By NEKESA MUMBI MOODY, AP Music Writer 28 minutes ago

AUSTIN, Texas - Last year, when gossip blogger Perez Hilton came to South by Southwest, he was just a spectator.

This year, he arrived as one of the music industry’s key playmakers — and his newfound power was on full display as he played host to one of the festival’s more coveted parties.

“Thank you Perez!” Robyn, the Swedish-born pop star who is releasing an album in the United States this summer, gushed on stage Saturday night as she performed in front of a packed crowd filled with industry insiders, artists, and the typical hangers-on. Even more people lined the block around the venue in downtown Austin, hoping for a chance to see acts ranging from Internet darling Katy Perry to established artists such as Robyn and N.E.R.D.

“There’s a lot of great acts performing these past couple of days, but not all on the same stage on the same night,” boasted Hilton, sporting bleached blond hair with streaks of pink, in an interview with The Associated Press on Friday. “The musicians performing speak for the evening.”

They also speak to Hilton’s ever-increasing clout within the music industry. While his site routinely posts salacious details about perennial gossip targets like Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan and the crew from “The Hills,” he also regularly gushes about his favorite artists and songs — like Robyn.

Numerous articles have been written crediting Hilton (real name Mario Lavandeira) for helping to boost an artist’s sales and profile from his postings: The New York Times reported last month that Warner Bros. Records was in negotiations to give Hilton a development deal that would make him an executive on the label.

“It’s very flattering,” Hilton said with a smile about all the attention.

So, not surprisingly, Hilton lined up a few key artists to perform at his party. The biggest act was undoubtedly N.E.R.D., the trio led by superproducer Pharrell Williams, who said Hilton’s site is a key outlet for groups such as his.

“He’s connected to the kids, he’s connected to our demographic — people who want to be in the know, and he’s opinionated and that’s what makes it work,” Williams said after spending a few minutes chatting with Hilton a celebrity lounge Friday.

Hilton’s ability to create buzz for an artist is hard to duplicate, Perry said.

“Managers in the industry want their acts to be featured on his blog because it does give a lot of press, and hopefully good press sometimes,” she said with a laugh. “He’s got some pretty good ears. He’s featured myself and some friends of mine so we’re grateful.”

Not everyone is happy about Hilton’s success. As popular as his showcase may have been, there were some at SXSW who grumbled about the fact that a gossip maven has decision-making power in the industry.

But Hilton insists he and his site have musical integrity.

“I only post things on there that I really enjoy and love and support — there’s no payola Perez,” Hilton said. “So I think readers who read my site know there’s an authenticity there and they really respond to that.”

Hilton said even though he gets managers and record label executives begging him to promote their artists, he gets most of his tips from fans who send him music links online, and he insisted he isn’t swayed by pushes by industry insiders.

Hilton may be giving his own advice to artists soon, if the Warner Bros. deal works out. And while he’s known for his scoops, he’s still peeved at the Times for revealing the tidbit.

“I’m such a fatalist I don’t like making announcements like that unless it’s done. Hopefully it’s going to happen — we’ve been talking for a while now,” he said.

Not that Hilton’s depending on that label or any other to secure his place in the music industry.

“If it doesn’t happen, I’ll just do it on my own,” he said, ever the entrepreneur.

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On the Net:

http://www.perezhilton.com

By NEKESA MUMBI MOODY, AP Music Writer 1 hour, 7 minutes ago

AUSTIN, Texas - Of all the sponsored events at the South by Southwest music festival, Rachael Ray’s artist showcase may have been the most puzzling.

After all, Ray is the cherub-faced, perky cook and host of her own daytime TV show — and there she was at SXSW playing host to edgy acts like The Raveonettes.

Ray brushed aside the idea that her presence at SXSW, which ended Sunday, was out of place.

“I guess people think that I just live in a kitchen but I love music, every type of music,” she told The Associated Press as she cooled off from the Texas heat in an air-conditioned bus.

“I listen to jazz, my husband and I go to the opera a few times a year, we both love indie rock, go to a lot of indie rock shows. It’s not surprising to me,” she continued. “I know that I’m more than just a cook. I think that’s why people probably thought it was so weird but I married a man who has an indie-rock band, so how is it that weird when you really think about it?”

That band, The Cringe (led by her hubby John Cusimano), were among the performers at Ray’s showcase, which had people lined outside the door waiting to get in. But music wasn’t the only draw: after all, Ray’s claim to fame is her cooking.

