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      Fans Remember Tina Turner as a Resilient Trailblazer

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      Many said her music and her life story were inspirations as she overcame abuse during her marriage to Ike Turner and emerged as a star on her own.Rock and soul singers, civil rights activists and political leaders mourned Tina Turner on Wednesday as a trailblazing artist whose music and life epitomized resilience, determination, heart and the power to not only survive but thrive over five decades in the music industry.“Tina would have so much energy during her performances and was a true entertainer,” Magic Johnson, the former star of the Los Angeles Lakers, wrote on Twitter. “She created the blueprint for other great entertainers like Janet Jackson and Beyoncé and her legacy will continue on through all high-energy performing artists.”As news spread of Ms. Turner’s death, at 83, in Switzerland, many said her life story was an inspiration as she overcame abuse during her marriage to Ike Turner and emerged as a star on her own, with the release of her solo album “Private Dancer” in 1984.“This woman rose like a Phoenix from the ashes of abuse, a derailed career, and no money to a renaissance like I’ve never seen in entertainment,” Sherrilyn Ifill, the former president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, said on Twitter. “She became fully herself and showed us all how it’s done.”Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones, who toured with Ms. Turner in Britain in 1966 and then in the United States in 1969, in a series of concerts that helped introduce her music to white audiences, said that he was “so saddened by the passing of my wonderful friend Tina Turner.”Tina Turner with Mick Jagger at a Live-Aid concert in Philadelphia in 1985.Rusty Kennedy/Associated Press“She was truly an enormously talented performer and singer,” Mr. Jagger wrote on Instagram. “She was inspiring, warm, funny and generous. She helped me so much when I was young and I will never forget her.”Former President Barack Obama said on Twitter that “Tina Turner was raw. She was powerful. She was unstoppable. And she was unapologetically herself — speaking and singing her truth through joy and pain; triumph and tragedy.”“Today,” he added, “we join fans around the world in honoring the Queen of Rock and Roll, and a star whose light will never fade.”The actress Angela Bassett, who was nominated for an Oscar for her portrayal of Ms. Turner in the 1993 film “What’s Love Got to Do With It,” said in a statement: “How do we say farewell to a woman who owned her pain and trauma and used it as a means to help change the world?”“Through her courage in telling her story, her commitment to stay the course in her life, no matter the sacrifice, and her determination to carve out a space in rock and roll for herself and for others who look like her, Tina Turner showed others who lived in fear what a beautiful future filled with love, compassion, and freedom should look like,” Ms. Bassett said. “Her final words to me — for me — were ‘You never mimicked me. Instead, you reached deep into your soul, found your inner Tina, and showed her to the world.’”The R&B and soul singer Aaron Neville recalled when the Neville Brothers toured Europe with Ms. Turner in 1990, selling out shows with more than 70,000 fans in attendance. It was during that tour, he said, when he came up with the idea for his song, “The Roadie Song,” as he watched the crew set up stages all across Europe.“She showed us much love and respect,” Mr. Neville wrote on Twitter. “I know she has a place in the heavenly band.”Ms. Turner’s career began in the late 1950s, when she was in high school in East St. Louis, Ill., and spanned half a century, as she moved from singing R&B and soul into rock and pop. She was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame with Mr. Turner in 1991 again as a solo artist in 2021.She gave her final public performance in 2009 and then retired.Beyoncé, left, and Tina Turner perform at the 50th Grammy Awards in Los Angeles on Feb. 10, 2008.Robyn Beck/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“Tina Turner was our voice,” Mayor Eric Adams of New York wrote on Twitter. “She’s an icon who knocked down boundaries, shook our soul and redefined music. She overcame so much to become an icon.”Kelly Rowland, the singer formerly of Destiny’s Child, is part of a younger generation of singers who drew inspiration from Ms. Turner: “Thank you Queen, for giving us your all!” she wrote. “We Love You!!”The R&B singer Ciara wrote: “Heaven has gained an angel. Rest in Paradise Tina Turner. Thank you for the inspiration you gave us all.”And rapper and songwriter Kid Cudi wrote that Ms. Turner was a hero to his mother, and “she was the ultimate superhero to me too.” More

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      Tina Turner’s 11 Essential Songs

