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AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyMF Doom, Masked Rapper With Intricate Rhymes, Is Dead at 49Born Daniel Dumile, MF Doom built a cult following with his wordplay and comic-book style. He died in October, a statement shared by his record label said.MF Doom performing in 2004. The album he released that year, “Madvillainy,” a collaboration with the producer Madlib, was a career breakthrough.Credit…Keith Bedford for The New York TimesDec. 31, 2020Daniel Dumile, the masked rapper who performed as MF Doom and built a lasting underground fan base with his offbeat wordplay and comic-book persona, died on Oct. 31, a statement from his family said on Thursday. He was 49.The rapper’s record label, Rhymesayers, provided the statement, signed by Mr. Dumile’s wife, Jasmine. The label did not give the cause of death or say why it was being announced two months later.Over six solo albums released between 1999 and 2009 and five collaborative LPs (with Madlib and Danger Mouse, among others) between 2004 and 2018, Mr. Dumile honed a style that was intricate and imaginative, calling on both esoteric and lowbrow references as well as cartoonish imagery in lyrics that could be poignantly emotional.Born in London and raised on Long Island, he grew up steeped in early hip-hop. He debuted in 1989 on the 3rd Bass track “The Gas Face” with a standout cameo that helped him get a record deal for his own group, KMD, in which he rapped as Zev Love X.The act included his brother, Dingilizwe, who performed under the name DJ Subroc. Its first album, “Mr. Hood,” arrived in 1991 on the major label Elektra. During the recording of KMD’s second album, “Black Bastards,” Subroc was killed in a car accident, and the label later declined to release the record. Mr. Dumile vanished from the entertainment business but continued to work on music privately while he raised his son.He resurfaced in 1997 with the single “Dead Bent,” his first song under the name Metal Face Doom. (The persona was a nod to the Marvel villain Doctor Doom.) Around the time of the release of the album “Operation: Doomsday” in 1999, which featured a masked character on its cover, Mr. Dumile began hiding his face in public, at first with a stocking mask and later a metal one, which became his signature.In a 2009 interview with The New Yorker, he said the mask had become necessary when he made the leap from the studio to the stage. “I wanted to get onstage and orate, without people thinking about the normal things people think about,” he said. “A visual always brings a first impression. But if there’s going to be a first impression, I might as well use it to control the story. So why not do something like throw a mask on?”Once an underground cult figure, Mr. Dumile found greater fame with albums in the mid-aughts. “Madvillainy,” which arrived in 2004 with the producer Madlib, was a breakthrough.“He delivers long, free-associative verses full of sideways leaps and unexpected twists,” the critic Kelefa Sanneh wrote in reviewing a 2004 concert in The New York Times. “You think you know where he’s heading and what each sentence will mean when it ends. Then it bends.”On “Raid,” a track from “Madvillainy,” he rhymes:Trippin’, to date the Metal Fellow been rippin’ flowsSince New York plates was ghetto yellowWith broke blue writing, this is too excitingFolks leave out the show feelin’ truly enlightenedReleased in the same year, his album “MM .. FOOD” (an anagram of his stage name) included tracks like “Gumbo,” “Kon Queso” and “Kon Karne.” In rapping about the seemingly mundane topic of food with goofiness and wit, he was “showing respect for human life,” he told Spin in 2004.“I’m more like a writer dude rather than a freestyler,” Mr. Dumile told The Chicago Tribune that same year. “I like to design my stuff, and I consider myself an author.”Mr. Dumile rapped under different personas and later became known for sending impostors out onstage to perform for fans; in his trademark metal mask, it was difficult to know the difference. The body doubles often disappointed fans but sparked viral moments online, like when an apparent MF Doom drop-in at a concert turned out to be the comedian Hannibal Buress.In 2017, Mr. Dumile announced on social media that his son, King Malachi Ezekiel Dumile, had died at 14. Information on survivors was not immediately available.Though he never reached mainstream superstardom, Mr. Dumile was widely admired by fellow rappers and producers. He was “your favorite MC’s MC,” wrote Q-Tip from A Tribe Called Quest on Twitter. In a post on Instagram, El-P wrote: “thank you for keeping it weird and raw always. you inspired us all and always will.”Caryn Ganz contributed reporting.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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The ‘Rocket Man’ hitmaker jokes that he would rather ‘kill’ himself than play ‘Crocodile Rock’ again as he wishes he could play the more obscure tracks from his back catalogue.

