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    Dick Waterman, Promoter and Photographer of the Blues, Dies at 88

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    A “crackpot eccentric Yankee” from Massachusetts, he revived the careers of long-forgotten Southern artists during the blues boom of the 1960s.Dick Waterman, a beacon in the world of blues who as a promoter, talent manager and photographer helped revive the careers of a generation of storied purveyors of that bedrock American art form while lyrically documenting their journeys with his camera, died on Jan. 26 in Oxford, Miss. He was 88.His niece Theodora Saal said the cause was heart failure. A native of Massachusetts, he had lived in Oxford for nearly four decades.Through his company, Avalon Productions, which was considered the first management and booking agency devoted primarily to Black blues artists, Mr. Waterman provided overdue exposure — and income — to early blues luminaries like Mississippi John Hurt, Son House and Skip James.He also shepherded the careers of a younger blues cohort, including Buddy Guy and Otis Rush, as well as one young white artist, the singer-songwriter and future Grammy Award winner Bonnie Raitt.Mr. Waterman in 2003 in Oxford, Miss. A native of Massachusetts, he lived in Oxford for nearly four decades.Bruce Newman“Dick Waterman just may be the most knowledgeable man on the history of blues,” the music writer Don Wilcock wrote in 2019 on the website American Blues Scene. Mr. Waterman, he added, “sought out the originators of the genre, pulled them out of ‘retirement’ and presented them to a folk audience that to that point considered blues to be a footnote in the American musical history.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Grammys 2023: Hip-Hop Wins, Beyoncé Wins (Sort of)

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      Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Amazon MusicThe major awards at this year’s Grammys were split: Harry Styles won album of the year, Lizzo took record of the year and Bonnie Raitt received song of the year. Beyoncé, nominated in each of those categories, won none of them.Which is to say another year, another set of Grammy shrugs for Beyoncé, who despite the ongoing snubs in major categories, is now the most awarded artist in Grammy history, with a total of 32 wins.Whether Grammy respect has meaning was an ongoing theme Sunday night, underscoring Beyoncé’s wins and losses, as well as the elaborate hip-hop history segment that ran through 50 years of the genre in 15 minutes, bringing many rap legends to the Grammy stage for the first time ever.On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about the Grammys finally reckoning with hip-hop’s long legacy and impact, the show’s ongoing tug of war with Beyoncé and the ways it might remain relevant in the future.Guests:Joe Coscarelli, The New York Times’s pop music reporterJon Pareles, The New York Times’s chief pop music criticLindsay Zoladz, a pop music critic for The New York TimesConnect 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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      Best and Worst Moments From the 2023 Grammys

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      Questlove assembled a crash course in hip-hop history, Beyoncé made her priorities known and Kim Petras spoke from the heart at the 65th annual awards.The big news at the 65th annual Grammy Awards: Beyoncé broke the record for most wins in the event’s history. But her four victories didn’t come in the major, all-genre categories — album, record and song of the year. (Those went to Harry Styles, Lizzo and Bonnie Raitt.) Beyoncé, who led the night with nine nominations, did not perform; neither did Kendrick Lamar (eight nods) or Adele (seven). So how did the show fill nearly four hours of airtime? With some spectacular performances, bizarre fan moments and powerful speeches. Here are the show’s highlights and lowlights as we saw them.Best Opening Salvo: Bad BunnyBad Bunny earned his spot at the start of the telecast by making the commercial juggernaut of 2022: “Un Verano Sin Ti,” the year’s most streamed album and a Billboard No. 1 album for 13 nonconsecutive weeks. His performance — a medley of “El Apagón” (“The Blackout”), a tribute to Puerto Rican culture amid adversity, and “Después de la Playa” (“After the Beach”), a come-on — was a carnival and a dance party. Over Afro-Caribbean bomba drumming, Bad Bunny paraded through the Crypto.com Arena aisle with a troupe of dancers, some carrying oversized heads of Puerto Rican figures including the songwriters Andy Montañez and Tego Calderón. When he brought his forces onstage, “Después de la Playa” was transformed from electronic pop to a brassy, galloping merengue that left the celebrities upfront no choice but to dance. JON PARELESBest Acceptance: Kim Petras’s Moving Speech About Trans ExistenceIn her speech for best pop duo/group performance, Kim Petras thanked Sophie, a trans artist who died in 2021.Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for The Recording AcademyMadonna may have oversold Sam Smith and Kim Petras’s relatively tepid performance of “Unholy” when she promised it would provide “controversy.” But Petras’s moving speech when she and Smith won best pop duo/group performance was far more radical. Smith blew Petras a kiss and graciously ceded the microphone because, as Petras then told the audience in a quivering voice, she had just become the first transgender woman to win this category. She thanked the trans artists who paved the way for her, most poignantly Sophie, the wildly creative electronic producer and artist who died two years ago, at 34: “I adore you and your inspiration will forever be in my music.” Petras also thanked her mother, memorably: “I grew up next to a highway in nowhere, Germany,” she said, “and my mother believed me, that I was a girl, and I wouldn’t be here without her and her support.” LINDSAY ZOLADZBest History Lesson: The Hip-Hop 50 TributePerformers from across the rap universe united for a special segment celebrating the genre’s 50th anniversary.Valerie Macon/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesVarious chroniclers have agreed that 1973 was the dawn of hip-hop, making it a full 50 years old this year — old enough for the Grammys to finally treat it as a genre rather than an annoyance. That half-century point is also an occasion to start constructing a hip-hop canon. Given the constraints of time (12 minutes) and performer availability, Questlove produced a rough draft of a hip-hop chronology that was a cavalcade of dozens of performers onstage, most spitting a memorable line or verse, and a few — like a forthright Queen Latifah and a speed-tongued Busta Rhymes — getting more valuable seconds to show off. From Grandmaster Flash and Run-DMC to GloRilla and Lil Uzi Vert, it was a hip-hop Cliff’s Notes. (Jay-Z, who belongs in that canon, was reserved for a later appearance with DJ Khaled); it was a great way to start a discussion. And in 12 quick-changing minutes, the Grammys have probably multiplied their number of performing hip-hop acts. PARELESWorst Three-peat: Trevor NoahTrevor Noah had some groan-inducing moments as the Grammys host.Mario Anzuoni/ReutersFor a third consecutive year as Grammys host, Trevor Noah brought an arsenal of groan-worthy dad jokes. If his bits felt stale by the end of the first year, they were, dare we say, unholy the third time around. The Recording Academy needs to switch it up in 2024. Is Cardi B booked? Everyone in the audience seemed to know and like the Rock — why not give him a try? On the bright side, it can’t get much worse. ZOLADZBest Fashionably Late Entrance: Beyoncé Smiling and Nodding at Trevor NoahBeyoncé made it to the Grammys after her first televised win of the night, but in time to accept the honor that gave her the record for the show’s most victories ever.Chris Pizzello/Invision, via Associated PressWhen Noah delivered his cheesy opening remarks, joking about the stars in the room, Beyoncé was nowhere to be found (much to Lizzo’s consternation). Some time later, when Beyoncé won best R&B song, her third of four awards on the night — and first on the televised prime-time show — she still wasn’t in her seat. (The-Dream, one of her fellow writers, spent a few seconds onstage instead.) And when Noah, after blaming Los Angeles traffic, eventually did find Beyoncé at her table, bringing her the trophy she had won, the singer just nodded politely, giving him — and the show that would go on to both celebrate and disrespect her, again — basically nothing. By the time she did step to the microphone for a proper acceptance speech, having taken the all-time Grammy record and also opted not to perform, Beyoncé had made her priorities clear: She posted to Instagram about her Grammy wins before actually showing her face at the Grammys. JOE COSCARELLIMore Coverage of the 2023 GrammysQuestlove’s Hip-Hop Tribute: The Roots drummer and D.J. fit 50 years of rap history into 15 minutes. For once, the awards show gave the genre a fitting spotlight.Welcoming Rebels: The Grammys need to build bridges between generations. That means convincing once-overlooked upstarts to show up as elders, Jon Caramanica writes.Viola Davis’s EGOT: The actress achieved the rare distinction during the Grammys preshow, becoming the 18th person to have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony.Protest Song: Shervin Hajipour’s “Baraye,” which has become the anthem of the protests in Iran, won in a new special merit category recognizing a song for social change.Worst Participation Trophy: The Useless Fan SegmentsSuperfans of the artists nominated for album of the year shared personal stories about their relationship with their idols’ music.CBS/Paramount+Stan service gone wild was on full display during the misleading — and often humiliating — interstitial segments that showed (alleged) superfans of the 10 artists nominated for album of the year spouting P.R. talking points about their faves around a table and in the audience. If the Grammys has an optics problem, it’s that the public does not fully comprehend just who from the industry’s back rooms tends to vote for these peculiar winners, year after year. So acting like an everyday listener’s opinions about Harry Styles’s good looks, Lizzo’s body positivity or Bad Bunny’s domination on streaming services had anything to do with who was going to take home the prize was not only pointless propaganda, it actually hurt the Recording Academy’s cause by further fuzzying how the system works. Hopefully those people got paid. COSCARELLIBest Tribute That Should Never Have Been Necessary: Quavo Remembering TakeoffQuavo paid tribute to his Migos group mate and nephew, Takeoff.Kevin Winter/Getty Images for The Recording AcademyThe annual in memoriam segment is never short on tear-jerking moments, given the bonds that fans — and fellow musicians — have with their favorite artists. But seeing Quavo perform “Without You,” a tribute to his nephew and Migos group mate Takeoff, who was killed as an innocent bystander to a shooting in November, was almost too much. Seated at first, wearing a “Phantom of the Opera” mask, in the shadow of a microphone stand holding Takeoff’s