Clive Davis Hails to New BMG Chief
Clive Davis has been given a different set of initials, none of which spell out top dog anymore.
The pioneering recording exec is out as chairman and CEO of the BMG label group and will move into the role of chief creative officer of Sony BMG Music Entertainment, which includes RCA Records, Jive, LaFace and Arista, which Davis founded in 1974.
Sony BMG, whose overall holdings also include Columbia and Epic Records, announced Thursday that former Zomba Label Group head Barry Weiss will be the one stepping into Davis' venerable shoes.
Davis, whose industry influence reaches back to the folk and jam bands of the 1970s all the way to today's American Idol-influenced tween culture, had left the company in 2000 to start R&B powerhouse J Records after a series of reported disagreements with Arista owner BMG, but was wooed back into the fold a few years later.
The now 74-year-old visionary was named head of RCA Records in 2003 and appointed chief executive of BMG North America the following year. Over the last 40 years he has had a hand in the creative grooming of musical luminaries ranging from Janis Joplin, Santana and Bruce Springsteen to Whitney Houston, Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears.
And for those younger generations out there, Davis has also had a hand in shaping the careers of the recent influx of Idol-made stars, including Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood and Chris Daughtry via BMG's genre-spanning collection of labels.
Davis will continue to work with top artists in his new position, according to Sony BMG. Neither he nor Weiss have yet commented on the corporate shakeup, which comes just a day after Davis presided over yet another No. 1 debut.
Spirit, the first studio album from 23-year-old J Records chanteuse Leona Lewis, sold 205,000 copies last week, making hers the first freshman effort from a British solo artist to ever open atop the Billboard 200.
"Leona Lewis will not be an overnight sensation," Davis in a statement Wednesday. "She is the real deal and this is just the beginning of a long and illustrious career."
Whether theirs will be a long and fruitful collaboration remains to be seen.
E Street Band’s Keyboard Silenced
The E Street Band is mourning one of its own.
Danny Federici, the longtime organist and keyboard player for the Bruce Springsteen-fronted group, died Thursday afternoon of melanoma at New York's Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.
The rocker, who reportedly battled the disease for three years, was 58.
"Danny and I worked together for 40 yearshe was the most wonderfully fluid keyboard player and a pure natural musician. I loved him very much…we grew up together," Springsteen said in a statement posted on his official website.
After taking a leave of absence from the band in November to focus on his treatment, Federici last performed with Springsteen and the others March 20 in Indianapolis. Concerts scheduled for Friday in Ft. Lauderdale and Saturday in Orlando have been postponed.
"You couldn't help but miss Danny's presence," former Los Angeles Times pop-music critic Roger Hilburn told the paper Thursday, referring to a Springsteen concert he attended last week in Anaheim, Calif. "Without him, the band was not whole."
A native of Flemington, N.J., Federici hooked up with the future Boss in the late 1960s, jamming at the famed Upstage Club in Asbury Park, N.J., and, by 1969, playing in the band Child.
The E Street Band, as it's more or less known todayFederici, saxophonist Clarence Clemons, guitarist Steven Van Zandt, bassist Garry Tallent, Nils Lofgren, drummer Max Weinberg, etc.took shape in the mid-'70s, after which Springsteen and his fellow Jersey boys (and honorary Jersey boys) collaborated on a series of now-classic albums, including the seminal Born to Run in 1975 and 1984's Born in the U.S.A. (which featured Federici on both organ and glockenspiel).
Springsteen took off to do his own thing in the late '80s but reunited with the E Street Band in 1999 for a ragingly successful 15-month world tour.
During their time sans Springsteen, the various bandmates teamed up with each other on solo projects, and in 1997, Federici released the soft-jazz instrumental album Flemington, which he followed up with 2005's Out of a Dream.
Between his two solo projects, Federici hit the studio with Springsteen and the E Street Band to record The Rising, an urgently timely and lyricaland platinum-sellingode to the post-9/11 world, which went on to win the Grammy for Best Rock Album in 2003.
The group's latest effort, Magic, came out Oct. 2 and debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 after moving more than 335,000 copies. It earned a Grammy nod for Best Rock Album, but Springsteen had to be content with only three wins, for Best Rock Solo Vocal Performance and Best Rock Song, both for "Radio Nowhere," and Best Rock Instrumental Performance for "Once Upon a Time in the West."
A Boss Backing for Obama
Does the opinion of Heidi Montag mean nothing to Bruce Springsteen?
In an open letter to "friends and fans," the rock legend said Wednesday he was backing Sen. Barack Obama for president.
"Like most of you, I've been following the campaign and I have now seen and heard enough to know where I stand," Springsteen wrote in a post on his website. "Sen. Obama, in my view, is head and shoulders above the rest."