Jan 2, 2021
AceShowbiz – Sir Elton John has joked he’d “kill (himself)” if he has to perform “Crocodile Rock” again.
The “Rocket Man” star is retiring from touring and once his final concerts – which have been delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic – have taken place, he wants to take on a small residency somewhere and play the more obscure tracks from his back catalogue because he’s tired of playing the same hits night after night.
“I’m lucky to have so many great songs to play every night. But there is a point in time where you think, ‘I don’t really want to play this anymore’,” he told Record Collector magazine. “There are things like Original Sin or (Gotta Get A) Meal Ticket that I haven’t really played before – not enough anyway. But if I have to go back and play Crocodile Rock again, it’s like, ‘I’m gonna kill myself.’ ”

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“So, after I’ve finished this tour, I don’t want to play some of these songs any more. I’d like to do something like Kate Bush, where I can do a show and play some of these songs that are deep cuts.”
The “Tiny Dancer” hitmaker has performed with a number of huge artists over the years, and remembers being in the presence of “true greatness,” which was often so overwhelming, he was “frightened.”
“I just loved (Aretha Franklin). She sang her last show at our AIDS Foundation event in 2017, at St. John The Divine Cathedral,” he recalled. “I’ll never forget it, because I was standing by the stage with Roseanne Cash and Sheryl Crow and we were just crying because she was playing the piano and she was so ill and yet she came on and did Bridge Over Troubled Water.”
“And afterwards, she said, ‘This is it I’m never going to sing again – this is the last thing I’ll ever do.’ But those are the moments you know you’re with true greatness. Sometimes that’s frightening.”

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The 60-year-old member of the Public Enemy has always pushed himself to be more creative with his music and never cried if his experiments in sound don’t work.

Jan 2, 2021
AceShowbiz – Chuck D has no qualms about pushing himself musically, insisting he’ll never “cry” about sound experiments that don’t work.
The Public Enemy star opened up about his lengthy career in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, and said that, while he’s happy to be more experimental with his music, it’s another story with his fashion choices.
“Well, you know what you are, and you know you’re not,” he mused. “You know your abilities and you know your limitations. I wouldn’t mind trying something that might end up with an ugly result, or I would fail at.”
“Part of Public Enemy’s mantra is, try something, never repeat yourself, but try something that might be crazy. I could live to regret, for example, if I wore some wack-a*s s**t. But experiments in sound? If it doesn’t work, I won’t cry about it.”

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Despite being 60 years old, Chuck D remains one of the most popular artists in the rap industry. But when it comes to who he looks up to himself, Ice-T, with whom he collaborated on “Smash the Crowd”, is at the top of his list.
“Well, Ice-T is in rare air. I think when Ice first recorded that song (in 2017), he was the only 60-year-old MC out. I mean, there’s Wonder Mike from Rapper’s Delight but he hasn’t done any new recording. I always tell him, you’re the ice-breaker for us to follow,” he smiled.
Chuck D and bandmate Flavor Flav recently returned to Def Jam Recordings, the fabled label with which they first found fame.
They signed a new contract with company bosses to release their new album “What You Gonna Do When the Grid Goes Down”, more than two decades after parting ways with the label.

