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Turn on a radio between 1978 and 1987 and you were sure to hear Journey — any of the more than two dozen sumptuous yet muscular rock hits that shaped young America’s ideas about love, inspiration and wanting it the way you need it. Four decades later, the band’s music is still everywhere, including television, social media and streaming platforms like Spotify, where Journey has more monthly listeners than Bruce Springsteen, U2 or Bob Dylan. Yet Saturday night the group will bring what it’s calling its farewell tour to Crypto.com Arena — a capstone (at least if the band is to be believed) to a long career full of twists and turns.

Indeed, domination was hardly a given when guitarist Neal Schon and keyboardist Gregg Rolie — both of whom had played with Carlos Santana — formed Journey as a kind of jazzy proto-jam band in San Francisco in 1973. But with the addition a few years later of singer Steve Perry, the group found its gloriously dramatic sound and began racking up hits one after the next (though critics were rarely kind). Perry eventually quit, which took the wind out of Journey’s sails until Schon discovered an uncanny soundalike from the Philippines, Arnel Pineda, on YouTube; he’s helped the band get back into arenas and the occasional stadium even as Schon and keyboardist Jonathan Cain, who replaced Rolie in 1980, have battled each other in court over financial matters.

Got all that? To try to make sense of Journey’s path, I’ve ranked all 25 of the band’s hits that have charted on Billboard’s Hot 100, starting with the worst and ending with the best. Hold onto that feeling — it goes on and on and on and on.

25. ‘Walks Like a Lady’ (peaked at No. 32 in July 1980)

Some are born to sing the blues, as Perry once observed — just not Perry himself, who chews his way through this corny come-on like an overserved uncle at the Hard Rock Cafe. Nice showcase for Rolie’s organ work, though, on one of the last Journey singles he played on before leaving the band.

24. ‘Just the Same Way’ (peaked at No. 58 in May 1979)

Rolie and Perry tag-teaming lead vocals is not a form of democracy I’d vote for.

23. ‘After the Fall’ (peaked at No. 23 in August 1983)

Safe? Sterile? Soulless? Look, the haters can’t always be wrong.

22. ‘Too Late’ (peaked at No. 70 in January 1980)

“Before your time has run astray / You’ve got to try to get away.”

21. ‘Anytime’ (peaked at No. 83 in July 1978)

After overseeing Queen’s first few albums, producer Roy Thomas Baker turned his attention to Journey (and to the Cars); this midtempo number from the “Infinity” LP offers a credible approximation of Queen’s trademark stacked vocal harmonies.

20. ‘The Party’s Over (Hopelessly in Love)’ (peaked at No. 34 in April 1981)

Three platinum plaques in less than two years — for “Infinity,” “Evolution” and “Departure” — meant that Journey had no choice but to drop a live record, “Captured,” at the top of 1981. (It went platinum by Christmas.) As extra consumer bait, the double album closed with this new studio cut built around a killer Schon lick (and not much else).

19. ‘Good Morning Girl’/‘Stay Awhile’ (peaked at No. 55 in September 1980)

Phantom of the roller rink.

18. ‘Why Can’t This Night Go On Forever’ (peaked at No. 60 in May 1987)

Propelled by the success of his debut solo album — not to mention his appearance on the smash all-star “We Are the World” — Perry assumed greater control of Journey’s sound for 1986’s synthed-up “Raised on Radio,” which spawned no fewer than five singles, ending with this slightly lugubrious ballad. Yet the takeover came with a cost: By the end of 1987, the band had entered a hiatus that would last nearly a decade.

17. ‘Still They Ride’ (peaked at No. 19 in July 1982)

Listen to how nimbly Perry maneuvers some very tricky intervals.

16. ‘When You Love a Woman’ (peaked at No. 12 in December 1996)

Journey reunited for 1996’s “Trial by Fire,” which brought the band its only Grammy nomination (and which might feature the ghastliest album cover in music history). If the members knew that rock had changed dramatically while they were away, they didn’t show it in the LP’s romantic lead single: “When You Love a Woman” — a chart-topper for three weeks on Billboard’s adult contemporary tally — clearly sought to pick up where “Open Arms” and “Faithfully” had left off.

15. ‘Girl Can’t Help It’ (peaked at No. 17 in November 1986)

Wonder what Perry and Huey Lewis talked about between takes on “We Are the World.”

14. ‘Be Good to Yourself’ (peaked at No. 9 in May 1986)

“Karate Kid”-core.

13. ‘Only the Young’ (peaked at No. 9 in March 1985)

More “Karate Kid”-core, in this case released first as a song by Patty Smyth’s band Scandal; Journey’s version later wound up alongside Madonna’s “Crazy for You” on the soundtrack to “Vision Quest.”

