Latest news with #Gramm
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Peoria Riverfront Market Returns for its 22nd season this Saturday
PEORIA, Ill. (WMBD) — The sights, sounds, and flavors of summer are returning to downtown Peoria as the Peoria Riverfront Market kicks off its 22nd season this Saturday. A Central Illinois staple for over two decades, the market opens at 8 a.m. and runs until noon along the scenic riverfront. Visitors can expect to find an abundance of locally grown fruits and vegetables, along with a wide variety of homegrown and handmade goods. This year's market will feature more than 115 vendors from across the region, offering everything from fresh produce and baked goods to artisanal crafts and local artwork. Sharon Gramm, Executive Director of the Peoria Riverfront Association, said the market has evolved into much more than a place to buy fresh food. 'We like to support our local downtown businesses,' said Gramm. 'We hope people will come down, enjoy the market, maybe have lunch or brunch at one of the surrounding restaurants, visit the museum, and support all the businesses downtown. And so this market's become more than just a farmers market. It's a big community event. It helps support small businesses, and it helps support our downtown.' The Peoria Riverfront Market will be held every Saturday through September, offering residents and visitors alike a chance to connect with local producers and the broader community. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
'80s Rock Band Singer, 75, Nails New Performance of Beloved Hit
When you picture the sound of the '80s and go through the greatest hits of the decade, you are undoubtedly going to think of Foreigner. The recent Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame inductees cemented their sound throughout the '80s as one of its most dominant bands, with hits like "Cold as Ice," "Waiting for a Girl Like You," and their biggest hit, "I Want to Know What Love Is." The song was an instant chart topper and continued climbing up through the 2000s. Even if you didn't know Foreigner, you would certainly know that song. Part of its success can be attributed to Lou Gramm, the iconic voice behind the tune. His vocals are an iconic part of rock music, and made that sound what it is. Gramm hasn't been a part of the band for a while, however, recently, a group of fans in the audience at a Foreigner show got to see something special. It was a huge shock to see how good Gramm still is when performing this iconic track. Fans had similar reactions in the comments. "This is the best I have heard him in a while. Will always love him. 🥰" "Only one LOU Gramm ever!!! Kudos for still trying after your long absence. Not your time to give up YET!!! LOVEEEEE YOU!!!!!" "Goose bumps ....... anyone else ??? What a great voice still. ❣️❣️" Gramm seems to have only gotten better with age. Hopefully, we will see him return to Foreigner more consistently in the future! 🎬SIGN UP for Parade's Daily newsletter to get the latest pop culture news & celebrity interviews delivered right to your inbox🎬
Yahoo
07-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Legendary Rock Band Rereleases Hit Song Like You've Never Heard Before
Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Generate Key Takeaways Even if you aren't an avid listener of classic rock, there's a good chance you've sung along to one of Foreigner's songs. After all, the legendary band is responsible for hits like 'Feels Like the First Time,' 'Double Vision,' 'Juke Box Hero,' 'Cold As Ice,' 'Hot Blooded,' 'I Want to Know What Love Is,' and 'Urgent.' On Friday, May 2, Foreigner actually released a reimagined version of 'Urgent' to honor their Latin American fans. That's right, you can listen to the beloved tune in Spanish! The new Spanish-language version is performed by Foreigner's Luis Maldonado. 🎬SIGN UP for Parade's Daily newsletter to get the latest pop culture news & celebrity interviews delivered right to your inbox🎬 'We've been embraced by fans in Latin America for decades,' the guitarist and vocalist said in a press release. 'Recording these songs in Spanish is our way of saying thank you and sharing the music in a more intimate, personal way.' Foreigner is currently rocking on their 2025 South American Tour, consisting of shows in Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, and more. Foreigner was formed in 1976 in New York City. The founders of the band were Mick Jones, Ian McDonald, and Lou Gramm. Nowadays, Foreigner's lineup features Kelly Hansen on lead vocals, Jeff Pilson on bass, Bruce Watson and Luis Maldonado on guitars, Michael Bluestein on keyboards, and Chris Frazier on drums. Related: Bruce Springsteen Keeps Touring—and the Paycheck Doesn't Hurt Gramm, 75, has also joined the band onstage while touring South America. "I think we're gonna continue doing this type of thing for another year or so ... [After the Latin American tour] I'm doing Southeast Asia, I'm doing Europe and next year I'm doing the whole of the U.S,' he said in an interview with Brazil's 92.5 Kiss FM radio station, per As for Maldonado singing some of Foreigner's biggest hits in Spanish, Gramm is all for it. "We just talked about it within the last two weeks, and we decided that when we play areas of the world where Spanish is the dominant language, Luis, who has a wonderful voice, will sing some of the big hits in Spanish," he said. "I think that's fabulous ... He's worked on [translating all the lyrics into Spanish] and he's made it work. He's very excited about doing it."
