Chris Willman-Senior: Last News

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Imagine Adele happy, and you’re at least part of the way toward understanding the appeal of Lauren Daigle, the powerhouse singer whose self-titled third album — and first with Atlantic Records — came out May 12. Of course, making a joyful noise has been something of a mandate for Daigle, who became arguably the biggest star to arise out of the Christian music scene in the last 10-15 years before entering pop crossover territory. But even if peacefulness and positivity weren’t part of the job description up to this point, Daigle is someone who naturally exudes good vibes, in and out of song. As she puts it, quoting her friend Natalie Hemby, Daigle has a “little hippie thing” going on, which she attributes in part to her Louisiana upbringing, that has erupting in perpetual grins to go with her inner groove.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic The good news for Niall Horan fans in the U.S. is that he’ll be doing a summer tour of the States in support of his imminent album release. The slightly not-so-good news, for fans who might’ve hoped for more immediate gratification, is that this arena/amphitheater tour will be in summer 2024, kicking off almost a year after the new record comes out. European fans will get a slight head start on the tour, but those dates are waiting until next year, too, with the first night of the international jaunt set for Feb. 21, 2024 in Belfast, UK at the SSE Arena. The North American leg of the worldwide outing will begin May 29, 2024 at Hard Rock Live in Hollywood, Florida. Stops along the way include shows at Madison Square Garden next June 15, the Kia Forum in L.A. on July 27 and Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena on June 3. The tour is scheduled to conclude July 231, 2024 at the Talking Stick Resort Amphitheatre.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic “More stars than there are in heaven!” crowed Peter Zaremba, lead singer of the Fleshtones, taking a cue from MGM’s famous slogan of the 1930s and ’40s as he boisterously extolled the cast of performers taking part in Friday night’s tribute to the garage-rock of the middle and 1960s. The salute took the form of a semi-reconstruction of the 1972 compilation album “Nuggets,” put together by the Wild Honey Foundation as one of its annual autism benefits at the Alex Theatre in Glendale, with the original compiler of “Nuggets,” Lenny Kaye, on board as emcee, resident historian, cheerleader and intermittent singer-guitarist.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic All these decades on, Paul Simon is still looking for angels in the architecture. Maybe especially now; he’s 81 and, like many of his contemporaries, thinking about end-of-life issues both spiritual and corporeal. The observations in his quietly stunning new album, ”Seven Psalms,” reflect a sort of consummate maturity: There aren’t many more stages of ripeness you can move on to, in this life, beyond the one where a hard out looms. “Psalms” is a collection of songs with concerns in the past, present and (maybe) future, with Simon briefly looking back at some bridges burned; looking presently at how little the topical concerns that divide us seem to matter in the face of mortality; and looking ahead to see… well, to see if there is an ahead, as afterlife concerns remain as murky in old age as they did in youth.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic The ASCAP Pop Music Awards honored “Stay,” by the Kid Laroi featuring Justin Bieber, as the org’s pop music song of the year Thursday night. That number came out on top as the performing rights organization calculated the most-played affiliated songs of the past 12 months, with results for the 40th annual awards revealed at a private party held for members at Yamashiro in Hollywood. The org’s interest in “Stay” is via ASCAP member Bieber, one of the co-writers on the smash. The song spent seven weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 in mid-2022. Dr. Luke was named the songwriter of the year, largely for his participation in hits that have continued to do well off Doja Cat’s 2021 album “Planet Her,” primarily “Need to Know,” “Woman” and “You Right.” The success of Latto’s “High Energy” and Nicki Minaj’s “Super Freaky Girl” also contributed to the producer-writer achieving the highest number of plays for the year.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Rhino Records is launching a quarterly series of limited-edition vinyl releases intended to appeal to LP-loving audiophiles, with records that are cut directly from analog sources by one of the most revered names in the mastering business, Kevin Gray. The first two releases in the Rhino High Fidelity series, both out today, are the Cars’ self-titled debut album from 1978 and John Coltrane’s 1964 album “Coltrane’s Sound.” It won’t be a high-volume series: The releases will be limited to 5,000 numbered copies, with only two new titles issued per quarter. Each catalog album will have lacquers cut by Gray from the original analog tapes, pressed on 180-gram vinyl, with glossy, fold-out, “tip-on” jackets in the old-school style and supplemental printed inserts with modern essays or interviews.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Jimmie Allen addressed his wife, who is divorcing him, in an Instagram post Thursday afternoon, publicly apologizing to her for what he continues to characterize as a consensual “affair,” and what a woman who used to be one of his managers claims in a lawsuit was sexual assault and rape. “I want to publicly apologize to my wife, Alexis, for humiliating her with my affair,” Allen writes in the post. “I’m embarrassed that my choices have brought shame on her. That’s something she did not deserve at all. I also want to apologize to my children for being a poor example of a man and a father.” Allen’s wife is pregnant with their third child.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic With a new exhibit celebrating the Songwriters Hall of Fame that has opened at the Grammy Museum in downtown Los Angeles, the facility finally has a space in which the pen is definitively mightier than the sword. Although there are some axes on view, too — but this is an exhibit where attendees are at least as likely to ooh and aah over Sammy Cahn’s typewriter or Burt Bacharach’s hand-written scores as they are Tom Petty’s guitar or Jimmy Jam’s keytar. The range of artifacts on display in “The Power of Song: A Songwriters Hall of Fame Exhibit” runs a gamut from from Irving Berlin’s piano and Cole Porter’s walking stick to material contributions from contemporary writers like Benny Blanco and Imagine Dragons’ Dan Reynolds. In-between those poles, you can find handwritten lyrics and sheet music, telegrams, production notes, cassette demo tapes, Oscars, and — lest a writers’ exhibit seem like too much of a paper chase — even some jackets worn by more sartorially flashy writer-performers like John Legend and Annie Lennox.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic A new documentary about Avicii, the late Swedish DJ who became an international phenomenon in the 2010s, is underway, with Lawrence Bender, known for his many projects with Quentin Tarantino, and longtime talent manager Orlando John as producing partners. John will co-direct the film with Jonas Trukanas. “Avicii changed the music industry,” said John, a Dutch talent manager who works with musician Wyclef Jean, actor Joel Kinnaman and others. “People think they know the story, but they have really no clue as to what actually happened. I feel a profound responsibility to ensure that it’s told accurately and objectively. This documentary will give the audiences a deeper understanding of the brand that left an indelible mark on music and culture.”

