Jerry Garcia was the only latter-day member of the Grateful Dead that Joan Osborne didn’t get to know. That goes without saying if you know that she was drafted to take over some of Garcia’s lead vocal duties in the 2003 reunion tour by the reconstituted group that by then was calling itself the Dead.
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Rock fans think of David Crosby’s name in so many cases as part of something with commas or ampersands involved — the duo Crosby & Nash, the trio Crosby, Stills & Nash, and the quartet that added Young to make it a foursome — but there was another key collaborator in the late ’60s and
As part of Variety‘s ongoing tribute to Jerry Garcia, who died 25 years ago today at age 53, musicians, industry veterans and basketball legend Bill Walton, share their thoughts on the Grateful Dead frontman and how they honored his memory on August 9, 1995. Bill Walton The accomplished basketball player, who held positions with the
Syco Entertainment chief and “America’s Got Talent” judge Simon Cowell was hospitalized on Saturday after breaking his back in a biking accident in Malibu. According to the Associated Press, Cowell injured himself as he was testing a new electric bicycle at his home in Malibu, Calif. He reportedly fell off the bike in the courtyard
My 2020 seems to have “started” a bit earlier. I ushered in the New Year single for the first time in a long while, and a week later, woke up blind in my left eye courtesy of a freshly detached retina. After making it through a grueling recovery period from a handful of surgeries, which
Are concert-starved music fans ready to pony up for livestream subscription series involving different artists every week? And is it time for established music venues to start experimenting with letting very small and spaced-out audiences back in their doors? These may seem like two separate questions. But they’re not when it comes to the storied
Madonna’s contract with Interscope Records has expired making the artist a free agent after nearly 10 years with the label, Variety has learned. In 2011, the pop superstar signed a three-album deal with the Universal Music Group company. She released “MDNA” in 2012, “Rebel Heart” in 2015 and, most recently, “Madame X” in 2019. Madonna
Madonna has revealed that she is working on a screenplay with Oscar-winning writer Diablo Cody. The pop star announced the news in a short video posted to her Instagram on Friday with the caption, “When you’re stuck in a house with multiple injuries what do you do? Write a screenplay with Diablo Cody about…?” Madonna
Wayne Fontana, a pop singer best known for the 1965 hit “The Game of Love,” died on Thursday, according to his family. He was 74. “The family of Wayne Fontana regret to announce he passed away this afternoon at Steppinghill Hospital, Stockport. His long term partner was by his side,” a spokesperson for Fontana’s family
The release of Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s collaborative single “WAP” on Friday brought with it an equally vivacious music video, which has since sat at the top of YouTube’s trending page. The video features a slew of famous guests: Normani, Rosalía, Mulatto, Sukihana, Rubi Rose and Kylie Jenner, who makes a dramatic 20-second
Dixie D’Amelio has landed a record deal with L.A. Reid’s HitCo Entertainment, joining Jennifer Lopez, Saint JHN, Outkast’s Big Boi and Dinah Jane on the label’s roster. The 18-year-old social media sensation boasts over 15 million followers on Instagram and 33 million followers on TikTok. The Connecticut native is also the older sister of Charli
Taylor Swift’s “Folklore” album may have been out for two weeks already, but that doesn’t mean that she can’t command the new-release news cycle 14 days later with a a single new song — the addition of a bonus track that was held back from the previous digital edition and is only hitting the streets
No one really knew which record store bin to put Collective Soul in when the Atlanta band broke onto the scene — they were labeled everything from “bubblegum grunge” to southern blues-rock to neo-’60s rock. Their breakout occurred in 1993 with the sudden success of “Shine,” a fuzzy, quasi-spiritual anthem that pinged from college radio
One reason photographers loved the Grateful Dead, among so very many others: the “first three songs only” rule for the photo pit took on a whole new meaning at one of this band’s shows. Garcia and the rest of the Grateful Dead, since the start of the band’s career, allowed fans to bring cameras to shows
The MTV Video Music Awards will be getting in touch with the great outdoors, in a bigger way than originally anticipated. Citing ongoing safety concerns during the pandemic, the network announced late Friday that Barclays Center has been nixed as a base venue for the show and that the entirety of the broadcast will now
One reason photographers loved the Grateful Dead, among so very many others: the “first three songs only” rule for the photo pit took on a whole new meaning at one of this band’s shows. “When you got three Grateful Dead songs, you could be in that pit for 40 minutes, if you’ve got the right
“Feel the Beat,” a track from the Black Eyed Peas’ recent bilingual English-Spanish album, “Translation,” features the group’s first collaboration with Latin music star Maluma. In an interview this week for Variety’s Power of Young Hollywood issue, frontman Will.i.am. reveals that it was the third song that the group tried to pull off with the
Cardi B took over Apple Music’s “New Music Daily” to discuss the state of women in the music industry and her latest single, “WAP,” featuring Megan Thee Stallion. The conversation also included Rubi Rose, Sukihana and Mulatto, who were all in the song’s new music video, and moderator Nadeska. Cardi touched on the negative perception
While Graham Nash says that he never got to know Jerry Garcia all that well, their first meeting is a part of rock history: It happened in the fall of 1969, when Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young were recording their classic “Déjà Vu” album, which included what is probably Nash’s best-known song, “Teach Your Children.”
