Fogerty enlists Springsteen, Eagles for covers set
NEW YORK (Billboard) – John Fogerty's "The Blue Ridge Rangers Rides Again," a new collection of some of the veteran rocker's favorite classic songs, is set for release September 1.
The Verve Forecast project, recorded under the guise of the mythical group of his 1972 solo debut, includes guest spots from Bruce Springsteen and members of the Eagles.
It features covers of songs by John Prine, Buck Owens and John Denver, among others, as well as Fogerty's own "Change in the Weather."
Fogerty produced "...Rides Again" with help from former Warner Bros. executive Lenny Waronker at The Village Recorder studio in West Los Angeles. Rather than the one-man-band affair of the original "Blue Ridge Rangers" album, the new set features studio pros such as drummer Kenny Aronoff, guitarists Buddy Miller and Hunter Perrin, and former Jane's Addiction bass player Chris Chaney.
"Those guys are just fantastic players," Fogerty told Billboard. "They really captured or understood what the Blue Ridge Rangers vibe is. It's a really cool record."
The Eagles' Don Henley and Timothy B. Schmit harmonize on Rick Nelson's "Garden Party," while Springsteen duets with Fogerty on the Everly Brothers' classic "When Will I Be Loved."
Fogerty hopes to put the Blue Ridge Rangers on the road once the album is out.
"Lord knows we played it great live in the studio -- it's probably more live than many rock 'n' roll records," he said. "I think it really needs to be presented that way to an audience. We'll have to wait and see how everything shapes up."
The full track list for "The Blue Ridge Rangers Rides Again" is:
"Paradise" (John Prine)
"Never Ending Song of Love" (Bonnie Bramett/Delaney Bramlett)
"Garden Party" (Rick Nelson)
"I Don't Care (Just As Long As You Love Me)" (Buck Owens)
"Back Home Again" (John Denver)
"I'll Be There (If You Ever Want Me)" (Ray Price/Rusty Gabbard)
"Change in the Weather" (John Fogerty)
"Moody River" (Gary Bruce)
"Heaven's Just a Sin Away" (Jerry Gillespie)
"Fallin' Fallin' Fallin'" (D. Deckleman/J. Guillot/J.D. Miller)
"Haunted House" (Robert L.Geddins)
"When Will I Be Loved" (Phil Everly)
Sony bids $50 million for Jackson rehearsal film
LOS ANGELES – Sony Corp.'s movie studio has bid $50 million to acquire the worldwide distribution rights to a film based on rehearsal footage for Michael Jackson's "This Is It" comeback concert series, according to a person familiar with the bid.
The person said Monday that the bid came after several studios, including Paramount, Universal and 20th Century Fox, were shown footage starting early last week. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the bidding had not been completed. None of the studios would comment on the record.
The winning studio would produce the film with Jackson's concert promoter, AEG Live, and his estate. It would go a long way to helping AEG Live recoup some of the $30 million to $32 million it spent producing the concert before Jackson died June 25.
The bidding was reported earlier by the Los Angeles Times and industry blogger Nikki Finke.
Sony Pictures has a leg up on other bidders because Sony Music distributes Jackson's music and is in a 50-50 partnership with his estate in Sony/ATV Music Publishing. Sony's bid is on par with the cost of making a mid-range budget movie, and is offset by the fact that the Sony group of companies would benefit from the music licensing rights attached to the film.
There is also massive interest in Jackson material worldwide. An estimated 31 million viewers in the U.S. alone watched the Jackson memorial service live earlier this month, according to Nielsen Media Research. That's just shy of the 33 million U.S. viewers who watched Princess Diana's funeral.
"This type of a story, if put together right, could be very compelling and draw a very, very wide audience," said Mark Fleischer, an entertainment attorney with Venable LLP and former executive at MGM Studios.
The estate and AEG Live are also negotiating with several television networks and pay-per-view outlets on a TV special that would be a stage show featuring Jackson's music and dancing. It would be directed by "This Is It" director Kenny Ortega.
The selling price being discussed for the rights to show the TV special is also in the tens of millions of dollars.
General Electric Co.'s NBC has been in talks on the TV show, but the concept, air date and cost for the rights has not been finalized, said NBC spokeswoman Rebecca Marks.
"We have no deal for the rights to the Michael Jackson special," Marks said.