New York Times
24-03-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
‘Double Vision': How an NHL goalie inspired Foreigner's arena-rock megahit
The lyrics to both verses were finished, and the first line of the chorus — Fill my eyes — was in place. Lou Gramm and Mick Jones, the driving forces behind Foreigner, one of the best-selling rock bands in history, had worked through the melody enough to know they had another hit on their hands. It was the fall of 1977, and the band was in a New York City studio working through songs for the follow-up album to the self-titled 'Foreigner,' which launched them to fame a year earlier. The new record didn't have a title, and the song they were most excited about had everything, as Gramm put it, 'except a hook and a name.' Advertisement 'It was quite frustrating,' Gramm told The Athletic. 'I could not find the words or a phrase that would culminate what I was singing about in the verses. I wasn't even wrestling with words, really. I was just drawing a blank.' Artists and athletes have always mingled, and the 1970s and '80s were particularly wild times in New York City, where Studio 54 became the celebrity haven. Gramm and Jones became friends with several actors and pro athletes, Gramm said, but they got along best with members of the New York Rangers, including goaltender John Davidson. There's no way Gramm could have expected his passion for hockey, and his friendship with Davidson, to pay such dividends as he waited for inspiration to strike so he could complete his favorite track. Then, one evening at the Atlantic Recording Studios in New York City, approximately 1 1/2 miles north of Madison Square Garden, it struck in the form of vulcanized rubber. 'I was inside my vocal booth, this little two-by-three cubby hole,' said Gramm, now 74. 'They put you in a soundproof booth so that the music of the band doesn't leak into your vocal tracks. I had a little eight-inch TV taped to the upper left-hand corner of this little booth, and I would turn it on ever-so-quietly so I could watch the Rangers between my takes. 'John Davidson came out of the net to play a puck and one of the other (opposing) guys conked him. He went down hard. There was a fight, and a couple of the (Rangers) stood around (Davidson) to protect him while he was down. I remember the trainers came out to help him to the bench so he could get checked out.' In today's NHL, Davidson would almost certainly have been removed from the game. Back then, it was largely the player's decision. 'I got dinged and stayed in,' Davidson said. 'That's what we did in those days.' Advertisement On the Rangers' TV broadcast, it was announced — likely by then play-by-play voice Jim Gordon or commentator Bill Chadwick — that Davidson had complained of 'double vision' on the bench before he re-entered the game. Gramm, hearing that, immediately reached for his pen and paper. 'I've told John this a number of times,' Gramm said. 'When he got hit, as frightening as it was, as terrible as it was, it triggered something in my imagination that set off the chorus. 'I knew we had something with that song already. I just knew it, but this was the final piece. I'm in the vocal booth, where I'm supposed to be singing, but instead I'm writing these lyrics as fast as I can. The words started flowing like water. It came out of me quick, faster than I could write, which is how it'd go sometimes. 'I finished, stepped out of the booth, and said, 'Guys, guys, guys. I've got this. I've got the chorus.' And when we finally put it all together, it was unbelievable.' Fill my eyes with that double vision, No disguise for that double vision, Ooh, when it gets through to me, It's always new to me, My double vision gets the best of me The album was released in June 1978, peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard charts, and sold over 7 million copies, making it the band's best-selling record. The song 'Double Vision' was released three months later, in September, and peaked at No. 2 on the charts, then the highest-charting single for Foreigner. Pretty wild, considering it almost didn't get finished in time to make the album. 'It's a great combination of words,' Jones, now 80, wrote in an email exchange with The Athletic. 