Want to get a fresh perspective on a Luke Bryan album? Play the second half first. As much as any artist in mainstream country, the affable superstar and “American Idol” judge sequences like a man with the vinyl format foremost in his mind. Ever since 2009’s “Doin’ My Thing,” Side Two — or, for streamers
Jordan Fisher got quite emotional when he saw the poster for his new Netflix coming-of-age comedy “Work It” because the cast is so diverse. Of the nine actors featured on the poster, seven are people of color. “It literally made me shed a tear,” the actor, who is multiethnic, says on this week’s episode of
As the fate of TikTok continues to dominate the news cycle comes word that Simon Fuller, the veteran music manager, creator of “American Idol” and founder of XIX Entertainment, is teaming with the short-form video app to launch a talent search to finding the next supergroup. The audition process will be conducted via an in-app
The premiere of the Rolling Stones’ “Scarlet” video Thursday on YouTube was preceded by a chat between its sole star, Paul Mescal — currently an Emmy nominee for “Normal People” — and a jovial Mick Jagger, who appeared happy to have left the heavy lifting (or the spontaneous stunt work) to someone else. “You were
Call it a match made in internet heaven. Some six years after JoJo Siwa, 17, first started tinkering with music on her computer and happened upon her pop predecessor JoJo, who, at age 13, had a No. 1 hit with the 2004 song “Leave (Get Out),” the two met IRL at the Variety offices —
Megan Thee Stallion, Maluma and Shira Haas were among the artists featured in Variety’s Power of Young Hollywood virtual event, which premiered Thursday, Aug. 6 at 6 p.m. PT/9 p.m. ET on Facebook. The program partnered with Facebook to benefit Rock the Vote and encouraged fans to register to vote in the 2020 presidential election.
When the album “Deadicated: A Tribute to the Grateful Dead” was initially released by Arista Records on April 23, 1991, no one could have predicted, in a little more than four years, the band’s iconic guitarist Jerry Garcia would be gone. But as this August 9 marks 25 years since the man known as Captain
In a new video interview with Rolling Stone, singer-songwriter Melissa Etheridge speaks at length for the first time about the death of her son, Beckett Cypher, who died in May. She describes coming to terms with the 21-year-old’s self-destructive streak well before his death, aware that a happy ending may not be in store. “As
“Hustlers” star Keke Palmer is set to host the 2020 MTV Video Music Awards, airing live from Barclays Center on Aug. 30 at 8 p.m. MTV made the announcement today with a video in which the actress and singer video calls up the titular character from Nickelodeon’s “Tru Jackson V.P.,” a role she played from
The “Eurovision Song Contest,” Europe’s popular music competition, one of the world’s biggest televised events and the platform that helped launch ABBA, is coming to America. “The American Song Contest” is set to debut during the 2021 holiday season. Hoping to siphon off some of the magic of the beloved six-decade-old show, which draws over
Lizzo has signed a first-look television deal with Amazon Studios. Under the deal, the Grammy-winning musician will work with Amazon Studios to create television projects that will premiere exclusively on Amazon Prime Video. “I’m so excited to partner with the amazing team at Amazon,” said Lizzo. “Thank you to Jen Salke and the rest of