Music News - Boston.com

Kid Rock, Rolling Stones on scalping, summer tours

Fri, 24 May 2013 18:30:10 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Kid Rock is a scalper.

Top 20 Concert Tours from Pollstar

Fri, 24 May 2013 14:35:15 GMT

The Top 20 Concert Tours ranks artists by average box office gross per city and includes the average ticket price for shows in North America. The previous week's ranking is in parentheses. The list is based on data provided to the trade publication Pollstar by concert promoters and venue managers.

Shelton, Underwood coming to aid of Oklahomans

Fri, 24 May 2013 01:38:04 GMT

Blake Shelton has a date and location for his benefit and fellow Oklahoman Carrie Underwood is writing a large check to help benefit those affected by this week's storms in their home state.

Harold Shapero, 93; composer’s inventive midcentury scores helped define American neoclassical style

Fri, 24 May 2013 01:31:56 GMT

Harold Shapero, a composer whose series of elegantly inventive midcentury scores helped define the American neoclassical style, died May 17. He was 93 and lived in Natick.

Singer Nick Carter to release memoir Sept. 24

Thu, 23 May 2013 17:18:20 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Nick Carter isn't only writing songs — he's written a book.

Top stars square off for summer tour dollars

Thu, 23 May 2013 17:02:05 GMT

All anyone's been talking about are those aged wonders The Rolling Stones and their 50th-anniversary tour, but there's so much more happening on the road this summer.

Rolling Stones exhibit opening in Cleveland

Thu, 23 May 2013 15:17:58 GMT

CLEVELAND (AP) — Over the years, curators at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum have occasionally had trouble coaxing reluctant stars to help put together major exhibitions. Not so with members of The Rolling Stones, who made time in their packed anniversary schedule to help.

Singer Nick Carter to release memoir Sept. 24

Thu, 23 May 2013 14:55:11 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Nick Carter isn't only writing songs — he's written a book.

Darius Rucker rides 'Wagon Wheel' to top of charts

Thu, 23 May 2013 13:17:34 GMT

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Darius Rucker is a fan of Old Crow Medicine Show, but says he didn't really get what was so infectious about the string band's signature hit "Wagon Wheel" at first.

Fripp’s Orchestra of Crafty Guitarists gathers round a singular sound

Thu, 23 May 2013 00:37:05 GMT

The Orchestra of Crafty Guitarists sprung from Guitar Craft classes and workshops that Robert Fripp first developed nearly 30 years ago. Guitar Craft workshops begat the performance ensemble League of Crafty Guitarists and ongoing Guitar Circles, which now exist around North America, Latin America, and Europe. In 2009, the Orchestra of Crafty Guitarists — a really big guitar circle, if you will — went public with a performance in Spain. This week, the seventh iteration of Orchestra of Crafty Guitarists performs three concerts in the Northeast, starting Friday at the First Church in Cambridge. Fripp and his band of guitarists then head to Wesley United Methodist Church in Hadley on Saturday and conclude the tour at St. Mark’s Church in the Bowery in New York on Sunday.

Composer Omar Thomas seeks harmony

Thu, 23 May 2013 00:33:33 GMT

Omar Thomas and his 18-piece Large Ensemble will present a good chunk of his debut album, “I Am,” as well as a new suite, his LGBT civil rights piece “We Will Know,” this Friday and Saturday (May 24 and 25) at the Davis Square Theatre. Thomas just turned 29, but “I Am” has a kind of state-of-the-art authority. The title track is a classic slow build — from hand percussion and piano establishing the rhythm and principle motif, through development in low reeds, a secondary mid-range theme, and then a sunburst crescendo of high brass and trap drums. Themes morph and develop, but there’s always a song behind Thomas’s layers of harmony, a musical narrative context that holds everything together even when the soloists are running free.

HIGH FIVE: Megan Hilty

Wed, 22 May 2013 23:48:06 GMT

For her role as Ivy Lynn on the NBC musical drama “Smash” — which concludes with a two-hour series finale Sunday at 9 p.m. — Megan Hilty had to do a lot of singing along to playbacks in take after take. Friday at Symphony Hall with the Boston Pops she gets to do what she loves, sing live on stage, just as she did as the star of Broadway musicals like “Wicked” and “9 to 5: The Musical.”