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      Turner, who died Wednesday at 83, went from R&B shouter to rock queen to pop superstar. Here are some of her greatest musical moments.Like all the greatest pop icons, Tina Turner, who died Wednesday at 83, had more than one life.She started off as an R&B shouter and inexhaustible dancer who, alongside her husband Ike, put on the most exhilarating live show this side of James Brown. Then she was a rock heroine who toured with the Rolling Stones and served as the Who’s Acid Queen. And finally she became the ultimate survivor — the abused woman who left her man in the dust and, without apologies, claimed a crown all her own.Here are some of Tina Turner’s greatest musical moments, on record and on film.Ike & Tina Turner, “A Fool in Love” (1960)Ike and Tina’s early R&B hits are electrifying moments of raw musical power, but in retrospect they are also deeply creepy in their lyrical content. The duo’s first single introduces Tina’s larger-than-life howl and has her sing about a troubled relationship in which her man mistreats her and “got me smilin’ while my heart is in pain,” yet she still promises to “do anything he wants me to.” Those words were written by Ike Turner, who has sole credit as the songwriter.Ike & Tina Turner, “I Idolize You” (1960)More strange and uncomfortable lyrics: Tina professes not love but idolatry, and says that in return, “just a little bit attention you know will see me through.” Tina’s guttural cry atop a walking bass line was the sexiest, most unfiltered sound in music at the time, but it is all but impossible to hear these songs now without wincing at the horror show Tina would later describe about her marriage to Ike.Ike & Tina Turner, “It’s Gonna Work Out Fine” (1961)The biggest hit of Ike & Tina’s early years — it went to No. 2 on Billboard’s R&B chart and was Top 20 pop — is a lighter back-and-forth routine about a couple persevering through their troubles. Again, eww. But at least this time the song was not by Ike. It was written by Rose Marie McCoy along with Joe Seneca and James Lee, and the R&B duo Mickey & Sylvia were involved in the recording.Ike & Tina Turner, “River Deep — Mountain High” (1966)Phil Spector had seen the Ike & Tina Turner Revue — their incredibly high-energy live show, featuring Tina singing and dancing with the backup Ikettes — and recorded this single, written by Spector with Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich, for his label, Philles. It tones down Tina’s howls and replaces Ike’s tight band with a somewhat hazy version of Spector’s signature “wall of sound.” The single was a flop, which caused the album of the same title to be delayed by three years in the United States.Ike & Tina Turner, “Proud Mary” (1971)“We never ever do nothin’ nice and easy. We always do it nice and rough.” Thus Tina introduces her biggest hit with Ike, a rollicking Creedence Clearwater Revival remake that went to No. 4. After a stripped-down, “nice and easy” run through the first couple of verses, the full band, with horns and Ikettes, joins in to take it energetically to the finish line.Ike & Tina Turner, “Nutbush City Limits” (1973)Tina, as the sole credited songwriter, tells her own story for once, detailing her upbringing in rural Tennessee, where “you go to the field on weekdays and have a picnic on Labor Day.” It’s played as acid funk, with period-appropriate electric keyboards and a Moog solo. But the song is still a reverie, never imagining a life beyond the small-town simplicities.“The Acid Queen” (1975)For the film version of the Who’s “Tommy,” Tina was cast as the Acid Queen, the “Gypsy” with a wild scream and quivering lips who uses sex and drugs to try to cure the boy. By this point, Tina was a world-famous sex symbol, and her name alone was shorthand for feminine power. It was also not long before she left Ike. But the world would not know her secret for years.“What’s Love Got to Do With It” (1984)By the 1980s, Tina was in her 40s and long past Ike, and her brand was survival. The songs on “Private Dancer,” her breakthrough solo album, were mostly written by men, but they perfectly fit the role of an independent woman who isn’t resigned to being alone. “What’s Love Got to Do With It” is the story of a woman with a broken heart who’s tempted but afraid to try again with love, “a secondhand emotion.”“Better Be Good to Me” (1984)A confident and defiant demand to a man, this was co-written by Holly Knight and was originally released by her band Spider. But it has been Tina’s song ever since, giving her a chance not only to declare “I don’t have no use for what you loosely call the truth,” but also to unleash her raspy roar with “should I?”“We Don’t Need Another Hero (Thunderdome)” (1985)Tina donned a white mane and postapocalyptic tribal garb for “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome,” in which she starred alongside Mel Gibson. The theme song is squeaky-clean ’80s torch pop, though Tina keeps her costume on for the music video.“The Best” (1989)Originally recorded by Bonnie Tyler, “The Best” is a song of praise to a lover. But if you squint, or sing along as a fan, it could be a paean to Tina herself: “You’re simply the best, better than all the rest.” More

