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Posted: 07 Jun 2011 06:28 AM PDT

LOS ANGELES (AP): Andrew Gold, a singer, musician and composer whose songs included the 1977 hit "Lonely Boy," has died. He was 59.

His sister, Melani Gold Friedman, tells the Los Angeles Times that Gold died in his sleep Friday at his home in Encino, Calif. She says he had cancer but had been responding to treatment.

Gold was a multi-instrumental player whose popular singles included "Thank You for Being a Friend" and the British hit "Never Let Her Slip Away."

He was in Linda Rondstadt's band, arranged songs for and performed on several Rondstadt albums, including "Heart Like a Wheel," and did session work for artists such as James Taylor and Carly Simon.

Gold's mother was movie singer Marni Nixon, and his father was Ernest Gold, who composed the Oscar-winning score for "Exodus."

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We are the world

Posted: 06 Jun 2011 11:47 PM PDT

There's no let up for perpetual music maker Quincy Jones – even at the ripe old age of 78 – as he ventures into the Arab world to break down barriers.

AFTER a frenetic career as producer to Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, Michael Jackson and many other music legends, 78-year-old Quincy Jones refuses to slow down and has just signed up for a new project in the Arab world.

"I'm 78 and I've still got a lot of energy and I want to do what my dreams are, which is to see people come together across the barriers,'' Jones said recently in the Moroccan capital Rabat where he appeared in the Mawazine music festival.

He scoffs at a question as to whether age and past medical woes, such as a serious cerebral aneurysm he suffered in 1974, might encourage him to ease up.

"Not at all. I'll slow down when I die,'' he said.

As a performer, Jones was already touring North Africa and other parts of the world in the 1950s, with some of the biggest names in jazz, including Lionel Hampton and Dizzy Gillespie.

He arranged Sinatra's Fly Me To The Moon and produced Michael Jackson's album Thriller and the 1985 We Are The World recording for African famine relief.

Watching the star-studded 1990 documentary Listen Up: The Lives Of Quincy Jones today, one is struck by how many of the music legends linked to Jones have since died.

"Sinatra, Ray Charles, Billy Eckstine, Ella Fitzgerald – all gone," Jones said, before adding the name of film director Sidney Lumet and others.

"How do you think I feel? I've lost 188 friends, man, in less than 15 years."

"It hurts," the veteran producer, musician and arranger continued. "It just doesn't stop."

Doctors have long told Jones to reduce his workload.

"I know, I don't care. I like what I am doing," he said.

Like a master jazz improviser able to draw on thousands of musical phrases, Jones, with the slightest association, is well prepared to roll out a remarkable array of genial anecdotes about a lifetime of adventures with music legends.

A mention of Italy prompts him to show off his much cherished ring from Frank Sinatra. India sparks him to tell of meeting sitarist Ravi Shankar in 1956, after which he recalls that Shankar is father to singer Norah Jones.

A reference to Serbia inspires him to show off a few words in Serbian, including one off-colour one that amuses him immensely.

In one of his latest projects, Jones, who has won 27 Grammy Awards, has launched a joint venture to promote music in North Africa and the Middle East, in which musicians from different cultures will work together. They are also recording a new song to raise funds for regional scholarships.

A musician from the besieged Libyan town of Misrata made a visit to Rabat recently for the project.

On Sunday, Jones was also set to appear at a memorial concert in Marrakesh after an attack there killed 17 people a month ago.

"More and more, when you get older, you do exactly what you believe in with the people that you love and trust and admire," he said. "That's where I am now, which allows me to do what I feel and give back what I feel, whatever I want to do."

Jones says he feels an affinity for Arabs as they have often suffered from prejudice like American blacks.

"People have preconceived concepts of you just on your appearance. That's sad," he said. "My two least favourite words are 'you people'. I hate that word."

"All the things I did, they said you were the first. That means only," he said, "like first black (vice) president of a record company or the first one to produce the Oscars."

As a musician, Jones has frequently changed with the times, from bebop and big band jazz earlier in his career to pop and hip-hop later on. He is hoping evolving medical technology will enable him to stay involved for many more years. – Reuters

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Asia's sad ballad queen rolls out new upbeat sound

Posted: 06 Jun 2011 10:58 PM PDT

HONG KONG (AP): Sad songs have been good to Fish Leong. The Malaysian-Chinese singer's soulful Mandarin ballads about unrequited love and breakups have earned her a pan-Asian fan base and album sales of just over 18 million.

But life has changed for the 32-year-old, and it shows in her first album since getting married, the upbeat "What Love Songs Didn't Tell You."

"I can't stay in a distressed emotional state forever," Leong said in a backstage dressing room in Hong Kong late Monday, a week into a new world tour to support the album.

"It's just like acting in the movies - sometimes you derive your emotions from your life, sometimes you are portraying something fictitious in songs," she told The Associated Press. "I want to share the different sides of myself."

Leong married businessman Tony Chao last year in a beach ceremony on the Philippine island of Baracay.

The title track of her new album urges her fans to act on their emotions instead of dwelling on missed opportunities and venting their sorrow by singing her songs. One verse reads, "Singing 'Courage' but lacking courage leads to nothing," referring to one of her biggest hits, about the difficulties facing a controversial relationship.

By contrast, the title track on Leong's last album was called "Don't Cry for Him Anymore," in which a woman comforts a friend going through a tough separation.

So far the numbers back up Leong's new approach. "What Love Songs Didn't Tell You" has already sold some 900,000 copies in Asia, according to figures released by her management company.

Leong is mindful that it may take some time for her fans to get used to her new sound, so the rundown for her new tour, dubbed "The Love Library World Tour," draws mainly from her classics - with one or two new releases mixed in.

On Friday, a sold-out audience at the 12,500-seat Hong Kong Coliseum - one of the most prestigious venues in Chinese pop - Leong belted out hit after hit in a one-shoulder baring zebra-striped top, black pants and black high heels.

There is little in the way of dancing or screaming at Chinese pop concerts.

Instead, fans waved bars illuminated with pink lights in unison as they sang along with Leong.

Backstage sat bouquets from fellow singers wishing her good luck, a Hong Kong custom. The senders read like a Who's Who of the Chinese music industry, and included Hong Kong singers Jacky Cheung, Aaron Kwok, Joey Yung and the popular female pop duo Twins.

"The Love Library World Tour" kicked off May 28 in the Taiwanese capital Taipei, where Leong, a native of the Malaysian town of Bahau, launched her career. She played three nights in Hong Kong, and in a sign of the growing importance of the thriving mainland Chinese market, 12 of the 17 confirmed dates are on the mainland.

The half-year tour also will take her to Singapore, Sydney, Melbourne and the U.S. Malaysian dates have not been confirmed due to tight stadium bookings.

Leong said she has also started to listen to demos for her next album. "What Love Songs Didn't Tell You" was the first album she produced and she plans to retain creative control of her next release. "This is something I want to work hard at," she said.

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Kredit: www.thestar.com.my

Selasa, 7 Jun 2011

The Star Online: Entertainment: Music

The Star Online: Entertainment: Music

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