12. ‘Wheel in the Sky’ (peaked at No. 57 in May 1978)

Before Perry came aboard in 1977, Journey spent a few months with Robert Fleischman as lead singer — long enough for Fleischman to co-write the group’s first Hot 100 entry, not so long that he got to sing it on the record.

11. ‘Any Way You Want It’ (peaked at No. 23 in April 1980)

Ooh, baby, hold tight.

10. ‘Suzanne’ (peaked at No. 17 in August 1986)

Easily Perry’s most unhinged vocal performance.

9. ‘Send Her My Love’ (peaked at No. 23 in November 1983)

A luscious and melancholy white-soul song that I’d bet Phil Collins admired back in the day — and that Justin Bieber would probably flip for now.

8. ‘Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin’’ (peaked at No. 16 in October 1979)

Inducting Journey into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2017, Train’s Pat Monahan belted the na-na-na outro of the band’s first Top 40 hit as he made his case for the group’s excellence. “They didn’t even need lyrics — that’s how badass this band is,” he pointed out. Still, let’s not gloss over the appealing perversity of starting a song this horny the way Perry does: “You make me weep and want to die.”

7. ‘Lights’ (peaked at No. 68 in September 1978)

Dodgers fans can delight in the fact that Perry originally wrote this paean to San Francisco — an anthem taken up at one time or another by every Bay Area pro sports team, including the Giants — about the lights going down and the sun shining on … Los Angeles. (Swap out “the bay” for “L.A.”) Maybe that’s why “Lights” has always felt to me like a precursor to the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Under the Bridge.”

6. ‘Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)’ (peaked at No. 8 in March 1983)

[Listens to “Eye of the Tiger” once.]

5. ‘I’ll Be Alright Without You’ (peaked at No. 14 in February 1987)

Shout out to future “American Idol” judge Randy Jackson, who joined Journey for “Raised on Radio” and proceeded to lay down the slinkiest, sultriest, funkiest bass line the band had ever known.

4. ‘Don’t Stop Believin’’ (peaked at No. 9 in December 1981)

Believin’ in what, exactly? The genius of Journey’s most-streamed track on Spotify (with more than 2.9 billion plays) is its use of concrete images to advance a pretty mysterious narrative. We’ve all stood under a streetlight; we all know the smell of wine and cheap perfume. Yet everybody’s midnight train is going to a different anywhere.

3. ‘Open Arms’ (peaked at No. 2 in February 1982)

Famously — and fortuitously — rejected by a former bandmate of Cain’s as “sentimental rubbish,” “Open Arms” was perhaps just waiting to be embraced by Perry, who sings it with the wounded gusto of a man well acquainted with regret. In a poetic twist, Journey’s highest-charting hit was blocked from No. 1 by the J. Geils Band’s “Centerfold,” in which the heartbroken narrator goes laughing all the way to his bed.

2. ‘Who’s Crying Now’ (peaked at No. 4 in October 1981)

The first of three Top 10 singles from 1981’s 10-times-platinum “Escape,” this immaculate R&B jam imagines an alternate dimension where Perry and Cain hear Earth, Wind & Fire’s “After the Love Has Gone” and decide to form a new group with David Foster. Except Perry remembers the song as a high point for Schon: “You know the guitar outro from ‘Who’s Crying Now’?” he asked a New York Times reporter in 2003. “I fought for that because I knew no DJ would cut that song off with Neal’s guitar wailing at the end of it. It was too brilliant.”

1. ‘Faithfully’ (peaked at No. 12 in June 1983)

It wasn’t the first rock ballad about life on the road — and it definitely wasn’t the last — but “Faithfully” might be the most emotionally generous: “Loving a music man ain’t always what it’s supposed to be,” Perry tells his lady, grounding the song in the experience of those who leave and those left behind; later, he envisions their reunion with such tenderness — “I’ll get the joy of rediscovering you” — that you know he’s already decided to take off again.

As a proud Atlantan, I’ve loved lemon pepper wings my entire life. Zesty and crispy-skinned, they were present every Super Bowl Sunday and Labor Day weekend. When my family of four wanted takeout, it was the one item we could all agree on to order.

I learned to like lemon pepper wings as an alternative to buffalo wings, which were way too spicy for me as a child. My taste buds eventually learned to handle the heat, but there’s still something in me that prefers a dry rub lemon pepper wing over anything else.

Lemon pepper wings are widely believed to be the invention of J.R. Crickets, an Atlanta-based wing chain that has now expanded to several locations throughout Georgia since opening in 1982. The classic recipe involves wings covered in a blend of lemon zest, pepper and butter, but the regional restaurant is also known for a flavor that’s not explicitly on the menu — “lemon pepper wet.” Sparking curiosity worldwide after being featured on the Emmy award-winning TV series “Atlanta” in 2017, these wings are first covered in buffalo sauce before sprinkling the lemon pepper seasoning on top.

