Chris Willman

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Brenda Lee on Hitting No. 1 With ‘Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,’ After Record-Breaking 65-Year Climb: ‘You Can’t Keep a Good Song Down’

It’s hard to quite think of someone who was as big a veritable child star as Brenda Lee was in the late ’50s and early ’60s a “late bloomer.” Nor can...

KISS Says Farewell at Madison Square Garden, Before Passing the Torch to Band’s Avatar Successors: Concert Review

To paraphrase David Mamet’s caustic sales pitch from “Glengarry Glen Ross,” KISS has always been closing. That’s fine. From the start of the band’s mega-success with 1975’s “Alive!” and its crunching...

Joan Baez Praises a Stunned Boygenius at Variety’s Hitmakers: ‘I Have Seldom Heard Harmonies as True and as F—ing Angelic as Yours’

Joan Baez believes in torch-passing, and she signaled her approval of Boygenius in a big way by presenting the trio with the Group of the Year award Saturday at Variety‘s annual...

Hitmaker Bailey Zimmerman Took Heartbreak to a Record-Breaking Place With ‘Rock and a Hard Place’

Country music hasn’t had a huge presence in the mainstream top 10 since Florida Georgia Line provided a couple of big crossover blips in 2014 and 2017 with “Cruise” and “Meant...

Ashley Gorley, Variety’s Songwriter of the Year, on Being Part of Country’s Big Crossover Moment: ‘There’s a Lot More Freedom in This Genre Now’

Who should be counted as country music’s currently most successful songwriter? You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who could come up with a metric where the end result is not clearly...

Hall & Oates’ Restraining Order Mystery Solved: Daryl Hall Wants to Block John Oates From Selling His Share of Their Joint Venture to Primary...

The mystery of why Daryl Hall obtained a restraining order against John Oates has been solved, at least in part, now that part of the case has been unsealed by a...

Mars Williams, Sax Player for Psychedelic Furs and Waitresses, Dies at 68

Mars Williams, a saxophone player known for his work as a member of the Waitresses and later the Psychedelic Furs, died Monday at age 68. His hometown newspaper the Chicago...

Taylor Swift Debuts Grief-Themed ‘Bigger Than the Whole Sky’ in First Concert After Rio Fan’s Death

Taylor Swift did not offer an introduction to “Bigger Than the Whole Sky” when she performed it as a surprise song at her concert Sunday night in Rio de Janeiro. But...

Chris Willman

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