So, she made up three recipes for the event, including a seven-layer slider and a vegetarian macaroni and cheese, which were among the dishes served up to the packed crowd.

Though this was Ray’s first time at SXSW, she’s a regular to the city of Austin: “I think of every excuse in the world to come back.”

“I’ve also loved Austin because it’s the live music capitol of the world,” she added. “I’ve always come down and made sure that I go out and listen to different music, so it’s great to see that kind of on steroids.”

3 minutes ago

NEW YORK - Tenor Gary Lehman earned a second chance to sing in “Tristan und Isolde” at the Metropolitan Opera.

Two days after Lehman made his Met debut as Tristan in place of ailing Ben Heppner, the Met said Sunday that Lehman also will sing in Tuesday night’s performance.

The tenor for next Saturday’s matinee, which will be transmitted in high-definition to theaters around the world, remains TBA.

Soprano Deborah Voigt is scheduled to return Tuesday after leaving Friday night’s performance in the middle of the second act due to a stomach ailment. She was replaced by her cover singer, Janice Baird, who made her Met debut.

Heppner, sidelined by a virus, hopes to return for the final two performances of the revival, on March 25 and 28. Because Heppner and Voigt were to have been singing “Tristan” together for the first time, the six-performance run was close to sold out.

Capping a week of shuffling at the Met, soprano Ruth Ann Swenson came down with the flu and was replaced Saturday night by Ermonela Jaho, who made her company debut as Violetta in Verdi’s “La Traviata.”

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On the Net:

http://www.metopera.org

By Jeff Vrabel 3 minutes ago

NEW YORK (Billboard) - The title of Gnarls Barkley's sophomore record is the first, and probably last, funny thing about it.

If the band's 2006 debut, "St. Elsewhere," seemed to sail in from some neighboring planet — a pop disc that smeared itself with psychedelic weirdness, a vague sense of the creepy and a knockout Violent Femmes cover — the follow-up is a much trickier trip to the dark side. ("I'm not doing so good," a serious-sounding Cee-Lo Green intones on the otherwise effervescent opening track, "Charity Case.")

But where there's darkness there's light, Green says. And as Gnarls Barkley — Green's musical partnership with Danger Mouse — prepares for the April 8 release of its highly anticipated sophomore set for Downtown/Atlantic, "The Odd Couple," he's making sure to keep focused on both.

"I'm very fortunate and privileged to still be relevant, to get a chance to listen back at my music in a way where it seems as if it doesn't belong to me," he says. "At this point it's ours now to share. There's a bit of vulnerability in that, although there's also strength."

That's the first in a series of dualities Green will bring up in discussing "The Odd Couple," a record that, like its predecessor, is about playing things off one another, forging matches out of seeming incongruities and continuing to scavenge around the intersection between the weird and the wondrous.

UNLIKELY OVERLAP

"Dark has this negative stigma attached to it," Green says. "But my take on it is that the sun does set at some point in time every day. So it's equal parts dark and light."

If it takes listeners a few spins to catch on, that's fine. "I've grown pretty accustomed to people watching, but not necessarily recognizing, the difference between seeing and recognizing something for what it truly is," he says. "And I accept those terms, but by default, some of the time, there's a part of any human being that just wants to be embraced right out of the gate." And here Green pauses for a chuckle. "I am aware of my own oddness and uniqueness," he says. "I can dig it."

More than its runaway hit forerunner, "The Odd Couple" prowls around that unlikely overlap between surf-pop/spy-movie sounds and new-school soul. Such tracks as "Whatever" and "Surprise" find Green pushing his ever-improving vocals into new and sinister areas. Second single "Who's Gonna Save My Soul" might be his finest performance to date, even if it kind of makes you want to give him an ice cream or a hug. "(That) was the first song we did where we knew, 'Wow.' It felt magical again," Danger Mouse says.

For his part, Danger Mouse (real name: Brian Burton) is more interested in conjuring a kind of dark-carnival soundscape, a sound much closer to "The Boogie Monster" than to megahit "Crazy." The first single, "Run," is probably the closest the new disc comes to the pop side, and even its chorus sounds like a plea for escape. "That song doesn't really sound like anything else on the album," Burton says. "But that was the same thing with 'Crazy."' And that worked out OK.

THE BIG 'REVEAL'

Indeed, in a day when bands can offer unprecedented access to their fans, Gnarls Barkley has consciously sprinted in the other direction, leaking out only choice bits, guarding against what Green and Burton see as an industry-wide tendency toward overexposure. (Last summer, Burton consented to play a track for a Billboard staffer on the condition he didn't ask word one of a question about it.)

