If you think the music you’re hearing on the radio is terrible these days, take comfort in knowing that Tony Bennett – a 17-time Grammy-winning jazz singer – agrees.
“The songs that are written today, most of them are terrible,” Bennett told BBC Radio 4 on Thursday. “It’s a very bad period, musically, throughout the world for popular music.
It’s not necessarily the artists’ fault, though. Bennett, who is releasing an upcoming “big swing” jazz album with “musical Picasso” Lady Gaga, blames the money-hungry labels producing the crappy hits.
“They think the public is ignorant, so their attitude is, ‘Don’t give them anything intelligent, because it won’t sell,’” Bennett continued. “I grew up in an era where the record companies just sold records to everybody, and the whole family bought songs. Today, record companies are failing because they are putting their accent just on the young, and I think that’s rather silly. They’re missing out on thousands of people that would love to buy records but they don’t buy them because they don’t have a lasting quality.”
The 87-year-old crooner has been pumping out hits since 1951, starting with “Because of You.” Bennett doesn’t plan on stopping until his body does.
“I’ll call it a day when I die,” Bennett said. “It’s a wonderful occupation for me. I’ve never worked a day in my life.”
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BBC political correspondent Iain Watson looks back at Tony Benn’s life
Ed Miliband has led tributes to former Labour cabinet minister and veteran left-wing campaigner Tony Benn, calling him an “iconic figure of our age”.
Mr Benn, who has died aged 88, was an MP for more than 50 years and served in the cabinet throughout the 1970s.
Mr Miliband said he would be remembered as a “champion of the powerless”.
But former Chancellor Denis Healey said the far-left views of his rival for the deputy leadership in 1981 had been “very damaging” for the Labour Party.
A major figure on the left of the party, Mr Benn was a popular public speaker, anti-war campaigner and political diarist.
The Labour leader said Mr Benn, whose son Hilary is a member of Mr Miliband’s shadow cabinet, was a great parliamentarian and a conviction politician.
“Tony Benn spoke his mind and spoke up for his values. Whether you agreed with him or disagreed with him, everyone knew where he stood and what he stood for.”
‘Tragedy’
Aged just 25 when he first entered Parliament, Mr Benn subsequently renounced his peerage, which he inherited on his father’s death, to remain in the House of Commons.
He became secretary of state for industry in 1974 under Harold Wilson and went on to become secretary of state for energy, keeping his post when James Callaghan became prime minister in 1976.
But after the Labour government was ousted in 1979, he staged a bitterly divisive battle as the champion of the left with Denis Healey for the deputy leadership of the party.
Speaking exclusively to Channel 4 News, Tony Benn recorded a message to be played after his death
Prime Minister David Cameron, and his predecessors Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, were among those who paid tribute to Mr Benn’s campaigning zeal, radicalism and humour.
But Lord Healey said Mr Benn had been “very difficult to work with”.
The peer told the BBC: “He was the hero of the left wing in his early years, but of course that type of left-wing Labour Party didn’t appeal to the public at all, so he was very damaging to the party.”
His “real legacy” was the supersonic Concorde passenger plane, Lord Healey argued, which turned out to be “a great waste of money”.
But former London mayor and ex-Labour MP Ken Livingstone said Mr Benn had been “demonised relentlessly” during his career and was not to blame for Labour’s 1980s turmoil.
“A chunk of Labour right-wingers defected and that split the Labour vote,” he said.
“They were actually broadly lining up behind the Thatcher strategy, as eventually Tony Blair did.
“But here we are: as in America, that Thatcher-Reagan neo-liberal agenda has failed us terribly, and destroyed millions of lives.
“Tony Benn had an alternative. The tragedy for Britain is that he never got to be prime minister and put that alternative into effect.”
Former Labour minister and Lib Dem peer Baroness Williams said that, despite his passionately-held views, Mr Benn “didn’t let himself turn into a sour partisan like a lot of politics today”.
She told the BBC’s Daily Politics programme: “If he disagreed, he would lay out his reasons for disagreement.”
‘Genuine radical’
Respect MP George Galloway, who was expelled from the Labour Party, told the BBC that Mr Benn was a “really quite majestic figure” who had inspired millions of people.
“The point that’s being made over and over again is that most people disagreed with Mr Benn but they admired him, and so on.
“But actually on the issues that he stood for, most people agreed with him, then and now, from his attempts to bring oil into public ownership in 1974 as the energy secretary right through to the war on Iraq and attitudes to nuclear weapons and the European Union.”
Mr Benn retired from Parliament in 2001, famously saying he wanted to “spend more time on politics”. A prolific writer, the last of his nine volumes of diaries was published in October.
Ken Livingstone: “I never saw Tony Benn lose his temper or get angry”
Joe Haines, who was chief press secretary to Wilson in the 1970s, said: “He did one great thing in his life: he changed the constitution of the House of Lords.
“Apart from that, he symbolised the sort of left-wing nuttiness that nearly destroyed the Labour Party in the late 1970s and early 1980s.”
Steve Richards, political columnist for the Independent newspaper, told the BBC that Mr Benn was the most memorable orator in British politics.
“Some of his ideas around democracy and accountability are very fashionable now, and indeed not just in the Labour Party but in the Conservative Party too.”
BBC Parliament will broadcast an evening of programmes in memory of Mr Benn from 19:15 GMT on Friday.
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Louisiana-born Tony Joe White scored his biggest hit, the stomping “Polk Salad Annie,” in 1969, and has been making great swamp rock ever since. Although he’s never received the acclaim someone with his talent and originality deserves, White’s evocative songs have been recorded by such luminaries as Elvis Presley, Shelby Lynne, Brook Benton, and Tina Turner, and you can hear echoes of his sultry vibe in the work of Mark Knopfler or Eric Clapton.
The steamy and irresistible Hoodoo makes it hard to believe White just turned 70. He still sings like a randy youngster, crooning in a sexy low growl that suggests a tomcat on a night out, and his fluid guitar work gracefully fuses the ethereal and the sensual. Check out the smoldering “Storm Comin’,” a vivid tale of bad weather, or the slow-burning “Sweet Tooth” and prepare to break out in a funky sweat.
Stepson of racing circuit’s founder is on the pole
Ed Carpenter owns his team, has never won Indy 500
Small chance of rain during the afternoon
(CNN) — Ed Carpenter will lead the field when the Indy 500 goes racing Sunday at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Carpenter — who is the stepson of Tony George, the founder of the IndyCar racing series — has never won the race, and winning the pole for the 200-lap race is one of the highlights of his career so far.
“It’s an honor to win this pole because it is a really competitive field,” he said May 18. “This is awesome, and it’s bigger than our wins and it’s huge for the team.”
The 32-year-old driver from Indianapolis is also the owner of his team. He has won two IndyCar races, most recently at last season’s finale in September at Fontana, California.
Defending champion and three-time winner Dario Franchitti starts 17th in the 33-car field. The race is scheduled to begin about 12:12 p.m. ET.
The National Weather Service said Sunday there is a 20% chance of rain and isolated thunderstorms in the area during the late afternoon.