glistening rocket chain, Quavo eventually stood up, hoisting the necklace skyward. Seeing him up there alone — even backed by the power of the Maverick City Music collective — only drove home how little we’ve seen the two rappers apart, ever. It will take some getting used to. COSCARELLIBest Beyoncé Appreciation: LizzoLizzo made her feelings about Beyoncé known during her acceptance speech for record of the year.Chris Pizzello/Invision, via Associated PressIn 2017, when Adele’s “25” triumphed over Beyoncé’s “Lemonade” for album of the year, the British musician announced, “I can’t possibly accept this award,” because the “artist of my life is Beyoncé.” The moment was both uncomfortably sincere and charged with larger tensions, namely the Grammys’ dire history of overlooking Black excellence in the major categories. It wasn’t quite Macklemore-apologizing-to-Kendrick awkward, but it was awkward nonetheless. Since then, beating Beyoncé has become a minefield. Lizzo managed to traverse it with elegance and flair, though, when her uplifting “About Damn Time” won record of the year. In a speech full of joy and grace, she thanked Beyoncé while also celebrating herself and enjoying her moment. Through tears, Lizzo recalled skipping school in 5th grade to see a Beyoncé concert, addressing her idol directly: “The way you made me feel, I was like, I wanna make people feel this way with my music.” But — whether inadvertently or winkingly — she did end up paraphrasing Adele, saying to Beyoncé what now seem to be the magic words: “You clearly are the artist of our lives.” ZOLADZBest Agenda Transcendence: Stevie WonderStevie Wonder performed three songs during the prime-time Grammy ceremony.Chris Pizzello/Invision, via Associated PressAny performance by Stevie Wonder is an occasion, even one that’s overloaded with guests and agendas. Berry Gordy, Motown’s founder, and Smokey Robinson, the songwriter and longtime Motown executive, were the persons of the year at the Grammys’ MusiCares gala this year. So with Grammy logic, Wonder’s segment became a Motown tribute — the first one since all the way back in, well, 2019. Add a dynastic element; Wonder’s first guest, WanMor, is a boy band formed by the sons of Wanya Morris of Boyz II Men. They shared a Temptations hit co-written by Robinson, “The Way You Do the Things You Do.” Robinson himself joined Wonder for a song they wrote together (along with Hank Cosby), “The Tears of a Clown”; then Wonder performed his own “Higher Ground” with the country hitmaker Chris Stapleton, and the music finally took off. Stapleton brought a blues-rock earthiness to his vocal and guitar lines, and Wonder tossed a synthesizer counterpoint at him that made him grin and dig in harder — a real jam. PARELESBest Graceful Shocked Reaction: Bonnie RaittBonnie Raitt told the story of her Grammy-winning track “Just Like That” as she accepted her award for song of the year.Mario Anzuoni/ReutersIt’s no wonder that Bonnie Raitt, who had just joined a memorial for Christine McVie singing “Songbird,” was surprised when the Grammys chose “Just Like That” as song of the year. She is one of the mature singers and songwriters who have been relegated to formats like “Americana” and “Legacy.” But Raitt had learned from the best — notably John Prine — how to tell a sad but uplifting story with a voice and a small band. Some proportion of Grammy voters — enough to lift her into a plurality above Beyoncé and Adele — obviously recognized the combination of passion and terse craftsmanship. PARELESWorst Face-Saving Maneuvers: Televised CategoriesBad Bunny won best música urbana album, an award that is not usually televised on the main Grammys show. Mario Anzuoni/ReutersLike a nervous baseball manager, the Grammys have lately been re-examining their stats — particularly for representation of minorities, women and marginalized groups, who happen to be the loci of innovation in music. It may have seemed odd that some categories usually relegated to the Grammy Premiere Ceremony — where the vast majority of awards are presented as a webcast but not as a prime-time telecast — had arrived on the main Grammy stage. But look what they were. One was música urbana album, way down at Category 43; it gave a prime-time award, finally, to Bad Bunny. (But the main telecast should have had English subtitles when he switched to his more comfortable Spanish.) And the dance/electronic music album category? Congratulations to Beyoncé for breaking the Grammy record for most awards. But in the top categories, where she has belonged for multiple releases, she still hasn’t gotten her due. PARELESWorst Instance of Gravity Holding Him Back: Harry StylesHarry Styles was a big winner at the podium, but gave a lackluster performance on the Grammys stage.Valerie Macon/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe usually preternaturally spunky Styles was curiously low energy throughout his performance of “As It Was” Sunday night, hardly selling himself as the sort of entertainer who sells out 15 nights at Madison Square Garden. Several singers seemed to be having issues with their in-ear monitors, and Styles visibly adjusted his a few times, but that still doesn’t explain the curious sluggishness of his time onstage. It certainly didn’t help justify his album of the year win to the skeptics, either. ZOLADZ More

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      Bonnie Raitt Heads to the Grammys, Recognized as a Songwriter at Last