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Elton John Sick and Tired of Playing ‘Crocodile Rock’ at Every Concert

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#masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyCritic’s NotebookTyshawn Sorey: The Busiest Composer of the Bleakest YearAn artist straddling jazz and classical styles had perhaps the most exciting fall in new music.Tyshawn Sorey, a composer and multi-instrumentalist, conducting his song sequence “Cycles of My Being” in a filmed presentation by Opera Philadelphia.Credit…Dominic M. MercierJan. 1, 2021“Everything Changes, Nothing Changes”: Tyshawn Sorey wrote the string quartet that bears that title in 2018. But the sentiment is so tailor-made for the past year that when the JACK Quartet announced it would stream a performance of the work in December, I briefly forgot and assumed it was a premiere, created for these tumultuous yet static times.I should have known better. Mr. Sorey already had enough on his plate without cooking up a new quartet. The final two months of 2020 alone brought the premieres of a pair of concerto-ish works, one for violin and one for cello, as well as a fresh iteration of “Autoschediasms,” his series of conducted ensemble improvisations, with Alarm Will Sound.Mr. Sorey leading a rehearsal for Alarm Will Sound’s virtual performance of “Autoschediasms,” one of his series of conducted ensemble improvisations.Credit…via Alarm Will SoundThat wasn’t all that happened for him since November. Mills College, where Mr. Sorey is composer in residence, streamed his solo piano set. Opera Philadelphia filmed a stark black-and-white version of his song sequence “Cycles of My Being,” about Black masculinity and racial hatred. JACK did “Everything Changes” for the Library of Congress, alongside the violin solo “For Conrad Tao.” Da Camera, of Houston, put online a 2016 performance of “Perle Noire,” a tribute to Josephine Baker that Mr. Sorey arranged with the soprano Julia Bullock. His most recent album, “Unfiltered,” was released early in March, days before lockdown.He was the composer of the year.That’s both coincidental — some of this burst of work was planned long ago — and not. Mr. Sorey has been on everyone’s radar at least since winning a MacArthur “genius” grant in 2017, but the shock to the performing arts since late winter brought him suddenly to the fore as an artist at the nexus of the music industry’s artistic and social concerns.Undefinable, he is appealing to almost everyone. He works at the blurry and productive boundary of improvised (“jazz”) and notated (“classical”) music, a composer who is also a performer. He is valuable to ensembles and institutions because of his versatility — he can do somber solos as well as large-scale vocal works. And he is Black, at a time when those ensembles and institutions are desperate to belatedly address the racial representation in their programming.From left: Mr. Sorey, the soprano Julia Bullock and the flutist Alice Teyssier in Da Camera’s presentation of “Perle Noire,” inspired by Josephine Baker’s life and work.Credit…Ben DoyleHe’s in such demand, and has had so much success, that the trolls have come for him, dragging him on Facebook for the over-the-topness of the biography on his website. (Admittedly, it is a bit adjective-heavy: “celebrated for his incomparable virtuosity, effortless mastery,” etc.)The style for which he has been best known since his 2007 album “That/Not,” his debut release as a bandleader, owes much to the composer Morton Feldman (1926-87): spare, spacious, glacially paced, often quiet yet often ominous, focusing the listener purely on the music’s unfolding. Mr. Sorey has called this vision that of an “imaginary landscape where pretty much nothing exists.”There is a direct line connecting “Permutations for Solo Piano,” a 43-minute study in serene resonance on that 2007 album, and the first of the two improvised solos in his recent Mills recital, filmed on an upright piano at his home. Even the far briefer second solo, more frenetic and bright, seems at the end to want to settle back into gloomy shadows.