Sly Stone Wins $5 Million Verdict in Lawsuit Against Former Manager and Attorney

Funk singer Sly Stone has been awarded $5 million by a Los Angeles jury in his lawsuit against a former manager and attorney he claimed diverted royalties from his music for their own benefit.

The Los Angeles Superior Court announced its verdict on Tuesday, after two days of deliberations.

Stone’s litigation, filed under his real name Sylvester Stewart, involved millions of dollars in royalties and stretched over almost five years.

He filed suit in 2010, claiming that manager Gerald Goldstein and attorney Glenn Stone in the late 1980s induced him to sign an employment and shareholder agreement with Even Street Prods., but that they instead used the arrangement to divert millions in royalties, leaving him unable to get the money he said was due him.  More

The Death of Music Sales If CDs are "dead," so is iTunes

CDs are dead.

That doesn't seem like such a controversial statement. Maybe it should be. The music business sold 141 million CDs in the U.S. last year. That's more than the combined number of tickets sold to the most popular movies in 2014 (Guardians) and 2013 (Iron Man 3). So "dead," in this familiar construction, isn't the same as zero. It's more like a commonly accepted short-cut for a formerly popular thing is now withering at a commercially meaningful rate.

And if CDs are truly dead, then digital music sales are lying in the adjacent grave. Both categories are down double-digits in the last year, with iTunes sales diving at least 13 percent.  More

Book launch party & music for Abromeit's new reference book on spirituals!! Join the fun Feb 5th 4:30-5:30 Con Lounge!

Music by  Ryan Dearon and Amber Monroe! Have some cake, and share the joy!!

Ward Swingle 1927-2015 ‒ a cappella king dies

1960's portrait of the Swingle Singers (Ward Swingle is third from right) (RB/Redferns)

Ward Swingle, the American musician who founded the Swingle Singers, the vocal ensemble known for scat singing their way through the preludes and fugues of J.S. Bach, died Monday in Paris.

He was 87, according to the Swingle Singers organization. A cause of death was not given.

Born in Mobile, Alabama, Swingle moved in the early 1960s to Paris, where he studied piano with Walter Gieseking and became a founding member of the jazz vocal group Double Six of Paris. The group soon disbanded, however, and Swingle but another idea: to take the idea of jazz scat singing and apply it to intricate works of J.S. Bach. Unlike the Double Six, the Swingles did not overdub recordings, and sought to remain close to Bach’s written scores, albeit with perky swing rhythms accentuated by drums and double bass. More

Listen: New York Philharmonic, London Musicians Pay Tribute to Charlie Hebdo

In New York, London, Paris and other world cities, classical music organizations have honored the 12 victims of the terrorist attack against French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and defended the freedom of expression.

At Avery Fisher Hall on Thursday night, New York Philharmonic music director Alan Gilbert appeared on stage at 7:35 pm to announce that the evening's concert was being dedicated to the victims "and to the fundamental principal of freedom of speech." More