Source: MusiCares 2005
Brian Wilson, key member of the Beach Boys, father of Carnie Wilson, and composer extraordinaire will be recognized as the MusiCares 2005 Person of the Year. The star-studded MusiCares event, which coincides with Grammy week, will be held Friday, February 11, at the Hollywood Palladium in Hollywood, CA, and will honor Wilson for his notable accomplishments and contributions as a musician and philanthropist.
The celebration will feature performances by The Backstreet Boys, Barenaked Ladies, Black Eyed Peas, Earth Wind & Fire, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Stevie Wonder, Michael McDonald, Aaron Neville, Richie Sambora and many more. Celebrity attendees will walk away with a gift bag, sponsored by Winfuel and Trimspa., filled with many great items.
Wilson donates his time and talent to such organizations as the Carl Wilson Foundation, dedicated to cancer research; the Adopt-A-Minefield benefit, which serves to find and dispose of land mines around the world; and the Neil Young's Bridge School concert, which serves severely speech-impaired children in the San Francisco Bay Area. In addition to music and honors, the event will host an auction highlighting music and entertainment memorabilia, artwork, and other lavish items with proceeds benefiting the MusiCares' Financial Assistance Program.
MusiCares, founded in 1989 by The Recording Academy. provides aid to people in the music industry who encounter financial, medical, and personal emergencies. The foundation also focuses the resources and attention of the music industry on human service issues that directly impact the health and welfare of the music community. MusiCares 2005 is a celebration that culminates with the 47th Annual Grammy Awards on Sunday, February 13, 2005. For more information on the MusiCares 2005 Person of the Year log onto www.grammy.com/musicares/.
Source: MTV News
"Backstreet Men" doesn't really have the same ring, but make no mistake, the Backstreet Boys are coming back more mature on their first album in five years.
The group, which hasn't released a collection of new music since 2000's Black & Blue, just wrapped sessions for the as-yet-untitled album, which might surprise people expecting the same pop sound of old, according to member Howie Dorough.
"We've been working on it for more than a year now, but it really started taking shape and changing over the past six months," Dorough said. "It's going in a more pop/rock direction, kind of us-meets-Matchbox Twenty /Goo Goo Dolls /Train." Sifting through a pile of 100-150 songs that were written for them, the band recorded 40, including "I Still," "Weird World" and "Incomplete."
"The content of what they're singing about is more serious," co-manager Johnny Wright said of the group, which also includes Kevin Richardson, Brian Littrell, A.J. McLean and Nick Carter. "Two of them are married now, so the subject matter is not, 'I saw you at the drive-in, let's go get a soda,' or 'Go to a club and party all night.' They're singing about relationships and what men go through, not boys."
Dorough said the group purposely took its time on the tracks, even though there was pressure to release an album last year. With the pop music world moving in a more rock-oriented direction since BSB last released an album, Dorough said the extra time was necessary to make sure they fit in with the current scene. "With the direction we're going in now, I think some of these songs you could put on the radio and listen to three or four times and you wouldn't know it was us," he said. "I played some of them for my guy friends who are not into our music at all, and are more into Blink-182 type bands, and they listened to it and dug it."
Coming off a decade-long run of nearly nonstop touring, Dorough said the break they took was also necessary for the group to recharge its batteries. "It gave us more to write about," he said. "You have to experience life to be able to write about it."
The final track listing hasn't been set yet, but the sessions marked a reconnection with uber-pop songwriter Max Martin (Britney Spears, 'NSYNC), who wrote and produced three songs that could make the album (see "What Year Is It? Backstreet Boys Planning World Tour, Working With Max Martin"). Dorough said "Climbing the Walls," "I Still" and the ballad "Siberia" have a harder edge than such memorable Martin-penned BSB hits as "Quit Playing Games (With My Heart)."
Backstreet also hooked up with some new, less likely collaborators.
