Brookes Diamond of Brookes Diamond Productions confirmed he and his wife, Fiona, began planning the Feb. 8 benefit concert in Halifax after seeing news footage on the extent of the devastation in Haiti, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. said Saturday.
“Fiona and I were watching it and saw this complete disaster and right away we just knew — we have to do something. Went to bed with that feeling and woke up and the feeling was still there and so we got to work on it,” Diamond said.
The full list of the performers taking part in the planned Halifax Metro Center concert has yet to be announced. Tickets for the benefit event are $20 with the Red Cross receiving the majority of the concert’s proceeds, Diamond said.
Legendary Music Director at Detroit/Windsor AM powerhouse CKLW, the BIG 8, Rosalie Trombley was known for her “golden ears,” an ability to pick hit records and play tough when a record promoter was trying to pull the wool over her ears. Instrumental in breaking many artists into the Top 40 mainstream, Trombley was one of the first out of the gate to break up-and-comers such as Bob Seger, Alice Cooper, Parliament/Funkadelic, The Guess Who, The Stylistics,The Jackson Five, Elton John, Earth Wind & Fire, Harold Melvin & The Bluenotes, & Kiss.
She was volubable, powerful, classy and memorable. Today, her family and many of her friends are pitching to get Rosalie inducted in to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. One can join and follow the petition on Facebook here
Lighthouse, the triple Juno Award winning band, is celebrating its 40th with a reunion concert at 
the Queen Elizabeth Theatre on February 13. The concert doubles as a showcase for material on the band’s new twofer DVD/CD album, 40 Years of Sunny Days released last October by ole/UniversalMusic.
Lighthouse was one of the first Canadian acts to reach platinum album sales and has performed to standing ovations in the US, UK, Japan, South America, and Canada. They were the first rock band asked to headline the Newport, Monterey and Boston Globe jazz Festivals and along with Jimi Hendrix were the only act invited to perform a second night at the Isle of Wight Festival. The band is known for its outstanding concerts and has been touring recently to promote the new album.
This version of Lighthouse has been together for 17 years and features founding musicians’ Skip Prokop (drums), Paul Hoffert (keys), and Ralph Cole (guitar) along with Russ Little (trombone), Steve Kennedy (sax), Chris Howells (trumpet), and Simon Wallis (sax). Doug Moore (bass) and Don Paulton (keys) round out the ensemble.
Co-founding drummer Skip Prokop says, “Lighthouse’s popularity has never waned. We never expected that 40 years later, we’d still be getting airplay all over the world and playing concerts.”
Juno award winner Sue Foley has teamed up with acclaimed US singer-songwriter Peter Karp on a new Blind Pig album release, entitled He Said – She Said. The collaboration of original songs is an adaptation from letters and e-mail correspondence between the two over a two-year period. They tell the story of two artists in development, in a meeting of hearts and minds. The duo plans to tour in support of the US release .
The Republic has opened its second floor to burgeoning acts in Vancouver. Up-coming shows include Free City Collective, Familia, and By Starlight … John Brower is the subject of a doc in progress, the focus being on his numerous and celebrated concert promotions that included everyone from John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band to Blind Faith, the Vanilla Fudge and Led Zeppelin … Another doc in the works covers the sites and sounds of Toronto’s Yonge Street back in the day when it was vibrant with taverns and lounges playing R&R, blues, R&B and jazz … ‘Peace Believer’ is the title of rock historian Ritchie Yorke‘s upcoming insider autobiog, subtitled ‘How I Broke Up The Beatles’… A complete list of acts performing at the ‘Beaver Suite’ at the Memphis Int. Folk Alliance conference, Feb. 18-21 can be found by linking here.
The Audio Recording Academy is now offering internship opportunities with EMI Music Publishing Canada … Nettwerk One Music is now global publishing rep for Toronto-based electronic music imprint, Upper Class Recording … George Stroumboulopoulos tells the National Post he would like to see Cancon legislation put in place for movie theatres … Richard Flohil keynotes the 26th annual Int. Blues Challenge in Memphis, Jan. 20 … Elton, James Taylor, CS&N, kd lang, Jackson Browne, Norah Jones and others to sing Neil Young‘s praises in LA.