"The buzzword on the first record was 'reveal,"' Downtown Records head of marketing and sales Michael Pontecorvo says. "You'll remember there were five or six promo images, and none of them were in everyday street clothes. It went with the whole 'Who is Gnarls Barkley?' idea."

The plan certainly didn't hurt the band's sales. "St. Elsewhere" has sold 1.3 million copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan; it peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 and spent 47 weeks on the chart. "Crazy" spent seven weeks at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and crossed over to Billboard's modern rock, R&B/hip-hop and adult contemporary charts.

Yet Green downplays the idea that he and his partner are out to foster any kind of great mystique. "We don't really talk about the music or the concept formally," he says. "We just have conversations — very casual ones. And what people hear this time around is our evolution, our bond and growth together as people and artists and co-workers."

The first time around, Green believes, was the sound of him and Burton "feeling our way through it. It was truly an experiment in being the first of a kind. You can only be so certain about your intention when you're doing that, and not as certain about the outcome. Music can always be an act of faith."

RELUCTANT ROAD WARRIORS

That kind of thoughtfulness on the whole Gnarls Barkley phenomenon would seem to contrast with the band's borderline genius idea to play one of its most high-profile early shows in full "Star Wars" regalia. Anyone who caught one of Gnarls' live shows saw something between a concert and a costume party — the band took to the stage in guises that included characters from "The Wizard of Oz," the cast of the "Austin Powers" movies, astronauts, hippies, tennis players and a hair metal band.

Yet Green sounds hesitant about the idea of taking Gnarls out to support "The Odd Couple." "Believe it or not, I still can't afford to take my entire family on the road with me," he says. "I'm a family man, and I miss my kids and family very much, which is why I've never been so hot to tour. I've been on the road all my life. I've got suitcases I haven't unpacked from last year."

Burton concurs. "Our desire is to make another record more than anything." But Pontecorvo hints that a tour statement will be released around the record's release date, though it won't be a standard trek.

"It's an entirely different thing to walk out onstage to the love and embrace of a crowd that's singing along with something you could have very possibly been alone in," Green says. "And it's about that too. It makes me able to complain a whole lot less."

The appeal for Green — and here, perhaps, is the crux of Gnarls Barkley — is that all oddity has been thoroughly thought out and designed for enjoyment.

"It is fun, and I'm surprised that people are still as surprised as they are about it," he says. "It's all just good fun, man. People have got to stop taking s–t so seriously. You've got to go back to Alice Cooper and David Bowie and Elton John and Sly Stone — where are these individuals for us, for our generation, these wonderful images and imaginations and entities and enigmas? We need them — we need them so desperately. This is why we do what we do for our generation, to shine as a beacon of what is still possible, what is still tangible and what truly exists. We are here and now, and we take pride in that, and that's why we have so much fun.

"Let's face it," he adds, "we both did notice that the album was dark, right? So we're just trying to have fun with it, you know what I mean? A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down."

Reuters/Billboard

By Deborah Evans Price 49 minutes ago

NASHVILLE (Billboard) - Few artists in Christian music have had a more checkered career than Michael English.

After early stints with Southern gospel groups and Bill Gaither's famed Gaither Vocal Band, he embarked on a successful solo career in the 1990s. But after winning five Dove Awards in 1994, it became public knowledge that English, who was married, had had an affair with another married Christian artist. His label dropped him, and Christian radio and retail banned him.

His career screeched to a halt, and his personal life spiraled out of control. In the decade that followed, English battled substance abuse and was arrested on drug-related charges, but his life is now back on track. He just released a new album, "The Prodigal Comes Home," via Curb.

Q: This is your first studio album since 2000. Why has it been so long?

Michael English: The honest reason is I didn't want to do another record and (have) something else happen in Michael English's life that was negative. I did the "Heaven to Earth" CD, and the day it came out, I was in rehab with drug addiction. I'm tired of disappointing God. I'm tired of disappointing my fans, friends and family and everyone around me.

Q: At your lowest point, what happened? How did you bounce back?

English: It got to a place where I was basically homeless. I didn't have any money anymore. I had exhausted every avenue trying to support the drug habit that I had. I was selling anything and everything that I could find that was worth anything on eBay. I didn't have a voice. I couldn't even sing anymore. I lost my reputation, my life, my family, my finances, my home and my voice, so I had nothing. I felt like I couldn't be a Christian unless I was a Christian singer and it was over for me. But God let me know you don't have to have a pretty voice for God to love you.

