — which rendered synthesizers and drum machines temporarily taboo — as well as the departure of the keyboardist Alan Wilder and Gahan’s struggle with heroin addiction. (Technically, Gahan is the first member of Depeche Mode to die; in 1996, after an overdose, he said he flatlined for two minutes before paramedics revived him. He’s been clean and sober since.)Derided early on by the British rock press, Depeche Mode made converts in America, particularly in Southern California, where the band’s champions included Blade, then an influential D.J. at KROQ-FM. Its breakthrough in the U.S. came with the platinum album “Some Great Reward” in 1984 and the single “People Are People,” an uncharacteristically strident anti-prejudice lament that became a pop-radio hit as well as a gay club anthem.The gay community was only one of many disparate subcultures from which Depeche Mode built a fan base. On the West Coast, Blade said, the band made converts among “the white kids who would go surfing” but also connected with Latino listeners who heard a reflection of their own experience in Depeche Mode’s misfit anthems. “They might have been third-generation Americans, but a lot of people looked at them and said ‘No, you’re not one of us,’” Blade said.Gore agreed that the band had become common ground for those who felt like they didn’t belong: “I think humanity is made up of a lot of outsiders, and that’s one of the reasons we’ve managed to do so well.”By 1988, the group was big enough to pack the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, a show documented in the director D.A. Pennebaker’s film “Depeche Mode 101”; the triple-platinum album “Violator,” released two years later, yielded hit singles like “Personal Jesus” and “Enjoy the Silence,” which pulsed like techno but brought guitars to the front of the mix for the first time.That album was the band’s commercial peak in America; minus a 2005 singles collection, no new Depeche Mode album has been certified gold in the U.S. in 22 years. But as long as there are new teenagers, there will always be new Depeche Mode fans, primed to respond to lyrics like “It all seems so stupid it makes me want to give up/But why should I give up when it all seems so stupid?”And the band’s fans, Gore points out, “don’t turn 30 and then decide, ‘Oh, I don’t like that anymore.’” If you have ever been between 15 and 17 years old, alienated, and a little bit in love with your own sadness, a part of you will never stop being that way; no one who goes through a Depeche Mode phase ever quite outgrows it.This means the band remains a powerful draw; its latest worldwide arena tour begins on Thursday. Against all odds, Gore and Gahan’s group has become a legacy act, and an influence on musicians who’ve become veterans themselves.“I think humanity is made up of a lot of outsiders, and that’s one of the reasons we’ve managed to do so well,” Gore said.OK McCausland for The New York TimesAs frontman of the venerable Sacramento alternative-metal band Deftones, Chino Moreno has covered Depeche Mode songs like “Sweetest Perfection” and “To Have and to Hold”; his keyboard-driven side project Crosses openly channels his heroes’ stylish gloom. In a video interview, Moreno described his first Depeche Mode concert — a 1988 show at what was then the Cal Expo Amphitheater in Sacramento — as a life-changing moment.“I was pretty claustrophobic growing up,” he said, “but I just fought my way through all those feelings, and made my way to the front barricade. And they came out, and I was just captivated by them. Dave in particular — just his stage presence. I can loosely credit me wanting to sing, and be in a group and make music, to that experience. It was larger than life for me.”In the HBO series “The Last of Us,” people are still listening to Depeche Mode’s music after a fungal outbreak kills or zombifies much of the world’s population; survivors signal one another by blasting “Never Let Me Down.” Given their real-life endurance, the idea of Depeche Mode persisting even after the apocalypse, still helping people feel less alone, does not seem totally implausible.But Gahan said that even before Fletcher’s sudden death, he wasn’t sure he’d ever make another Depeche Mode album.In a video interview from New York, where he’s lived since the late ’90s, Gahan appeared onscreen against what appeared to be a red-velvet wall. It resembled the lining of a coffin, which prompted a question about the rumor that Gahan slept in one during Depeche Mode’s reportedly bacchanalian Devotional Tour in 1993. (Not true, Gahan said — although he did own a casket-shaped bed around that time, and once took a nap in an actual coffin a carpenter left backstage for him. But only once.)In 2019, Gahan and his band Soulsavers recorded “Imposter,” a collection of 12 high-drama covers of songs made famous by artists including Nat King Cole and Cat Power, performed by Gahan in a manner evocative of both Tom Jones and Nick Cave. Shelved during the pandemic, the album finally dropped in November 2021. The following month, when Gahan played the songs at a few shows in Europe, it felt like the end of something; he spent that Christmas wondering if he’d continue making music at all.Depeche Mode onstage in 1986. In the following decade, the group would weather the rise of grunge and the departure of the keyboardist Wilder.Rob Verhorst/Redferns, via Getty ImagesDuring Covid, he said, he’d enjoyed being at home, surrounded by family and friends, finally spending time at a Montauk vacation house that he’d barely gotten to use. “I can walk along the beach in winter. You don’t see another soul,” he said. “I’m out there playing my guitar along to Stones records. I’m like, ‘I like my life right now. Why would I want to disrupt all this, to jump into a Depeche Mode record, which will take me out of that for the next three years?’”The recording sessions for the previous Depeche Mode album, “Spirit,” had been contentious. Ever since Clarke’s exit, there’d been a clear division of labor in the band. Gore wrote virtually all the lyrics, and Gahan sang Gore’s words. But in the early 2000s, Gahan started making solo albums, and began bringing his own songs into Depeche Mode sessions as well.As Gahan sees it, he’s always been the Depeche Mode member who’s pushed the band outside its comfort zone. After Nirvana broke out in the early ’90s, it was Gahan who showed up to record “Songs of Faith and Devotion” with hair down to his shoulders, advocating for a grittier sound. Without him, you might never have heard live drums or a gospel choir on a Depeche Mode track. “All those things were considered threats,” Gahan said.But when Gahan pushed, it was traditionally Fletcher who pushed back. “He would always stand up for Martin,” Gahan said. “If there was a vote, I would lose.”At the “Spirit” sessions in 2016, those creative tensions reached what Gahan called a “boiling point.”