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      Rolf Harris, Disgraced British Entertainer, Dies at 93

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      His career as a musician and a painter over six decades ended abruptly when he was convicted of sexually abusing teenage girls.Rolf Harris, the Australian-born entertainer whose decades-long career on British television ended in disgrace after he was convicted of sexually abusing teenage girls, died on May 10 at his home in Berkshire, England. He was 93.His family announced the death in a statement released on Tuesday. The PA news agency reported that a death certificate gave the cause as neck cancer and “frailty of old age.”Mr. Harris’s career on British television spanned 60 years, but it collapsed in 2013 when he was arrested and charged with a total of 12 attacks on four young girls from 1968 to 1986. He was later sentenced to five years and nine months in prison. At the time of the offenses, the girls ranged in age from 8 to 19, although his conviction for the assault on the 8-year-old girl, an autograph hunter, was later overturned.One of Mr. Harris’s victims was a close friend of his own daughter, Bindi. He was convicted of abusing the girl over the course of six years, beginning when she was 13.“Your reputation lies in ruins, you have been stripped of your honors, but you have no one to blame but yourself,” Judge Nigel Sweeney told Mr. Harris at his sentencing in 2014.“You have shown no remorse for your crimes at all,” he added.Mr. Harris died without apologizing to his victims.The son of Welsh immigrants, Agnes Margaret and Cromwell Harris, Mr. Harris was born on March 30, 1930, in a suburb of Perth, Australia. He moved to Britain when he was 22 — with, he later said, “nothing but a load of self-confidence” — to study at the City and Guilds of London Art School. He made his first appearance on the BBC in 1953, drawing cartoons on a children’s television show.That kicked off a storied career that included everything from international hit songs to lighthearted television shows on which he would demonstrate his skills as a quick-fire painter (think Britain’s version of Bob Ross).“Can you tell what it is yet?” became his famous catchphrase as he brought the canvases to life. It also became the title of his autobiography, published in 2001.A 1964 album by Mr. Harris. He had several hit records in Britain and Australia, and his “Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport” reached No. 3 in the United States.JP Roth CollectionOne of Britain’s best-known artists, Mr. Harris was even commissioned in 2005 to paint a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II for her 80th birthday — the whereabouts of which remains a great source of mystery. It was previously voted the British public’s second-favorite portrait of the queen, but it received a notably colder reception from critics.“I was as nervous as anything,” Mr. Harris told the British press in 2008, describing the two sittings he had with the monarch. “I was in a panic.”As a musician, he was known for his use of a colorful array of instruments, including the didgeridoo and the so-called wobble board — an instrument he invented. He featured it in his best-known song, “Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport,” a novelty number about an Australian stockman’s dying wishes, which he wrote in 1957.His 1963 rerecording of the song, which reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, catapulted him to stardom in the United States. That same year, he recorded a version with the Beatles for a BBC radio show — the names of each band member playfully incorporated into the lyrics. (“Don’t ill-treat me pet dingo, Ringo.”)The song’s original fourth verse courted controversy because of its use of the word “Abo,” a derogatory slang term for Aboriginal Australians. The verse was included on Mr. Harris’s first recording of the song but omitted from later versions, and he later expressed regret about the lyrics.His career ultimately ended in disgrace a decade ago when he was one of several older media personalities arrested as part of Operation Yewtree, a British police investigation arising from the sexual abuse scandal involving the television presenter Jimmy Savile. Among the others convicted as part of the investigation were Britain’s best-known publicist, Max Clifford, and Stuart Hall, a former BBC broadcaster.After Mr. Harris was convicted in 2014, he was stripped of the honors he had been awarded throughout his career, and reruns of his television shows were taken off the air. He was released on parole in 2017 after serving three years in prison, after which he sank into a reclusive life at his family home in Bray, Berkshire, a quaint village west of London on the banks of the River Thames. Bray is said to have more millionaires than any small town in Britain.Mr. Harris’s survivors include his daughter, Bindi Harris, and his wife, Alwen Hughes. The two married in 1958 after meeting in art school, and she and his daughter stuck with him throughout his trial and prison term.After Mr. Harris’s sentencing in 2014, Judge Sweeney depicted him as an offender who had manipulated his fame.“You took advantage of the trust placed in you because of your celebrity status,” he said.Mr. Harris’s lawyer at the time, Sonia Woodley, pleaded with the judge to be lenient because of his age.“He is already on borrowed time,” she said. More