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      Bonnie Raitt is no stranger to the Grammys, which will be awarded Sunday in Los Angeles. She has won 10 of them since 1979, and she has also been a frequent presenter and performer on the show, befitting a musician who has long been the model of a sustainable, self-guided rock career.Raitt has never depended on hit singles or spectacle; instead, she relies on the quiet power of a voice that draws on blues, country, soul and rock to speak plainly about complicated emotions. Modestly but tenaciously, Raitt has cycled through decades of recording albums and touring, selling out 3,000-seat theaters and playing regularly at festivals. Musicians like Adele and Bon Iver have drawn on her repertoire, and younger musicians, particularly women, have cited her example as a bandleader and producer.Raitt, 73, has long been renowned as a finder and interpreter of songs, but most of her albums have also included a few of her own. Her four Grammy nominations this year include her first ones for her songwriting. The title track of her 2022 album, “Just Like That…,” has been nominated as song of the year and best American roots song. It’s a quiet, folky track about a heart transplant; a mother whose son was killed in an accident meets the recipient, and she gets to hear her child’s heart beating again.“Just Like That” and “Down the Hall,” a song narrated by a prisoner serving a life sentence and working in the prison hospice, show the influence of John Prine, a master of folky, laconic character studies, who died of Covid in 2020. He wrote “Angel From Montgomery,” a song Raitt always sings in concert.In a video interview from her living room in Marin County, Calif., Raitt wore a rainbow-hued outfit and spoke about songwriting, autonomy and awards-show serendipity. The following are edited excerpts from the conversation.“I don’t write all the time,” Raitt said. “So it’s almost like having a whole body, spiritual, emotional, physical feeling when you get shaken like that.”Peter Fisher for The New York TimesYou have a lot of Grammy Awards already, but “Just Like That” is your first nomination as a songwriter. It seems a little belated for someone who has written dozens of songs.I was never expecting this song of the year nomination. But I was very proud of the song, especially since it was so inspired by John Prine, and we lost him. I put my heart and soul into every record, and I never know which ones are going to resonate. But I can tell people are really moved, looking out there in the audience.Tell me about writing the song. You’ve said that it began with fingerpicking guitar.I usually write my ballads on the keyboard. Probably because I took lessons, it just seems to be freer, more flexible. The guitar style that I have is really homegrown, primitive folk guitar chords and those old blues licks.This particular time, I wanted to write, but not about my personal life, because I really had covered that. I didn’t have anything else to say. So I was looking for a story.And completely out of the blue, I saw this news program. They followed this woman with a film crew to the guy’s house who received her son’s heart. There was a lump in my throat — it was very emotional. And then when he asked her to sit down next to him and asked if she’d like to put her head on his chest and listen to his heart — I can’t even tell the story to this day without choking up, because it was so moving to me.I wrote it for awhile without the music. I worked on the lyrics for both “Down the Hall” and this one. It was like there was a higher purpose for both of those songs. It was a really different process for me to have those lines that are crucial in each song just appear in my head.I don’t write all the time. So it’s almost like having a whole body, spiritual, emotional, physical feeling when you get shaken like that. And the music — after the vaccines were available, I decided to make the record six months early, in the summer, and tour again. That put the pressure on to actually finish the song. So I just sat and played my acoustic guitar. And at that point, we had just lost John, and I just had him in my heart. I just started fingerpicking, and I had the lyrics in front of me, and the song poured through me without any thinking about it.You’ve been an example for a lot of younger performers as a woman who is indisputably the bandleader.Maria Muldaur told me that years ago. She decided that she could actually be a solo act after watching me with my band in the studio in Woodstock, making “Give It Up.” And in the last 10 years of Americana events, I meet all these other women like Brandi Carlile, and they’ll tell me that they were growing up on my music and what an influence I’ve been.But it’s hard for me to think about that because I know my foibles and my failings. I still hold myself up to a standard I probably can’t live up to. But I’m really grateful when people say those kind things about me.It’s a very challenging position to be in when you’re very young. But I’ve been my own boss since I was 20. I walked into Warner Bros. and said, “You can’t tell me what to wear, when to put my work out, who to work with and what to record. But I’ll work my ass off if you put out my records.” And they went for it. Now, I can’t even imagine somebody telling me what to do.And I could not live with somebody overriding my musical taste. I always picked someone that was not going to produce me and decide the arrangements, but work with me as a partner in the studio. So sometimes, when I needed to tell somebody that they just weren’t cutting it, I would use my producer partner to go in and say something instead of me. As a live bandleader, I have sometimes been on thin ice, when I’ve tried to find the words to explain something that I wanted when I couldn’t play