The endorsement comes two weeks after The Hills' Montag made it known she totally liked Sen. John McCain for the Oval Office.
While Montag said she favored McCain because he's a Republican, like her, Springsteen said he favored Obama because, essentially, he's an E Streeter, like him.
"He speaks to the America I've envisioned in my music for the past 35 years," Springsteen wrote.
Obama returned the compliment.
"The America that Bruce Springsteen has spoken about through song is one of big dreams, unyielding hope, and a resilient, hardworking people who struggle and sacrifice for a country as good as its promise," the senator said in a statement from his campaign.
In his letter, Springsteen implicitly defended Obama against recent attacks over his former pastor's sermons and the senator's own "bitter" people comment, saying the criticisms were "distract[ing] us from discussing the real issues."
Springsteen has long been a critic of President Bush. His 2007 CD, Magic, was an album-length comment on the Iraq War. On 60 Minutes last fall, he dismissed the suggestion that his protests were unpatriotic.
"It's unpatriotic at any given moment to sit back and let things pass that are damaging to some place that you love so dearly," Springsteen told the newsmagazine.
While Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A." was a hallmark of President Reagan's 1984 reelection campaign, much to the annoyance of its author, the musician didn't formally enter presidential politics until 2004, when he granted his first-ever White House endorsement to Sen. John Kerry.
Springsteen's name didn't get Kerry over the hump, and his endorsement comes too late to help Obama in the singer's home state of New Jersey, where Sen. Hillary Clinton won the Democratic primary over Obama in February. Obama, nevertheless, said he was "honored" to have the rocker's support.
In backing Obama, Springsteen joins Oprah Winfrey, George Clooney, Scarlett Johansson, Ed Norton, Larry David and Kal Penn as one of the senator's celebrity campaigners. Donors, per the tracking site FundRace, include Jamie Foxx, Garry Shandling, Linda Ronstadt, Paul Newman, Will Smith, Geena Davis, Grey's Anatomy star Ellen Pompeo, ex-Grey's Anatomy star Isaiah Washington, and Clinton's own Bosnian travel partner, Sinbad.
Clinton's A-list corner includes Barbra Streisand, Rob Reiner, Ted Danson, Ugly Betty's America Ferrera and Magic Johnson. Financial donors include Tom Hanks, Billy Crystal, Bette Midler and Chevy Chase.
Tobey Maguire and Ben Stiller are among those who have cut checks to both Obama and Clinton, the site's records show.
In addition to Montag, McCain has been hyped by 61-year-old Rocky star Sylvester Stallone, and supported financially by 80-year-old singer Andy Williams.
Do Celebs Really Insure Their Body Parts?
What does it mean when a celebrity gets a part of their body insured for millions?Kate, Draper, Utah
Surely you're responding to reports that Tom Jones has insured his chest hair for 6.8 million quid, luv. That rumor surfaced earlier this month.
The Las Vegas staple has denied it, but that's entirely not the point. Plenty of other celebrities have insured various body parts, securing very large, very real payouts if their legs or faces or hands or badonkadonks suddenly go away, or, at least, fail to function on an A-list level.
According to media reports, Lloyd's of London has covered Bruce Springsteen's voice for $6 million, Claudia Schiffer's face for $5 million and Heidi Klum's gams for a single day while she shot a commercial. The reported policy value: $52 million.
(As for the famous ballyhoo about Jennifer Lopez insuring her nether half-moon, Lloyd's has dismissed that chestnut as false.)
For help with this question, I bothered Harry Ennevor, president of E.G. Bowman insurance brokerage, based in Manhattan. As soon as I got him on the blower, he generously offered to insure my incredibly lucrative hands, but seeing as how they're priceless, we were forced to move on to your actual question.
Insurance companies work together with the potential client to decide how much a body part is worth, he says.
"Before they write the insurance policy, they go through the person's history," says Ennevor, who says he helped arrange insurance for Dan Rather's face several years ago. "If you're a writer wanting to insure your hands, we might go into your educational historyhave you written any books, for exampleto see how much the hands might be worth to your income."
To trigger a payout, something really bad has to happen to that insured body part. In the United States, the body part usually has to be completely severed, or gouged, or what have you, Ennevor says. In Europe, policies tend to pay out once someone merely loses the use of said body part. (Hence the popularity of overseas-based outfits like Lloyd's.)
All this said, know this: Insuring a body party is largely a vanity move, experts tell me. Veteran publicist Howard Bragman and Dave Evans, senior veep of the Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of America, both make a good point: Disability insurance already helps to cover potential losses of income. And it's a lot more common.
"Usually," Evans says, "insuring a body part falls under one of three categories: PR, vanity or preference."