“Martin wasn’t really keen on some of Dave’s songs,” the “Spirit” producer Ford said, “and Dave was pushing really hard for them to be on the record. It was very, very difficult.”Ford said he was told by Depeche’s management that the project was in jeopardy. His solution was to banish everyone except Gahan and Gore from the studio — including Fletcher, their traditional buffer. “Fletch did not like this,” Gahan said. “I think in the end our manager Jonathan had to literally, physically get him out.”Ford said the following day resembled a marriage-counseling session. Gahan recalled the confrontation “was really hard. After all those years — he said some stuff. I said some stuff.”They cleared the air enough to finish “Spirit,” released in 2017. And Gahan said any reservations he had about making the next album disappeared the moment he heard Gore’s demo for the song “Ghosts Again.” “I was like, ‘I can’t wait to sing this song.’”Then it was May, and suddenly Andy Fletcher was dead.“I felt, immediately, very supportive of Martin,” Gahan said. “Like, ‘I’ve got to take care of him — this is really much harder on Martin than it is on me.’”They decided to go ahead with “Memento Mori” — and according to both Gore and Gahan, Fletcher’s passing fostered an intimacy they’d never experienced in 40 years as bandmates.“Every decision that has to be made has to be made by the two of us now,” Gore said. “So we kind of have to talk things out when we disagree. I don’t think I’ve ever had a FaceTime with Dave before. Now we FaceTime.”Privately, Gahan said, Gore described their dynamic to him in more profound terms. “At one point — I always say too much, I’ll regret it later when I read this — he said to me, ‘It’s kind of like we’re long-lost brothers, isn’t it?’”Salogni, an Italian producer and engineer who’s worked with Björk, Frank Ocean and the xx — and the rare woman in this very male orbit — said it was “wonderful” to witness Gore and Gahan’s flourishing friendship, and the creativity it engendered. “With Andy being a filter — after he passed, the filter unfortunately disappeared, and suddenly the curtain dropped and they were there to face each other,” she said. “Honesty comes to the forefront, and you just face what you perhaps haven’t faced before.”The mood at the sessions, Ford said, “was very somber.” But there was also a lot of reminiscing — Fletcher stories told over long lunches. “It was honestly a really lovely, beautiful experience,” he said.Depeche Mode, Gahan suggested, has always survived by evolving. “Sometimes we’ve changed naturally, and sometimes change has been forced upon us,” he said, “and I think that’s what’s happening now. We lost an integral part of Depeche Mode, who’s irreplaceable. Circumstances forced us to be different, to think of each other in a different way. We need each other in a different way.” More

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      Review: Jaap van Zweden Returns to a Changed Philharmonic

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      Since the orchestra’s music director was last on the podium in November, his successor has been announced. He came back blaring with Messiaen.“What have I missed?” you could imagine Jaap van Zweden thinking as he stood on the podium at David Geffen Hall and looked out at the audience on Friday evening. It’s been months since van Zweden, the music director of the New York Philharmonic, led this orchestra in a furious burst of activity as it opened the renovated Geffen Hall.In the meantime, the world has swiftly turned: Last month, the orchestra announced that Gustavo Dudamel, the superstar maestro of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, would succeed van Zweden, who is departing after next season. The prospect of a Dudamel era — a throwback to the heady, celebrity-fueled, jet-set days of Leonard Bernstein — immediately overshadowed van Zweden’s comparatively modest tenure.Modesty was set aside on Friday, though, for Messiaen’s immense, very loud “Turangalîla-Symphonie,” which van Zweden is ambitiously following this week with Bach’s “St. Matthew Passion,” for a brief residency the orchestra is calling “Spirit.”The spiritual quality couldn’t be more obvious in the austere severity of the “St. Matthew Passion.” It’s a little harder to discern in the hulking, gaudy “Turangalîla,” a 10-part, 80-minute paean to an erotic ecstasy that spills over into the realm of the cosmic.To keep things on a cosmic scale, Messiaen musters a solo piano part of concerto-level difficulty and variety. And the woozy, slippery wail of the theremin-like ondes martenot. And a glockenspiel, and a celesta. And a forest of percussion instruments, including shimmering tam-tam; curt wood blocks; and drums, both crisp and booming.Written in the aftermath of World War II, during which Messiaen spent time as a prisoner of war, the intricately conceived “Turangalîla” comes across as an explosion of long-simmering tensions: aggression and relief, energy and romantic longing, a celebration so huge it seems to encompass all the beauty and ominousness of nature, the delicacy and the granitic weight.The legacy of Stravinsky’s primal, euphorically muscular “Rite of Spring” is here, but billowing with the perfume of the French tradition of Ravel and blazing with the Technicolor brassiness of Broadway and Hollywood, returning to a few motifs — like a grim fanfare and a questioning four-note murmur — again and again.The quieter parts were the most memorable on Friday. The oscillating buzz of piano and celesta in the “Chant d’Amour II” section seemed to cast a blur over a lush melody in the violins. In “Turangalîla II,” a solo cello had the burnished strength of a horn. There was beautifully mellow playing in the winds throughout the “Jardin du Sommeil d’Amour,” the longest section, with the piano gently frisking, like a dancer in the moonlight on a foggy summer night.With van Zweden conducting, the score was forceful but slightly smudged, the textures both