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      On TikTok, Pop Music Speeds Up

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      Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Amazon MusicTikTok moves fast: the content stream is relentless and easy to scroll through, and music is often sped-up to accompany it. Listening to pop hits there can be disorienting — the music is familiar, but the pace can be unsettling. Seemingly endless remixes from the nightcore and plugg music scene help shape the sonic experience of the app.This movement is also creating a new class of hit. A sped-up version of Miguel’s “Sure Thing” became a staple on the app a couple of months ago, propelling the 12-year-old song to the Top 15 on the Billboard Hot 100 and to the top of the Billboard pop airplay chart. The Arizonatears Pluggnb Remix of Lil Uzi Vert’s “Watch This” hit the Hot 100 in February. Almost every artist of note has had their music sped up by a relatively anonymous producer and fed into the app.On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about how TikTok reframes listening habits, what fast music achieves that regular-speed music can’t, how musicians are grappling with this new kind of (sometimes unsolicited) attention and how labels are already capitalizing on the trend.Guest:Elias Leight, senior music reporter at BillboardConnect With Popcast. Become a part of the Popcast community: Join the show’s Facebook group and Discord channel. We want to hear from you! Tune in, and tell us what you think at popcast@nytimes.com. Follow our host, Jon Caramanica, on Twitter: @joncaramanica. More

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      The Brilliance of Blur: Liste to t