'It came together pretty quickly. It was such a great song and such a great title that it spurred us on to record the song and name the album after it. 'There are times where the lyrics come first, then the music. Sometimes it's the music, then the words.' But this time was different. Call it divine intervention by the hockey gods. Davidson has had an almost unrivaled 50-year career in pro hockey as a player (St. Louis Blues and Rangers), a Hall of Fame broadcaster both with the Rangers, 'Hockey Night In Canada' and other national outlets, and as an executive who has served as club president for three franchises: the Blues, Rangers and Columbus Blue Jackets. Advertisement Last summer, when the Blue Jackets hired president and GM Don Waddell, Davidson stepped down to become senior advisor, and he's filled in this season when Blue Jackets TV analyst Jody Shelley is on the road broadcasting games for Amazon Prime Video. Davidson's next game is Monday, when the Jackets play the Islanders in New York. It's no surprise, given his broadcasting chops, that Davidson is a master storyteller. It helps, of course, when you have some incredible stories to tell. Davidson and the Rangers were still weeks away from training camp when 'Double Vision' was released. The song was impossible to miss in the U.S., but also in Canada, where it reached No. 3 on the charts. Davidson, a Canadian, remembered hearing and liking the song when he heard it almost hourly on the radio. But he had no idea he had a role in it until he arrived back in New York before the season. 'All I knew is that it was a great rock and roll song,' Davidson said. 'I had somebody with the Rangers come up to me and say, 'You have to see this.' It was a review of the song or the record — somebody had written about it — and it mentioned the whole deal about me getting hit and hurt and how Lou took that and used it. 'Pretty incredible. After that, Lou and I talked about it quite a bit. He was around a lot, and we became pretty friendly. He'd play in some charity games, sing the national anthem before Rangers games. We goofed around a little bit. Really good guy.' The season after 'Double Vision' came out, Davidson helped carry the Rangers to the Stanley Cup Final, where they lost to the Montreal Canadiens in five games. They became the toast of the town that spring, and Davidson could be called the toastmaster. He loved music, and musicians loved him. To his knowledge, Davidson joked, 'Double Vision' is the only song that he inspired. But the stories are staggering. Advertisement 'We went out after games all the time to see musicians playing,' Davidson said. 'I went with Diana (his wife) to a place called the Lone Star Cafe to see a group called The Byrds. They were great, and the venue was so small it was like they were playing in your living room. 'After they played a bunch of songs, they called out for somebody to join them, and the guy sitting next to us gets up and goes down to join the band. It was Jerry Garcia.' Davidson became especially close with Glenn Frey of the Eagles, with whom he shared an agent (Irving Azoff). They'd frequently end up back at Azoff's house, but one night something special happened. 'Irving has a cassette in his hands — that's how long ago this was, right, a cassette! — and he wants to play us this song he'd recorded earlier in the day that he thinks is going to be huge,' Davidson said. 'He puts it in, presses play, and it was Jimmy Buffett's 'Cheeseburger in Paradise.' Nobody had heard it yet. How wild is that?' Davidson once got a 6 a.m. wake-up call during a Rangers road trip in Vancouver. It was from Frey, who was partying with Buffett and others in Aspen, Colo., and lost track of time. Davidson was so close with Frey that in the summer of 1978, when the Eagles were touring to promote 'Hotel California,' they allowed Davidson and his crew to sit on the stage one summer night in Calgary, just out of view of the crowd in old McMahon Stadium, which sat roughly 30,000. 'We were 20 feet from the band,' Davidson said. 'I'd played in front of crowds before, but that many people so into that band … the wave of energy that comes up to the stage feels like a wind.' And there was another memorable night that was quite a bit calmer. 