"Weird World," a "message song" written by Five for Fighting's John Ondrasik, sounds very different for a BSB song at first. "Sent a message to a GI today/ Thank you, man, for sending us another dawn," is one of the lyrics Dorough quoted, explaining, "You can get so caught up in your own world, and on the other side of the world, people are fighting for our freedom. So it's a very timely song with the war going on."
The band has also hooked up with former Savage Garden singer Darren Hayes on the midtempo song "Lift Me Up," as well as the a cappella group Take 6, who produced a song written by Dorough called "Moving On." Their musical heroes, Boyz II Men, collaborated on "Jealous" and Dorough described the Underdogs-produced "Not No More" as "us meets R. Kelly."
Other songs recorded for the album include the uptempo, early Michael Jackson-style "Beautiful Woman" and "Rushing Through Me," which Dorough said was inspired by the "tribal African" feel of Peter Gabriel's "In Your Eyes."
Many of the songs feature live instrumentation and the familiar multi-voice harmonies are less prevalent than in the past. Dorough, 31, said the group ? which wrote or co-wrote 10 songs - has enough material that it could release separate pop/rock and R&B albums if it wanted to, but he suspects the 10-to-15-track final result will be a mix of the two sounds.
The first single, slated for release in mid-February, will be chosen next week, with Dorough pulling for the uptempo, feel-good pop-rocker "I Still." The album is due in early June, with a major tour starting on the Fourth of July weekend. But before that, the Boys are scheduled to play a series of warm-up radio promo dates and House of Blues gigs during the first week of March to reconnect with their audience, according to Wright.
"These guys have been around for 13 years and the fans who were with them 13 years ago grew up like the Backstreet Boys did, and they have different things happening in their lives now," Wright said of the potential for the group's fans to have moved on to other kinds of music. "If younger fans want to jump on, that's great, but we're making a record for the fans who were always there."
-Gil Kaufma
Source: WFTV
POMPANO BEACH, Fla. -- Singer Aaron Carter is safe after his SUV went up in flames after he hit a mattress on Florida's Turnpike. His spokesman says Carter was driving his 2004 Cadillac Escalade to Orlando after midnight Thursday when a mattress came loose from the cargo bed of a delivery van in front of him.
Carter drove over the mattress and it got stuck under his SUV. The mattress caught fire, most likely from the heat of the exhaust system.
The singer pulled over and left the vehicle, then watched it explode in flames. A friend traveling with him also escaped.
Neither Carter nor his friend was seriously hurt.
Carter said it happened in such a whirlwind and it's like the mattress flew out of nowhere. He says he's OK but he's still in shock.
State troopers said the delivery truck never stopped.
Source: Reuters/Yahoo News
By Deborah Evans Price
NASHVILLE (Billboard) - Backstreet Boy Brian Littrell will make his first foray into the Christian music market next fall when he releases his debut solo album.
Littrell is talking to producers, but hasn't nailed anyone down. He does have some songwriters in mind, though.
"I would like to collaborate with Michael W. Smith," he says. "We've been talking about that for years, and now we can start getting these things in motion. I'm looking for outside stuff, and I've got a lot of material in my head as well."
Littrell, who grew up attending a Baptist church with his family in Lexington, Ky., hopes his record will encourage others to be open about their faith.
"I want to say, '(Don't) be afraid ... stand up for what you believe in," he says. "'Don't be afraid to tell your friends that you believe in the higher power."'
Littrell says marriage and fatherhood have strengthened his faith. "My values have changed. I'm in a selfless situation rather than a selfish situation because it's not about me anymore, and that's the way I want my career to be. It's not about me. It's about God."
His album will be released on Nashville-based Provident Music Group's Reunion Records, home to Smith as well as to Casting Crowns and Joy Williams, and a corporate sibling of the Backstreet Boys' Jive/Zomba label.
"We have not taken an artist with 7 million records under his belt and done this before," says Terry Hemmings, president/CEO of Provident Music Group. "But there's such great confidence in Brian. He's genuine and real. People will see that. I know he can sing. We all do. I think people will be interested in buying the record."