Chris Willman-Senior: Last News

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music CriticThe full artist lineup for the “Elvis” soundtrack has been revealed — although still not the actual tracks they’re performing — and among those takin’ care of business on the album are Eminem, Tame Impala, Stevie Nicks, Jack White and Jazmine Sullivan.A handful of the artists named were already known, including Kacey Musgraves, who said on the Met Gala red carpet that she’ll be doing “Can’t Help Falling in Love” for the film; Maneskin, whose version of “If I Can Dream” was used in a recent teaser trailer; and Doja Cat, whose “Vegas” was already released as the album’s first single.But that still left room for plenty of surprises in Monday’s announcement. Along with the aforementioned, the lineup includes CeeLo Green, who is listed as a collaborator with Eminem on their mystery track; the combination of Swae Lee and Diplo; and Chris Isaak and Pnau, among others.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music CriticFor music fans in Music City, it’s a weekend of sad and possibly promising news. Developers have announced a plan to build a $40 million amphitheater and adjacent entertainment complex in Murfreesboro, a city within easy driving range of Nashville.That may or may not assuage any of the letdown that Nashvillians are feeling over the closure this week a venue complex that has been an integral part of the city’s music scene for 19 years, with the Mercy Lounge, Cannery Ballroom and High Watt all going dark after the operator and landlord couldn’t come to terms.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music CriticSinger-songwriter Allison Russell, who is on a streak of awards-show nominations and wins with her “Outside Child” album, won two top awards, artist of the year and song of the year, at Wednesday night’s International Folk Music Awards.The program was held as the kickoff to the Folk Alliance International Conference in Kansas City, MO.Song of the year went to Crys Matthews for “Changemakers.” Matthews performed at the two-hour show, as did the group Isaac Cates & Ordained and nominees Diana Jones and John Smith.Russell has kept up a busy awards calendar. Over the weekend, she had been in her native Canada to pick up a Juno Award for best contemporary roots album. Monday, she was announced as being tied for a leading number of nominations — three — for the Americana Honors, where Russell will be up for artist, album and song of the year at a ceremony to be held in Nashville in September.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music CriticBob Neuwirth, a recording artist and mainstay of the New York City folk scene in the 1960s, and a collaborator with Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, John Cale and Peter Case, among others, died in Santa Monica Wednesday night at age 82. The cause of death was heart failure.“On Wednesday evening in Santa Monica, Bob Neuwirth’s big heart gave out,” said his longtime partner, entertainment executive Paula Batson, in a statement. “He was 82 years old and would have been 83 in June.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic“I’m 90% sure the reason I’m here is because I have a song called ’22,'” quipped Taylor Swift, delivering the commencement address for New York University’s class of 2022 at a graduation ceremony held Wednesday. The pop superstar was awarded an honorary doctorate before giving a playful and reflective speech that lasted… no, not 22, but a little over 23 minutes.“Last time I was in a stadium this size, I was dancing in heels and wearing a glittery leotard,” Swift noted.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music CriticJust two weeks after the last crop of honorees was formally inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in a medallion ceremony — including the Judds — the next trio of legends to be voted in has been announced, and it includes the name that has most often been cited by Hall-watchers as a snub: the long-overdue Jerry Lee Lewis.Also being ushered in are the late country star Keith Whitley — another figure that many would have like to have seen getting in much sooner — and arguably the most famous still-living executive to have reigned over Music Row, Joe Galante.In stark contrast to the more licentious Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, country’s hall only inducts three or four new members each year, including those who get in via session player or executive categories, which creates a bottleneck that leaves plenty of icons still waiting their turn, making all three of these inductions long-sought and hard-fought by their champions. The inductees were announced in a ceremony at the Hall Tuesday morning by Ronnie Dunn and Kix Brooks, who as Brooks and Dunn are already in the hall themselves.Lewis was voted in as the sole representative of the Veterans Era Artist category, whereas Whitley will be inducted as the lone Modern Era Artist choice for this year.  Galante is getting in in the Non-Performer category, awarded every third year in rotation with Recording and/or Touring Musician and Songwriter categories.“It’s a great honor and a pleasure to be here in the Country Music Hall of Fame,” said Lewis, making an entrance at the end of the morning ceremony.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music CriticDirector Peter Jackson’s eight-hour documentary “The Beatles: Get Back” is set to be released on DVD and Blu-Ray this summer, with the sprawling doc from 2021 finally available in physical editions July 12.If there’s a sense of deja vu to that announcement, it’s because these home video editions were already previously announced to come out six months earlier, but that release was scotched before it happened due to a defect that was detected in the discs.“The Beatles: Get Back” has been originally scheduled to come out Feb. 8, after an initial announcement Jan.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic“Naomi Judd: A River of Time Celebration” was broadcast live on CMT Sunday night two weeks and one day after the country music legend died. But it hadn’t been half that long in the planning. The show’s gestation really came just a week prior to air date, on — appropriately enough — Mother’s Day.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music CriticBrandi Carlile, Yola and Allison Russell lead the nominations for the 2022 Americana Honors & Awards with three nods each, the Americana Music Association announced during a live unveiling Monday afternoon at Nashville’s National Museum of African American Music.Adia Victoria and the duo of Robert Plant and Alison Krauss also fared well in the voting, each drawing two nominations, in a small crop of categories where it’s generally not possible for any artist to get more than three noms in a single year.The Americana Honors & Awards show takes place Sept. 14 at the Ryman Auditorium, and is the flagship event during the AmericanaFest conference, which will take place for a 22nd year at venues around Nashville on Sept.