Entertainment industry veteran, budding sports entrepreneur and civil rights attorney Jeff Kwatinetz, co-founder of the three-on-three basketball league Big3, which he formed in 2017 with actor-musician Ice Cube, has put a $4.8 million price tag on a spacious home along the picturesque canals in L.A.’s once gritty, now fashionable and exceedingly expensive beach community of
Music
Lil Baby is the only big name that matters among the season’s top albums, it sometimes seems. His “My Turn” takes a turn at the top of the album chart yet again this week, with 69,600 album units. Although there were no new releases debuting in the Rolling Stone album chart’s top 10, Haim’s “Women
Country singer Lindsay Ell has released a new single and video, “Make You,” dealing with the trauma of a rape she endured at 13 and realizations and healing that didn’t occur until many years later — topics she also addressed in a People magazine interview published Tuesday. “I wanted to release it on Global Forgiveness
My Morning Jacket announced Tuesday morning that they will release “The Waterfall II,” a companion album to its 2015 release “The Waterfall,” on Friday via ATO Records. The Kentucky-reared rock act will host an online listening party for the album Thursday at 9 p.m. ET via its YouTube and Facebook pages. “The Waterfall II” will
Country-rock singer Margo Price is making sure that fans in her hometown, Nashville, don’t have to go out for dinner or for her new LP when her third album, “That’s How Rumors Get Started,” comes out Friday. She’s endeavoring to support several local restaurants as well as Grimey’s Records to offer delivery of breakfast, lunch
ASCAP has announced the winners of the most performed songs of the past year in Latin music via its @ASCAPLatino and @ASCAP social media platforms. With the awards forced to move online like most major events this year, the virtual format, which generated record social media participation for ASCAP’s Pop and Screen Music Awards last month, opened the
In this guest column, David Israelite, president & CEO of the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA), the trade association representing American music publishers and their songwriting partners, argues in favor of the CASE Act, which would create a board within the U.S. Copyright Office to decide copyright disputes rather than going before a court. A
The Recording Academy and Color of Change, the largest online racial justice organization in the U.S., have announced a partnership to “promote positive social change within the music industry.” The Academy announced to members last month that it has made a $1 million donation to Color of Change. According to the announcement, the organizations will
Tom Meighan, the former lead vocalist of rock band Kasabian, has pleaded guilty to a charge of domestic violence. Meighan was accused of attacking his former fiancee Vikki Ager on April 9, and submitted his guilty plea Tuesday at a court in Leicester, England. The judge ordered him to carry out 200 hours of unpaid
On July 6, 2020, we lost a Country Music Hall of Famer, Grand Ole Opry star, guitar virtuoso, fiddle playing icon, proud American and my friend. This year marks my 37th year in broadcasting. Thirty of those years I’ve been solely focused on the world of country music. Currently, I host the Storme Warren Morning
SiriusXM is closing in on a deal to acquire E.W. Scripps Co.’s Stitcher podcast production, distribution and advertising unit, Variety has confirmed. SiriusXM’s deal for Stitcher would be worth about $300 million, according to the Wall Street Journal, which first reported the news. Scripps bought Stitcher for $4.5 million in 2016 and combined it with
When I heard that Ennio Morricone had died, at 91, my first thought was that the cinema had lost one of the most romantic of all screen composers. Morricone, who worked with filmmakers from around the world but rarely left his native Rome (he insisted on not speaking in any language but Italian), wrote movie
Garth Brooks recently encouraged his fans to socially distance by putting on a show that could only be seen on drive-in screens around the country. Now, he’s doing a lot more distancing himself by going into quarantine with his wife, Trisha Yearwood, after learning that their “camp” had been exposed to the coronavirus. The announcement
Mary “Mickey” Diage, a longtime advertising director at Capitol Records, where she worked for 40 years from 1963 to 2003, died on May 21 from pulmonary fibrosis. She was 82. Diage was among the first women to have a “seat at the table” at a major label, according to an announcement of her death. During
Variety has been nominated for 56 Southern California Journalism Awards, including three for entertainment journalist of the year and two for in-house/corporate publication. The awards, given out by the Los Angeles Press Club, honor outstanding journalism in the region across print, digital, radio and broadcast platforms. Variety’s chief TV critic Daniel D’Addario, chief film critic