it myself.The tricky part is that I know what I want. I know what doesn’t work. I know what direction I like. I can say, “Play something more like this.” But it’s how to say that in a way that doesn’t deflate someone’s joy or their ability to feel.At your concerts, it seems that you’re totally relaxed and casual, but you’re onstage in front of thousands of people. Do you think about pacing, timing, theatricality?Somehow I just learned to put a show together. There’s nothing like performing live. It’s just something I was born to do. And when I put together a show, I leave room for some wild cards. It’s a joy every night — to know that you have the aces on each of those instruments, and that we’ve rehearsed enough where we can have some fun with it. And I think the audiences are not there to see a jukebox show. They’re going with me wherever I want to go. I’m more comfortable onstage than any other place in my life. I wish I was as comfortable offstage as I am onstage.“I’ve been my own boss since I was 20,” Raitt said.Peter Fisher for The New York TimesIt seems awards shows and festivals are rare chances for a lot of performers to meet.I think all of us are like a kid in a candy store backstage. My favorite story about the Grammys was going through the metal detector at the Staples Center, at the afternoon ceremony. I was in the line between two guys in Slipknot, and the guy behind me is like in a Hannibal Lecter kind of a mask, and he goes, “I really dig your music!” I wouldn’t have expected Slipknot guys to know me. You know, maybe a “My mom loves you” kind of thing, but he was clearly a fan.And I just never expected the number of people that come up and tell each other that. I got to tell Dave Grohl what a fan I am of the Foo Fighters, and he was so surprised on the red carpet. Pharrell Williams, when he was in N.E.R.D., he grabbed me as I was walking back to my seat at the Grammys, and he said, “Any time you want to do something together …”“Nick of Time,” which was your title song for the 1989 LP that won album of the year, was about the fact of mortality, and now so are “Down the Hall” and “Just Like That.”Yeah, and I dedicated this record to friends that I lost in just two years. It’s just been an unbearable amount of loss. Suicides, drug overdoses, cancer, Covid. It’s unbelievable, what’s going on with the climate and with Ukraine and the Somali famine, which isn’t even getting any coverage, and the migrant situation on the border, and Syrian refugees. I mean, I’ve never been as discouraged and heartbroken as I have been. I soldier on.People say, “Well, how come you don’t do political music?” Most of it is just so insufferable. And I try to be really careful about not preaching my politics onstage because I know there’s a lot of people out there that may not agree with me, and they’re there to hear the music. So we have a table out there in the hall, and we tithe a dollar of every ticket.I do have a couple of songs that are political, like “Hell to Pay” and “The Comin’ Round Is Going Through” — I couldn’t wait anymore. But the politics between people, and love relationships, are just as thorny and important to lift up and write from interesting points of view. More

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      Bonnie Raitt Faces Mortality With Compassion and Hope

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      On her latest album, “Just Like That…,” the singer-songwriter brings new depth to songs of love and loss.Who would expect a Bonnie Raitt song to start like this? “Had the flu in the prison infirmary,” she sings in “Down the Hall,” from her new album, “Just Like That…,” which arrives more than half a century after her debut.“Down the Hall” is a folky, fingerpicked ballad, written by Raitt, with the plain-spoken diction of a John Prine song. Based on a New York Times story, it is narrated by a convict, a murderer, who finds a kind of atonement in becoming a prison hospice worker: “The thought of those guys goin’ out alone/It hit me somewhere deep,” she sings, as Glenn Patscha’s organ chords swell behind her like glimmers of redemption.“Down the Hall” is the somber finale to “Just Like That…,” Raitt’s first album since 2016. The music’s style is familiar; Raitt, 72, reconvened her longtime band members, who are old hands at blues, soul, ballads and reggae, and she produced the tracks with the feel of musicians performing together in real time, savoring grooves and finding warmth in human imperfections.But the album was recorded in 2021, well into the pandemic, and it shows. Along with her usual insights into grown-up love, desire, heartbreak and regret, Raitt’s latest collection of songs directly faces mortality.“Livin’ for the Ones,” with words by Raitt and music by the band’s guitarist George Marinelli, is a Rolling Stones-flavored rocker, with strummed and sliding guitars tumbling across the backbeat. It draws a life force from mourning, countering petty impulses toward lethargy or self-pity with the blunt recognition of so many lives lost: “If you ever start to bitch and moan,” Raitt sings, “Just remember the ones who won’t/Ever feel the sun on their faces again.”Another kind of solace after death arrives in the quietly poignant title track of “Just Like That…,” also written by Raitt. Its story unfolds at a measured pace. A stranger shows up on the doorstep of a woman who has never stopped blaming herself for the death of her son. The man has sought her out because he’s the one who got her son’s heart as a transplant: “I lay my head upon his chest/And I was with my boy again,” Raitt sings, with sorrow and relief in the grain of her voice.The