music blog

Elton John has announced that his final U.S. show—scheduled for November 20 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles—will be livestreamed on Disney+. The show is part of a deal with Disney that includes the previously announced documentary Goodbye Yellow Brick Road: The Final Elton John Performances and the Years That Made His Legend, which will feature concert footage from throughout his career, excerpts from his journals, and new footage of the singer and his family, including the final three shows in Los Angeles. The concerts echoes a pair of 1975 shows at the stadium that helped propel John to global stardom. He began his Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour in 2018; he rescheduled his original run of U.S. tour dates set for 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. John released the Britney Spears collab...

Ramsey Lewis, the jazz pianist who had a crossover hit in 1965’s “The In Crowd,” died today (September 12) at his home in Chicago. He was 87 years old. Lewis grew up in Chicago and began taking piano lessons at four years old. He was a sworn jazz fan whose first band the Clefs began while he was in high school. The three band members who weren’t drafted in the Korean War—Lewis, Eldee Young, and Redd Holt—formed the Ramsey Lewis Trio. They would go on to perform regularly, release their first album on Chess in 1956, and ultimately release their Grammy-winning hit “The In-Crowd” in 1965. Young and Holt splintered off to form their own band Young-Holt Unlimited, while Lewis would go on to work with Earth, Wind & Fire’s Maurice White. His 1974 album Sun Goddess was produced by White and fe...

Bill Callahan has shared the first song from his forthcoming album YTILAER, which is out October 14 via Drag City. Listen to the new song “Coyotes” below. “We lived for awhile in a house in the hills,” Callahan said of the song in a statement. “Coyote hills. The coyotes would start their song at dawn. Dawn and dusk were their main appearance times. Our dog would sleep outside sometimes in the morning and our boy was still bite-size. The coyotes would come take notes, edging closer each day. Mornings on the kingsize outdoor daybed. Like a righteous floating tide the coyotes would drift into our world. Predator and prey, blurred. Past and present, blurred. The young, the aged are to be snatched and devoured. Past lives edge in closer to try to speak to us. Current lives eye the past ones lik...

Taylor Swift has lost her final attempt to avoid a trial in the copyright lawsuit filed against her by the songwriters behind 3LW’s ‘Playas Gon’ Play,” Rolling Stone reports. Sean Hall and Nathan Butler have accused the singer of lifting the chorus from the 2001 song in her hit “Shake It Off.” U.S. District Judge Michael W. Fitzgerald first denied Swift’s motion to issue a summary judgement in her favor in December, which prompted Swift to file a motion to reconsider. That motion has now been denied, with Judge Fitzgerald noting, “I still think there’s a genuine issue of material fact in part because of the expert opinion.” The case is set to go to trial January 17, 2023. Pitchfork has reached out to representatives for Swift for comment. Hall and Butler originally filed the “Shake It Off”...