21 minutes ago

NEW YORK - Piers Morgan is hired.

The former British tabloid editor was crowned the winner on NBC’s “The Celebrity Apprentice,” triumphing over Trace Adkins.

The final task on Thursday’s finale was to hold a charity event. Adkins was in charge of taking care of the talent, The Backstreet Boys, who demanded wheatgrass juice backstage. Morgan was responsible for the auction and food.

Adkins sold more tickets, but Morgan — who has been a judge on NBC’s “America’s Got Talent” — raised the most money: $250,000.

“Apprentice” host Donald Trump said Morgan “did an amazing job” and showed up his celebrity competitors (who included Gene Simmons and “Apprentice” villain Omarosa).

Trump called Adkins, whose single “You’re Gonna Miss This” has climbed the country charts, a “special human being. A beautiful guy.”

Morgan’s charity is the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund, which provides help for families of U.S. military personnel who died in the line of duty. Morgan’s brother has served two tours of duty in Iraq, and his brother-in-law has served two tours of duty in Afghanistan.

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NBC is owned by General Electric Co.

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NBC:

http://www.nbc.com/

Intrepid Fallen Heroes:

http://www.fallenheroesfund.org/

Sarah Hall Fri Mar 28, 4:54 AM ET

Los Angeles (E! Online) - Celine Dion's heart may go on, but her show won't.

The ever-fragile Canadian chanteuse has been forced to postpone several concerts in Australia due to a throat infection, her reps have announced.

Shows in Brisbane and Melbourne were pushed back earlier this week after Dion complained of a sore throat and irritated sinuses upon her arrival Down Under. Two performances in Sydney have also been postponed for a week.

Dion, who has been photographed wearing a surgical mask in recent days, presumably to ward off any further germs, apologized to her fans for the delay.

"I've been looking forward to doing these shows for so long," Dion said in a statement. "I'm really sorry to disappoint my fans this weekend, but I can't wait to see them on the new dates."

The singer, currently in the midst of her first world tour in 10 years, has been advised by her doctors to rest her voice for an additional 48 hours to ensure her recovery, her rep said.

Her latest ailment likely means a low-key birthday celebration for Dion, who turns 40 on Sunday. In the past four years, Dion has canceled shows for a raft of maladies, including a neck injury, a rare ear disease, bronchitis and a viral infection.

Dion wrapped up her long-running Vegas show A New Day in December and launched her yearlong Taking Chances tour last month in South Africa.

Up ahead, she is slated to appear on Idol Gives Back for the second year in a row. The charity special airs April 9.

By Ann Donahue 42 minutes ago

LOS ANGELES (Billboard) - Yes, expect the Ed Lover dance to come back in style. MTV is celebrating the 20th anniversary of "Yo! MTV Raps" in April with tribute programming across all of the company's platforms.

On MTV, the show "Sucker Free" will transform into "Yo! MTV Raps," featuring classic videos amidst the current hip hop video countdown. At the end of the month, the cable network will air "Yo!" countdown shows, where the top moments from the iconic program will be revealed. (Countdown specials also will air on MTV Radio.)

Among the artists contributing to the tribute programming are Fab 5 Freddy, Ed Lover, Andre "Dr. Dre" Brown and T-Money.

On MTV.com, "Yo! MTV Raps" will get its own hub, featuring artist interviews and giving the historical context of the show in the development of hip hop.

Think.MTV.com, the network's activism site, will auction off a 12' x 15' canvas from the original "Yo! MTV Raps" set that has been signed by various artists. The proceeds will go to Music Has Power.

MTV Mobile will create themed episodes of their mobisodes, including "Sway's Hip Hop Owner's Manual," "Hood Fab," "Dances From The Hood" and "How to Show."

Reuters/Billboard

By LYNN ELBER, AP Television Writer 30 minutes ago

LOS ANGELES - Frenchie Davis, the big-voiced “American Idol” contestant who found success on Broadway in “Rent,” will undergo surgery to remove a vocal cord polyp.