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      The band is back, woo-hoo! Revisit 12 of its greatest songs.Graham Coxon and Damon Albarn, Blur’s two opposing forces, showcasing their late-90s haircuts.Chris Pizzello/Associated PressDear listeners,Last week, out of nowhere, the beloved Britpop band Blur announced a new album due July 21 — its first in eight years. Say it with me now: Woo-hoo!“The Ballad of Darren” — recorded in secret and wrapped earlier this year — will be the band’s ninth album, arriving nearly 35 years after Blur was formed. The group’s discography can seem imposing if you’re not familiar with all of its twists and turns, and don’t have anyone to guide you through it. Luckily, you do not have this problem, because Blur is one of my favorite bands.Blur’s career is all about the friction of opposing forces — and those are, for the most part, the band’s charismatic frontman Damon Albarn and its more introverted but equally brilliant guitarist Graham Coxon. The bassist Alex James and the drummer Dave Rowntree are stabilizers, grounding the band’s adventurous sound.In the liner notes to “21,” a 2012 boxed set compiling material from the group’s first seven albums, Rowntree gave what is still perhaps the most succinct summary of the band’s driving tension: “Graham used to say that he wanted to make an album that nobody would want to listen to. But you can’t do that in a band with Damon.” (If you want to read an extended cut of me geeking out on Blur, I wrote a zoomed-out summary of the band’s first two decades in a review of “21.”)A few notes on this playlist, compiled to celebrate Blur’s return. It’s not quite chronological, but it’s meant to show the breadth of the band’s sprawling career. Only two Blur albums are not represented here, and for different reasons: “Modern Life Is Rubbish,” the sophomore effort from 1993, because I find most songs from its follow-up, “Parklife,” to be better examples of what Blur was trying to do in that era; and “Think Tank” from 2003, for the semi-controversial reason that I don’t consider it a Blur album at all, given that almost all of it was recorded without Coxon and I believe the definition of Blur to be a specific alchemical happening between four particular people. (Albarn has even admitted as much in recent years, joking that, if anything, “Think Tank” was a “LUR” album.)Consider this playlist slightly beyond entry level: Blur 201, if you will. I avoided the most obvious songs, presuming that you’re already familiar with “Song 2” at the very least, and maybe also the band’s era-defining mid-90s hits “Girls and Boys” and “Parklife,” or its 1999 stadium-size weepie “Tender.” If you’re not, check those out when you get a moment. But for now, let’s follow the herd down to Greece and dive in.Listen along on Spotify as you read.1. “Lot 105” (1994)To set the mood: a zany interstitial from the band’s 1994 masterpiece, “Parklife.” (Listen on YouTube)2. “There’s No Other Way” (1991)Blur began life as a prettily vacant Britpop group that was often lumped in with late-80s U.K. subgenres like Madchester and baggy; the best-case scenario, at that time, was it would become the next Stone Roses. I am happy the quartet grew out of this sound quickly, but there are several perfect pop songs on its 1991 debut album, “Leisure,” including the exquisitely bratty single “There’s No Other Way.” The video for this song is important for several reasons: 1) Damon Albarn’s haircut 2) The Lynchian aesthetic that foreshadows the way Blur would soon come to write songs about the dark underbelly of polite society and 3) Seriously, behold Damon’s 1991 bowl cut. (Listen on YouTube)3. “Country House” (1995)Perhaps best known for beating Oasis’ “Roll With It” in the epochal battle of Britpop on the U.K. charts, “Country House,” from the band’s fourth album, “The Great Escape,” is a wickedly catchy sendup of rich people who abandon the urban rat race for lush, secluded digs in the country — and specifically, of Blur’s former manager and label head David Balfe. It also boasts the only music video ever directed by the artist Damien Hirst, who went to Goldsmiths College with three-quarters of Blur. (Listen on YouTube)4. “M.O.R.” (1997)Blur’s 1997 album — yes, the one with “Song 2” — was the band’s most dramatic stylistic pivot: Here was what until then seemed like a quintessentially British band earnestly and somehow convincingly embracing American indie rock. The propulsive “M.O.R.,” though, is a bridge between Blur’s past and future. The chorus interpolates David Bowie’s arch, vampy “Boys Keep Swinging,” even as Coxon’s distorted, disaffected guitar squalls like J Mascis. (Listen on YouTube)5. “Coffee & TV” (1999)One of just a few Blur songs on which Coxon sings lead vocals, the fan-favorite single “Coffee & TV” is at once prickly and sweet, a steadily chugging tune suffused with an introvert’s romanticism. “Sociability is hard enough for me,” he and Albarn sing in wobbly falsetto. “Take me away from this big, bad world and agree to marry me.” I am not exaggerating when I say I still think about that little milk carton guy all the time. (Listen on YouTube)6. “Tracy Jacks” (1994)A sharp, poignant character study of a middle-aged civil servant on the verge of a nervous breakdown, “Tracy Jacks” is a perfect encapsulation of the band’s widening sociological scope circa “Parklife.” (Listen on YouTube)7. “Charmless Man” (1995)And, from around the same time, here’s a much more acidic snapshot of British life: “Educated the expensive way/He knows his claret from his Beaujolais/I think he’d like to have been Ronnie Kray/But then nature didn’t make him that way.” (Listen on YouTube)8. “Go Out” (2015)I love all the weird art-rock textures and sounds that protrude from this jaunty pop ditty from the band’s 2015 comeback album, “The Magic Whip” — a perfect match for Albarn’s caustic, deadpan vocal. (Listen on YouTube)9. “Beetlebum” (1997)In news that does not surprise me at all, Liam Gallagher has admitted that this is his favorite Blur song. War is over (if you want it). (Listen on YouTube)10. “No Distance Left to Run” (1999)Inarguably the saddest Blur song; no, I won’t be taking any questions at this time. If this gutting ballad — written around the time of Albarn’s breakup with the Elastica frontwoman Justine Frischmann — doesn’t destroy your heart, I don’t even know what to tell you. This is the sound of love dying, with a whimper: “I won’t kill myself trying to stay in your life/I’ve got no distance left to run.” (Listen on YouTube)11. “This Is a Low” (1994)Blur constantly wrestles with ambivalence about Anglophilia, but it can’t hide a certain affection toward its native country on this majestic “Parklife” highlight, which was partly inspired by the band’s habit of listening to BBC shipping forecasts while homesick on tour. (Listen on YouTube)12. “The Universal (Live at Hyde Park)” (2012)On Aug. 12, 2012, Blur played a triumphant reunion concert in London’s Hyde Park, following the Summer Olympics closing ceremony. The excellent and inevitably titled live album “Parklive” captures the ecstatic energy of that night — and especially the soaring singalong “The Universal,” which closed the show in grand style. (Listen on YouTube)Well, here’s your lucky day,LindsayThe Amplifier PlaylistListen on Spotify. We update this playlist with each new newsletter.“The Brilliance of Blur” track listTrack 1: “Lot 105”Track 2: “There’s No Other Way”Track 3: “Country House”Track 4: “M.O.R.”Track 5: “Coffee & TV”Track 6: “Tracy Jacks”Track 7: “Charmless Man”Track 8: “Go Out”Track 9: “Beetlebum”Track 10: “No Distance Left to Run”Track 11: “This Is a Low”Track 12: “The Universal (Live at Hyde Park)”Bonus tracksMore exciting news: The New York Times has a new audio app! From time to time, I’ll be recording audio versions of The Amplifier on there, and you can also find Jon Caramanica’s Popcast and Jon Pareles recommending new music, plus a whole lot more Times music content. The app also features read-aloud stories and narrated articles from the worlds of politics, tech, health, food, sports, the entire archive of This American Life and much more. To start exploring, download the New York Times Audio app here. More