rest of the album features Raitt’s more typical fare: songs about love lost and found, about getting together or drifting apart. “Made Up Mind,” from the Canadian band Bros. Landreth, opens the album with a stolid portrait of a slow-motion separation, feeling “the quiet behind a slamming door.” Its counterbalance is “Something’s Got a Hold of My Heart,” an Al Anderson song about a late-arriving, unexpected romance.Yet mortality haunts even the love songs. The album includes Raitt’s remake of “Love So Strong” by the reggae pioneer Toots Hibbert, who led Toots and the Maytals and died in 2020 after being hospitalized for Covid-like symptoms. “Blame It on Me,” by John Capek and Andrew Matheson, is a bluesy, torchy, slow-dance breakup ballad that couches accusations in apologies, warning that “Truth is love’s first casualty”; near the end, Raitt turns the tables with an exquisite, sustained, breaking high note. The song also assigns some of the blame to time, which has, “Poured like sand through your hands and mine.”Understanding that life is finite, the stakes are higher for every relationship, every moment. On “Just Like That…,” Raitt calls for compassion, consolation and perseverance to get through with grace.Bonnie Raitt“Just Like That …”(Redwing) More

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      Why Those Moments of Care for Liza Minnelli and Joni Mitchell Felt Different

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      Awards shows are a natural setting for honoring aging legends. It’s reassuring when they don’t try to hide the frailty that aging can bring. The first 53 minutes of music’s biggest night rolled along smoothly. This year’s Grammys had centerpiece performances from Olivia Rodrigo and BTS, plus a big reception for the newly minted Oscar winner Questlove; Trevor Noah, the host, told jokes that offended nobody’s spouse. It was only after Rodrigo accepted the award for Best New Artist that something unexpected happened. Noah introduced the celebrated singers Bonnie Raitt and Joni Mitchell, to a surge of applause. When the camera cut away from him, the two artists were already standing at a nearby lectern, having skipped the ceremonial walk from backstage. Both are in their 70s, and both were honored this year: Raitt earned a lifetime-achievement award, while Mitchell won a Grammy for Best Historical Album (awarded before the main broadcast) and was named Person of the Year by the Grammy-affiliated nonprofit MusiCares. Raitt still tours and is set to release a new album this month, but Mitchell’s appearance was more exceptional. After suffering a brain aneurysm in 2015, she receded from public life during her recovery. Now her every appearance is treated as a seismic event by legions of grateful fans.The Grammy crowd greeted them with a standing ovation. Some camera angles revealed a cane gripped firmly in Mitchell’s right hand. “Overwhelming,” she whispered to Raitt, before the applause died down. Then she stood by as Raitt did much of the talking, reacting to a lavish compliment about her work with exaggerated deflection. Raitt set Mitchell up to introduce the next performer, about whom she was meant to say: “Please welcome an extraordinary artist and beautiful human being — a stunning, brave and truthful voice, my brilliant friend and ambassador, Brandi Carlile.” But when it came to the word “truthful,” Mitchell stopped. Without missing a beat, Raitt leaned over and smoothly filled in the missing word, gently cuing Mitchell to find the rest of the line.One columnist wrote that Gaga’s behavior ‘turned me to a puddle.’The moment recalled another interaction, just a week earlier, at the Academy Awards. That entire evening has been overshadowed by a single event, but even when that gossip was fresh, some attention still lingered on a surprise appearance by Liza Minnelli, who presented the award for Best Picture alongside Lady Gaga. They, too, simply materialized at the side of the stage. Minnelli was using a wheelchair, and as their own standing ovation ebbed, Gaga said: “You see that? The public, they love you.”“Oh, yes, but what am I — I don’t understand,” Minnelli responded brightly, her hands trembling as she shuffled through the cards she was meant to read. “I got it,” Gaga said. She took Minnelli’s hand, lauding her as “a true show business legend” and recognizing the 50th anniversary of “Cabaret,” for which Minnelli won Best Actress. When it was time for Minnelli to speak again, she seemed to falter at the task of introducing nominees. Again, Gaga leaned over: “I got you,” she whispered, her voice audible over the telecast even as the camera cut away. “I know,” Minnelli responded.I wasn’t the only one to feel moved by these small acts of care, aimed at quietly helping an older person through a potentially overwhelming experience. Each moment was widely praised on social media. A columnist for The Colorado Sun wrote that Gaga’s behavior “turned me to a puddle,” while a writer for The Cut called it “profoundly moving.” The sheer vigor of people’s approval might say something about how rare it is to see ordinary gestures of support in contexts like awards shows, which tend to be stiff, scripted and spotlit, always highlighting the confidently glamorous and the glamorously confident. These casual gestures of assistance would be unremarkable if you saw them in daily life. And yet they took on, in these otherwise plasticine habitats, a special dramatic weight.To watch Minnelli is to marvel at the genuine artistry that still might bloom from an impossibly screwed-up entertainment industry.Awards shows are a natural setting for honoring aging legends; this