Living Colour opens 2025 Songwriters Hall of Fame to honor new inductee George Clinton
NEW YORK (AP) — The funk rock group Living Colour opened an energetic 2025 Songwriters Hall of Fame Thursday night with a cover of Funkadelic's 'Cosmic Slop' to honor new inductee George Clinton.
It set the tone for an event with a lot to celebrate, and even more to remember. Just one day after it was announced that the inimitable Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys had died, his bandmate Mike Love will be inducted into the 2025 Songwriters Hall of Fame.
The gala, held at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York City Thursday night, also features inductees spanning genre, an inspiring mix of funk, rock, R&B, country and beyond: The Doobie Brothers, Ashley Gorley, Rodney 'Darkchild' Jerkins and Tony Macaulay.
Is there funk without George Clinton? Is there groove? From Parliament/Funkadelic to his solo work, Clinton is an innovator of American popular music — a long-overdue inductee heard on timeless hits (like 'Atomic Dog' and 'Give Up The Funk (Tear the Roof off the Sucker)' but also across the songs of Kendrick Lamar, Tupac, OutKast, Dr. Dre, Busta Rhymes, Missy Elliot, De La Soul and beyond.
Previously, Clinton was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1997. He received a lifetime achievement award at the Grammys in 2019.
The Doobie Brothers — the inducted members are Tom Johnston, Michael McDonald and Patrick Simmons — are known the world over for their rootsy rock 'n' roll, particularly for their No. 1 hits 'What A Fool Believes' and 'Black Water.' They went into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2020.
Ashley Gorley is an unmistakable name in the world of country music. Groundbreaking producer Rodney 'Darkchild' Jerkins, whose touch is heard across countless R&B and pop hits, and legendary English songwriter Tony Macaulay, known for such classics as The Foundations' 'Build Me Up Buttercup' and 'Baby Now That I've Found You.'
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Last year's inductees included Steely Dan, R.E.M., Timbaland, Hillary Lindsey and Dean Pitchford. At the induction ceremony last summer, R.E.M. stunned attendees by reuniting for an acoustic version of their alt-rock hit, 'Losing My Religion.'
The Songwriters Hall of Fame was established in 1969 to honor those creating popular music. A songwriter with a notable catalog of songs qualifies for induction 20 years after the first commercial release of a song. Some already in the hall include Gloria Estefan, Carole King, Paul Simon, Billy Joel, Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora, Elton John and Bernie Taupin, Brian Wilson, James Taylor, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, Lionel Richie, Bill Withers, Neil Diamond and Phil Collins.
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Toronto Sun
2 hours ago
- Toronto Sun
Stop blaming ‘Jaws' for ruining movies
Published Jun 13, 2025 • 6 minute read Robert Shaw, Roy Scheider and Richard Dreyfuss in Jaws. SunMediaArchive The impact of 'Jaws' on contemporary cinema has been so thoroughly researched, prosecuted and scientifically proved that it has taken on the contours of catechism: Lo, it came to pass that Steven Spielberg's adaptation of Peter Benchley's best-selling novel about a man-eating great white shark opened in a record number of theatres, became the first film to earn more than $100 million at the box office and thus invented the modern Hollywood blockbuster, transforming and redefining (or – tomato/tomahto – ruining and destroying) American movie culture forever and ever. Amen and pass the popcorn. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Don't have an account? Create Account It's true that in 1975, when it was released in more than 400 theatres, 'Jaws' became the first motion picture to break the $100 million barrier in gross box office receipts, a record George Lucas's 'Star Wars' would annihilate two years later. Together, Spielberg and Lucas would be credited – and blamed – for ushering in an inflationary era in Hollywood that has continued for 50 years, wherein the budgets and visual effects and escapist fantasies got bigger and the ideas got commensurately smaller. With the craven pursuit of ever jumpier jump scares and wall-to-wall marketing campaigns and the chronic merch-fever and sequel-itis, the conventional wisdom goes: We're living in a world that 'Jaws' made. To which its most ardent lifelong admirers rightly respond: If only. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Five decades on, it's easy to forget just how remarkably undiluted the pleasures of 'Jaws' were, and how unassailable its craft. Spielberg was 27 when he made it, having grown up a movie-mad kid in Arizona; he dramatized the transformative experience of seeing 'The Greatest Show on Earth' with his parents in his 2022 biographical film, 'The Fabelmans.' Unlike many of his baby-boom peers, he didn't go to a top film school, instead learning on his feet while directing episodes of 'Columbo' and 'Night Gallery.' By the time he directed 'Jaws,' he had made 'Duel' and 'The Sugarland Express,' each a demonstration of Spielberg's savant-like command of visual storytelling at its most primal and emotionally instinctive. Your noon-hour look at what's happening in Toronto and beyond. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. 'Jaws' would prove to be an expression of those qualities at their most impressive and, frankly, disarmingly simple. As a movie, it's an exercise in superb technique in every area: Take one element away, and it doesn't work. 