“Lemon pepper wet” can also refer to wings that are covered in a lemon pepper sauce, in addition to the usual dry rub. American Deli, a fast-food chain that opened in Atlanta in 1989, claims to be the inventor of this flavor.

Today, the preference for lemon pepper wings has spread beyond the South. Atlanta-born rappers Future and Gucci Mane have rapped about the dish in their songs. Memes and TikToks about the famous lemon pepper wet wings from Atlanta’s Magic City, an adult entertainment club, have gone viral on social media and some restaurants are even adding the flavor to cocktails.

When I moved to Los Angeles this summer, I began searching for spots that served wings that reminded me of home. Chef Melissa Cottingham, founder of Melnificent Wingz, went through a similar journey. She’s been selling wings in L.A. since 2021, but has been cooking since her childhood in Memphis, Tenn.

“I couldn’t find any wings that reminded me of that Southern brine, [with] wet, buttery citrus sauce as well as a spice blend,” she said. “So I was like, I’m gonna create it myself.”

She sells many flavors of wings, but says lemon pepper is by far her most popular.

From panko-fried chicken legs in the heart of Koreatown, to wing platters served alongside Cajun-style rice and gravy, restaurants across L.A. have added their own spin to the dish that helped put Atlanta’s food scene on the map.

Long gone are the days of Mexican Americans’ alienation from Mexico — at least, if the Mexican government can help it.

On Sunday, hundreds of spectators gathered inside the Orpheum Theatre in downtown Los Angeles to watch the United States semifinals for “México Canta,” a binational music competition for rising artists from the U.S. and Mexico, organized by the latter’s Ministry of Culture.

Seven participants of Mexican descent from across the U.S. braved the stage with original songs, in what can only be described as a heartfelt singing contest, without the scorn of nitpicky judges or behind-the-scenes melodrama, but rather a zealous crowd made up of all age groups.

Voting was handed over to the public, as the segment broadcast live on public television across the United States and Mexico. Over 300,000 individuals tuned in to cast a vote to advance the top three contestants: Tiffany Galaviz, Joshua Soto and Rosalba Valdez. They will go on to compete in the grand finale of México Canta on Sept. 13 at the Auditorio Nacional in Mexico City for a chance at a record deal.

“There’s always that saying that if you’re Mexican American, you’re not Mexican enough, but I think that’s wrong,” said 18-year-old Soto, a Bronx native whose musical theater background and deep R&B groove gave depth to the bilingual country-corrido “Terco Callejero.”

“Ever since I was little, my parents always showed me my culture, my roots. It’s in my blood. It’s in the traditions that I follow and the music that I listen to every day,” added Soto, who is enrolled in New York University’s vocal performance program in music theater.

For 27-year-old semifinalist Valdez — a Chicagoan whose signature red hair and bedazzled fringe fit distinguished her onstage, as she sang her merengue-infused tune “Por Bonita” — being Mexican American is both a huge privilege and responsibility.

“When I was younger, I used to think the opposite, because of what our community went through,” said Valdez. “Now I see it as a superpower. [Being Mexican American is] something that I want more people to understand has power. We can create a lot of change when we realize the power that we have.”

Over 300,000 individuals tuned in live to cast a vote for the top three contestants: Joshua Soto, Tiffany Galaviz and Rosalba Valdez

(Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)

Speaking to The Times, Mexico Secretary of Culture Claudia Curiel de Icaza, stressed the importance of binational programming — adding that she believed that the singing contest can unite young people across the U.S.-Mexico border.

“We cannot think that we are merely divided by territory. Culture transcends borders, music transcends borders,” she said. “We are separated, but ultimately there is an extremely intimate and rich cultural development because culture has been the space of resistance, of resilience.”

As host and singer, Majo Aguilar — granddaughter of Mexican film and music legends Antonio Aguilar and Flor Silvestre — ushered vocalists on and off the stage. Large screens lit up with educational stories of the legacy of Mexican nationals, such as Pedro J. González, one of the first Spanish radio broadcasters in the U.S.

The show also paid homage to American-born individuals who have elevated Mexican music: including Texas-born Gloria Ríos, who helped pioneer rock ’n’ roll in Mexico in 1956 and Arizona-born Linda Ronstadt, whose 1987 album “Canciones de Mi Padre” became the bestselling non-English language record in U.S. history.

This year, the contest placed an emphasis on música mexicana. According to Spotify, global streams of the genre have grown by 295% since 2021; in the U.S. alone, its popularity has grown by 162% since 2021.

In large part, its popularity has been driven by corrido tumbados, or songs which blend traditional Mexican folk with trap, often underscoring street life, “the hustle” and the riches that can follow.

Its most prominent acts include Junior H, Fuerza Regida and Peso Pluma. These were the biggest streaming Latin musicians in the U.S. in 2024, just below reggaeton superstar Bad Bunny — yet none of these popular música mexicana artists were recognized during the competition.

