iTrashTV.com - MTV - Gossip Music News & Videos: December 2006
Monday, December 25, 2006
James Brown the "Godfather of Soul" Dead at 73
James Brown, the "Godfather of Soul" whose singing style and bold rhythms brought funk into the mainstream and influenced a new generation of black music, has died at age 73.
Brown died on Christmas morning, local time, at Emory Crawford Long Hospital in Atlanta after being admitted on Saturday for severe pneumonia, his manager, Frank Copsidas, said.
The singer had been in good health but went to a dentist late last week who recommended he immediately see a doctor. The decision was then taken to cancel two shows, Mr Copsidas said.
"But he was all geared up to get back to work and play New Year's Eve in (New York's) Times Square," he said of the singer who styled himself "the hardest working man in show business". "He's been doing his best shows in the last 30 years."
One of America's great showmen and band leaders, Brown created a revolutionary sound that mixed funky rhythms and staccato horns behind his own often explosive vocals.
Hip hop and rap artists revered him and extensively used his beats as the backdrop to their own music.
"He's the godfather of hip hop and rap, the father of funk and he passed on the title of 'Godson of Soul' to (singer) Usher at the Grammys of two years ago," Mr Copsidas said, adding Brown would likely be buried in Augusta, Georgia.
Brown emerged from a boyhood of extreme poverty and petty crime in Augusta to become one of the biggest record-sellers in rhythm and blues and later achieved crossover success.
He began his music career in jail as a juvenile offender and went back behind bars in 1988 for drug, weapons and vehicular charges after a high-speed car chase through Georgia and South Carolina which ended with police shooting out the tires of his truck. He left prison in 1991.
In January 2004, Brown was arrested on a domestic violence charge after his 33-year-old wife, Tomi Rea Brown, called police to report that Brown pushed her onto the ground during an argument. She suffered scratches and bruises on her arm and hip. Brown ended up pleading no contest and paid $1,087 as punishment.
Brown had more than 119 charting singles and recorded over 50 albums, was inducted into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame and received a Grammys lifetime achievement award in 1992.
Eminem and his high school sweetheart have finalized their second divorce, less than a year after they remarried.
The 8 mile rap star and his wife, Kim Mathers, told a judge in Michigan they understand the latest divorce is final, and agreed to share custody of their 10-year-old daughter, Hailie Jade Scott.
Neither Eminem, 34, nor Kim, 31, would speak to iTrashTV after the brief court hearing Monday.
The pair remarried on Jan. 14, but Eminem, whose real name is Marshall Mathers, filed for divorce less than three months later.
"We both tried to give our marriage another chance and quickly realized that a wedding doesn't fix the underlying problems," he told a radio station at the time.
Having grown up together in the dark side of the Eight Mile section of Detroit, the couple first married in 1999 in a secret ceremony in Missouri, and divorced in 2001.
In 2000, Kim sued Eminem for defamation after he famously described her fictional killing in his song Kim.
The rapper owns nine Grammy Awards for albums including The Slim Shady LP, The Marshall Mathers LP and The Eminem Show.
He also won an Oscar for the song Lose Yourself, featured in the semi-autobiographical 2002 film 8 Mile, in which he starred.
For 10 years, he was Yoko Ono's trusted chauffeur, a former Turkish military man working for the widow of an assassinated rock star for the past 10 years has snapped.
His life seemed to consist of taking care of a stable of cars, including Ono's Bentley, occasionally collecting tickets for minor traffic infractions, like driving without a seat belt.
Then, the police said, last Friday, the anniversary of John Lennon's death, he apparently snapped, turning on Yoko his boss.
In a conversation with Ono at her apartment, the chauffeur, Koral Karsan, threatened to release private information about Ono and her family unless she paid him $2 million, according to prosecutors. Four days later, on Tuesday, Karsan visited Ono's lawyer, Jonas Herbsman, in his Manhattan office, where he threatened to kill Ono, her son, Sean Lennon, and himself.