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music CriticThe Billboard Music Awards telecast positioned itself this year as the official awards show of forgiveness for so-called “canceled” stars, with performance slots offered to both Morgan Wallen and Travis Scott. In the case of Wallen, that also extended to a major on-air award, as Wallen was called to the BBMAs’ podium Sunday night to accept a trophy for top country artist.It wasn’t Wallen’s first win at an awards show since his career time-out in early 2021; he won album of the year at the fan-voted Academy of Country Music Awards in March.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music CriticOne of pop culture’s most famous mother figures got a sendoff from her community at the Mother Church of country music Sunday, as Wynonna and Ashley Judd welcomed country stars and other celebrities to Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium for “Naomi Judd: A River of Time Celebration,” a tribute that was broadcast live on CMT.A frequently heaven-looking Wynonna, who with her late mother was half of the country duo the Judds, sang “River of Time” early in the ceremony, then closed it joined by her local Christ Church choir for what was the pair’s final hit, “Love Will Build a Bridge.” She also participated in a recreation of the mother/daughter harmonies by pairing up with Brandi Carlile for a duet of “The Rose,” preceded by a video testimonial by Bette Midler. Pure magic on stage tonight ✨ @Wynonna @brandicarlile pic.twitter.com/5XmUe8EdGA— CMT (@CMT) May 16, 2022“It’s so strange to be here, but natural at the same time,” said Wynonna.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music CriticDavid Crosby’s days on the road are over. The 80-year-old musician declared in a newly published interview that “I’m too old to do it anymore. I’m too old to do it anymore.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music CriticPaul McCartney has something to prove. What that is is between him and his shrink, although maybe a desire to seem and feel undiminished is not as mysterious as all that.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music CriticDanny Elfman comes by his “Strange” love naturally. “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” is the composer’s ninth film with director Sam Raimi and fourth on a Marvel project, but more than that, a kind of controlled insanity has been a part of virtually everything he’s done, going back to Oingo Boingo days, so asking him to make a score both superheroic and super-nuts is not necessarily a tall order.Variety spoke with him a few days after the opening, by which point it was abundantly clear that any worries he had about about the film being too Raimi-esque for the mass audience were unfounded, just like the reservations he’d held about how his twin Coachella performances would go over at that festival last month.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music CriticSocial justice got nearly equal time with branding at the 2022 Clio Awards, as music exec Jason Flom got a special award for his work on criminal justice reform, and a public service spot that married the message of Sandy Hook Promise and Katy Perry’s “Teenage Dream” won a Clio in the “social good” category.Six-time Grammy nominee Yola hosted the event, which was being held during the Music Biz conference in Nashville for the first time, at the Mercy Lounge in Nashville. Organizers further took advantage of the locale to book country music artists Breland and Lily Rose as guest performers.Mary J.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music CriticMusic publishing, a part of the industry that rarely raises its hand to be its hottest or most controversial subject, has recently been an uncharacteristic source of news headlines again and again, due to a seeming gold rush that has major artist-songwriters selling off their catalogs for huge figures. As the chairman-CEO of Sony Music Publishing, Jon Platt naturally has a few thoughts about this crest of cashing in. And they’re mixed, even if he’s not about to wax gloomy about writers getting their due.“There’s no one particular answer to this —  no one-size-fits-all answer, to be honest with you,” Platt said during a keynote Q&A at the annual Music Biz conference in Nashville Wednesday.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music CriticIn paying tribute to Bob Dylan at a concert held during the opening festivities for the Bob Dylan Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Elvis Costello sang an epic, rip-roaring “Like a Rolling Stone,” apparently the first time he’s covered the signature song of his most obvious influence in full in concert. But earlier in the set Costello also did a lesser-known balladic chestnut from the Dylan catalog: “I Threw It All Away.” Of course, that title was the very opposite of the message being sent out by the new museum.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music CriticThe Bob Dylan Center, which had its ribbon-cutting in Tulsa, Oklahoma’s arts district Tuesday morning, is very much a choose-your-own adventure place. The museum’s director, Steven Jenkins, says they tried to make its exhibition spaces equally interesting to “skimmers, swimmers and divers.” Another way to look at it would be that it’s for both big-picture-takers and squinters.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music CriticThe Palm Springs area will live up to its reputation for seediness under the cover of never-ending nights — irony intended — as the Arthur Lyons Film Noir Festival returns to town for its 22nd annual marathon of vintage crime dramas this weekend. Leonard Maltin and TCM “Noir Alley” host Eddie Muller will be among the guest hosts joining festival curator Alan K.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music CriticWho’s introspective? Pete Townshend is, in a new two-hour release from Audible that is effectively a casual audio sequel to his formal autobiography, 2012’s “Who I Am.” The part-talking, part-rocking project, “Somebody Saved Me,” which came out Friday, is an Audible Original that’s essential listening for anyone who cares about the Who, which is a demographic that has a pretty substantial overlap with people who care about rock ‘n’ roll generally.In the 27th installation of Audible’s laudable “Words + Music” series, the Who’s songwriter and guitarist goes deeper into what he calls the Who’s “middle age,” a period that’s bookended roughly by the death of drummer Keith Moon in 1978 on one end and the equally sudden passing of John Entwistle in 2002, a time frame he admits he didn’t deal with as much as he could have in his book. Townshend talks about the band’s on-again, off-again status in the wake of those tragedies and why he and singer Roger Daltrey ultimately carried on in both cases, even as the band’s main creative force has not been shy about sometimes preferring the less lucrative benefits of his solo career over dealing with the band legacy decades on.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music CriticWhen the song “This Love” appeared on Taylor Swift’s “1989” in 2014, it was a bit of a sleeper track that didn’t get undue attention amid the splashier run of singles off that blockbuster album. But fans won’t be sleeping on it today.