“Everything Changes, Nothing Changes,” a hovering, lightly dissonant 27-minute gauze, is in this vein, as is the new work for violin and orchestra, “For Marcos Balter,” premiered on Nov. 7 by Jennifer Koh and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Mr. Sorey insists in a program note that this is a “non-certo,” without a traditional concerto’s overt virtuosity, contrasting tempos or vivid interplay between soloist and ensemble.Xian Zhang conducting the violinist Jennifer Koh and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in Mr. Sorey’s “For Marcos Balter.”Credit…Sarah Smarch“For Marcos Balter” is even-keeled, steadily slow, a commune of players rather than a metaphorical give-and-take between an individual and society. Ms. Koh’s deliberate long tones, like cautious exhalations, are met with spectral effects on the marimba. Quiet piano chords amplify quiet string chords. At the end, a timpani roll is muted to sound almost gonglike, with Ms. Koh’s violin a coppery tremble above it.It is pristine and elegant, but I prefer Mr. Sorey’s new cello-and-orchestra piece, “For Roscoe Mitchell,” premiered on Nov. 19 by Seth Parker Woods and the Seattle Symphony. There is more tension here between discreet, uneasy minimalism and an impulse toward lushness, fullness — more tension between the soloist receding and speaking his mind.The piece is less pristine than “For Marcos Balter,” and more restless. The ensemble backdrop is crystalline, misty sighs, while the solo cello line expands into melancholy arias without words; sometimes the tone is passionate, dark-hued nocturne, sometimes ethereal lullaby. “For Roscoe Mitchell” feels like a composer challenging himself while expressing himself confidently — testing the balance of introversion and extroversion, privacy and exposure.The cellist Seth Parker Woods and the Seattle Symphony perform the premiere of “For Roscoe Mitchell.”Credit…James Holt/Seattle SymphonyBut it’s not right to make it seem like an outlier in this respect; Mr. Sorey’s music has never been solely Feldmanian stillness. In Alarm Will Sound’s inspiringly well executed virtual performance of “Autoschediasms,” Mr. Sorey conducted 17 players in five states over video chat, calm at his desk as he wrote symbols on cards and held them up to the camera, an obscure silent language that resulted in a low buzz of noise, varying in texture, and then, excitingly, a spacey, oozy section marked by keening bassoon tones.And he isn’t afraid of pushing into a kind of Neo-Romantic vibe. “Cycles of My Being,” featuring the tenor Lawrence Brownlee and texts by the poet Terrance Hayes, nods to the ardently declarative mid-20th-century American art songs of Samuel Barber and Lee Hoiby, just as “Perle Noire” features, near the end, a sweetly mournful instrumental hymn out of Copland.“Cycles,” which felt turgid when I heard it in a voice-and-piano version three years ago, bloomed in Opera Philadelphia’s presentation of the original instrumentation, which adds a couple of energizing strings and a wailing clarinet. And after a year of protests, what seemed in 2018 like stiffness — in both texts and music — now seems more implacable strength. (Opera Philadelphia presents yet another Sorey premiere, “Save the Boys,” with the countertenor John Holiday, on Feb. 12.)The cellist Khari Joyner playing in “Cycles of My Being.”Credit…Dominic M. MercierThe violinist Randall Goosby.Credit…Dominic M. Mercier“Perle Noire” still strikes me as the best of Sorey. Turning Josephine Baker’s lively numbers into unresolved meditations, here is both suave, jazzy swing and glacial expanse, an exploration of race and identity that is ultimately undecided — a mood of endless disappointment and endless wishing. (“My father, how long,” Ms. Bullock intones again and again near the end.)In works this strong, the extravagant praise for which some have ribbed Mr. Sorey on social media — that biography, for one, or the JACK Quartet lauding “the knife’s-edge precision of Sorey’s chess-master mind” — feels justified. And, anyway, isn’t it a relief to talk about a 40-year-old composer with the immoderate enthusiasm we generally reserve for the pillars of the classical canon?AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

#masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesThe Stimulus PlanVaccine InformationF.A.Q.TimelineAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyArmando Manzanero, Influential Mexican Balladeer, Is DeadHe was known as one of the great romantic composers. His songs were performed by Elvis Presley, Andrea Bocelli, Christina Aguilera and many others.The singer-songwriter Armando Manzanero performing in 2017 in Alamos, Mexico. He was hospitalized with Covid-19 in the days before his death.Credit…Luis Gutierrez/Norte Photo, via Getty ImagesJan. 1, 2021, 1:28 p.m. ETArmando Manzanero, one of Mexico’s greatest romantic composers, whose ballads were performed by the likes of Elvis Presley and Christina Aguilera, died on Monday in Mexico City.Mr. Manzanero’s family gave his age as 86, though some sources have said that he was 85.His death was announced on national television by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and by the Society of Authors and Composers of Mexico, of which Mr. Manzanero was president.“A great composer, among the best of the country,” and “a socially sensitive man,” Mr. López Obrador said.Mr. Manzanero had been hospitalized with Covid-19 and placed on a ventilator a week before his death, but his son, Diego Manzanero, said the cause was cardiac arrest following complications of kidney problems.In a seven-decade career, Mr. Manzanero wrote more than 400 songs, including hits like “It’s Impossible” and “Adoro” (“I Adore You”). He received a Grammy lifetime achievement award in 2014. He was also a lauded singer and producer.After touring with several well-known Mexican musical artists early in his career, he recorded his first songs in 1959 and released his first solo album, “A Mi Amor … Con Mi Amor” (“To My Love … With My Love”), in 1967. He went on to release dozens of albums, some of them consisting of duets.In 1971, Mr. Manzanero received a Grammy nomination for song of the year for “It’s Impossible,” a translation of his 1968 song “Somos Novios,” sung by Perry Como. The song, with a lush melody and syrupy lyrics, has remained popular. Elvis Presley recorded, as did Andrea Bocelli, in a duet with Ms. Aguilera.Luis Miguel sang several of Mr. Manzanero’s songs for his album “Romances,” released in 1997. A worldwide success, the album was credited with giving new popularity to Latin romance music, which had lost favor to some degree with the rise of Latin pop in the 1980s and ’90s.Often deceptively simple but imbued with tenderness and passion, Mr. Manzanero’s love songs have resonated for decades across cultures and languages.“A song has to be written with sincerity,” he told Billboard magazine in 2003. “It can’t be written with the desire to have instant success or passing success.” Rather, he said, it should be written to last.The Coronavirus Outbreak More

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The ‘On the Floor’ hitmaker is overwhelmed with emotions as she remembers those who have died during Covid-19 pandemic when she rings in New Year at New York’s Times Square.

Jan 2, 2021
AceShowbiz – Jennifer Lopez got teary-eyed as she performed in New York’s Times Square on Thursday night (31Dec20), reflecting on those lost in 2020.
The superstar headlined “Dick Clark’s Rockin’ New Year’s Eve with Ryan Seacrest”, and took the opportunity to recall the biggest moments of her own year – beginning with a Super Bowl Halftime Show performance with Shakira and ending with her seeing out 2020.
“2020 is almost over. We made it. We made it,” she smiled. “We’ve got to think about the beginning of this year, being at one of the biggest performances of my life. Thousands of people. But tonight we’re doing things a little differently. That’s okay.”
Remembering those who have died during the Covid-19 pandemic around the world, Jennifer grew emotional, as she told the intimate audience, “If this year taught us anything, it taught us to be grateful for what we do have – to cherish every moment. We lost too many. Too many.”

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“So tonight we’re going to live, we’re going to love and we’re going to dance again. And we’re going to keep on dreaming. Twenty years ago, I sang this song, and we never needed it more than tonight.”
Jennifer then performed her smash hit “Waiting for Tonight” before doing a cover of Aerosmith’s “Dream On” and concluding with the upbeat “Dance Again”.
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Later, Jennifer was seen joined by her fiance Alex Rodriguez, their four children, and her mother as they stood on the stage counting down to 2021.