is why lifetime-achievement awards exist. Still, America retains a broad uneasiness with the blunt realities of getting older. Our most sprightly legends — the Jane Fondas, Warren Beattys and, until recently, Betty Whites — are invited onstage and praised for how great they look, but the actual frailty that accompanies aging tends to be hidden. Ailing celebrities often disappear from public life; only after they die do we learn about their health challenges.In this sense, Mitchell’s and Minnelli’s appearances carried slightly different emotional valences. Mitchell’s felt like a public reassurance that she was doing well. While accepting her preshow Grammy, she thanked her physical therapist, who accompanied her to the stage; days earlier, she sang her 1970 hit “Big Yellow Taxi” onstage with Carlile and others at a MusiCares ceremony. The reaction to Minnelli was more explicitly reverential, as if viewers were suddenly realizing that she would not be with us forever. The Oscars worship the amorphous concept of “the movies,” and Minnelli — daughter of Judy Garland, a fixture of culture across seven decades — is bona fide movie royalty. And unlike the (relatively) youthful Grammys, the Oscars ceremony loves to bow at the altar of old Hollywood. In 1996, Kirk Douglas received an honorary award, shortly after a stroke that affected his speech; in 2011, he showed up at age 94 to announce the Best Supporting Actress award. Nobody seemed to mind that he hit on one of the hosts (Anne Hathaway) and the winner (Melissa Leo); they were happy to pay tribute while they could. But seeing Minnelli, physically weakened yet immortally bright-eyed, stirred something in me that I am not used to feeling while watching these idolatrous shows. To say that Minnelli is Hollywood royalty is not mere book-jacket copy; to learn about her life, and to watch her in movies like “Cabaret” or shows like “Liza With a Z,” is to marvel at the genuine artistry that still might bloom from an impossibly screwed-up entertainment industry. We are so used to seeing her move with unbelievable energy that it was difficult to see that energy restrained. But I was grateful to see her on her own terms, rather than reading conspiratorial guesses about her health, and happy that the academy invited her to present. And, like so many others, I was endeared by the reassuring presence of Lady Gaga; much as she has in her work with the 95-year-old Tony Bennett, she seemed intuitively prepared to act as companion to a legend.Perhaps it’s not just the televisual rarity of moments like these that affects people. Over the past few years, I’ve noticed a particular phrase being used often on social media: “give them their flowers.” The idea is that we should honor the figures important to us while they’re still around to cherish it — a notion I’ve seen repeated more and more during the pandemic, as hundreds of thousands have died, public figures included. Seeing Mitchell and Minnelli receive their flowers was heartwarming, sure; the magnitude of their work cannot be overstated. But many of us very literally have not been able to see older loved ones in years. The most vulnerable still remain at a distance, unsure if it will ever feel entirely safe to go out in public again. Maybe that’s why so many reacted so strongly to seeing elderly figures offered a little support as they participated in these grand events. What we see here is a communal tenderness we might all better will into existence, so we can welcome one another back into a world where fragility is increasingly hard to ignore.Source photographs: Neilson Barnard/Getty Images; screen grabs from YouTube.Jeremy Gordon is a writer in Brooklyn whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Nation and other publications. More

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      Florence + the Machine’s Conflicted Coronation, and 12 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Bonnie Raitt, Kehlani, Mahalia and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new songs and videos. Just want the music? Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes). Like what you hear? Let us know at theplaylist@nytimes.com and sign up for our Louder newsletter, a once-a-week blast of our pop music coverage.Florence + the Machine, ‘King’Career vs. family. Artistic inspiration vs. a stable life. “The world ending and the scale of my ambition.” Florence Welch takes them all on in “King,” which affirms both the risks and rewards of her choices. Like many of the songs Welch writes and sings for Florence + the Machine, “King” moves from confessional to archetypal in a grand, liberating crescendo, while its video elevates her from a tormented partner to something like a saint. JON PARELESBonnie Raitt, ‘Made Up Mind’It’s an old story: the bitter end of a romance. “Made Up Mind,” written and first recorded by a Canadian band called the Bros. Landreth, tells it tersely, often in one-syllable words: “It goes on and on/For way too long.” On the first single from an album due April 22, “Just Like That,” Bonnie Raitt sings it knowingly and tenderly, after a scrape of guitar noise announces how rough the going is about to get. PARELESKehlani, ‘Little Story’Kehlani has long narrated tales of devastating romance, but “Little Story,” the latest single from the forthcoming album “Blue Water Road,” opens a portal to a world of candor. Sounding more self-assured and tender than they have in years, the singer (who uses they/them pronouns) curls the honeyed sways of their voice over the delicate strumming of an electric guitar. “You know I love a story, only when you’re the author,” Kehlani