“Mexican music is among the most consumed worldwide and it’s a matter of choosing a genre where young people feel identified and music that transcends borders,” said Curiel de Icaza. “And no, we are not censoring it.”

México Canta began in 2025 as state-sponsored programming to promote musical narratives beyond themes of violence and drug-trafficking.

Besides banning the use of artificial intelligence and other audio alterations, the contest did not permit “songs that glorify violence or drug use.” Failure to comply with the rules would result in disqualification for contestants.

“More than banning, it’s about educating, guiding, and getting young people to stop listening to that music,” President Claudia Sheinbaum said in a news conference last year when the program was first introduced.

President of Mexico Claudia Sheinbaum speaks during the daily morning briefing at Palacio Nacional on Aug. 6, 2025, in Mexico City.

(Manuel Velasquez / Getty Images)

The singing competition comes at a time when 10 out of 32 Mexican states have implemented bans or limitations on corridos in public spaces; namely narcocorridos, or ballads that recount or glamorize elements of drug culture or organized crime.

Some lawmakers assert that the lyrics in these songs promote violence, including Mexico City lawmakers who, in May, passed a law barring the songs from being played at public events.

“The bans, which come amid President Trump’s hyper-focus on drug trafficking in Mexico, have sparked debates here about freedom of expression and state censorship and have raised provocative questions: Do narcocorridos merely reflect reality in a nation gripped by powerful drug gangs? Or do they somehow shape it?” wrote Times correspondent Kate Linthicum in a May 2025 article.

In May, the second edition of México Canta was announced during Sheinbaum’s daily news conference, generating online buzz when famed corrido tumbado singer Junior H vocalized support for the contest — while also lamenting his past musical choices.

“In my initial [career], some of the stories that I shared in my music didn’t add to the positive message that reflect my current compositions,” said Junior H, whose real name is Antonio Herrera Pérez, in the news conference. “I kept growing and I learned that music, besides being a form of expression, also implies a responsibility when millions of people hear you worldwide.”

The 25-year-old rose to fame through popular narcocorridos such as 2023’s “El Azul,” which is believed to be about Sinaloan drug lord Juan Jose Esparragoza Moreno; as well as his 2022 banda-fused track, “El Hijo Mayor,” which some speculate to be about the son of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.

“When you grow up, you have a career path and you see that you have an impact on young people, you start to mature and evolve your career,” Curiel de Icaza said of Junior H. “And you realize you want to go in a different direction, that’s when he understood and decided that it was better to focus on something else.”

During the news conference, Sheinbaum denounced the idea that the music contest was a form of censorship. Curiel de Icaza also refuted those claims: “We’re not prohibiting anything. Music will continue to exist, different voices exist and we’re not prohibiting or censoring songs.”

To help amplify the values of México Canta, organizers enlisted the help of Los Tigres del Norte, one of the most successful regional Mexican acts in the U.S. The night before the semifinals in L.A., Los Tigres performed with Gustavo Dudamel at the Hollywood Bowl.

The band closed Sunday’s competition with a performance of “México Sigue De Pie,” a new song that underscores the grit of the Mexican community. “They’re legendary,” Curiel de Icaza said of the band.

Coincidentally, the esteemed guests were early pioneers of narcocorridos: including their 1974 song “Contrabando y Traición,” which details a fictional drug trade tale of Emilio Varela and Camelia la Texana, as well as their 1978 track “La Banda del Carro Rojo,” which describes cocaine trafficking across the state lines.

But over the last decade, the band, too, has been advised by concert organizers in Mexico to avoid playing these types of songs when performing in certain venues, leading them to voice concern over the criticism of corridos — which they argue provide listeners with details over real-life truths, in the same way journalists engage in storytelling.

“We’re narrators of people’s lives,” bandleader Jorge Hernández told El País last year.

BERKELEY — Twelve hours after walking offstage at the Greek Theatre on Tuesday night, David Byrne sits down with a cup of coffee on the patio of a tony hillside hotel and admits that he’s starting to get a little misty.

Last night’s concert on the campus of UC Berkeley was one of the remaining few on Byrne’s yearlong world tour after 2025’s “Who Is The Sky?” album. About an hour from now, a bus will pull up to ferry the 74-year-old musician and the dozen or so members of his touring company to the airport for a quick flight to Los Angeles, where they’re set to perform Friday and Saturday nights at the Hollywood Bowl.

“There’s a firepit over there,” Byrne says, pointing across the patio, “so after the show we all sat around and told stories. Everyone’s such a joy to work with — we’re all having a really good time.” He sighs. “That’s kind of rare, actually.”