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#masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyQUESTIONS FROM THE BOSSLove Music to Surprise You? Jon Caramanica Recommends TikTok DivesThe Times’s Culture editor has questions. Our critic has answers.The songs on Fiona Apple’s 2020 album “Fetch the Bolt Cutters” succeed by connecting to the artist’s resentments as well as her creative impulses.Credit…Gary Miller/Getty ImagesJan. 1, 2021, 10:00 a.m. ETAs the editor of the Culture department at The New York Times, Gilbert Cruz relies on critics, reporters and editors in every field of the arts for their expertise. Now we’re bringing his personal questions — and our writers’ answers — to you. Currently on his mind: how to open himself up to new music, and tangle with the beast known as TikTok, which he posed to Jon Caramanica, a pop music critic.Gilbert asks: We’re approaching the tail-end of one of my favorite times of year — Top 10 list time! The holidays have passed, but I’m still catching up on stuff. I love reading ours, I love reading those from other publications. It really allows me to feel both superior (“Yeah, I saw that”) and inferior (“Damn, I didn’t even hear about that”) at the same time. Last year, after seeing your No. 1 album, I distinctly recall asking myself, “What is 100 gecs?” putting on the song “Money Machine” while my 5-year old was in the room and immediately regretting it. This is one of the reasons I appreciate you.This year, I played it so safe as a music listener. In March, it felt as if I would have time to explore so much of the new — and instead I just played my favorite albums over and over again. Did I do it wrong? Can your year-end list (and Jon Pareles’s and Lindsay Zoladz’s) redeem me and those like me?Jon answers: First off, please enumerate all of the other reasons you appreciate me. If we have any space left, I’ll …I’m really glad that I hit my target demographic, which is to say your child, which is to say someone who remains open to all of the wacky, unexpected possibilities of music. I’d guess that by the time we are, I dunno, 13, we already begin to understand music as something that defines us socially, and about which we can become tribal. That is, of course, a shame. I wish child’s ears for everyone.Look, you’ll find great, revelatory things on my album and song lists — for your little one, try Rina Sawayama and Flo Milli — but I’m not sure there’s much on there that will snap me or you or anyone else out of [madly waves hands around] all of this. Fiona Apple probably came closest for me — it was nice to hear someone with such a direct line to both their resentments and their creative impulses.I think the artists who suffered this year — critically, at least — were those who stayed the course. In a different year, say, Gunna might have gotten more critical attention. But his 2020 album wasn’t much different than his 2019 album, and I found that I didn’t have much to say about him that I hadn’t already said. In a year where it sometimes felt onerous just to extract the energy to even absorb a work of art, albums like that felt easy to nod at and move past.Gilbert asks: It’s a big part of your job to constantly experience the new — but is there older stuff that you find yourself returning to for comfort?Jon answers: I do think that discomfort is my beat, to a certain extent. I generally find myself allergic to familiar pleasures. That said, for the last couple of years, few things have been more calming than the music of the Griselda Records crew, from Buffalo, which is grounded in the 1990s New York rap that makes up around 85 percent of my DNA. The way the syllables have sturdy corners, but there’s still a liquidity between them — it’s as reassuring as my mother’s voice.Also, I know it might sound odd to say that I found comfort in TikTok, the centerless, directionless app that grabs you by the neck and clings tight for as long as you’ll let it, but I found its relentless, crossed-up rhythms soothing. There are endless rabbit holes to fall down, myriad subcultures to peek in on, countless around-the-way superstars who have finally found their dream milieu.Gilbert asks: Yeah, I heard you say something similar on a recent episode of Popcast where you talked about how you “struggled this year to listen to albums” and wondered about the “utility of the album.” Do you think that’s a function of quarantine, or is it just an extension of the playlist-ification of music? Honestly, almost every new song I discovered this year I discovered through some Spotify playlist. (No free ads.)Jon answers: As awful as it sounds, an album is