Latest news with #SchaeferMusicFestival
New York Post
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Post
Nile Rodgers recalls becoming 'really close' with the late Sly Stone
It takes one music icon to know one. Nile Rodgers, the legendary producer and Chic bandleader, worshiped Sly Stone long before he became friends with the funk pioneer, who passed away at 82 on Monday, June 9. And he has the receipts to prove it. 5 Songwriters Hall of Fame chairman Nile Rodgers helped welcome the class of 2025 on Thursday night. Getty Images for Songwriters Hall Of Fame 5 Sly Stone was the genius behind Sly & the Family Stone classics such as 'Everyday People' and 'Family Affair.' Getty Images for Songwriters Hall Of Fame 'I still to this day have my ticket [from when] I saw Sly & the Family Stone at the Schaefer Music Festival in Central Park,' Rodgers, 72, exclusively told The Post on the red carpet of the Songwriters Hall of Fame induction ceremony on Thursday at NYC's Marriott Marquis. 'Check this out — the price of the ticket? One dollar. General admission was one dollar. I still have it. It was that great of a day to me,' he said. And that's not the only way that Stone took a young Rodgers higher. 'I remember when he released, I don't know if it was the second album or the first album, I remember going to my friend's house — he was the only one who could afford the album — and we all sat around smoking hash and listening to the record all day,' he recalled. 5 Jimmy Jam (left) and Nile Rodgers joined Songwriters Hall of Fame president/CEO Linda Moran on the red carpet. Redferns As fate would have it, the Songwriters Hall of Fame chairman would end up meeting and bonding with the genius behind Sly & the Family hits such as 'Dance to the Music,' Everyday People,' and 'Family Affair.' 'Later on in life, I became friends with Sly in California. It was really sad for me because he was living in a car,' he said. 'So every night we would meet at the China Club when it moved to Los Angeles, and we would talk, and for some reason, we became really close.' In fact, Stone asked Rodgers to be the music director for the Sly & the Family Stone tribute at the 2006 Grammys that included Maroon 5, John Legend, Steven Tyler and Joss Stone — as well as a brief appearance by the funk god himself. 5 With Sly & the Family Stone, Nile Rodgers said that the late Sly Stone 'changed music.' Redferns Another legendary producer, Jimmy Jam, recalled sampling Sly & the Family Stone's 1970 chart-topper 'Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)' on Janet Jackson's 1989 hit 'Rhythm Nation.' 'I don't think people really put that together,' he told The Post. 'For me, it was so obvious that it's Sly. But he was a tremendous influence, [and] still continues to be. His music is singular. 'And his influence [was] not only me but certainly on Prince in the way that he made his band up — like, it was multiracial, multi-gender,' said the former Prince protégé. 'All of that came from Sly.' 5 Sly Stone of Sly And The Family Stone performs on stage in London on July 15, 1973. Getty Images Stone's impact on Rodgers was formative, too. 'Honestly, to me, Sly is on the same level as [John] Coltrane, Miles [Davis], Charlie Parker, Nina Simone, all the people I grew up with. Sly was my R&B example of that,' he said. Indeed, with Sly & the Family Stone, Rodgers said that Stone 'changed music.' 'They changed the way that America saw black musicians,' he said. 'They changed everything.'
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Concerts, ticket prices, bots and scalpers: The ingredients for a watchdog series
Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, fire was just invented by accident and printed newspapers were the primary source of information, I indulged my love for live music by buying tickets to the Schaefer Music Festival concert series in Central Park in New York City. For about nine years, spanning the late 1960s and into the mid-'70s, some of the best acts hit the Wollman Skating Rink stage. I ponied up the unheard-of price of $10 to hear Boz Scaggs perform his hit "Lowdown" and other numbers — and got a treat with the opening act, Maxine Nightingale. If you didn't have a ticket, you could sit on giant boulders nearby for free and hear just fine. The arena hosted so many shows of my early concert days: Allman Brothers, B.B. King, Marshall Tucker Band, Chicago and dozens of others. Back then, to get tickets you typically showed up with cash at a kiosk in Penn Station in Manhattan at Korvette's Department Store. The $10 price for Boz Scaggs was at the high end, and just before Dr. Pepper took over the operation. Tickets started at about $2 in the 1960s and jumped to $4.50 soon after — probably sending some concert fans into cardiac arrest. Today, if you paid a $4.50 fee on one of your tickets, you'd thank the music gods for the clerical error. MORE: Looming lawsuit could change the way we buy concert tickets - hopefully for the better MORE: Bots, scalpers send concert tickets through the roof, but look who gets the money Which is sort of why the Asbury Park Press, led by entertainment writer extraordinaire Chris Jordan, is embarking on a deep dive into the concert ticket world as the season ramps up and ticket prices continue to be an economic decision as much as an aesthetic one. As part of our commitment to watchdog investigative journalism, the Press is looking at a variety of Shore-related topics as the summer launches. From beach badge fees to beach replenishment, and from boardwalk rides and food vendor safety to tourism dollars, the Press will focus on the heart of what makes the Jersey Shore so special. And we thought, what is more summer at the Shore, and the rest of New Jersey, than music? Where once it was a fairly straightforward business transaction, the industry has turned into what is projected to be a $60 billion or so industry in the U.S. alone in 2025, according to IBISWorld. There have been some notable ugly milestones in the ticket buying milieu of late — Taylor Swift and Bruce Springsteen shows to name just two — that drove fans into a frenzy as ticket prices ballooned, spiraled out of reach for many, or forced some to take out loans (kidding. maybe) to see a show. But even on a smaller scale, with acts that are not global phenomenon events, it can be a harrowing experience timing your online buying moment to get two tickets to some show at the PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel. Minutes after going on sale, tickets can be gone on the primary market and moved into the secondary resale market, where the ticket prices do not resemble the primary prices. It can drive a fan to listen to Musak in an elevator instead of fighting for the golden ticket. Which brings us to Jordan's initial stories. First, he looks at the federal government's antitrust case against the music entertainment behemoth Live Nation and its trusty ticket vendor Ticketmaster. The two merged in 2010, but now the government thinks things have gone in the wrong direction, issuing this statement about the case: 'The thrust of the complaint is that Live Nation engaged in a variety of exclusionary conduct to maintain its monopoly over primary-ticketing services, and consumers suffered injury by using those services and getting overcharged,' said U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian in his ruling. Our second story explores the roots of the ticket price escalation and its complex system of buying, selling, reselling, bots, scalpers and unenforceable laws because, as one expert said, the software and technology to workaround the rules is so advanced, lawmakers and their enforcement agencies can't keep up. In addition, our series will look at fan resignation, how showgoers can navigate the murky ticket-buying seas, bitcoin's role in the process, and do politicians have the appetite, as the late New Jersey Rep. Bill Pascrell once exhibited, to go after the ticket brokers and secondary market purveyors? In the end, we'll be able to look at how the season went, what happened to prices, how did fans react, and what will be the status of the federal lawsuit against Live Nation and Ticketmaster. That case is set for March 2026 in the Southern District Court in Lower Manhattan, ironically, just a few miles from where a young music fan snagged a Boz Scaggs ticket for $10. This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Live Nation, Ticketmaster: APP series looks at ticket prices