less lucid and less blooming than I’ve heard. I was aware, as I hadn’t been since earlier days in the renovated hall, of a hard, blaring quality to the orchestra’s sound in this space, a sense of being not surrounded, but almost assaulted.This performance felt heavier than some. But the work’s trippy grandeur and over-the-top virtuosity come through no matter what. And van Zweden’s build from misty mystery to density in the “Turangalîla I” section was persuasive, as was that from spare, forbidding march to ferocious dance in “Turangalîla III.”Jean-Yves Thibaudet, experienced at the daunting solo piano part, was both crisply powerful and self-effacingly suave. Cynthia Millar was a subtle presence at the ondes martenot — to the point that the instrument could have been more assertively amplified. We get to hear this retro-sounding relic of early electronica so rarely: Let it rip.New York PhilharmonicThis program continues through Sunday at David Geffen Hall, Manhattan; nyphil.org. More

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      Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour: Pop’s Maestro of Memory Returns to the Stage

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      The opening night of the star’s Eras Tour traversed her 10-album career, revisiting crossover hits, rowdier experiments and more restrained singer-songwriter material.GLENDALE, Ariz. — The most meaningful Taylor Swift recording of the past few years is almost certainly “All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (Taylor’s Version) (From the Vault),” as layered and provocative as its title is unwieldy. A revision and expansion of one of her most gutting songs — the original appears on her 2012 breakthrough pop album, “Red” — it dissects a problematic, lopsided and ultimately scarring relationship with forensic detail. It’s a scathing commentary on the ex who inspired the track, and it also has something to say about the version of Swift who first committed this story to song over a decade ago: Swift now understands things that Swift then couldn’t possibly have known.Around halfway through Swift’s three-hour performance at State Farm Stadium here on Friday — the opening night of the Eras Tour, her first roadshow in five years — she was at the center of the long runway stage, elevated on a platform, holding 70,000 people rapt with this tale of righteous fury and anguish. Plenty were singing along with her, but somehow, the accumulated voices sounded like one huge hush, students in awe of the master class.Swift opened the show with a run of songs from “Lover,” including “The Man,” performed in full office cosplay.Cassidy Araiza for The New York TimesThere were plenty of peaks during this concert drawn from the full arc of Swift’s career — the first of a sold-out 52-date national tour that made news for its disastrous rollout of ticket sales — but none quite like this. Throughout the night, she zigzagged between stretches of high-octane hits from older albums and mixed-bag selections from more recent ones — celebration with splashes of duty. What this ambitious and energetic if sometimes scattershot performance underscored, however, was just how many pivots Swift has undertaken in her career, and how the accompanying risks can have wildly different consequences.In modern pop parlance, album rollouts are often described as eras, but Swift’s career hasn’t always been that cleanly delineated. She’s made a few key turns over the years, though — on “Red,” when she divebombed into gleaming, centrist pop; on “Reputation,” when she made some of her sleekest and most au courant music; and on “Folklore” and “Evermore,” when she transformed into a woodland fairy.Songs from “Red,” one of Swift’s most acclaimed albums, arrived mid-show, and they were potent wallops — a jubilant and cheeky “22” followed by the indignant “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” and “I Knew You Were Trouble.” And when Swift, in a one-legged bodysuit embroidered with a snake motif, performed selections from “Reputation,” she showed just how wrongly maligned that album was upon its release. “Don’t Blame Me” was husky and alluring, while “Look What You Made Me Do,” performed in front of dancers trapped in glass boxes dressed as old versions of Swift, brimmed with attitude.Swift was cheerily, proactively defensive about “Evermore” — “an album I absolutely love despite what some of you say on TikTok” — but that segment of the show was particularly limp, especially the gloomy and spare “Marjorie” and “’Tis the Damn Season.” And the jolt from the melancholia of that restrained singer-songwriter release to the brazen stomp of “Reputation” was awkward. Songs from “Folklore” fared slightly better, especially “Cardigan” and “Betty,” but this section teetered toward melodrama, as if compensating for the less assured production on those songs.The set list over-indexed on the four albums Swift released after her last major tour, supporting “Reputation” in 2018 — the chipper and jaunty “Lover,” the one-two bucolic swaddle of “Folklore” and “Evermore,” and “Midnights,” released last October. But the Eras conceit also meant that Swift wouldn’t have to exclusively lean on songs from these albums, which have in general been less popular, consistent and ambitious than her earlier ones.Sometimes, Swift joined her dozen-plus dancers in crisp choreography.Cassidy Araiza for The New York TimesShe opened the show with a run of songs from “Lover,” a hit-or-miss album that still yielded some excellent tracks. “The Man,” performed in full office cosplay, was biting and hilarious, and “Cruel Summer” had an almost ecstatic chill to it. From there, she jumped back to “Fearless,” her second album, and the first one made with an understanding that her relationship with country music might only be a dalliance. The earnest pleas in “You Belong With Me” and “Love Story” still had their old bite.Before “You Belong With Me,” she asked if the crowd was “ready to go back to high school with me,” both a dare and a legitimate question. Of late, Swift — obsessive about memory and even more obsessive about lore — has made revisiting her old work integral to her public presentation. Her ongoing rerecordings project layers a veneer of artistic liberation atop a business tug of war with the owners of her master recordings. And the very notion of the Eras Tour suggests a desire to thread Swift’s many selves into one, to