Davis said she’s eager to take care of the condition that’s begun to cause tiredness and hoarseness after performances. But she’s apprehensive.

“I’ve talked to other singers who had surgery. One girl said her voice went up. Others’ voices got clearer. I’m just excited to see and a little nervous, of course. It’s still surgery,” Davis told The Associated Press.

Her main concern is the risk of losing her range, she said, but the surgeon has assured her that won’t happen. Doctors had been monitoring the polyp on her left vocal cord; when it grew, they advised surgery to avoid long-term damage.

The condition likely is from overuse and singing improperly, Davis said.

“I was doing eight shows a week of `Rent’ for four years. When I had a break from `Rent,’ I was using it to sing elsewhere,” she said. “Now I need a vocal coach to make sure I’m singing properly so it doesn’t come back.”

The surgery is scheduled for the end of April; recovery will take about a month. That will allow Davis to go ahead with a national tour of “Ain’t Misbehavin’,” co-starring “Idol” winner Ruben Studdard. It’s set to begin this fall in New York.

In 2003, Davis was dropped from “Idol” because of a previous appearance on an adult Web site. In contrast, the Fox talent show took no action this season when contestant David Hernandez’s stint as a nightclub stripper was revealed or when racy photos of Antonella Barba surfaced last season on the Internet.

“I guess I had to be thrown to the wolves to afford these other contestants the luxury of being judged on their talent,” said Davis, 28. “I guess that’s what needed to happen.”

It was “interesting,” she added, that she was punished for something she did at age 19.

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Fox is a unit of News Corp.

Josh Grossberg Fri Mar 28, 5:42 AM ET

Los Angeles (E! Online) - Look what the cops dragged in.

Rikki Rockett, the 46-year-old drummer of '80s hair-metal purveyor Poison, was taken into custody on a rape warrant as he arrived Monday at Los Angeles International Airport on a flight back from New Zealand.

The musician, whose real name is Richard Ream, was nabbed while going through customs and taken to Los Angeles County Jail, where he was booked on a felony fugitive sexual assault warrant issued from Neshoba County, Miss.

He was released the next afternoon, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department website.

No further details were available. Calls to authorities in Mississippi were not immediately returned.

There was no comment from the band and there's no word on the musician's current whereabouts. He was in New Zealand for a Poison performance at Rock 2 Wellington, a huge metalhead concert in that country's capital.

A former hairdresser from Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, Rockett cofounded Poison in the mid-'80s with his high school pal, vocalist Bret Michaels.

The band's debut album, Look What the Cat Dragged In, sold more than 2 million copies.

Posion became a superstar act with the release of 1988's blockbuster follow-up, Open Up and Say…Ahh!, which spawned the megahit "Every Rose Has Its Thorn," along with "Nothin' But a Good Time" and "Your Mamma Don't Dance."

The band's third disc, Flesh and Blood, was almost as successful, scoring several top 10 hits, but eventually rising tensions over drug and alcohol abuse led the group to fire guitarist C.C. Deville and signaled the decline of the group.

14 minutes ago

ATLANTA - An Allman Brothers Band member says Gregg Allman is unable to play several upcoming concerts because of his treatments for hepatitis C.

Drummer Butch Trucks says the band has canceled appearances in Florida next month and bowed out of its annual run of shows at Manhattan’s Beacon Theatre in May.

Trucks says Allman began undergoing treatment last year.

The Allman Brothers Band was founded in Florida in the late 1960s, but gained fame while living in Macon, Ga. The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995.

By Lars Brandle 38 minutes ago

LONDON (Billboard) - Portishead is back on the road, and settling into life away from the studio.

But performing on stage doesn't come easy for most of the reunited members of the British "trip-hop" act, who have just begun a European tour to promote their upcoming third album, the appropriately titled "Third." It marks their first studio release since a self-titled effort in 1997.