'I got a call from (New York author) Larry 'Ratso' Sloman. It was around Christmas,' Davidson said. 'He said 'Come into the city with Diana, we're going to go over to Joni Mitchell's condo and we're going to have dinner at her place.' So we did. Advertisement 'She, truly, was one of the nicest ladies we'd ever met. Just wonderful. Just like you'd expect, right? We spent half the night making homemade decorations for her Christmas tree.' Davidson's fame extended way beyond the rink. He did Miller Lite ads in Canada just after his career ended. He was the voice of EA Sports' NHL '97. He was the announcer in the 1999 movie 'Mystery, Alaska,' and even appeared a few years earlier in an episode of the sitcom, 'The Nanny.' Where does 'Double Vision' rank? Hard to say, Davidson said. But the song, nearly 50 years after it was released, is still played on classic rock radio stations. It's been streamed nearly 40 million times on Spotify, which says Foreigner averages 17.9 million monthly listeners. The 'Double Vision' video has been watched more than 5 million times on YouTube. 'My relatives — the cousins, nieces and nephews especially — they think it's pretty cool,' Davidson said. 'They probably don't believe me at first. I tell them I'm famous because I got hit in the head with the puck.' It's been almost 50 years since 'Double Vision' was written and recorded. Davidson was part of the story, sure, but he wasn't present when Gramm got his burst of creativity and finished the song. Gramm remembers the moment he heard the words 'double vision,' but the rest of the details are foggy. Gramm has said repeatedly that the Rangers were playing the Philadelphia Flyers, which makes sense, because that was the heyday of the Broad Street Bullies. Those Flyers, who loved to fight and intimidate, would run an opposing goalie just out of sheer boredom. He's also been certain that Davidson left the game for the second-string goalie. But Davidson played only three of the Rangers' six games against the Flyers during the 1977-78 season: a 3-3 tie on Dec. 7 and a 2-2 tie on March 15, both in the Garden, and a 3-0 loss at The Spectrum on April 6. But Davidson started and finished all three of those games for the Rangers, meaning he couldn't have left the game with an injury. Advertisement The April 6 game in Philadelphia is the type of game that would make sense. At 15:38 of the second period, all hell broke loose between the Flyers and Rangers, resulting in 88 penalty minutes. Davidson and his Flyers counterpart, Bernie Parent, were each penalized for 'goalie leaving the crease' and Davidson got an extra two minutes for roughing. But Davidson never left that game, either. Plus, 'Double Vision' — the album and the song — had already been recorded at a studio in Los Angeles, ready for release just two months later. Jones has heard Gramm's account, but he remembers it differently. 'I recall that Lou and I were at a Rangers playoff game,' he said. That would jibe with the New York Rangers' account. The Rangers played the Buffalo Sabres in a qualifying series, but Davidson played only in Game 2 of that series — the Sabres won in three games — and he never left the ice. Others have suggested it occurred in a game vs. Montreal. Davidson tells the story that he was struck in the mask by a puck (which matches the Rangers' account) but Gramm insists it was an elbow or a collision when Davidson came out to play the puck. The NHL, at the request of The Athletic, found 22 games in which Davidson started a game but didn't finish. In only one of those, according to Stuart McComish, the league's senior manager of statistics and research, did Davidson return to finish the game. That occurred on April 3, 1976 — two years earlier — against the New York Islanders. At this point, the mystery only adds to the story. 'There were two or three games in my career where I got clunked in the head, when you get rattled a bit,' Davidson said. 'It was probably one of those, right? 