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic With the media sounding the alarm bell that AM radio is increasingly being dropped by auto manufacturers, a bipartisan group of members of Congress has introduced legislation that would mandate auto manufacturers keep the traditional radio band intact in new vehicles. The AM for Every Vehicle Act was introduced in both the House and Senate Wednesday. If successful, it would reverse a tide that has seen several manufacturers of electric cars, including Tesla, drop it from those vehicles — citing interference between the AM band and electric operating systems — and, more alarmingly for AM radio listeners, has found Ford planning to drop AM from all new cars.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic What might have felt like double jeopardy has turned into a double win for Ed Sheeran, as the pop superstar prevailed in yet a second copyright infringement lawsuit filed over the song “Thinking Out Loud,.” The same judge who oversaw the previous case dismissed this additional suit on Tuesday before it ever got to trial. This like-minded lawsuit had been filed by Structured Asset Sales LLC, another party with an interest in the 1973 Marvin Gaye hit “Let’s Get It On,” similarly contending that Sheeran’s 2014 smash infringed on the previous song’s copyright. The company owns part of songwriter Ed Townsend’s share of the Gaye tune; it was heirs of Townsend who filed the previous unsuccessful lawsuit. The result was much the same, with or without a trial, with the elements shared by the two tunes being judged “common.”

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic A film rendering of the two-night 90th birthday tribute to Willie Nelson at the Hollywood Bowl in April will be coming to movie theaters sooner rather than later. “Long Story Short: Willie Nelson 90” will appear on the big screen across the U.S. for three nights, with an initial showing on June 11 followed by repeat screenings on June 13-14. The running time is being described as “two hours plus,” which means editors have a big job on their hands cutting down the more than six hours of music that transpired April 29-30 at the Bowl, with very little overlap of material between the two nights. A lot of artists who appeared at one or both shows will necessarily not make the cut.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic There has never been a compilation album in the history of rock as influential as “Nuggets,” a 1972 double-LP that revived a period and style that was seen as having ended about five years before. It was nostalgia of a sort for the very recent past — as opposed to the very distant past that’s now being celebrated with fondness as “Nuggets” itself surpasses the half-century, arguably no less central to a certain rock ‘n’ roll ethos than ever. Lenny Kaye, now best known as the guitarist for Patti Smith’s band, but then highly regarded as a rock critic, compiled the original “Nuggets” for Elektra and may have saved an early wave of garage-rock for the ages … although some would give the collection even more credit, for helping invent, or at least bring into focus, the burgeoning punk-rock movement in the 1970s.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic A Taylor Swift fan whose front-row zealotry caught the constant attention of a security guard — whose response then caught the attention of Swift herself — has spoken out on what happened during and after the confrontation during “Bad Blood” at a Philadelphia show. Kelly Kelly, a third-grade teacher from Baltimore, was attending the show with sister Kirstin Birmingham and two friends, all with first-row seats in front of the ramp that extended out into the Lincoln Financial Field audience. Kelly told ABC’s “Good Morning, America” and the Daily Mail about what transpired with security, and Swift’s reaction, on Saturday night — leading to their getting free tickets to come back for the third and final Philly concert Sunday night.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic There was almost some bad blood between Taylor Swift and stadium security at the singer’s show in Philadelphia on Saturday, as she took a pause in singing “Bad Blood” to repeatedly ask a guard or guards to lay off a fan as a confrontation developed. As usual with anything at a Swift show, there were tens of thousands of cameras trained on her, and one 25-second clip of the singer’s interjections on Twitter had amassed more than 3 million views by Sunday morning. Video of what happened between the fan and security guard was harder to come by; attendees at the Lincoln Financial Field show offered reports saying alternately that the fan was being confronted for being too close to a barricade or was being pulled away for taking photos (which are not disallowed on the tour).