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      Linda Lewis, British Singer Whose Voice Knew Few Limits, Dies at 72

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      Inspired by Motown early in her career, she became an acclaimed singer-songwriter and backed the likes of David Bowie, Rod Stewart and Cat Stevens.Linda Lewis, a critically acclaimed soul singer and songwriter whose pyrotechnic voice propelled four Top 10 singles as a solo artist in her native Britain and led to work as a backup vocalist on acclaimed albums by stars like David Bowie, Cat Stevens and Rod Stewart, died on May 3 at her home in Waltham Abbey, outside London. She was 72.Her sister Dee Lewis Clay confirmed the death but did not specify a cause.Ms. Lewis drew raves for her soaring five-octave vocal range and impressed listeners with her genre-hopping instincts, drawing from folk, R&B, rock, reggae, pop and — with more than a nudge from label executives — disco.She grew up studying Motown hits note by note, and her first single, “You Turned My Bitter Into Sweet” (1967), was a joyous up-tempo number that sounded straight out of Berry Gordy’s recording studio on West Grand Boulevard in Detroit.After that she joined the Ferris Wheel, a rock and soul band that was popular on Britain’s club circuit, before moving on to a solo career as a guitar-strumming singer-songwriter and signing with Reprise Records in 1971.“That was a great time,” she said in a 2007 interview with Record Collector magazine. “I was living in a sort of commune, and loads of people were popping in and out. Cat Stevens turned up a lot, as did Marc Bolan and Elton John. There was a lot of jamming going on there, some very creative vibes.”She ended up touring the world with Mr. Stevens (who later took the name Yusuf after converting to Islam), as well as lending her voice to albums like David Bowie’s “Aladdin Sane” (1973) and Rod Stewart’s “Blondes Have More Fun” (1978).Ms. Lewis in concert in 1981. Her record company chose to package her as a disco diva in the late 1970s, but she saw herself differently.Keystone/Hulton Archive, via Getty ImagesHer first solo album, “Say No More,” released in 1971, failed to make a splash commercially. The next year she released “Lark,” an album marked by a California breeziness that received strong reviews and included the song “Old Smokey,” which the rapper Common sampled in his 2005 song “Go!” An American tour in 1973 helped create buzz.But still, she needed a hit.She found one that same year, with the buoyant, racy single “Rock a Doodle Doo,” which hit No. 15 in Britain (although it failed to chart in the United States). It showed off her range with vocals that swung from husky lows to shimmering highs, to the point that the song could be mistaken for a duet.In the mid-1970s, she signed with Arista Records, whose founder, Clive Davis, chose to package her as a disco diva like Gloria Gaynor. That decision paid dividends, at least commercially. Her 1975 single “It’s in His Kiss,” a Studio 54-ready spin on Betty Everett’s 1964 hit “The Shoop Shoop Song (It’s in His Kiss),” reached No. 6 in Britain, although it, too, barely made a splash in the United States.But Ms. Lewis bristled at the forced career turn. “I didn’t really stick to my guns, I’m afraid,” she later said. “I saw myself as a singer-songwriter; they didn’t.”Even so, the album with the single, “Not a Little Girl Anymore,” hit No. 40 in Britain, with Rolling Stone noting that it brought “this multi-styled English artist into the mainstream of contemporary R&B.”By the 2000s, her music had crossed over to a new generation, as she sang on albums by Oasis, Basement Jaxx and Jamiroquai.Ms. Lewis at a festival in Chichester, England, in 2010. By the 2000s, her music had crossed over to a new generation.Chris Jackson/Getty ImagesLinda Ann Fredericks was born on Sept. 27, 1950, in Custom House, an area in the docklands of East London. She was one of six children of Eddie Fredericks, a musician, and Lily Fredericks, who worked as a bus conductor and managed pubs. (It is unclear why the singer chose Lewis as her stage surname.)Her mother had great ambitions for her as a performer and enrolled her in stage school, an experience on which Ms. Lewis did not look back fondly.Her compass was set toward music. She got her first taste of the limelight in her early teens, when her mother took her to see John Lee Hooker perform at a club and pushed her to the stage to belt out, with the blues titan’s permission, a rendition of Martha and the Vandellas’ “Dancing in the Street.”In addition to Ms. Lewis Clay, she is survived by two other sisters, Shirley Lewis and Patsy Wildman; her brothers, Keith and Paul Fredericks; and her son, Jesse. Her three marriages ended in divorce.While Ms. Lewis angled to escape stage school at the earliest possible opportunity, her flirtation with acting was not a complete waste. She made a brief appearance in the Tony Richardson film “A Taste of Honey” (1961). She also popped up as a screaming fan in the Beatles movie “A Hard Day’s Night” (1964).She was not the only future musical notable in the crowd of hysterical Beatlemaniacs. Phil Collins, in his schoolboy jacket and tie, was also on set as an extra. “Many years later, I bumped into him and said, ‘Hey, we made a film together,’” Ms. Lewis told Record Collector. “He gave me a very funny look. I think he thought I was a nutter.” More