find common cause between the 16-year-old who first shocked Nashville, the 33-year-old who has since become one of the defining pop stars of the 21st century and all the Swifts in between.If this show was an opportunity to perform songs from all of those phases, she did not always choose the tracks that are truly the most emblematic of those moments in time — sometimes specificity doesn’t age terribly well. (For what it’s worth, a song it would have been great to hear from each album, chronologically: “Picture to Burn,” “White Horse,” “Dear John,” “Stay Stay Stay,” “This Love,” “Dancing With Our Hands Tied,” “Paper Rings,” “Exile,” “No Body, No Crime,” “You’re on Your Own, Kid.”)Fans did not appear to be playing favorites — many of them were dressed as Swift from various eras, or as song titles or specific lyrics, or as Swiftie inside jokes. And Swift herself tackled each period of her career — the dynamic ones and the flaccid ones alike — with real gusto, in outfits covered in glitter, or fringe or glittery fringe. Her stage was set up for both big-tent power and maximum intimacy; it jutted out into the crowd for almost the entire length of the floor. Sometimes, she joined her dozen-plus dancers in crisp choreography, like on “ … Ready for It?” “Bad Blood” and, most vividly, “Vigilante ___,” for which she performed an enthusiastic chair routine.She concluded with a selection of songs from “Midnights,” a challenging album to wrap a show of this magnitude — it’s more an amalgam of old Swift ideas than a harbinger of a new direction. During “Anti-Hero,” the screen behind Swift showed a version of her as a kind of King Kong, bigger than everyone and unfairly besieged, and on “Lavender Haze,” she was surrounded by dancers hoisting huge cloudy puffs.Swift tackled each period of her career with real gusto, in outfits covered in glitter, or fringe or glittery fringe.Cassidy Araiza for The New York TimesThere was a distinct shimmer that ran through the night’s final three selections, the tinny “Bejeweled,” the spacey “Mastermind” and the needling “Karma.” All of those songs, which can be brittle from a lyrical perspective, benefited from the scale of the production here.But something far more meaningful had come just before that show-closing run. During an acoustic segment, she came out to the very farthest point of the stage, sat at a small piano and played her very first single, “Tim McGraw” (the only song she performed from her self-titled 2006 debut album).In addition to “All Too Well (10 Minute Version),” it was the night’s other pillar performance. It’s a song about memory and the ways in which people fail each other, and she sang it heavy with regret and tinged with sweetness.But unlike “All Too Well,” which now benefits from the wisdom that time affords, “Tim McGraw” remained as raw as the day it was recorded. No real tweaks, no rejoinder from the new Swift to the old one — just a searing take on the sort of love that makes for a better song than relationship. There are some things Swift simply has understood all along. More

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      Polito Vega, Salsa ‘King’ of New York Radio, Dies at 84

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      In a career that began in 1960, the Puerto Rico-born Mr. Vega became, one admirer said, “the architect of Hispanic radio at a global level.”Polito Vega, an exuberant announcer with a booming bass voice and a finely attuned ear whose Spanish-language shows popularized salsa music in New York in the mid-1960s, died on March 9 in North Bergen, N.J. He was 84.His death was announced by his family. No cause was given.After abandoning his dreams of becoming a singer, Mr. Vega began his broadcasting career in 1960, shortly after transplanting himself from Puerto Rico to New York. He quickly distinguished himself on air with his signature voice, his perky epigrams like “Andando, andando, andando” (“Keep going”) and his adventurous playlists. He also distinguished himself in person, at concerts and dances, with his ubiquitous Yankees cap, starched white guayabera shirt, white goatee and fuzzy sideburns.The disc jockey and recording artist Alex Sensation described Mr. Vega on Instagram as “the architect of Hispanic radio at a global level.”In an obituary in Billboard magazine, Leila Cobo, the author of “Decoding ‘Despacito’: An Oral History of Latin Music” (2020), wrote: “Vega’s importance to Latin music cannot be overstated. He was the most influential tastemaker in the country’s top market, dating back to when tropical music first became popular in the city in the 1960s and 1970s and stretching all the way to the 21st century.”He was heard on two New York AM stations, first WEVD and then WBNX, and finally on WSKQ (Mega 97.9 FM) — which began broadcasting as a full-time Spanish-language format in 1989 and has often been rated No. 1 in that market. He also became the station’s program director.When Mr. Vega began broadcasting, he recalled, he was struck by the disconnect between the comparatively temperate bolero music that dominated Latin broadcasting and the feverish salsa he was encountering in nightclubs. He was among the first radio personalities to recognize the market for salsa, identifying promising talent and mentoring gifted musicians.“It was two different worlds in those early days,” Mr. Vega said told The New York Times in 2009. “At the dance halls and up in the Catskills you would hear the Tito Puente and Machito orchestras tearing things up, but on the radio the kind of thing you heard was romantic trios, unless you were tuning in to Symphony Sid” — the prominent jazz D.J. who began playing Afro-Cuban music in the 1960s — “late at night.”The trombonist Willie Colón, who became one of salsa’s biggest stars, recalled that the first time he heard Yomo Toro, the maestro of the 10-string guitar known as the cuatro, with whom he would later collaborate on several recordings, “was on Polito’s show, playing along with listeners who would call in and sing over the telephone.”In the late 1960s, Mr. Colón got a break when he was invited to appear on “Club de la Juventud,” an “American Bandstand”-inspired TV show that Mr. Vega hosted on the Telemundo network from 1967 to 1970.Among the other musicians whose careers Mr. Vega helped promote were Celia Cruz, Tito Puente and Ismael Miranda.Mr. Vega in a photo-booth picture taken in 1957, shortly after he arrived in New York.Tim Knox for The New York TimesHipólito Vega Torres was born on Aug. 3, 1938, in Ponce, on the southern coast of Puerto Rico. His father was a bus driver, and the young Hipólito sold newspapers on the beach to supplement his family’s income.He began calling himself Polito as a teenager after winning an amateur singing competition, only to be told by the contest’s master of ceremonies that he would never become a celebrity with a name like Hipólito.In 1957 he moved to New York City, where he lived with an uncle near Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx and worked as a shipping clerk while trying to get a break in the music business.