'Jaws' isn't 'Jaws' without John Williams's musical score, its thumping ostinato eerily echoing the sound of two legs kicking underwater. Its sense of immediacy dissipates without the exquisite camerawork of director of photography Bill Butler and his team, who faced the arduous challenge of filming the boat scenes on the open water with handheld equipment, and who ingeniously filmed the swimming scenes at water level, to make audiences feel like they were in danger, too. The shark created by production designer Joe Alves and special effects master Robert Mattey for 'Jaws' – with nary a computer program in sight – was a famous disaster: It kept malfunctioning at crucial moments during a production that went famously over budget and over schedule. So – with the help of editor Verna Fields – Spielberg hid the villain for as long as possible, bringing it into view in short, terrifying bursts: The first, full-on shot of the fish, while Roy Scheider obliviously chums in the foreground, was an instant classic, thanks to Fields's quick cut to his stunned reaction. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Even the screenwriting in 'Jaws' reflects Hollywood's art-by-committee at its best: While the script is credited to Benchley and Carl Gottlieb, its most memorable monologue, boat captain Quint's mesmerizing recollection of the real-life USS Indianapolis disaster during World War II, was a constantly rewritten product of Gottlieb, screenwriters Howard Sackler and John Milius, and the actor himself. (Also true to sacred Hollywood tradition, the authorship of the speech has been the subject of decades-long mythology and debate.) Quint, of course, was played by Robert Shaw in a performance that became instantly indelible. Along with Richard Dreyfuss's motormouthed scientist and Scheider's mild-mannered, bespectacled police chief, Quint was the most important element of 'Jaws,' which was a monster movie, sure, but was just as thoroughly satisfying as a character-driven drama. Shaw, Dreyfuss and Scheider were three of a handful of professional actors who appeared in the film; many of the supporting roles and all of the background performers were cast with locals from Martha's Vineyard, where 'Jaws' was filmed, lending it that much more analog realism. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. In 1975, people didn't just flock to theatres to see 'Jaws' – they flocked and re-flocked, partly to chase the endorphin rush but also because they loved those guys. 'Jaws' might have initiated a whole new era of blockbusters, but at its best, it was also an excellent hangout movie. And it exemplified filmgoing as a supremely collective experience, where one's fellow spectators provide as much pleasure as what's up on screen. In Laurent Bouzereau's upcoming documentary for National Geographic, 'Jaws The Definitive Inside Story,' the director Guillermo del Toro giddily recalls his first experience seeing the film, observing how 'the whole theatre reacted like a musical instrument.' It's now taken as gospel that 'Jaws' was the first blockbuster, but that's not entirely true. In his wise and witty 2004 book, 'Blockbuster: How Hollywood Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Summer,' the film writer Tom Shone smartly deconstructs the myths that have attached to Spielberg and Lucas, and their respective roles in creating blockbuster culture, pointing out that we've had blockbusters for as long as pictures have moved. The difference was that, in the era of 'Gone With the Wind' and, later, 'The Sound of Music,' it was the audience who conferred blockbuster status on a film, by going to see it in huge numbers. It only became a preexisting identifier in the 1970s when, as Shone wrote, the term became 'the name a movie calls itself, before it is even out of the gate.' This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. During the 1960s, Hollywood was put on its back foot by its own hidebound tastes, having missed the cultural signals of the decade and stubbornly sticking to stale formulas. By the time 'Jaws' came out, the industry was on the upswing again thanks to hits like 'Love Story,' 'The Godfather' and 'Airport' – wildly different movies that could fairly be called blockbusters in their own right. If 'Jaws' was heir to anything, it was 'The Exorcist,' another bestseller adaptation, which became a literal monster hit in 1973. In other words, while it was adroitly conceived and exceptionally well made, 'Jaws' wasn't an outlier but a continuation of a post-1960s, post-Watergate trend in which filmmaking returned to reassuringly familiar genres that lured filmgoers back into theatres. It's a trend that never really faded and, in the hands of practitioners like Ridley Scott, Kathryn Bigelow, Denis Villeneuve and Ryan Coogler, has resulted in some thrilling advances in visual language. What is Sean Baker's 'Anora' if not another hooker-as-Cinderella fantasy, given harder edges and a club-drug buzz? This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. There's no doubt that movies have gotten progressively less sophisticated since 'Jaws,' and Spielberg's own 'childlike wonder' era arguably gave an entire generation of adults new warrant to demand less moral complexity from their screen narratives. Paradoxically, those nuances found a welcoming home on the very medium Spielberg fled to direct features: television. Meanwhile, 'Star Wars,' closely followed by 'Superman' in 1978, sealed the fate of modern mainstream filmmaking, which has been on a single-minded mission to squeeze every comic book, TV show and whiff of culture nostalgia until it's an empty husk of callbacks, CGI Easter eggs and guilty pleasure needle drops. The trajectory has been a terrible one. But please, don't blame 'Jaws' by confusing its simplicity with being simplistic. When filmgoers are bemoaning the current state of too-big, too-empty, too-sequelized movies, and diagnosing where the metastasis began, they would do well to remember that 'Jaws' isn't patient zero but the antidote. 'Jaws' is undoubtedly a vehicle for spectacle and sensation. But underneath its roiling surface lurks an efficient, flawlessly constructed mechanism of entertainment at its purest. Spectacle and sensation will always drive Hollywood – it's the ballyhoo that gets us through the door. But in the escalating arms race of shocks and synthetic dazzlement, 'Jaws' still keeps us coming back, reminding us that the fundamentals – character, visceral storytelling, authenticity and humanism – will always be the greatest show on Earth. World Toronto Maple Leafs Canada Toronto & GTA Celebrity