'To be honest, though, I'm not sure it really matters. It's a hell of a song and a hell of a story.' Foreigner, which sold 80 million records worldwide, was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland last October. Gramm and Kelly Clarkson made a duet out of the band's biggest hit, 'I Want to Know What Love Is,' but Jones was not able to attend because of declining health. Advertisement Davidson said he watched the induction ceremony. When a medley of Foreigner's hits were played, he smiled at one song in particular. That's how it goes every time he hears 'Double Vision' on the radio, in a hockey rink, a shopping mall, etc. Gramm and Davidson spend their winters in Florida. Gramm is in Sarasota, Davidson is in Naples, approximately 115 miles apart. They're hoping to meet up for lunch someday. 'It'd be awesome to see my old friend again, wouldn't it? Tell him I'll buy lunch,' Gramm said with a chuckle. 'That's the least I can do.' (Illustration: Demetrius Robinson / The Athletic; Photos: Manny Millan / Sports Illustrated via Getty Images, Rick Diamond / Getty Images)
Yahoo
28-02-2025
- Yahoo
Lil Baby criticises 'nonsense' link between music video and killings
Rapper Lil Baby has described a link made between one of his music videos and the killing of two teenagers in the US as "nonsense". Jakody Davis and Lamon Freeman died following a gang-related shootout at Lamon's 13th birthday party in Atlanta, Georgia, last summer. And while city detectives did not name Lil Baby, real name Dominique Armani Jones, they said the boys had been innocent victims of a flare up of gang violence sparked by a "cowardly rapper" filming a video in rival territory. In a statement via lawyers, Lil Baby, who spent weeks in the UK charts for Band4Band with Central Cee, said he had "absolutely no involvement" and branded the comments from police "shameful". During a press conference on Wednesday, detectives from City of Atlanta Police said how Jakody and Lamon weren't the intended targets of the shooting at the Sparks Street apartment complex in the city on 2 July 2024. They detailed how the attack had been "orchestrated" from prison and involved members of "one of the most hyperviolent gangs in the city of Atlanta". Addressing reporters, Maj Ralph Woolfolk said "the overall theme of this case is grown men playing gangster that left two of our children in graves and our communities in fear". "Lamon Freeman was allowed to be a teenager for 27 minutes before gang violence ultimately took his life, gang violence that was orchestrated by adults and cowardly acts of an Atlanta-based rapper." The rapper, he said, "decided to go over into a rival gang stronghold and shoot a music video in a place that he knew he should not have been. "And in the subsequent days, we saw homicides and shootings and ultimately the deaths of two children as a result of his cowardly actions." In the months before Lamon and Jakody were shot, Atlanta police said they responded to several people being shot during a video shoot. Nobody was killed but three men in their 20s were injured in the attack in the north west of the city on 14 May which was widely reported to have taken place on set for one of Lil Baby's videos. Lil Baby's statement said it was "disgraceful" for the officer "to say that he couldn't shoot a music video in his home town". "The location for a major music video shoot is a decision made by a professional team and is not a decision made by any individual." Maj Woolfolk told reporters the attack which killed Lamon and Jakody was a "hit called by a high-ranking gang member on the opposite side of that opposing rapper's gang". He did not name Lil Baby but said "you know who you are" which Lil Baby's lawyer called an "obvious reference" that was "complete and total nonsense". "Bringing his name into a conversation regarding a terrible crime for which he had absolutely no involvement is unprofessional, unethical and shameful," his legal team said. "Dominique is devastated about the situation because those children came from the same neighbourhood he did and he will continue to build up his community in any way he can." The 30-year-old won a Grammy in 2022 for best melodic rap act after featuring on Kanye West's track Hurricane with The Weeknd. Last year he featured on Central Cee's track Band4Band - it was nominated for a Mobo Award and is in the running to win a Brit for song of the year on Saturday. BBC Newsbeat has contacted Lil Baby's team and Atlanta Police for further comment. Listen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 weekdays - or listen back here.