“I came to New York as a skinny little kid with a wisp of a mustache, hoping to make it as a singer,” he said in 2009.Johnny Pacheco, the Dominican-born flutist, bandleader, songwriter and producer, knew Mr. Vega in those days. “Even before Polito got a job, he was already an announcer,” Mr. Pacheco, who died in 2021, told The Times. “He used to go to a barbershop owned by a compadre of mine, and I remember how he was always joking and kidding around there, imitating announcers and singers and talking as if he were already on the air.”One night in 1960 he was helping a friend who was hosting “Fiesta Time,” a half-hour show on WEVD; as his friend’s sidekick, he read listeners’ names and record requests on the air. The station’s owner heard his voice and hired him as an announcer.“Radio fever got into my head,” Mr. Vega recalled.When WEVD expanded to 24-hour programming not long after that, he was offered the midnight-to-6 a.m. slot.“The show,” he later said, “was so successful and I felt that liberty to express myself that I’ve maintained to this day.”Mr. Pacheco, who co-founded Fania Records in 1964 as New York was supplanting Cuba as a center for emerging Latin music, described Mr. Vega in 2009 as “part of the whole salsa movement, one of its pillars.”“As we were building the company,” he added, “he was there with us. I’d bring him the LPs, he’d listen and say, ‘I like this song, I’m going to push it,’ and he’d play the hell out of it.”Mr. Vega later moved to WBNX, where he became known as “El Rey de la Radio” — the King of Radio — and where he met Raúl Alarcón, the senior program director. Mr. Alarcón went on to become head of the Spanish Broadcasting System, where Mr. Vega was for many years executive vice president in charge of programming.In 2009, Mr. Vega was honored at two all-star 50th-anniversary concerts at Madison Square Garden. Three years later he was celebrated at Citi Field in Queens by a lineup that included Gloria Estefan and Daddy Yankee.Mr. Vega’s wife, Judith, died last year. His survivors include two sons and a daughter. Two other sons died before him.In a statement, his family asked that his fans not mourn but “celebrate his legacy,” adding: “Polito continues to live in the music that he loved and shared, as well as the impact he left in the Latin community. Polito lived happiness, smiles and love. We would like for all his fans to live life to the fullest, as he did.” More

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      How Taylor Swift Fans Got Each Other Eras Tour Tickets

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      After “historic demand” led to a Ticketmaster debacle, the singer’s most devoted online fans sprang into action to get each other into the Eras Tour at fair prices.When tickets for Taylor Swift’s first tour in nearly five years went on sale last November, Tina Studts, the mother of two young girls, thought she was well prepared.Like millions of others, Studts signed up for Ticketmaster’s “verified fan” program for early access, and she logged previous purchases of Swift merchandise that were supposed to provide a “boost.” She even watched hours of YouTube tutorials about how best to sign in and pick seats during a high-intensity drop.Her family had moved to Colorado from Kentucky in 2020, and adjusting amid a pandemic was tough, especially for her older daughter, Shannon, 15, who is autistic. But Swift had been Shannon’s “special interest” since elementary school, her mother said, and the vibrant fan culture around the pop star had provided a lifeline.With the holidays approaching, Studts knew that tickets to the stadium spectacle of Swift’s Eras Tour, which begins Friday in Glendale, Ariz., would give Shannon something to look forward to. Her daughter’s best friend from back home in Kentucky was even planning a surprise visit to Denver so they could all attend together.“It was the most obsessive thing I’ve ever done,” Studts, 51, said of training for her ticket mission. “I had this extreme self-imposed pressure to not disappoint my 15-year-old.”But as the Ticketmaster calamity unspooled that day, her hope dissipated. Studts waited and waited for eight hours at work, clicking around fruitlessly while fielding anxious texts from her daughter. The next morning, Shannon “didn’t even want to go to school because she was afraid of seeing people who had tickets,” Studts said.Their crushing experience matched the struggle of many Swifties — as the singer’s superfans are known — whose vocal anguish and collective online might, paired with Swift’s own public frustration, led to a canceled general sale and a congressional hearing. But what happened next was a welcome surprise to Studts and others who know pop fandom as a cutthroat (and pricey) battle royale — an arms race of haves and have-nots all jockeying for limited access.Instead of leaving one another to scrap it out on the official secondary market, where ticket prices were astronomical and scammers were salivating, some resourceful fans banded together, using their tight-knit community on social media to problem solve: From Twitter and Facebook to Tumblr and TikTok, on pages like @ErasTourResell and TS Tour Connect, volunteers created a network of spreadsheets, Google Forms and online bulletin boards to facilitate face-value sales and exchanges among fellow devotees.