Anwar Robinson at the Singers Lounge, New York, NY
Ashley Fink appear on Live with Regis and Kelly
Dianna Agron appears on the David Letterman show 11:35/10:35c CBS
Cory Monteith appears on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, NBC 12:35/11:35 NBC.
Twitter reports suggest that Carrie Underwood and Tony Bennett are filming their duet for the CBS season premiere of Blue Bloods today. The duo recorded “It Had to Be You” for Bennett’s upcoming duets album, to be released in September.
Tony Bennett tweets a photo of he and Carrie on set.
Tommy Boy and Black Hole Recordings present a set of hot remixes to American Idol’s Blake Lewis new single. “Till We See the Sun” is the follow up single to his # 1 Billboard Club Chart topper “Heartbreak on Vinyl.” Download the EP at Beatport.com. The EP will be available for download on iTunes on August 16.
Nigel Lythgoe tweeted, “About 8 very good performers this afternoon and quite a few with a lot of potential. #AmericanIdol auditions again tomorrow.” (American Idol producer round auditions are taking place in Denver)
The event in Japan David Archuleta was scheduled to perform has been cancelled due to preparations for an approaching typhoon.
American Idol’s Paul McDonald Talks “Maggie May, ” Ryan Adams
Can you talk about the moment when you did the Ryan Adams song “Come Pick Me Up” on the show? And the judges were weird about it…
That was another thing that Jimmy Iovine and Don Was, it was an argument between those guys. It was one of those things where it was the week where you pick your idol. And Ryan Adams, I’ve always loved his writing style and this and that. I remember going in and the producers were like, “Bryan Adams, ‘Summer of 69’?” And I was like, “No man! Listen to all this stuff.”
I remember they tried to get me to change it to Bob Dylan and they wanted it to be Bob Dylan as my influence and they gave me a song and said, “You’re singing this, Bob Dylan is going to be your idol.” And I was just like, “Man, this is so fake and it’s not cool.” Don Was and I cut the track with the original lyrics in it and then we edited it down for the American Idol stuff. The American Idol watchers are a little different from the Bonnaroo or Coachella scene, so one of my goals was to broaden that fact. And just introducing Jennifer Lopez to Ryan Adams, I was like, “Success!” Even if I didn’t get the best version of that song. I remember that day I couldn’t hear at all, so I was like, “Ah, that probably sounded terrible.” But at least we got the Ryan Adams across.
Read more at American Songwriter
Jordin Sparks on WhoSay
Jordin Sparks tweets, “New tat on my rib cage…’Respira’. I love it.”
Kellie Pickler fought through a hard childhood and came out on the other side as one of country’s rising stars
Overcoming her early struggles is the inspiration behind Pickler’s latest single, “Tough, ” written specifically for her by country singer/songwriter Leslie Satcher.
“The whole premise of the song is ‘we don’t have control over the hand that life deals us, but we have control over how we play the game, ‘” Pickler said in a recent phone interview from her home in Nashville. “I know there [are] a lot of people who have similar upbringings as me. I love the message of the song.”
Read more at the Altoona Mirror
Team players
Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler and Red Sox [team stats] slugger David Ortiz [stats] are all revved up to Ride for Our Heroes, honoring the nation’s service members, veterans and their families. The Sept. 24 ride and raffle, featuring this custom-built Dirico motorcycle with a baseball-themed paint job and signed by Tyler, will raise funds for the Red Sox Foundation and Massachusetts General Hospital’s Home Base Program. To purchase raffle tickets or register for the ride, go to homebaseprogram.org/rideforourheroes.
Read more at Boston Herald
NBC program chief Bob Greenblatt faces ‘big challenge’
It’s the sorry state of cellar-dweller NBC, whose new programming chief, Bob Greenblatt, will face TV critics today and outline his plan for turning the former must-see TV network into a player again.
Once home to TV’s crown jewels, from Hill Street Blues to Friends, Seinfeld and ER, the network has fallen on very hard times, the result of ill-advised strategies and poor choices. And it has lost nearly half its audience over the past 10 years, a far greater decline than its rivals, and is now losing hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
Read more at USA Today
Mark Salling tweets, “The glee bros and I wanted to keep up our chops up over the hiatus so we formed a tribute band”
NBC Lands Karaoke Comedy Project; Adam Levine To Produce, Jake Kasdan To Direct
EXCLUSIVE: NBC is expanding its relationship with The Voice star Adam Levine to the scripted side. After a bidding, NBC has nabbed a single-camera comedy project, with the Maroon 5 frontman executive producing and Jake Kasdan attached to executive produce and direct. The ensemble comedy set at a karaoke bar, which has received a script commitment plus penalty, is being produced by 20th Century Fox TV and Chernin Entertainment. I hear at least three networks wanted the project, which is said to organically blend comedy with a musical element, but NBC was very aggressive, largely because of the involvement of its reality star Levine.
Read more at Deadline