NIGHT WATCH: Military Ball 2013 at Royale

Wed, 22 May 2013 23:47:20 GMT

For the seventh time in Boston, Chris Harris Presents is calling all units to their annual military-theme party and ball. The night will honor our armed forces, featuring hot dance beats, video projections, signature drinks, and wild costumes. While the event caters to the LGBT community, producer and promoter Chris Harris anticipates more than 1,000 guests from all walks of life. “We especially hope to attract service members and we offer free entry only for them,” he said.

The week ahead: Music

Wed, 22 May 2013 23:11:31 GMT

KE$HA & PITBULL On paper, they’re not the most obvious tour mates, except they do share a common goal: To get your body moving. Ke$ha, she of the glittery makeup and gutter-punk attitude, is touring behind last year’s “Warrior,” and rumor has it that a collaborative album with the Flaming Lips is due later this year. May 23, 7:30 p.m. Tickets: $32.50-$132.50. Comcast Center. 800-745-3000, www.livenation.com

A note about Mozart’s 40th, on A Far Cry program Friday

Wed, 22 May 2013 21:56:43 GMT

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Symphony no. 40 (K. 550), which A Far Cry, the Boston-based chamber orchestra, will perform at Jordan hall on Friday, has, in recent years, been turning up in Asian pop music. Both 2004’s “Tri-Angle,” by Korean boy band TVXQ, and 2005’s “Don’t Want to Grow Up,” by Taiwanese girl band S.H.E., borrow the symphony’s minatory opening theme. But both are merely echoing the example of the legendary Indian writer and composer Salil Chowdhury.

NOISY NEIGHBORS: Jeremy Udden, ‘Folk Art’

Wed, 22 May 2013 18:40:33 GMT

Jeremy Udden established himself in Boston as the Lee Konitz-looking-and-sounding saxophonist in Boston’s Either/Orchestra — a bespectacled inventor of light, airy, endless melody. Since decamping for Brooklyn (natch), he’s continued to explore jazz paths (check his and trumpeter John McNeil’s band Hush Point). But he’s also pursued an unclassifiable project named for his Massachusetts hometown, Plainville. The two Plainville discs mixed elements of jazz improvisation with country and rock, abetted by experimental jazz banjo player Brandon Seabrook, oddball keyboards like Fender Rhodes, Wurlitzer piano, and Prophet synth, and by the occasional loud guitar. Those two albums mostly hewed to standard song structures and shuffles or waltz rhythms. The new “Folk Art” is more stripped down.

'Idol' winner rolling out debut album in July

Wed, 22 May 2013 17:39:10 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Candice Glover spent more time on season 12 of "American Idol" than she will on creating her debut album.

Beatles' lyrics headed for British Library

Wed, 22 May 2013 17:25:24 GMT

LONDON (AP) — Shakespeare, the Magna Carta — and now some of John Lennon's finest lyrics.

Beatles' lyrics headed for British Library

Wed, 22 May 2013 16:30:50 GMT

LONDON (AP) — Shakespeare, the Magna Carta — and now some of John Lennon's finest lyrics. The august British Library has added substantially to its already formidable collection with handwritten lyrics to "Strawberry Fields Forever", "She Said She Said" and "In My Life."

Jake Armerding, student musicians perform a benefit concert

Wed, 22 May 2013 15:45:23 GMT

A show celebrating Ipswich’s musical roots is a fund-raiser for a new playground at the town’s Winthrop Elementary School.

Criteria Recording Studios founder Mack Emerman dies

Wed, 22 May 2013 02:23:42 GMT

MIAMI — Mack Emerman — the founder of Criteria Recording Studios, where acts including Eric Clapton, James Brown and the Bee Gees made some of their most famous records — has died after a long illness. He was 89.

Burt Bacharach opens up on daughter's suicide

Wed, 22 May 2013 00:30:41 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Burt Bacharach knew writing a memoir would be emotional — not because of his never-heard backstage tales or his tumultuous marriages. He knew that being honest would force him to come to terms with the death of his daughter.

The top 10 songs and albums on the iTunes Store

Tue, 21 May 2013 20:49:20 GMT

iTunes' Official Music Charts for the week ending May 20, 2013

BSO names Andris Nelsons music director, succeeding James Levine

Tue, 21 May 2013 19:45:12 GMT

Andris Nelsons, the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s new music director, is half James Levine’s age, loves Michael Jackson, and intends to build a close relationship with Boston.

Toby Keith says Okla. hometown is 'resilient'

Tue, 21 May 2013 19:07:05 GMT

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tornadoes are a part of life in Moore, Okla., something country star Toby Keith was reminded of when a deadly, devastating one leveled parts of his hometown on Monday.