Entertainment News:
After four decades, Black Sabbath tops U.S. album chart
By Piya Sinha-Roy LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Veteran heavy-metal band Black Sabbath landed its first No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 album chart on Wednesday, more than four decades after the rockers debuted their first album in the United States. "13," the 19th studio album from Black Sabbath, sold 155,000 copies in its first week, according to figures from Nielsen SoundScan, knocking last week's No. 1 album by Queens of the Stone Age off the top spot on the weekly U.S. album chart. ...
Mumford & Sons bassist on the mend after brain surgery
(Reuters) - British folk band Mumford & Sons' bassist Ted Dwane posted a message on Monday saying he was recovering after brain surgery to remove a blood clot. Dwane posted a picture of himself with a shaved head on the band's official website with the caption, "Bear with a sore head! Thanks so much for all the well wishing, it seems to be working! I'm home." The Grammy-winning London band was forced to cancel the final three U.S. dates of its "Summer Stampede" tour last week after doctors discovered a clot on the surface of Dwane's brain, which required immediate surgery. ...
Jay Z's million-album Samsung sale unlikely to count for charts
By Eric Kelsey LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Rapper Jay Z's upcoming studio album will go to a million users of Samsung smartphones three days before its official release in a promotional deal, but the distribution is unlikely to count toward official sales figures, an industry expert said on Monday. Jay Z, 43, announced on Sunday in a three-minute television commercial during the telecast of basketball's NBA Finals that his latest album "Magna Carter Holy Grail" will be released on July 4 exclusively to 1 million users of Samsung smartphones who had downloaded a special app. ...
Bassist Kim Deal leaves alt-rock band the Pixies
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Kim Deal, the bass player behind some of the Pixies' biggest hits, has left the 1980s alternative rock band, its remaining members said on Friday. Deal's pulsing bass and understated singing punctuated the influential group's early songs, which won critical acclaim for their quick bursts of sound and wild guitars. "We are sad to say that Kim Deal has decided to leave the Pixies," the band's singer-guitarist Black Francis, drummer David Lovering and guitarist Joey Santiago said in a statement posted on their Facebook page. ...
Cher set to appear on 'The Voice' season finale on June 18
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Cher will appear on the season finale of the singing competition series "The Voice" on June 18, making her first live TV performance in more than 10 years, NBC said on Monday. The singer and actress, who has won an Oscar as well as Grammy and Emmy awards, will perform "Woman's World," a new single from her album of the same name which is to be released in September, her first in 12 years. Cher's record-breaking 1998 single "Believe" reached No. ...
Backup singers take center stage in new documentary film
By Andrea Burzynski NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bruce Springsteen and Mick Jagger appear in the new film "Twenty Feet from Stardom," but only to shine the spotlight on the unsung backup singers who make them sound even better. Opening in New York and Los Angeles on Friday and expanding across the United States in coming weeks, the music documentary features the lives and careers of singers who have harmonized with the likes of Ray Charles, The Rolling Stones, Elton John and many more. ...
Watch John Mayer's Music Video with Prancercise Star Joanna Rohrback
Sure, you ’ve heard of “Prancercize,” but now that its creator Joanna Rohrback has teamed up with John Mayer, get ready to “Romancercize.” In the video for Mayer’s new single “Paper Doll,” Rohrback, who created the unorthodox workout in 1989, introduces herself and asks, “What about a...
Salzburg Festival lets Pereira go early to La Scala
VIENNA (Reuters) - The Salzburg Festival has agreed to let director Alexander Pereira go early after falling out over his new post as manager of Milan opera house La Scala. Pereira, who upset Austria's cultural establishment by taking on the La Scala role before finishing his term at the Salzburg classical music festival, will now leave two years early at the end of September 2014. He is due to start at La Scala in 2015. "When I came to Salzburg, I could not have imagined that I would ever do anything other than Salzburg," Pereira told Austrian ORF radio in an interview aired on Wednesday. ...
Legendary country singer Slim Whitman dead at 90
By Patricia Reaney and Tim Ghianni NEW YORK/NASHVILLE (Reuters) - Legendary country singer and songwriter Slim Whitman, known for his smooth falsetto and high-pitched yodeling talent, died in Florida on Wednesday at the age of 90, his son-in-law said. Roy Beagle, who is married to Whitman's daughter Sharon, said the singer-songwriter who was born Ottis Dewey Whitman Jr. was admitted to hospital on Tuesday. "He died last night at the Orange Park hospital at about 12:45 this morning of heart failure," Beagle told Reuters. ...