Winnipeg Free Press
21 hours ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Living Colour opens 2025 Songwriters Hall of Fame to honor new inductee George Clinton
NEW YORK (AP) — The funk rock group Living Colour opened an energetic 2025 Songwriters Hall of Fame Thursday night with a cover of Funkadelic's 'Cosmic Slop' to honor new inductee George Clinton. It set the tone for an event with a lot to celebrate, and even more to remember. Just one day after it was announced that the inimitable Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys had died, his bandmate Mike Love will be inducted into the 2025 Songwriters Hall of Fame. The gala, held at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York City Thursday night, also features inductees spanning genre, an inspiring mix of funk, rock, R&B, country and beyond: The Doobie Brothers, Ashley Gorley, Rodney 'Darkchild' Jerkins and Tony Macaulay. Is there funk without George Clinton? Is there groove? From Parliament/Funkadelic to his solo work, Clinton is an innovator of American popular music — a long-overdue inductee heard on timeless hits (like 'Atomic Dog' and 'Give Up The Funk (Tear the Roof off the Sucker)' but also across the songs of Kendrick Lamar, Tupac, OutKast, Dr. Dre, Busta Rhymes, Missy Elliot, De La Soul and beyond. Previously, Clinton was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1997. He received a lifetime achievement award at the Grammys in 2019. The Doobie Brothers — the inducted members are Tom Johnston, Michael McDonald and Patrick Simmons — are known the world over for their rootsy rock 'n' roll, particularly for their No. 1 hits 'What A Fool Believes' and 'Black Water.' They went into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2020. Ashley Gorley is an unmistakable name in the world of country music. Groundbreaking producer Rodney 'Darkchild' Jerkins, whose touch is heard across countless R&B and pop hits, and legendary English songwriter Tony Macaulay, known for such classics as The Foundations' 'Build Me Up Buttercup' and 'Baby Now That I've Found You.' Weekly A weekly look at what's happening in Winnipeg's arts and entertainment scene. Last year's inductees included Steely Dan, R.E.M., Timbaland, Hillary Lindsey and Dean Pitchford. At the induction ceremony last summer, R.E.M. stunned attendees by reuniting for an acoustic version of their alt-rock hit, 'Losing My Religion.' The Songwriters Hall of Fame was established in 1969 to honor those creating popular music. A songwriter with a notable catalog of songs qualifies for induction 20 years after the first commercial release of a song. Some already in the hall include Gloria Estefan, Carole King, Paul Simon, Billy Joel, Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora, Elton John and Bernie Taupin, Brian Wilson, James Taylor, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, Lionel Richie, Bill Withers, Neil Diamond and Phil Collins.
Edmonton Journal
a day ago
- Edmonton Journal
Pope Leo XIV sports Chicago White Sox hat at the Vatican
Article content If anyone still had a single doubt about where the Pope's allegiance lies between Chicago's two bastions of baseball, that debate was put rest. White smoke rose from the Sistine Chapel chimney last month to signify a new pope had been elected and now a White Sox hat has confirmed the first American pontiff's baseball allegiance. Article content Among those he met were a bride and groom who also appeared to be fans of the AL Central ball club. Robert Francis Prevost became the first-ever American pope in early May, succeeding Pope Francis, who died at the age of 88 after a lengthy battle with double pneumonia. After he was chosen as the new leader of the Catholic church last month, it was initially reported that the Pope Leo was a Cubs fan. In fact, the team congratulated him in a post on X that had a picture of Wrigley Field's marquee with the message: 'HEY, CHICAGO. HE'S A CUBS FAN!' — Chicago Cubs (@Cubs) May 8, 2025 Article content Article content But that news quickly was refuted by the Pope's own brother, as well as some resurfaced video footage. 'He was never ever a Cubs fan, so I don't know where that came from,' John Prevost told local Chicago station WGN TV. 'He was always a Sox fan. Our mother was a Cubs fan. I don't know, maybe that clued in there and our dad was a Cardinals fan, so I don't know where all that came from. 'And all the aunts, our mom's family was from the north side, so that's why they were Cubs fans.' The Cubs claimed Pope Leo XIV was a Cubs fan. Sox fans found receipts of him attending Game 1 of the 2005 World Series. — Barstool Chicago (@barstoolchicago) May 9, 2025 Article content Online sleuths also were able to dig up footage of Pope Leo wearing White Sox gear while attending Game 1 of the 2005 World Series against the Houston Astros. While Pope Leo does support the Sox, the team could use some divine intervention. Heading into Thursday's games, Chicago has the second-worst record in the majors at 23-45 and sits 11 games behind the Kansas City Royals for fourth place in the AL Central. Article content Latest National Stories