“The fandom can be kind of crazy,” said Amanda Jacobsmeyer, 29, the founder of the TS Fandom Fund, a Tumblr collective that seeks to address, however incrementally, economic inequality among Swifties. “But it really is a community and we look out for each other. With Ticketmaster just completely failing at their one job, people have really stepped up to make sure that actual fans are in the audience.”In a sea of bots, frauds and profit-seekers, most Swift fans involved are merely matchmaking and amplifying seemingly trustworthy deals for those in need, rarely touching the money or tickets themselves.Their only motive, Jacobsmeyer said, is altruistic enthusiasm: “We want Taylor to look out and see people who actually know the words to these songs, and we want to be surrounded by the people who make up our community, not just randoms.”Looking for tickets became “like my second job,” Studts said. “It felt like this puzzle to solve.” But with the help of the @ErasTourResell Twitter account, where tickets were vetted and announced by city, she was able to secure four seats with no markup in time to surprise her daughters on Christmas morning.“It’s really refreshing,” she said of the fan efforts. “I can’t believe that somebody would voluntarily spend this much of their time to make sure that we can get to the concerts. They just love seeing Taylor fans not getting screwed over by scammers and not being overcharged three or four times over.”Long a struggle for followers of the most popular live acts — I need a miracle, goes the ancient Grateful Dead fan prayer — landing hot concert tickets without taking out a second mortgage has only become more difficult amid rising prices and fees, post-pandemic demand and the continued consolidation of an industry that some lawmakers say is dominated by a monopoly. (The Justice Department is said to be investigating Ticketmaster’s parent company, Live Nation, the concert giant that merged with the ticketing behemoth in 2010.)Last month, amid extended hand-wringing about ticket prices, a leading Bruce Springsteen fanzine announced it would shut down after 43 years. To avoid a repeat of the Swift debacle, a more elaborately plotted set of staggered presales for Beyoncé’s new tour had rules and requirements resembling a brainteaser — with some fans opting still to travel to distant locations for easier, better deals. This week, it’s fans of the Cure feeling the pain.“It’s like a lottery to get stolen from now,” said Holly Turner, 26, who recalled spending just $23 — on the day of the concert — for floor tickets to her first Swift stadium show in 2011.By 2020, when Swift’s Lover Fest tour was planned to kick off, competition had turned steeper; Turner said she waited eight hours in a digital queue for those tickets, but had eventually gotten them. (The shows were later canceled because of Covid-19, only heightening demand for the Eras Tour, the singer’s first set of concerts since 2018.)Still, on Tumblr, the niche social network where many of Swift’s longest-serving and most loyal fans congregate, ticket release days were known to be a time of shared nervousness and then celebration. But this time around, joy was in short supply. Even among those who had managed to get Eras tickets, a sense of guilt prevailed.“Once the general sale got canceled, everyone just felt really, really distraught,” Turner said. “But the next day, after it set in, there was a lot of, ‘O.K., here’s what we’re going to do. Don’t give up hope.’”Using her sizable Tumblr following of some 20,000 Swifties, Turner’s TS Tour Connect page became a hub for those looking to sell tickets they could no longer use — at fair prices — to other loyalists. “I don’t have the resources to confirm if a ticket is real,” she said, “but what I can do, because I’ve been in the Tumblr community for so long, is make sure that they’re an actual fan who’s selling.”Risks abound regardless. Even as Jacobsmeyer was facilitating deals for others via the TS Fandom Fund, she lost $1,200 when she tried to buy tickets to attend Swift’s Nashville date with her sister from a Facebook group that turned out to be bogus.“It’s ripe for scammers, but it’s also been very ripe for showing the good sides of the community,” Jacobsmeyer said.Courtney Johnston, 24, of San Francisco, said she was inspired to start @ErasTourResell on Twitter after seeing similar pages dedicated to tickets for Harry Styles and other pop stars.She then recruited Channette Garay, 24, and Angel Richards, 27 — who met through the online fandom and are now dating and living together in Connecticut — to lend a hand. The three fans estimate that they are cumulatively spending more than 40 hours per week, in between work and school, sorting through ticket submissions and trying to verify them via screen recordings and confirmation emails before blasting the listings out to eager Swifties.With nearly 38,000 followers, the group has now helped arrange more than 1,300 deals and counting — a milestone they will celebrate when they meet up in Arizona to enjoy the opening night of the tour together.“I get to play a small part in someone getting tickets that they never thought they would get,” said Johnston, who plans to attend eight shows in all. “That’s really cool to me.”Garay and Richards, who have tickets to four tour dates, agreed. “At the end of the day,” Garay said, “honestly, we just love Taylor.” More

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      Songs to Add to Your Wedding Playlist

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      We asked our readers to weigh in on the songs they enjoy hearing the most. From classic to contemporary, here are recommendations from wedding guests and married couples.There is so much joy in a wedding, and music is a big part of it.Last month, we asked readers to submit their favorite wedding songs. As I read through hundreds of submissions, I could sense the emotion and joyful nostalgia from readers reminiscing on their own first dances or fun times on the dance floor.