simply a data dump now. That doesn’t mean that some artists won’t continue to aim to be auteurs of the form — say, Taylor Swift or Adele — but the minute albums hit streaming services, they are sliced and diced and the songs are relegated to playlist slots, and everything after that is a crap shoot. The truth is that albums worked as a medium only because everyone was a captive. When you look back at your favorite older albums now, I’m sure you see the weak spots that you’d happily have programmed out if you had the technology then. Now you do. I wouldn’t be surprised if the next generation of pop stars finds ways to never release an “album” again — they’ll just drip music out, one automated-brain-chip-download at a time.Gilbert asks: OK, I have to come back to something, though. It’s embarrassing.Here it is — I’m just not on TikTok much. (Insert grimace emoji.) I know I should be because it’s a major part of the culture, but there are only so many ways I can direct my time. This Robert Caro book isn’t going to finish itself, Jon! What are some of the best things you’ve seen there this year?Jon answers: It’s cool, man — you get paid to run the department, and I get paid to do … this.#FrogTikTok. Teens talking about reading political theory, both as means to revolution and to flirtation. @funkbeezly’s taxonomy of boyfriends. The debunking of Noah Beck’s Yale soccer scholarship. The House Nobody Asked For. Jordan Scott. (Sorry.) (Someone help him with his merch, though.) The joy in the comments when Charli D’Amelio finally danced to ppcocaine’s “3 Musketeers.” High fashion satirist guys who’ll soon be in need of chiropractors. Jeremy O. Harris’s “WAP” dance at Pompeii. @cyberexboyfriend. The very long, very specific memory of @nfbroleelove. “Who’s the drunkest?” Dances to Phoebe Bridgers and Soccer Mommy. @karchill and his Mentos. The many flavors of Pop Smoke and Lil Tjay’s “Mood Swings.” Kids in Zoom classrooms telling their teachers how much they appreciate them. Jasmine Orlando. “Where? Bunny? Surplus? Labor? Value?” And of course, Larry Scott, who always had a “nice” ready when I needed one.Gilbert asks: What’s the longest you’ve ever spent scrolling through TikTok?Jon answers: Ummmmmmm … three hours? So, not nearly long enough.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyPhyllis McGuire, Last of a Singing Sisters Act, Dies at 89Starting in the ’50s, the McGuire Sisters were one of America’s most popular vocal groups, their three-part harmonies a balm to audiences rattled by rock ’n’ roll.The McGuire Sisters in 1953 — from left, Christine, Phyllis and Dorothy. They became staples of television variety shows. Credit…Associated PressDec. 31, 2020Updated 4:58 p.m. ETPhyllis McGuire, the lead singer and last surviving member of the McGuire Sisters, who bewitched teenage America in the 1950s with chart-topping renditions of “Sincerely” and “Sugartime” in a sweet, innocent harmony that went with car fins, charm bracelets and duck-tail haircuts, died on Tuesday at her home in Las Vegas. She was 89.The Palm Eastern Mortuary in Las Vegas confirmed the death but did not specify a cause. Ms. McGuire, with her older sisters Christine and Dorothy, shot to success overnight after winning the televised “Arthur Godfrey Talent Scouts” contest in 1952. Over the next 15 years, they were one of the nation’s most popular vocal groups, singing on the television variety shows of Ed Sullivan, Milton Berle, Andy Williams and Red Skelton, on nightclub circuits across the country and on records that sold millions.The sisters epitomized a 1950s sensibility that held up a standard of unreal perfection, wearing identical coifs, dresses and smiles, moving with synchronized precision and blending voices in wholesome songs for simpler times. Their music, like that of Perry Como, Patti Page and other stars who appealed to white, middle-class audiences, contrasted starkly with the rock ’n’ roll craze that was taking the world by storm in the mid-to-late ’50s.In 1965, as the trio’s popularity began to fade, Phyllis McGuire’s image as the honey-blonde girl next door was shattered by published reports linking her romantically with Sam Giancana, a Chicago mobster with reputed ties to the Kennedy administration and a Central Intelligence Agency plot to enlist the Mafia in what proved to be unsuccessful attempts to assassinate the Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.Ms. McGuire with the Chicago mob boss Sam Giancana at a nightclub in 1962. Their relationship shattered her girl-next-door image. Credit…Associated PressMr. Giancana and Ms. McGuire, who had been followed by federal agents for several years, appeared before a grand jury in Chicago. He refused to answer questions and was jailed for contempt. She testified that she had met him in Las Vegas in 1961, traveled with him to Europe, the Caribbean and elsewhere and accepted his gifts in a continuing relationship. She was aware that he was a reputed gangster, she said, but insisted that she knew nothing of his underworld activities.