“Who Is The Sky?,” which Byrne made with the producer Kid Harpoon, contrasts deep lyrics about art, home and enlightenment with bright pop arrangements filled with crisp grooves and singalong melodies. (Kid Harpoon, whose real name is Tom Hull, is known for the hits he’s created with Harry Styles and Miley Cyrus.) In the show, Byrne blends whimsical new tunes like “My Apartment Is My Friend” and “I Met the Buddha at a Downtown Party” with jittery oldies by Talking Heads, the hugely influential art-rock band he formed in 1975 with Jerry Harrison, Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth.

Yet even when the songs get dark — as in “Life During Wartime,” which comes with images of police violence on the enormous digital screens behind the players — the mood is euphoric: Like Byrne’s previous tour behind 2018’s “American Utopia,” this one has the musicians holding their instruments as they execute choreographed moves on a bare stage; the result is more or less a nonstop dance party. (Also like “American Utopia,” which Spike Lee adapted into an acclaimed concert film, this tour will make its way to movie screens courtesy of “The Brutalist” director Brady Corbet.)

So you can see why Byrne would be sad to see it come to an end, not least because he’s been using his days off to tool around a given town and take pictures of cool local color. At the top of the gig in Berkeley, he showed photos from a hike he’d taken and of a car he’d come across with a tricked-out sound system.

“Any ideas of things to see in L.A.?” he asks me, dressed in a violet-colored chore jacket only a few shades removed from the blue one he wore onstage. “That hike was a workout. Even some of the dancers said those hills were steep.”

“Life During Wartime” was maybe 15% faster last night than the original record.
Could’ve been, yes. You’ll have to ask the drummers — they set the tempo, and they get excited and it kind of ramps up. It’s sometimes hard for me to keep up — I’ve got a lot of words to get out.

I was fortunate to be at Van Halen’s next-to-last show at the Hollywood Bowl, and I remember every song felt insanely fast.
Wonder if that was drugs?

You ever see Van Halen?
Never saw them live. David Lee Roth was a Talking Heads fan — came to visit our rehearsal loft once. I was kind of surprised: “How did you…?”

David Byrne performs at the Coachella festival in April.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

Would you say things turned out better or worse than the future you predicted in “Life During Wartime”?
Well, we’re not having a total civil war. There’s maybe still a chance that could happen, but it seems there’s more resistance now than there was before — a sense that we don’t have to just roll over and take all the stuff that’s going on. The footage we got kind of hits home.

You show the video of the guy on the bike pedaling away from ICE agents in Chicago.
That often gets a cheer.

I wondered if it ever doesn’t.
In the United States, no. Seeing the underdog get away — that’s a pretty timeworn story. We didn’t have that video at the beginning of the tour — it didn’t exist. I saw it on some news service, and I thought, oh, this has to lead the whole sequence. When we were first putting the show together, we had more video stuff. But screens are really seductive, so you start looking at that. We said, no, you have to connect with real live people, then you can put it up.

Have you been to the Sphere in Las Vegas?
A bunch of the band and I went to see “Wizard of Oz.” I haven’t seen a band in there. But it was really a lot of fun — quite a spectacle with the video all around you.

Don Henley compares the Eagles’ role there to the organist at a silent movie.
The pit band, yeah. That’s a thing to do — works especially well, I would imagine, for bands like the Eagles and other groups that don’t do a whole lot of song and dance.

At 74, can your body do all the dancing you want to do?
Oh, no. With more physical training, I’d probably be able to do a little more than I can now. But I’m never gonna be able to do what some of the dancers can do.

How about what you used to be able to do?
Like in “Stop Making Sense”? There’s some stuff in there where I go, nope, can’t do that. But I can do other things. I don’t have a feeling that I’m barely getting by.

Are you an exerciser?
I have a person I see in New York. It hasn’t happened so much lately because we’ve been moving around so much. But Sasha [Rivero, from the touring company] leads us through these warm-up exercises before shows — kind of a cross between strength training and yoga.

Beyond the value of staying agile, how do you think about maintaining your looks?
I’m aware it’s a thing. If I came across as old and decrepit, it might be less exciting for some of the audience. Not great for business.

When did your hair go gray?
In the ’90s, I want to say. I dyed it for a while when I started seeing a fair amount of gray coming in. Then at one point I was on holiday with my then-wife and just said, “Let’s cut it off and see what’s under there.” By that point it was pretty much all gray. I was OK with it.

Who’s a performer you admire who’s still out there doing it late in life?
Caetano Veloso — he’s served as a role model for me. He’s someone who’s reinvented himself over and over and over again — done records that are very different than the record before. Even on the same record, he can be really experimental and then do something incredibly romantic.

Can you envision a time when you’d stop performing?
I don’t think so. I can see there might be a point where I don’t do as much dancing around.