"We've been immensely looking forward to touring. But we're divided about it," Portishead's multi-instrumentalist founding member Adrian Utley tells Billboard.com.

"(Singer) Beth (Gibbons) is really nervous about playing live, and (instrumentalist) Geoff (Barrow) absolutely hates playing live, and I love playing live."

It's safe to say that none of the British trio's core band members embrace the hedonistic rock'n'roll lifestyle which follow some road hogs like a bad smell.

"We don't really do any ritual before a gig. It's very unspectacular," Utley admits. "Beth does a warm-up with her tape. A few gins are drunk, and there's some strolling around nervously behind the stage. And that's it. We go on."

The tour kicked off Wednesday at Oporto Coliseum in Portugal, and will visit numerous venues across the continent and the United Kingdom, before heading stateside for an April 26 date at the Coachella festival in southern California.

"Third" arrives April 28 internationally via Island and the following day in the United States via Mercury. Fans can get a taste of things to come at the band's MySpace page, which hosts a stream of the new track "Machine Gun."

But don't expect any singles releases this time around. "We're not really doing any singles. We see it as a whole album," Utley says. "'Glory Box' was a single, and it did go in the charts here. And I think 'Sour Times' did. But we've never seen ourselves as a particularly singles-oriented band. Especially now, it doesn't seem relevant."

Reuters/Billboard

21 minutes ago

NEW YORK - Madonna wants the media to leave Britney Spears alone.

“They need to step off,” she told the “Yo on E!” satellite radio show. “For real … Let’s go save her.”

Madonna, 49, said her daughter, Lourdes, 11, feels the same way.

“She knows Britney, (but) she doesn’t really watch TV or read gossip stuff,” the pop star said in the interview. “I think she sort of gets the drift of what’s going on, and I think she feels very protective of Britney.”

Madonna and husband Guy Ritchie have a son, Rocco, 7, and are raising a Malawian boy they want to adopt.

“He’s the life of the party,” she said of David, who she brought home from Africa in 2006. “He loves music, he’s an amazing dancer. … He’s a character.”

She said caring for David is no different from her raising her biological children: “I thought it was gonna be, but it feels the same to tell you the truth.”

As for speculation that her marriage is on the rocks, Madonna said: “It is ridiculous. … I don’t pay much attention to it.”

The singer’s spokeswoman Liz Rosenberg recently dismissed media reports that the Ritchies have split up, saying they “remain happily married.” Rosenberg said that Madonna and filmmaker Ritchie, 39, were “joyfully back together at home in London” after living in separate countries for work purposes.

Madonna, whose new album “Hard Candy” arrives April 29, told “Yo on E!” that she plans to spend the summer in New York, and that she might kick off a tour this fall.

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On the Net:

Yo on E!:

http://www.eonline.com/on/radio/yoone/index.jsp

David Jenison Thu Mar 27, 3:04 PM ET

Los Angeles (E! Online) - It appears America has caught the Spirit of St. Lewis.

OK, so Leona Lewis isn't really a saint, but the Londoner's heavenly voice is drawing comparisons to Mariah and Whitney and she's already rewriting the record books.

Last November, her rookie release Spirit became the fastest selling debut album (and fourth all-around) in U.K. history. Spirit went on to top the charts in several other countries, and this week, in advance of the album's Stateside release, the single "Bleeding Love" made Lewis the first female Briton in 21 years to top the Billboard Hot 100. In fact, she's only the sixth female Brit ever to accomplish this feat and only the third to do so with a debut single. (Kim Wilde was the last female Brit to top the Hot 100 back in '87, while Sheena Easton is the last to do so with a debut single in '81.)

Spirit, which hits U.S. stores on April 8, could also make history on the Billboard 200. The highest rookie debut by a female Brit is Amy Winehouse's Back to Black at No. 7, while Introducing Joss Stone gave the Dover native the highest non-rookie debut at No. 2. Spirit could easily top one or both of those releases.