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Perhaps you saw the gossip-site reports coming out of the Lovers & Friends Festival in Las Vegas last weekend: Allegedly, Chris Brown and Usher had gotten into some kind of tiff backstage during Missy Elliott’s set. The two singers went on to… Wait a minute. There was a Missy Elliott show? Stop the presses … this seemed like a case of burying the lead, as they say in news circles. Hip-hop fans knew what the real headlines should have been on that story: A unicorn had been sighted during a full solar eclipse, as Halley’s comet made a rare pass over Brigadoon — or other metaphors to that effect — if Elliott was being sighted back on a stage. Something slightly rarer still occurred Tuesday night in southern California’s Inland Empire: a stand-alone headlining show by Elliott. As one tweeter put it: “Why Yaamava’ Theatre?” — wondering, reasonably, why Elliott was following her festival appearance not with a full tour or, say, a night or two at the Hollywood Bowl, but a one-off gig at a 2,500-seat theater at a casino-resort at least an hour outside of L.A. in off-the-beaten-track Highland? The Vegas festival and subsequent casino concert are it, as far as what’s on Elliott’s public itinerary following the news of her impending Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction. The last time she did anything like a standard tour was 13 years ago, and since then, Elliott might not have done much more than a dozen full sets, almost all of them at festivals, none in theaters. So no wonder the cheapest tickets on the day of the show for her SoCal appearance were going for $500-plus.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic At his Hollywood Walk of Fame star ceremony Friday, Blake Shelton was both celebrated and shamed by three guest speakers that have loomed large in his life over the last dozen years, as “The Voice” host Carson Daly thoroughly roasted him, wife Gwen Stefani waxed lovestruck (still), and former fellow judge Adam Levine split the difference. Shelton did not refrain from comic comments of his own. He mentioned that, as an aspiring singer from Oklahoma, getting a star on the Walk of Fame had not been primary among his career goals. “It was just never on my radar,” he told the assembled crowd on Hollywood Blvd. “I had a dream of being a country singer and hearing myself on the radio one day, and I never, ever thought that that path would lead me here. … So, like, this is shocking to me that this even happened. … I’ve been telling people for the last few weeks that I’m getting a Hollywood Square. ”

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic At the 58th annual Academy of Country Music Awards, the top prize, entertainer of the year, was handed out to Chris Stapleton, even as Lainey Wilson and Hardy won in the the greatest number of categories, with four each — two of which they shared for the duet “Wait in the Truck.” Technically, Hardy walked away with six trophies, since the ACMs offer double awards for artists who co-write their nominated songs. Accepting for album of the year, Wilson said, “I wrote 300 songs during the pandemic.” Noting that some fans have said listening to her “Bell Bottom Country” album helped save their lives, Wilson said, “Writing these songs saved mine.” She quoted one of her own lines: “Be who you are, ’cause everybody else is taken.”

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Country star Jimmie Allen’s label, BBR Music Group, has suspended him, following a lawsuit from an ex-manager alleging that he sexually assaulted her over a period of a year and a half working with him, and an investigative story in Variety expanding on the woman’s allegations. “In light of today’s allegations against Jimmie Allen, BBR Music Group has decided to suspend all activity with him, effective immediately,” said a statement from the label. Other action has been swift. Allen has been dropped as the commencement speaker for tomorrow’s Delaware State University’s 2023 graduation. A press release from the university said that Allen, a Delaware native, had been replaced as commencement speaker by congresswoman Lisa Blunt Rochester.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic The FOMO of having missed Joni Mitchell’s appearance at the Newport Folk Festival last summer no longer needs to be so strong. Most of that comeback set, which as augmented by an all-star cast, is being released as a live album in July, “At Newport,” produced by Mitchell and Brandi Carlile. The album will be released by Rhino on July 28, four days after the one-year anniversary of the surprise show at the Rhode Island Festival. The guest stars who shared lead vocals and instrumentals with Carlile during the “Joni Jam” will all be represented — including Carlile, Marcus Mumford, Dawes’ Taylor Goldsmith, Lucius, Celisse and Wynonna Judd. Other players included Phil and Tim Hanseroth, Allison Russell and Blake Mills.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Garth Brooks and Dolly Parton have friends in host places: each other, as they prepare to co-helm the 58th annual Academy of Country Music Awards show Thursday night. Parton has done the hosting thing for the ACM Awards or CMAs a bare handful of times over the years (including taking on the role for last year’s ACMs); it’s Brooks’ first time, meanwhile, emceeing a kudocast. Regardless of their awards-show resumes, this pairing is not your average “get,” as landing hosts goes. There’s a good argument to be made that Parton is the biggest female star in the history of their genre, and just as good a case for thinking Brooks is the all-time biggest male star in the format, as they step down from country’s Mount Olympus to chaperone the prom.