I’ve seen Willie Nelson probably half a dozen times in the last 10 years. He sits there and plays, and it’s great.
“My Apartment Is My Friend,” that was inspired by a Willie Nelson song: “Hello Walls.” There’s also a George Jones song, “The Grand Tour,” where he takes you into his place: “This is where she sat, that’s where she put out her cigarette,” all this kind of stuff. I loved that you can make an apartment into a character. So I started putting down ideas, and I realized: Should I reveal that it’s about an apartment right off the bat, or should I wait till the last line of the chorus? Before that, you don’t know — it sounds like a love song. The title gives it away. But Tom, when I said “should I change the title?” he said, “The title’s what got me to listen to the demo.”

If I say that the songs from the new album didn’t come alive for me until the show, how does that strike you?
Good and bad. I wish the record had the same impact that the songs have live. But then I also think to myself: Well, the reason you go to see a live show is because you’re getting something more than you get by just putting a record on.

(Josh Edelson / For The Times)

You’ve been playing for years now with this mobile handheld setup.
I wasn’t sure an audience was gonna go for it. I don’t know why, but I thought it was kind of a big step for an audience to take in.

To not have the traditional rock band stage set.
“Here’s the drummer — we know what he does.” There were people on the last tour who would say, “It’s got to be playback — you’re not really playing it.” So I added an introduction to a song where one by one we introduced the musicians at the beginning of the song, and you could hear how we put it together. An unexpected consequence is that it democratized the whole stage experience for the band members. There’s parts where the drummers come to the front and I go to the back, which you would never have in a regular kind of show where the drummer’s stuck on a riser. Everyone gets to be a star — everyone gets to be recognized as an individual.

Would you say your eagerness to share the spotlight could only have come after years of being the focal point?
I have no idea.

Most of the musicians are pretty young.
Younger than me, anyway.

Why is that important to you?
I learn from them — musically but also personally. I learn about what music they’re listening to, what their experiences have been, what their take on things is. They’re not living in the past — they don’t have nostalgia for the good old days.

In 2023, you spent a fair chunk of time looking back with the rest of Talking Heads for a rerelease of “Stop Making Sense.” Did you enjoy that or grit your teeth through it?
It was fine — it was really nice. As we said over and over, we’re very proud of that show and the music that we did and the film that Jonathan [Demme] made. And that it was going to connect with a completely new generation. Jerry came to the show last night. He lives in Marin.

You guys hang out?
Afterwards, yeah. I mean, he had to drive back. He said he enjoyed it — said it was a good show. I connected him with our keyboard player because the keyboard player came up with these interesting technical things I thought Jerry might be interested in. He has an accelerometer attached to his arm — you don’t see it because his sleeve covers it — where he raises his arm and it increases the volume like a foot pedal on a keyboard.

Tell me about Brady Corbet’s concert movie. He shot it in 70mm.
To be honest, I wasn’t sure why. But Brady made the case, and it wasn’t about bringing people into the theater. He said when you go to 70mm it’s a little bit closer to what your eye experiences.

Talking Heads in Italy in 1982: Tina Weymouth, from left, Jerry Harrison, Chris Frantz and David Byrne.

(Luciano Viti / Getty Images)

This is kind of a cutesy formulation, but I wonder if it’s pushing back on the dominance of vertical video.
Biologically and evolutionary-wise, we experience the world horizontally. We don’t go walking around looking up at the sky — the stuff that’s gonna come get us is somewhere on our eye level.

Jimmy Iovine gave an interview to the New York Times the other day where he said one of the last things he asked AI was about your set list.
He could’ve just asked me.

Iovine was extremely pro-AI in this interview. What’s your vibe?
My vibe is positive and negative. On the positive side, we’ve all heard the hype from Silicon Valley that we’re gonna have medical breakthroughs. The negatives — how could there not be massive job loss? What concerns me is the environmental stuff. The last thing the planet needs is a massive increase in energy usage. We’re talking about the survival of species — of everything that lives on Earth. To ramp up that part of what humans do just seems like the worst possible thing you could do.

The other thing that worries me is that machines aren’t really thinking — they’re probabilistic. This stuff has been designed intentionally to mimic human beings, and we are very, very easily fooled. I think that’s dangerous because we give it agency. We assume all these things about it — we trust it. I mean, people will listen to a political argument from a chatbot more than they will from another person.

Seems bad.
Right?

Any worthwhile creative application you can identify?
I used it a little bit to animate my drawings in one of the sequences from the show. They’re my drawings — I wasn’t taking from anybody else. In that case I feel like it’s a tool that’s very efficient. Might put some animators out of work, but if I had to pay the rate for animators on something like that, it would take a year to do and cost me a fortune.

What if the producer on your next record says, “Hey, here’s a little shortcut we can use”?
We already use little shortcuts — Auto-Tune is one. That’s not AI, but we’ve been using those kinds of tools, and there’s always the danger of overusing them. When people use Auto-Tune a tiny bit, it’s pretty much invisible. But on a lot of records — I’m not talking about the Cher record — it’s a little too perfect, and you start to lose the human connection. So it’s not a clear-cut choice of: Do I use this or not? It’s: Do I get seduced and use it too much?