Q: When you first signed with Curb in the mid-'90s you said your intent was to leave Christian music and go into the pop field. What happened?

English: I did one pop CD and it had success. In 1996, I had the most-added song (on) adult contemporary (radio playlists) with "Your Love Amazes Me." But it was just unfulfilling. I was born and bred to sing a gospel song, and it's like going from meat and potatoes to, like, raw vegetables to me. Singing a Christian song, whether you're living it or not — to me, it was my only way of staying close to God.

Q: What did you want to say to your audience with this record?

English: I was a lot more involved than (with) the other CDs as far as making sure these songs were absolutely perfect for me. The lyrics mean more to me today than before. I want to reach out to give hope to people. I want to give hope to the hopeless because I've been hopeless and there's not a worse hole to be in. I want to let the world know that there's not a hole deep enough that God can't still be there for you.

Q: With such titles as "Don't Think I'm Not Thankful" and "Feels Like Redemption," these songs sound as though they were written specifically for you. How did you find them?

English: (Producer) Mark Miller was really instrumental in finding these songs. We go to the same church, and our pastor brought us together. Mark knew my story. He knew my heart and he went out and found most of these songs from all these writers that he knew. I don't even know if he said, "These are for Michael English," or if they just came in. It does definitely sound like something that I would have written for this record, for sure.

Q: Having returned to Christian music and to manager Norman Miller, who handled your career in the early '90s, does it feel like things have come full circle?

English: It does, and one of the first things I told Norman (was), "I want to look to the future and not think too much about the past … so let's go and finish what we started."

Reuters/Billboard

8 minutes ago

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Carrie Underwood will become the newest member of the Grand Ole Opry after she was invited Saturday to join the long-running country music show.

Randy Travis extended the invitation as Underwood finished “I Told You So,” a Travis song that Underwood recorded on her latest album.

Her official induction will be May 10.

The former “American Idol” winner sold 7 million copies of her debut album “Some Hearts” and shot to superstardom almost overnight with hits including “Before He Cheats” and “Jesus, Take the Wheel.”

Her follow-up album, “Carnival Ride,” came out last fall and has produced two No. 1s: “So Small” and her current single “All-American Girl.”

Underwood said backstage that the invitation was a complete surprise.

“I felt like I just won something amazing all over again,” she said. “The Opry has meant so much to me growing up, seeing people perform and wanting to do that.”

Underwood, 25, becomes the latest young hitmaker to become an Opry member in recent years, joining Brad Paisley, Josh Turner and Dierks Bentley.

The Opry, established in 1925, is the longest continuously running radio show in the country. Legends such as Hank Williams Sr. and Patsy Cline were once members of the cast, and contemporary stars including Alan Jackson and Martina McBride are part of today’s show, which airs every Friday and Saturday night on WSM-AM.

Opry management says artists are invited to join based on their commitment to the show, as measured by the frequency of their guest appearances, and their overall contribution to country music.

By RAPHAEL G. SATTER, Associated Press Writer 20 minutes ago

LONDON - A British music scholar says he has identified a previously unknown portrait of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart that could be worth millions.

The 19-by-14-inch oil painting shows the profile of a man in a bright red jacket. Cliff Eisen said Friday that it is only the fourth known authentic portrait of Mozart from his time when the composer was at his professional height in Vienna, Austria.

“This is arguably the most important Mozart portrait to be discovered since the composer’s death in 1791,” Eisen said in a statement that appeared on the Web site of King’s College London, where he teaches music.

King’s College said the portrait was probably painted by Joseph Hickel, who was a painter at Austria’s imperial court. Hickel gave the portrait to Mozart in return for the composition of a serenade for a member of Hickel’s family, the college said.

Eisen said he was able to authenticate the portrait by comparing it against auction records, archival documents and a letter written by composer to his father in 1782.

The description in Mozart’s letter matched the portrait down to the buttons, Eisen said.

The portrait could be worth several million dollars, the university said.

The painting passed to the family of Johann Lorenz Hagenauer, a close friend of the Mozarts. It was purchased by an American collector in 2005.

King’s College said the collector was unaware of the painting’s significance until its connection to the Hagenauer family was established by Daniel Leeson of Los Altos, Calif.

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http://www.kcl.ac.uk/