“It makes me look terrible,” she told reporters afterward. “It would be different if I were on my own, but I’m not a single — I’m part of a trio. My sisters and my parents — they’re brokenhearted about this.”The McGuire Sisters retired from public appearances in 1968, Christine and Dorothy to raise families, Phyllis to continue as a soloist. She appeared regularly in Las Vegas, where she lived for the rest of her life in a mansion with a swan moat and a replica of the Eiffel Tower rising through the roof.After serving a year for contempt, Mr. Giancana was released, and he fled to Mexico, where he lived in exile until arrested by the Mexican authorities in 1974. Deported to the United States, he agreed to testify in a prosecution of organized crime in Chicago but was killed by an unknown assailant at his home in 1975.Ms. McGuire remained unapologetic about her relationship with Mr. Giancana. “Sam was the greatest teacher I ever could have had,” she told Dominick Dunne of Vanity Fair in 1989. “He was so wise about so many things. Sam is always depicted as unattractive. He wasn’t. He was a very nice-looking man. He wasn’t flashy. He didn’t drive a pink Cadillac, like they used to say.”In 1985, the sisters reunited for a comeback and performed for almost two decades at casinos and clubs in Las Vegas, Atlantic City and elsewhere. They sang their own hits, 1950s pop hits and Broadway show tunes, and Phyllis did impersonations of Peggy Lee, Judy Garland, Pearl Bailey and Ethel Merman.“They take me back to the olden times, the beautiful times,” Barbara Pattison, a fan in Toronto, told People magazine as the comeback began. “They are not loud and they are not distant. They bring back the beauty in music.”Ms. McGuire in a celebratory mood in 1995 at her home in Las Vegas. She sang regularly at clubs and casinos in the city. Credit…Lennox McLendon/Associated PressPhyllis McGuire was born in Middletown, Ohio, on Feb. 14, 1931, the youngest of three daughters of Asa and Lillie (Fultz) McGuire. Her mother was a minister of the First Church of God in Miamisburg, Ohio., and her father was a steelworker. The sisters began singing in church when Phyllis was 4. They performed at weddings and other services, then at veterans’ hospitals and military bases.Phyllis’s 1952 marriage to Neal Van Ells, a broadcaster, ended in divorce in 1956. They had no children. Dorothy McGuire died in 2012, and Christine died in 2019. She is survived by nieces and nephews. Her longtime companion, Mike Davis, an oil and gas magnate, died in 2016.While making Las Vegas her home, for years she kept a Park Avenue apartment and then a townhouse on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.After winning “Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts,” the sisters were regulars on Mr. Godfrey’s morning radio and television shows for six years. They made the covers of Life and Look magazines and signed with Coral Records, a Decca subsidiary. Their first Top 10 hit was “Goodnight, Sweetheart, Goodnight” in 1954. “Sincerely” (1955) and “Sugartime” (1958) were No. 1 hits; they and “Picnic” (1956) each sold over a million copies.The McGuire Sisters were one of the many white groups that covered 1950s R&B hits, many by Black artists, in what critics called blander versions though better-selling ones. They also sang for Presidents Richard M. Nixon, Gerald R. Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush and for Queen Elizabeth II.In 1995, an HBO movie, “Sugartime,” focused on the Giancana-McGuire affair, with John Turturro as the mobster and Mary-Louise Parker as Phyllis. The sisters gave their last big performance on a 2004 PBS special, “Magic Moments: The Best of ’50s Pop.” They were inducted into the National Broadcasting Hall of Fame in 1994, the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2001 and the Hit Parade Hall of Fame in 2009.Long past the customary retirement years for a singer, Ms. McGuire remained passionate about her career.“I don’t fear living, and I don’t fear dying,” she told Vanity Fair in 1989. “You only live once, and I’m going to live it to the fullest, until away I go. And I’m going to continue singing as long as somebody wants me.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More