At Karsan's arraignment Thursday in Manhattan Criminal Court, a prosecutor said Karsan boasted that he had people "on standby" ready to kill Ono and that he was planning to move to Turkey and peddle a book about her private life over the Internet if she did not yield to his demand for $2 million.
The prosecutor, Maureen O'Connor, read in court a passage of the letter she said Karsan had used to try to blackmail Ono.
"I will not only write about these recordings, but will distribute them to European broadcasting stations," O'Connor quoted from the letter. "Be advised I am moving back to Turkey permanently and will publish my book in Turkey and will distribute the prints throughout the Internet from Iran where I have already secured e-commerce capability."
As Karsan, who is charged with attempted grand larceny through extortion, was being arrested Wednesday, he blurted out to reporters that Ono had sexually harassed him.
His lawyer, Patrick K. Brosnahan Jr., hinted that Karsan, who is 50 and lives with his wife and 26-year-old son, was concerned that he was close to retirement age and needed to be compensated with some kind of severance package. Prosecutors said Ono paid him a salary of $150,000 to $200,000 as her driver.
Karsan gave Ono a letter saying that he "was looking for her to compensate him for his years of service and that he worked hard and his life was nearly ruined by the hard work he put in on this job."
"He felt that she owed him," the letter said. And if Ono "did not take care of him," he would expose her most private life. Among the salacious details he claimed to have were recordings of Ono's political views and a photograph of her in her pajamas.
Karsan also claimed that he had been poisoning Ono, the official said, although the police did not find any evidence that that was true.
A neighbor in Amityville, Deborah Waring was reported as saying, Karsan made small talk with neighbors and gave them Christmas chocolates every year.
Waring said she once helped him push Ono's Bentley out of his snowy driveway.
Investigators said Karsan claimed he had rigged a car to record Ono's conversations, including her views on matters of government, but the police examined his cars and found no evidence of recording devices.
Karsan, thin and tall, at 6-foot-1, wearing a long black woolen overcoat, his white hair swept back, said nothing and no plea was entered during his arraignment Thursday. Judge Tanya Kennedy ordered him jailed until he could post bail of $250,000 cash or $500,000 bond and provide assurance that the money did not come from illegal activity.
Kennedy also issued orders of protection against Karsan for Ono and her lawyer.
It was a cold night Friday in Central Park at Strawberry Fields, but the annual tribute to John Lennon went on as fans gather to pay tribute to the musical genius.
Crowds gather every year on December 8 to remember the ex-Beatle who was killed 26 years ago. Lennon would have turned 67 next year.
“John Lennon still lives on in our hearts,” said one vigil attendee. “His vision of peace and justice still continues to this day.”
“The vibe is all love and happiness; the whole world should live like these guys are living here today,” added another Lennon fan at the memorial.
After igniting a media firestorm by flashing her apparent lack of underwear to the paparazzi, Britney Spears is finally talking. "It's been so long since I've been out on the town with friends," the singer writes in a posting Thursday on her Web site.
"It's also been 2 years since I've even celebrated my birthday. Every move I make at this point has been magnified more than I expected, and I probably did take my new found freedom a little too far. Anyway, thank God for Victoria's Secrets' new underwear line! I look forward to a new year, new music and a new me."
Spears, the mother of two, celebrated her 25th birthday on Dec. 2. She has been unleashing her inner wild child since filing for divorce last month from Kevin Federline.
Her recent nights out with party girl Paris Hilton and sometimes accompanied by Lindsay Lohan and those uncensored, R-rated crotch shots that were splashed across the Web drew disapproval from her fans and other Spears watchers.
Federline, an aspiring rapper, is seeking spousal support and sole custody of his sons with Spears.
James Brown, the "Godfather of Soul" whose singing style and bold rhythms brought funk into the mainstream and influenced a new generation of black music, has died at age 73.
In January 2004, Brown was arrested on a domestic violence charge after his 33-year-old wife, Tomi Rea Brown, called police to report that Brown pushed her onto the ground during an argument. She suffered scratches and bruises on her arm and hip. Brown ended up pleading no contest and paid $1,087 as punishment.