CRUZ Beckham’s festival debut became a sweet family affair as he dedicated a song to his little sister, Harper – who later took to the stage. 

The 21-year-old rocker son of David and Victoria Beckham made his festival debut at Reading and Leeds festivals this weekend with his band, Cruz Beckham and The Breakers.

His proud mum and dad were watching from the side of the stage, with siblings Romeo, 23, and Harper, 15, standing amid the crowd at Reading to watch him play. 

Towards the end of the set, Cruz took a moment to dedicate his track Mr Nobody to the youngest member of the Beckham family.  

“This show is our second to last show on this tour and we’ve had an incredible time,” he told the crowd at The Canopy stage. 

“It’s been amazing seeing everybody and just want to thank you for all the love and all the support. This next song, I’d like to dedicate to my little sister who’s just dancing right there.”

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Harper later joined Cruz’s girlfriend, Jackie Apostel, to make a surprise appearance on stage and throw t-shirts into the crowd. 

After the performance, Cruz shared clips from the set where thousands of revellers were seen cheering the band on. 

He added to the clip on Instagram: “READING oh my god. I have no words. Leeds, let’s do it again today. Thank you thank you thank you” 

The band will perform at Reading’s sister festival Leeds today – with the appearances tying into the release of their EP, Wear & Tear. 

Speaking in the new issue of Dork magazine, Cruz acknowledged why people might be sceptical about his music, but insisted he’s prepared to put in the hard graft to establish his place as a performer. 

“It’s better to be underestimated than overestimated,” he told the mag. 

“I’m glad that people are liking the songs. I’m glad that people are giving me the opportunity. To be honest, I was surprised they even gave me the opportunity in the first place.

“I understand that they would think that everything’s gonna be a bit s**t and a bit too polished.

“But you know, I love music, and I really love playing live, and I’m just excited to be able to do it.”

“My experiences in life have been very different to a lot of people’s experiences, but I still feel like I’ve got something to say,” he added. 

MICHAEL Jackson’s daughter Paris has released a moving song tribute on his 68th birthday with the icon’s voice on track.

The singer’s personal new song entitled The Breeze appears to include a private recording featuring the voice of her father.

In the emotional audio, Michael can be heard telling his daughter: “Love you, Paris. I love you, Paris!” 

A young Paris is then heard sweetly replying: “I love you.”

Released as a double single on Michael’s birthday, Paris, 28, wrote and recorded two songs which displayed her relationship with him.

She explained on her social account that she is so proud of both tracks and said “It’s not a tribute. It’s not a commemoration.

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“It’s not a demonstration of any kind. It is a letter. It is a poem of the sonic variety.

“It is my honest experience – with love, loss, and para-social relationships vs a personal one.”

Fans flocked to comment and one wrote: “I love both tracks. Beautiful work.

Another added: “Daddy’s little girl.”

“Oh no, I’m not going to be able to listen,” said another fan.

A fourth wrote: “My eyes are red from crying so much I can’t this is so beautifullll.”

A fifth added: “I’m crying too!”

Paris is the only daughter of Michael Jackson and Debbie Rowe.

Her legendary father died in June 2009 of cardiac arrest after a doctor prescribed him various medications to help him sleep.

Paris has been open about missing her father and shared a never-before-seen clip of him – 11 years after his tragic death.

Recently, Paris was spotted on an outing with Hayden Karchmer in Los Angeles, which sparked rumours she has officially moved on from her ex-fiancé.

In death as in life, Parton left us one of the few spaces where Americans can still unite under a single banner. The banner of Dolly.

Flags are flying at half-mast to honor singer Dolly Parton, who died Tuesday at the age of 80.

There are few artists, let alone individuals of any stripe, whose loss compels a national day of mourning. Especially now, when it can appear there is little to agree upon and everything to debate.

But in death as in life, Parton left us one of the few spaces where Americans can still unite under a single banner: The banner of Dolly.

Her music was borderless, disarming and genuine. Simply put, it was a reflection of the woman who wrote and performed the songs. Her outsized personality, warmth, compassion and charm made her more than a country music star. Parton was an icon whose music, philanthropy and authenticity superseded genre, class, sexuality, color and politics.

She ingratiated herself to the public in bigger-than-big wigs, “trashy” outfits (her words) and with an unfailing sense of humor about herself. When I interviewed Parton in 2001 upon release of her album “Little Sparrow,” she expounded on her fashion sense.

“Just ‘cause I’m singing about a farmer doesn’t mean I have to come out in overalls,” she said. “Or just ‘cause I’m singing about a woman having a baby doesn’t mean I have to wear a maternity smock. But if I did, I’d put rhinestones on it.”

Parton’s self-effacing jokes made her immense talent less threatening in an entertainment industry that often reserved the title of “genius songwriter” for men. And women’s contributions were often minimized by putting the focus elsewhere.