RadioThatDoesntSuck.com (RTDS) has added Sirius/XM’s Michael Tearson as new host. Tearson, 
host of shows on Sirius/XM’s Bluesville, Classic Vinyl and Deep Tracks, plans on opening his vault of nearly 1900 hours of classic content, as well as developing new shows exclusively for RTDS
He has been a DJ since the dawn of the album rock format,lived his adult working life on the airwaves and he has appeared in nearly 50 films and TV shows, including Blow Out, Dressed to Kill and Wise Guys (a De Palma trifecta!), 12 Monkeys, Oceans 11 and In Her Shoes. Additionally, is record reviews appear regularly in Sing Out! and The Audiophile Voice.
Guitarist Jimmy Page, Aerosmith, and the Black Eyed Peas will headline a free April concert on Beijing’s Olympic Green. The “Show of Peace,” is scheduled for April 17 to mark Earth Day, which is celebrated each year to promote awareness of environmental issues, promoter Rick Garson said.
He called it the first-ever global peace and environment concert in China featuring world famous celebrities and musicians.”Tickets are free. You can’t charge for peace and green. It is going to be for everybody, it’s like China’s gift to the world and the people,” Garson told reporters.
“What we are going to do is raise money, obviously, from sponsorship, international distribution, merchandising, Internet, ringtones, DVDs, CDs. That’s how we are doing it, it is being self-funded as we speak.”
Organisers were also talking with other artists about performing, such as Pearl Jam, Lady Gaga, Green Day, and 50 Cent, while numerous Chinese musicians were being brought in too, he said.
Organisers hope the concert will be beamed live around the world via television and the Internet to mark this year’s 40th anniversary of Earth Day.
“My belief in music as a universal language is the reason I returned to Beijing to voice my support for the Show of Peace,” said Page, who performed the Led Zeppelin classic “Whole Lotta Love” at the closing ceremony of the Beijing Olympics last year.
Elvis Presley would have been 75 this month, and all over the world, from Memphis to Sydney, Denver to London, the King’s fans have been celebrating his legacy. You can be sure that at every one of those celebrations, somebody’s singing “Hound Dog.â€
As it happens, the man who wrote it was in New York this week, working on a new Broadway show. Mike Stoller is one half of the legendary rock ’n’ roll songwriting team Leiber and Stoller, whose hits include “Yakety Yak,†“Stand By Me,†“On Broadway,†“Is That All There Is?†and many, many others.
Stoller wrote the music, Jerry Leiber the lyrics.
I ran into Stoller at a bar in the Theater District and asked him to tell me about “Hound Dog†and Elvis.
“We wrote the song for [blues singer] Big Mama Thornton,†he recalls. “We met her at a recording studio in Los Angeles, and were just knocked out by her. She was tough-looking. She had razor scars on her face, she wore overalls and work boots and she weighed about 300 pounds.
“She was the inspiration for the song. We jumped into the car and went back to my house and wrote it in 10 minutes. Then we went back and played it for her. She was not eager to see these two white teenagers tell her how to sing the blues, but she recorded it the next day.â€
A few years later, Presley, whose career was just starting to take off, heard Freddie and the Bellboys sing “Hound Dog†in Vegas. They’d turned it into a guy’s song, and Presley decided to record it. New York Post
9 Trends: Here is a list of 9 trends and challenges that were recently published as part of an overall report on Digital Music by Redwood Capital. You can download the entire report here. What I find most bothersome about all of this is that it is a very backward looking, rationalization and justification about the collapse of the recorded music business and the fantasizing about protection of the label’s assets and proliferation of the traditional business model. While it may be a good snapshot of some of the major issues the industry has faced and a good way for people to orient themselves, this is hardly the way to think about the future. No wonder the investments made in music startups over the past decade or so by the VCs and Investment Bankers have not panned out. If this is the way VCs and investors look at the world of music, I got to tell you, we are all in a lot of trouble.
I have pitched and have had many deep discussions with investors over the years about the music industry and have learned one thing that is holding the entire industry back. Investors say they care about the music business, but when it comes right down to it, they don’t care about the musicians. Not one of them would bet on a new label or artist driven business model. They all wanted to back technology or distribution, but not musicians. Pathetic.
I have taken the liberty of annotating some of these “treneds and challenges†below:
1) Rampant Piracy Continues
2) Strategy of Major Labels
3) Legal Complexity
4) The End of DRM
5) Mobile Strategy is Critical
6) Dominance and Importance of the iPhone
7) Importance of Wireless Broadband
8 ) Consumers Remain Willing to Pay for Exciting New Technologies and Products
9) Convergence of Models
Read in entirety: David Kusek, Future Of Music