sings, pleading for a lover’s return. Strings crescendo into blooming petals, and Kehlani makes a pledge to embrace tenderness. “Workin’ on bein’ softer,” they sing. “’Cause you are a dream to me.” ISABELIA HERRERACarter Faith, ‘Greener Pasture’A bluesy lite-country simmerer in which the cowboy does not stick around: “I was his Texaco/A stop just along the road/I shoulda known I ain’t his last rodeo.” JON CARAMANICANorah Jones, ‘Come Away With Me (Alternate Version)’With the 20th anniversary of Norah Jones‘s millions-selling debut, “Come Away With Me,” arrives a “Super Deluxe Edition” featuring this previously unreleased alternate take of the title track, with the band work shopping the song. There’s a constant, pendulum-swinging guitar part in this version, matching the songwriter Jesse Harris’s lulling bass figure and pushing the band along. Ultimately you can see why this take didn’t make the cut: The biggest draw is Jones’s matte, desert-rose voice, and it seems most at home when in no hurry, cast in lower contrast to the rest of the band. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOPorridge Radio, ‘Back to the Radio’One electric guitar chord is strummed in what seems to be 4/4 time, repeated, distorted and topped with additional noise for the first full minute of “Back to the Radio.” Then Dana Margolin starts singing, decidedly turning the 4/4 to a waltz as the lyrics push toward a confrontation with someone who matters: “We almost got better/We’re so unprepared for this/Running straight at it.” The song is pure catharsis. PARELESMahalia, ‘Letter to Ur Ex’The threat is both restrained and potent in “Letter to Ur Ex” from the English songwriter Mahalia. She’s singing to someone trying to maintain a connection that has ended: “You can’t do that any more,” she warns. “Yeah, I get it/That don’t mean I’m gonna always be forgiving.” Acoustic guitar chords grow into a programmed beat and strings; her voice is gentle, but its edge is unmistakable. PARELESEsty, ‘Pegao!!!’The Dominican American artist Esty collides genres and aesthetics like a kid scribbling on paper. “Pegao!!!,” from her new “Estyland” EP, mashes up the singer’s breathy, coy raps and sky-high melodies with razor-sharp stabs of synth and a skittish, percussive dembow riddim. She declares her imminent ascent in the music industry, whispering, “They say I’m too late/But I feel like I’m on time.” Her visual choices are part of the plot too: between the anime references, her love for roller skating (which has made her famous on TikTok) and a head full of two-toned braids, Esty’s aesthetic is a kind of punk dembow, her own little slice of chaotic good. HERRERAMura Masa featuring Lil Uzi Vert, PinkPantheress and Shygirl, ‘Bbycakes’Here is how layered things can get in 21st-century pop. The English producer Mura Masa discovered “Babycakes” by the British group 3 of a Kind. He pitched it up and sped it up, keeping the catchy chorus hook. He also connected with Pink Pantheress, Lil Uzi Vert and Shygirl. The new, multitracked song is still both a come-on and a declaration of love, but who did what is a blur. PARELESR3hab featuring Saucy Santana, ‘Put Your Hands On My ____ (Original Phonk Version)’Saucy Santana’s “Material Girl” is the optimal viral hit — easy to shout along with, organized around a catchy phrase, full of performative attitude. For Saucy Santana, onetime makeup artist for the rap duo City Girls turned reality TV star, its emergence as a TikTok phenomenon a couple of months ago (more than a year after the song’s initial release) was a classic case of water finding its level. And now, a future full of promising party-rap club anthems beckons. This easy-as-pie collaboration with the D.J.-producer R3hab is an update of Freak Nasty’s “Da Dip,” one of the seminal songs of Atlanta bass music, and a bona fide mid-1990s pop hit as well. It doesn’t top the original, but it doesn’t have to in order to be an effective shout-along. CARAMANICALil Durk, ‘Ahhh Ha’The first single from the upcoming Lil Durk album, “7220,” is full of exuberant menace. Lil Durk raps crisply and with snappy energy while touching on awful topics, including the killing of his brother DThang and of the rapper King Von, and instigating tension with YoungBoy Never Broke Again. In the middle of chaos, he sounds almost thrilled. CARAMANICAKiko El Crazy, Braulio Fogón and Randy, ‘Comandante’On “Comandante,” two generations of eccentrics — the Dominican dembow newcomers Kiko el Crazy and Braulio Fogón, alongside the Puerto Rican reggaeton titan Randy — join forces for a send-off to a cop who threatens to arrest them for smoking a little weed. Randy drops a deliciously flippant, baby-voiced hook, and Fogón’s offbeat, anti-flow arrives with surprising dexterity. When that timeless fever pitch riddim hits, you’ll want every intergenerational police satire to go this hard. HERRERACharles Goold, ‘Sequence of Events’The drummer Charles Goold and his band are hard-charging on “Sequence of Events,” the opening track to his debut album as a bandleader, “Rhythm in Contrast.” He starts it with a four-on-the-floor drum solo that has as much calypso and rumba in it as it does swing. When the band comes in — the slicing guitar of Andrew Renfroe leading the way, with Steve Nelson’s vibraphone, Taber Gable’s piano and Noah Jackson’s bass close on his heels — that open approach to his rhythmic options remains. Goold graduated from Juilliard, probably the premiere conservatory for traditional-jazz pedagogy, but he’s also toured with hip-hop royalty. All of that’s in evidence here, as he homes in on a sincere update to the midcentury-modern jazz sound. RUSSONELLO More