“September” by Earth, Wind and Fire was the most popular song, with 5.6 percent of submissions including it.Disco was perceived to be the best genre for cross-generational enjoyment, with songs that everybody knows, even people who were born well after the ’80s. Among them are “We Are Family” by Sister Sledge, “Staying Alive” by the Bee Gees and “Celebration” by Kool & the Gang. (Although David Williams, from Boston, said that when the DJ plays “Celebration,” he “heads for the exit.”)For a first dance song, readers love “Can’t Help Falling In Love” by Elvis Presley and “At Last” by Etta James.And what is the most popular song (so far) at a 2023 wedding? “I Just Wanna Rock,” by Lil Uzi Vert. It’s inescapable, and with good reason.Here are 22 wedding songs recommended by readers from around the world — from New York to the Netherlands.Davido, ‘Fall’This is one of those special songs that immediately washes you over with a feeling of peace and merriment. “Fall” is a staple African wedding/party anthem that celebrates spoiling your lover, and recognizing the changes you need to make to meet them halfway.Jephtha Prempeh, the Bronx, N.Y.Ben E. King, ‘Stand By Me’Our first dance at our wedding reception. Every time I hear it I want to hold my wife close and dance.Guy Valentine, OttawaParliament, ‘Flash Light’You’ll see the 50-plus break out their best moves for this.Dana Duffy, Bloomington, Ind.Beyoncé, ‘Virgo’s Groove’“Virgo’s Groove” was the anthem of my summer of 2022. It’s the modern interpretation of a feel-good disco song that everyone can enjoy, whether they’re bopping in their seats or kicking it out on the dance floor.Rebecca Kim, Brooklyn, N.Y.Jesse Powell, ‘You’“You” is a beautiful love song about a man sharing how much he loves his bride-to-be. Powell is also a underrated R&B artist who did not receive enough flowers before he died last year.Keisha Clark, ChicagoBabyface, ‘Every Time I Close My Eyes’The lyrics capture the beauty of Black love, which is often trivialized but rarely articulated in a way that captures my understanding of it. I can’t envision “jumping the broom” without hearing, “And every time I close my eyes I thank the Lord that I’ve got you.”Katherine Tinsley, ChicagoToploader, ‘Dancing in the Moonlight’It’s really catchy and the lyrics are easy to follow.Sandra Tan, Brooklyn, N.Y.Rihanna, ‘We Found Love’This song was also in our wedding movie when we were wandering the old Utrecht streets, it was a nice contrast between the modern upbeat music and the classic buildings.Firdaus Mohamed Hoesein, Utrecht, the NetherlandsBritney Spears, ‘Toxic’It’s a throwback for us ’90s kids (throwbacks are always great for getting people on the dance floor), and the song is old enough that our parents still know it.Hannah Rivers, Lincoln, Neb.Etta James, ‘At Last’We were married in Ravello on the Amalfi Coast. A relatively small affair (50 people), but attendees from around the world. A year previous we heard a lounge singer in London and finally encouraged her to sing at our wedding. Stepping out of the shadows, she sang “At Last” by Etta James and had everyone in tears.Rodney Conlon, TorontoElvis Presley, ‘Can’t Help Falling in Love’Our wedding song was “Can’t Help Falling in Love.” It is one that has truly stood across time, place, and culture. A song written in 1961 is constantly rerecorded in fresh new ways — the most popular version among my friends is not the Elvis original, but the Kina Grannis cover. What other song has such cachet across disparate demographics like white boomers and Asian American millennials like me and my wife? And if this does not sound impressive, consider — despite his well-deserved place on the Mount Rushmore of American rock ’n’ roll, how many other Elvis songs have the instant recognition among millennials today that “Can’t Help Falling in Love” has?Andrew Min, New YorkEarth, Wind and Fire, ‘September’It’s special because it came out when I was in high school. I’ve danced to it at so many weddings. Everyone knows it, no matter what age, and it gets everyone on the dance floorKathryn Watson, WashingtonBarry White, ‘My First, My Last, My Everything’For me and my boyfriend, if we decided to marry, this would be the perfect song to get the party started! We met as 17 and 18 year olds in the fall of 1971 our freshman year in college, fell in love as we knew it, then broke up when he left for a year in France at the end of summer before our junior year. A lifetime later in 2016 we reconnected on social media and fell head over heels in love with the adults we grew up to be.Constance Malone, Roswell, Ga.Wacka Flocka Flame, ‘No Hands’“Giiirl, drop it to the floor, I love the way yo’ booty go!”Evelina Kurayeva, Queens, N.Y.Elvis Crespo, ‘Suavemente’A staple for every Latino event, party, wedding — anything. And everyone will go crazy with their best merengue steps.Elizabeth Ortiz, Queens, N.Y.“Michael Jackson, ‘The Way You Make Me Feel’I’ve DJed over 600 weddings. Favorite fast song: “The Way You Make Me Feel,” Michael Jackson. Favorite slow song: “Easy” by The Commodores.Steve Rader, Milwaukee, Wis.Natalie Cole, ‘This Will Be (An Everlasting Love)’Walking down the aisle to “This Will Be (An Everlasting Love)” by Natalie Cole is one of my favorite memories of my wedding — my husband was crying up the front, I walked down arm in arm with both my parents, my brother and sister in law walked ahead as my bridal party and all of our friends and family were clapping and dancing and laughing in surprise at such a happy song to open the day! One of our friends still texts every time this song comes on the radio, remembering that happy moment, and it always makes me smile. I love the optimism and joy of the song for a wedding! And for me it has been an everlasting love.Bethany Sullivan, Sydney, AustraliaStevie Wonder, ‘My Eyes Don’t Cry’Here in metro Detroit, every wedding includes “the hustle” done to Stevie.Cheryl Voglesong, Troy, Mich.MGMT, ‘Electric Feel’I worked as a wedding DJ in 2010s, and the best approach for a crowded dance floor was to vary beats, genres and artists to keep people guessing on what I would play next. Halfway through the event, when people are a bit tired but still want to dance, I would play either Daft Punk or MGMT to have them take a little breather and yet enjoy these mellow beats.Anastasia Bannikova, PhoenixJagged Edge, ‘Let’s Get Married’It’s is clear and specific — celebrating the occasion and the idea of weddings.Reba Liverman, SeattleWhitney Houston, ‘I Want to Dance With Somebody’Oh — are your feet starting to hurt in those heels? If you sit down and this song comes on, you have no choice but to get right back up.Jessie Palatucci, WashingtonLuther Vandross, ‘Never Too Much’It’s a song that makes your heart fill, and then melt, with love.Jeremiah Feather, Brooklyn, N.Y. More

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      Jim Gordon, Top Rock Drummer With a Troubled Life, Dies at 77