Ironically, the vocal powerhouse had quite the untraditional start. Two years ago, Lewis' boyfriend convinced her to audition for The X Factor, Simon Cowell's Idol-like U.K. talent contest.

"I was working part-time and going into the studio whenever I could to record demos, and when [my boyfriend] suggested it, I thought, 'There's no harm in trying,'"  Lewis recently told E! Online. "I went for it and I kept getting farther and farther. I finally thought, maybe this is going to lead somewhere, and it did."

Cowell, who's not known for his gushing praise, said this of Lewis' "Over the Rainbow" X Factor performance: "For so many reasons, and I have done a lot of these shows, that was, for me, the single best performance I've ever witnessed."

Lewis, who turns 23 next week, won the show and immediately released her debut single, a cover of Kelly Clarkson's "A Moment Like This." The single sold nearly 600,000 first-week copies, including 50,000 downloads in the first 30 minutes, to set a new Guinness world record. Clive Davis quickly signed her to a massive worldwide recording deal, and he and Cowell joined forces to help guide Spirit.

Remarkably, if not for the British reality series, a tremendous talent might never have been heard. It's just another example of how, these days, not all stars are born on the radio.

This week, Forbes fan down its list of "The Year's Hottest New Music Stars" and noted how artists are now breaking in untraditional ways. For example, Soulja Boy, who topped the list, got discovered by posting songs and videos on MySpace and YouTube, and then his first single "Crank That" became a YouTube phenomenon that spawned a dance craze and a Hot 100 chart-topper.

Likewise, rapper Flo Rida watched his club single "Low" turn into an Internet and ringtone hit, eventually setting digital sales records and topping the Hot 100 for over two months. Other Forbes favorites included American Idol champ Jordin Sparks and MySpace sensation Colbie Caillat.

Ultimately, Lewis and the Forbes-featured artists show that technology and new media are changing all the rules…and, consequently, record labels and radio are no longer the sole gatekeepers to music stardom.

Natalie Finn Thu Mar 27, 2:09 PM ET

Los Angeles (E! Online) - To follow up a Super Bowl performance that was viewed by more than 90 million people, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers are going incognito.  

Petty and longtime band mates Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench are planning to hit the club circuit with the original members of Mudcrutch, the name of their group when they were still relegated to playing diners in their hometown of Gainesville, Fla. 

After nearly 30 years, the five musicians—Petty, Campbell, Tench, Randall Marsh and Tom Leadon—reunited last summer on the West Coast to record an album.

"I just finished a record with Mudcrutch, my old band before the Heartbreakers," Petty wrote in a message posted on his website. "I am over the moon about it. I couldn't have hoped for it to be as good as it came out." 

Mudcrutch will next crisscross California for about two weeks, starting April 12 at a benefit in Malibu for Los Angeles' Midnight Mission and winding up with a four-night engagement at the famed Troubadour in West Hollywood. 

But although Petty has released 15 albums with the Heartbreakers (Campbell, Tench, Stan Lynch and Ron Blair, who quit in the 1980s to be replaced by Dan Epstein), Mudcrutch's upcoming effort will put that band's total at exactly…one. 

The self-titled debut, featuring a 14-track combination of new and rerecorded tunes, is due out April 29. 

In 1975, back when records were records, Mudcrutch released one single, "Depot Street," which was the A-side on an LP that also included the B-side "Wild Eyes." 

Leadon, a childhood friend of Petty's who left the band in 1972 and now teaches guitar in Nashville, told the Tennessean newspaper that Mudcrutch's 2007 reunion was "just entirely unexpected." 

"It was like a dream, the whole thing," he said. "Tom couldn't have been nicer. It was great to hang out with him again." 

Meanwhile, Petty will return to his day job fronting the Heartbreakers on May 30 when the "Free Fallin'" rockers kick off a three-month North American tour in Grand Rapids, Mich.