The special administrators of Jackson's estate, attorney John Branca and former music executive John McClain, have been moving quickly to secure Jackson's assets and cut deals to capitalize on the surge in interest in the pop star since he died.
Last week, Branca and McClain received signed court papers authorizing them to act on his estate's behalf until another hearing Aug. 3. McClain has been sorting through unreleased Jackson recordings, while Sony Music is interested in releasing a commemorative album. Music sales have soared.
Jackson's 2002 will named Branca and McClain as executors and directs all of his assets to be placed in a trust that will benefit his mother Katherine Jackson, his three children, and unnamed children's charities. The estate is estimated to be worth more than $500 million.
But Katherine Jackson's lawyers on Friday sought a judge's ruling on whether she can challenge the authority of the men without triggering a "no contest" clause in the trust that would cause her to be disinherited.
Beastie Boy Adam Yauch has 'very treatable' cancer
NEW YORK – Beastie Boy Adam Yauch has what is described as a "very treatable" cancerous tumor in his salivary gland.
An announcement came Monday from the group, which is canceling its tour dates and postponing an album release.
A statement says the tumor was found early. It's confined to one area and is considered very treatable.
He will need surgery and other treatment, but the statement says his vocal cords will not be affected.
The 43-year-old Yauch is not only part of the pioneering rap group, but has also emerged as a film producer.
New Pirate Bay owners to introduce fees
One of the world's largest file sharing websites, The Pirate Bay, is going legal through a series of give-and-take payment models that in some cases may even earn its users a bundle of cash, the new owners said Saturday.
"The more you give, the more you get," said Hans Pandeya, chief executive of Swedish software firm Global Gaming Factory X, which announced last month it was buying the site and would start paying both content providers and copyright holders.
The change in ownership was met with skepticism by the file sharing community who feared that, by taking The Pirate Bay legal, its new operators would start charging them for downloading content such as films, music and computer games, which they had previously accessed for free.
In April, four men connected with the site were sentenced to one-year prison terms for abetting violations of copyright law, and ordered to pay a fine totalling 30 million kronor ($4.28 million). At least three of the men claim they haven't owned the site for years.
Pandeya said his company bought the site from a foreign company through lawyers and he doesn't know who the current owners are, but that none of the prosecuted men seemed to be involved.
When the deal was announced, Pirate Bay spokesman and one of defendants, Peter Sunde, said however that he and his associates were pleased with GGF's plans for the site since they felt they couldn't take it any further — lacking both money and resources to do so. Sunde could not be reached for comment Saturday.
Pandeya said The Pirate Bay, whose domain name and related websites were bought by Global Gaming Factory X for 60 million kronor ($8.56 million), will not become like pure pay sites, such as the iTunes Store and Napster.
"For the great majority it will be free of charge, for a minority it will actually make them money, and for a small portion it will cost them," he said.
'File sharers are our best friends,' new owner says
Pandeya said plans are underway to introduce a monthly fee to be able to use The Pirate Bay, but he said the fee could be worked off by, for example, sharing downloaded content or lending storage capacity to others on their PCs in exchange.
"We know that unless we're able to create revenues for the file sharers they'll just move on to the next free site," he said. "File sharers are our best friends."
Pandeya also said other give-and-take packages were in the works, but declined to elaborate, saying more details would be revealed in the next few weeks.
The site, under its new management, is expected to be launched in about a month's time. It will also raise money through advertising and by making network data traffic cheaper and more efficient for internet service providers.
This would be done by making the file sharing more local, allowing users in the same city to be interconnected as opposed to swapping data across multiple borders.
GGF claims the site will fully address the legal issues that troubled it before because income will be distributed between file sharers, copyright holders and others involved.
Pandeya said that although no deals have been struck yet, his company is currently in negotiations with some of "the world's largest players" within the music industry. "It's been positive," he said, declining to name the companies involved in the talks.
Marshmallow 'moon' marks NASA anniversary
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – NASA is celebrating the 40th anniversary of man's first steps on the lunar surface with a giant moon pie.
The concoction of marshmallow squeezed between two round graham crackers and dipped in chocolate is normally made in a hand-sized portion.
NASA's oversized treat will be available a slice at a time to visitors Monday to the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Cape Canaveral
The anniversary moon pie is 40 inches in diameter, six inches high and weighs 55 pounds. That includes six pounds of chocolate and 14 pounds of marshmallow.