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      Foo Fighters Introduce Josh Freese as Their New Drummer

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      Freese, a veteran musician, appeared with the rock band ahead of its upcoming tour and album release, the first since its drummer, Taylor Hawkins, died last year.The Foo Fighters introduced a new drummer, Josh Freese, just before the release of their album next month and their first tour since the death last year of the rock band’s previous drummer, Taylor Hawkins, which devastated the group and its fans.Freese, 50, was featured Sunday in an hourlong streamed rehearsal, “Preparing Music for Concerts,” which featured a mix of jokes, surprise cameos by other drummers and a couple of poodles.It started with the group’s lead singer, Dave Grohl, and other members of the band standing around with their instruments in a darkened studio, bantering about whether any of them ever punched someone onstage.Suddenly there is a knock on the door. There are greetings of “hey!” as Chad Smith, of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, enters. He gestures with his drumsticks. “There’s a white Mercedes blocking me,” he says, and then leaves.Then Mötley Crüe’s drummer, Tommy Lee, bursts in, carrying bags of P.F. Chang’s Chinese takeout. Cheers all around. “Put it in the kitchen for us,” Grohl says.Danny Carey, from Tool, is the next to come through the door, twirling his drumsticks in one hand and in the other, clutching a leash tethering a pair of large poodles that he says he has just groomed. He then leaves.This, apparently, was a buildup to the appearance of Freese. The poodles are part of his family, according to his Instagram posts. He has also posted about his excitement over P.F. Chang’s.A frustrated voice suddenly calls out from the darkness, from someone who had seemingly had enough of the intrusions: “Excuse me!”The camera swings in his direction. It was Freese, seated behind an array of drums. “Guys could we just like, I don’t know, play a song? Or two? Something?”And they did.The successive appearances of one top rock drummer followed by another were a way to tease the big news after, as Variety reported, the band went to “great lengths” not to reveal the identity of its new drummer.Freese is a veteran drummer who has performed with the Offspring, Sting, Weezer, Nine Inch Nails and others.The Foo Fighters were devastated after Hawkins died in a hotel in northern Bogotá, in Colombia, where the band had been scheduled to play. A beloved member of the group, Hawkins joined the band for its “There Is Nothing Left to Lose” album, which was released in 1999, and played on its next seven albums.The streamed event on Sunday included “Rescued,” the band’s first new song since Hawkins’s death, which appears to reflect their lingering grief.Last September in London, Hawkins’s teenage son, Shane, performed “My Hero” with the band in a tribute concert to his father. At that concert, Freese, on drums, said he wanted to play on Hawkins’s set. More

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      Andy Rourke, Bassist for the Smiths, Dies at 59