As the coronavirus pandemic triggered bans on large gatherings across the U.S., independent music and comedy venues were among the first to shut down. And per each state’s guidelines, they’ll be the among the very last to reopen. Without financial assistance from the government, some 90% of independent venues — which currently have virtually no
Singer, songwriter and instrumentalist Charlie Daniels, whose fusion of traditional country and Southern rock made him a popular cross-genre artist during the ‘70s and ‘80s, died Monday of a hemorrhagic stroke in Hermitage, Tenn. He was 83. After establishing himself on the Nashville studio scene with session and touring work behind such performers as Bob
Modern-day cowboys, cable-news magnates, corrupt school administrators and England’s Royal Family: Over the past year they’ve all been portrayed on cable and streaming services, and they all needed music. Brian Tyler, who is usually busy with feature films like “Crazy Rich Asians,” took on scoring the entire 10-episode second season of Paramount’s “Yellowstone,” which stars
Ennio Morricone, who died Monday at the age of 91, wrote more than 400 original film scores, many of which have entered the classic movie-music pantheon. While trying to narrow them down to the 10 best is an impossible task, here, in chronological order, are an essential 10: “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”
Singer and “This Is Us” star Mandy Moore — one of several women who accused her ex-husband, singer-songwriter Ryan Adams, of sexual misconduct or abusive behavior — spoke about the public apology he issued over the weekend, in which he said in part, “There are no words to express how bad I feel about the
Before Bess (Brittany O’Grady) gets up the nerve to play her own songs for an audience, she anticipates the confused feedback she might get. As she explains in the first episode of “Little Voice” with a half-apologetic shrug, her music is “very…earnest.” At another point, forced to put herself in terms the music industry might
Popular exercise platform Peloton Interactive has named a new head of music, promoting Gwen Bethel Riley, previously vice president of music partnerships, to senior vp. She replaces current svp and music head Paul DeGooyer, who will transition to consultancy next month after three years at the position and nearly five with the company. Riley joined
Scores of stars from Hollywood and Broadway paid tribute to Tony-nominated actor Nick Cordero on Sunday night following confirmation by his family that he had died from complications due to coronavirus. In March 2020, Cordero was hospitalized at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles after testing positive. Throughout his stay in the hospital, he underwent
Bill Field, who played a vintage Wurlitzer organ nearly every weekend for 52 years at Old Town Music Hall, the L.A. area’s longest running film revival house, has died at age 80. Field, who had suffered from strokes and prostrate cancer, died June 28 of what was described as natural causes. Although his performing pace
Though they need another house like a pigeon needs dance classes, records reveal showbiz power couple Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez have just paid nearly $1.4 million for a property in L.A.’s San Fernando Valley enclave of Encino, the once-overlooked neighborhood that’s recently seen a massive surge in popularity with suburban-minded celebrities. (Deeds and documents
Apropos of nothing immediately apparent other than the national holiday, Kanye West took to social media Saturday night to announce that he is running for president… in 2020. “We must now realize the promise of America by trusting God, unifying our vision and building our future. I am running for president of the United States,”
Singer-songwriter Ryan Adams — who in February of last year was accused of sexual misconduct by seven women, including his ex-wife, actor-singer Mandy Moore — has written a statement apologizing for the ways in which he “mistreated” women in the past. In a long statement in England’s Daily Mail, he wrote that he is now
If Donald Trump were only to play rock songs at his events that had the permission of the recording artists in question, his walk-ons and walk-offs would mostly take place to the sound of silence. But he continues to not let artists’ heated objections stand in his way. His event at the base of Mount
Lil Wayne’s reputation as among the best rappers alive long preceded his career as one of the best talkers of the coronavirus pandemic. Thanks to Young Money radio, which launched on April 24 as a weekly show on Apple Music (slated to run 12 episodes deep, it airs Fridays at 7 p.m. ET), Wayne has
The fast-growing Hipgnosis Songs Fund’s revenues soared in its first full year of business, climbing to $81 million in the 12 month period ended in March 2020 from around $8.9 million in the preceding period. The firm, which has been on an unprecedented acquisition binge of hit songwriter and producer catalogs — been buying up