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      He was an elite studio musician who played with A-list artists and helped write the Eric Clapton hit “Layla.” But his life was shattered by mental illness and a murder conviction.Jim Gordon, a talented but troubled drummer who was ubiquitous in the recording studios of the 1960s and ’70s and who, as a member of Eric Clapton’s band Derek and the Dominos, helped write the romantic ballad “Layla” — but who suffered from schizophrenia and spent nearly 40 years in prison, convicted of murdering his mother — died on Monday in a prison medical facility in Vacaville, Calif. He was 77.His death was announced by Robert Merlis, a publicist for Joel Selvin, the author of a forthcoming biography of Mr. Gordon. Mr. Selvin said he did not know the cause.“When people say that Jim Gordon is the greatest rock ’n’ roll drummer who ever lived,” Mr. Clapton wrote in “Clapton: The Autobiography” (2007), “I think it’s true, beyond anybody.”Tall and muscular, with a head full of curly hair, Mr. Gordon first attracted attention in 1963 on an English tour with the Everly Brothers. Over the next 15 years, he worked on studio recordings with A-list artists, including John Lennon (“Imagine”), George Harrison (“All Things Must Pass”), the Beach Boys (“Pet Sounds”), Harry Nilsson (“Nilsson Schmilsson”), Carly Simon (“No Secrets”) and Steely Dan (“Pretzel Logic”).As part of the informal group of elite Los Angeles studio musicians that came to be known as the Wrecking Crew, Mr. Gordon could book several sessions a day around the city. .He backed Joe Cocker on his “Mad Dogs & Englishmen” tour and performed with Alice Cooper and Frank Zappa, who nicknamed him Skippy for his All-American demeanor and his all-American looks. And for several months in 1971 he was a member of the British rock band Traffic.“He had a surgical, scientific skill on the drums,” Mr. Selvin said by phone, “and he had an extraordinary gift of intuition. Every time he played on a record, he brought something special to it.”After Mr. Gordon did a stint with the white soul band Delaney & Bonnie, with whom Mr. Clapton also recorded and toured, Mr. Gordon became a member of Derek and the Dominos, the band Mr. Clapton formed in 1970, along with the singer and keyboardist Bobby Whitlock and the bassist Carl Radle. The band released  only one studio album, “Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs,” featuring Duane Allman on second guitar, in 1970.“Layla,” released as a single, rose to No. 51 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart the next year.    The credit for writing “Layla” went to Mr. Clapton and Mr. Gordon, but its instrumental second movement, called the “Piano Exit,” was composed by Mr. Gordon and the singer Rita Coolidge, his girlfriend at the time. As she recalled in her autobiography, “Delta Lady” (2016, with Michael Walker), Mr. Gordon created a melody, to which she responded with a countermelody “that answered and resolved the tension of Jim’s chords and built to a dramatic crescendo.”Mr. Gordon and Ms. Coolidge made a cassette demo of what they intended to be a separate song and gave it to Mr. Clapton. Ms. Coolidge did not know what became of it until she heard “Layla” on the radio and learned that she had received no credit.  She was infuriated.“What they’d clearly done,” she wrote, “ was take the song Jim and I had written, jettisoned the lyrics, and tacked it on to the end of Eric’s song.”When Mr. Clapton released the album “Unplugged” in 1992, his acoustic version of “Layla” peaked at No. 12 on the Billboard Hot 100. When “Layla” received the Grammy Award for best rock song the next year, Mr. Clapton and Mr. Gordon shared the award as songwriters, but Ms. Coolidge’s role received no acknowledgment.Derek and the Dominos around the time they recorded their one and only album, in 1970. From left: Eric Clapton, Bobby Whitlock, Mr. Gordon and Carl Radle.Michael Ochs Archives/Getty ImagesJames Beck Gordon was born on July 14, 1945, in Elizabeth, N.J., and grew up in Sherman Oaks, Calif. His father, John, was an accountant. His mother, Osa Marie (Beck) Gordon, was a pediatric nurse.As a boy, Jim made a set of drums from garbage cans and played them until his parents bought him a drum kit. He started performing professionally as a teenager. In 1963, he was playing with Frankie Knight and the Jesters when Joey Paige, the bassist for the Everly Brothers, scouted him at a club on the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles. Soon Jim, at just 17, was off to England with the Everly Brothers for a tour that also included Little Richard and Bo Diddley.At some point during the next 15 years, Mr. Gordon started hearing voices — most menacingly and hauntingly, that of his mother — and displaying erratic behavior. He interrupted a recording session by telling his fellow musicians, “You’re the devil”; he punched Ms. Coolidge in the eye with such force that she was lifted off the floor and slammed into a wall.The sound of his mother’s insistent voice in his head tormented him, causing him pain and leaving his unable to play his drums, according to an article in The Philadelphia Inquirer in 1994. He was treated at hospitals. Work dried up, but he was able to get by on the royalties from “Layla.”“The symptoms were getting so powerful, starting about 1975 and 1976,” said Mr. Selvin, a former pop music critic for The San Francisco Chronicle. “It was an extraordinary battle. Command hallucinations are the most extreme in all of mental illness.”Mr. Gordon was also taking drugs. “I guess I was an alcoholic,” he told Rolling Stone in 1985. “Before, I was drinking every night, but I wasn’t getting up in the morning for a drink; I would put a needle in my arm. When I stopped taking the heroin, I began to drink all day.”On the night of June 3, 1983, he attacked his mother at her home in North Hollywood, first banging her head with a hammer and  then stabbing her with a knife. “When I remember the crime, it’s like a dream,” he told The Inquirer. “I can remember going through what happened in that space and time, and it seems kind of detached, like I was going through it on some other plane. It didn’t seem real.”He told Rolling Stone that he had felt that he was “being guided like a zombie.”He was found guilty of second-degree murder. Despite having been diagnosed as an acute paranoid schizophrenic, he did not qualify for an insanity defense based on California law at the time. He was sentenced in 1984 to 16 years to life and later denied parole several times.“This is not a murder case,” Scott Furstman, Mr. Gordon’s lawyer, told The Los Angeles Times after the verdict. “This case is a tragedy.”Mr. Gordon is survived by his daughter, Amy, and his brother, John Jr. His marriages to Jill Barabe and Renee Armand ended in divorce. More