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      His sinewy bass lines were a vital — if, as one writer put it, “habitually unsung” — part of the influential British rock band’s success.Andy Rourke, the bass player who provided the muscle and drive behind the darkly poetic musings of the Smiths, one of the most influential bands of the 1980s, died on Friday in Manhattan. He was 59.A representative said he died of pancreatic cancer at Memorial Sloan Kettering Center.While Mr. Rourke — along with the band’s drummer, Mike Joyce — received a tiny share of the accolades (and revenues), his sinewy bass lines provided both heft and melodicism behind Morrissey’s lachrymose vocals, which bounced between elegiac and funereal, and Johnny Marr’s intricate, layered guitar work, which could be almost symphonic in its complexity.“The nature of the music that we were playing in the Smiths meant that the sound needed a bit more of a kick,” Mr. Rourke said in a 2019 interview with Bass Player magazine. “And because it’s me,” he added, “every time I do something, I do it big.”Mr. Rourke’s playing, influenced by Paul McCartney and John Entwistle of the Who, was always “habitually unsung,” David Cavanagh, an Irish journalist, wrote in 1993, but it was also “incontrovertibly top drawer.”Discerning listeners understood Mr. Rourke’s value. Morrissey once said that Mr. Rourke was good enough to have been in Elvis Presley’s band. “He didn’t ever know his own power, and nothing that he played had been played by someone else,” Morrissey wrote in a tribute on his website after Mr. Rourke’s death.Mr. Rourke’s nimble, often effervescent bass lines were often foregrounded in landmark songs like “This Charming Man,” “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now” and “Cemetery Gates,” all of which transformed the Smiths into a cult act in the United States and a chart-topping group in their home country.The Smiths — from left, Mr. Rourke, the singer Morrissey, the guitarist Johnny Marr and, in the back, the drummer Mike Joyce — in performance in 1984.Getty ImagesAndrew Michael Rourke was born in Manchester, England, on Jan. 17, 1964. He met Mr. Marr at school in Manchester in 1975.“We were best friends, going everywhere together,” Mr. Marr wrote in a recent Instagram post, adding, “I soon came to realise that my mate was one of those rare people that absolutely no one doesn’t like.”The Smiths formed in Manchester in 1982. The group had a couple of bassists before Mr. Marr brought in his childhood friend.In a 2012 interview with The Guardian, Mr. Rourke recalled playing his first show with the band in a tiny gay club. The Smiths always “rehearsed to death,” he said, so it was not surprising when they quickly soared in popularity.As they rose to prominence, the four Smiths were inseparable. “We were a gang,” he told Mojo. “A very tight band of brothers. When we were at our peak, nobody could penetrate that.” Within two years, the Smiths had their first Top 10 hit in Britain with “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now.”But success brought problems, including a heroin habit that Mr. Rourke developed. “You start getting a bunch of money and you don’t know what to do,” he recalled in a 2011 interview. “You start spending it on drugs.”In 1986, Morrissey fired Mr. Rourke, reportedly via postcard, because of his drug use. But he soon rejoined the band.The Smiths broke up for good in 1987 after releasing four albums. Two years later, Mr. Rourke and Mr. Joyce, the drummer, began legal proceedings against their former bandmates, claiming that they had been equal partners and should have been paid a bigger split of the royalties. (They had been given only 10 percent.)Mr. Rourke eventually dropped his case after being offered 83,000 pounds (about $100,000). But Mr. Joyce went to court and a judge found in his favor, saying that Morrissey should pay him compensation of around a million pounds, according to news reports at the time.As late as 2007, Mr. Rourke told the BBC that the Smiths’ breakup “still smarts a bit.” Still, not long after the split, he laid down bass tracks for solo singles by Morrissey like “Interesting Drug” (1989) and “Last of the Famous International Playboys” (1990).Post-Smiths, he also played on albums by Sinead O’Connor and the Pretenders and toured with Badly Drawn Boy. In 2009, Mr. Rourke moved to New York, where he performed at clubs with the D.J. Olé Koretsky in a duo called Jetlag, which evolved into a band called D.A.R.K. when they enlisted Dolores O’Riordan of the Cranberries.Information on survivors was not immediately available.Long after his Smiths days, Mr. Rourke was asked about the origins of his melodic style. “It was just my love of bass playing,” he said.“If I wasn’t eating or in the bath,” he added, “I had a bass in my hand.” More