In 1977, when she appeared on “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson,” the most powerful man on television asked what her ample bustline would have been called back home. “Healthy,” he joked? She laughed it off. He then said he would give a year’s pay to “peek under there.” She was quick with a comeback, “I paid good money for these.”

Parton was a master at meeting wisecracks about her shapely figure with her own one-liners. When Carson’s successor Jay Leno asked if her breasts were real, Parton replied, “They’re real big!”

The boob jokes were predictable during her frequent appearances on talk and variety shows. But the of-its-time sexism was neutralized when she’d pull out her acoustic guitar and perform a song as comfortably as if she were sitting on the porch of her childhood home in Appalachia. The audience was then reminded that it was her indelible songs like “Coat of Many Colors” or “Jolene,” and the home-spun beauty of Parton’s voice, that made her a star.

The fourth of 12 children born to a poor sharecropper in a one-room cabin on the banks of the Little Pigeon River in Pittman Center, Tenn., Parton over six decades sold more than 100 million records to become one of the bestselling music artists of all time. She expanded her audience when in 1980 she played an overworked, underappreciated secretary alongside Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin in “9 to 5.” The title track she wrote and performed for the film is an enduring work anthem, no matter the generation.

Despite Parton’s huge pop successes, which also included “Here You Come Again” and “Islands in the Stream,” she always came back to her roots. “When I came out of the Smoky Mountains, I tried to make a living doing [mountain music], but I couldn’t,” she said back in 2001. “I had to prostitute myself in certain ways musically in order to make a living. It’s almost like I had to get rich in order to sing like I was poor again.”

But it was largely what Parton did and said outside the recording studio and film set that made her such an inspiring and beloved figure, especially in communities that had been overlooked, marginalized or demonized.

She spent her lifetime giving back to Appalachia and other regions of her home state, sponsoring literacy programs and building the Dollywood theme park to attract tourism and create jobs. She covered tuition and related college expenses should Dollywood employees enroll in higher education. It was also reported that Parton had anonymously paid for the band uniforms for a number of Tennessee high schools for years.

When Whitney Houston popularized the country singer’s song “I Will Always Love You,” Parton used her songwriting royalties to buy property in a historically Black Nashville neighborhood, and moved her own business offices into the complex rather than in the city’s corporate or music-row districts. Functioning as a local commercial building and office space, it allowed her to invest directly in the surrounding community. Parton referred to the property as “the house that Whitney built.”

Parton was also known for her long history of openly supporting the gay community. She raised money for HIV-related charities, and her production company, Sandollar Productions, co-produced the Oscar-winning documentary “Common Threads: Stories From the Quilt,” which honored people lost to AIDS. She also publicly came out in support of same-sex marriage in 2009 and voiced her support for the trans community after several anti-trans measures came into law in Tennessee in 2023.

Communities across the political and cultural spectrum, and countries overseas, are now remembering and honoring Parton with drag parades, New Orleans brass band tributes and even a King’s Guard rendition of “9 to 5” outside Buckingham Palace.

Parton’s acts weren’t political. They were empathetic. And unifying. Even in death.

I still remember the moment when I heard “Cien Años” for the first time. I can vividly recall the haunting aftertaste, the glorious specificity of the experience.

I had moved from Buenos Aires to Los Angeles, and somehow managed to make a living writing about Latin music. I‘d seen Los Tigres del Norte in concert, shared a lengthy conversation with Vicente Fernández outside the Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim, and spent months poring through the songbook of José Alfredo Jiménez. But listening to the 1953 recording of “Cien Años” by Mexican legend Pedro Infante was a game changer — an existential milestone that will stay with me for the rest of my life.

I was in my home office, researching a story about the golden era of Mexican music. “Cien Años” played on, the elusive contours of its melody floating in the afternoon air. Three minutes and 33 seconds later, when it ended, you could hear a pin drop. I sat still for a few minutes, transfixed. Then I played it again. And again. Ten, 15, 20 times in a row.

A composition by Rubén Fuentes and Alberto Cervantes, the song wasn’t just another lilting ranchera from the 1950s — that much was clear. On the contrary, it felt like an otherworldly manifestation from the gods above, as if a UFO had landed in the Mexican capital decades ago, and an advanced race of extraterrestrials left this artifact behind as some sort of exquisite offering — a reminder of everything that could be but wasn’t.

There‘s the matter of that sinuous electric guitar intro, halfway between tropical psychedelia and merry-go-round anthem. Then, the main melody: forlorn, hallucinogenic. Infante’s aristocratic delivery collides head on with the brutal indifference of the girl he will carry on loving for the rest of his embittered existence. His voice, so soft and fragile, could belong to both man and woman; the universal scar of romantic rejection.

Clearly there was a mystery attached to this evergreen standard that people got to see on the big screen in 1954, when Infante performed it in the film “Cuidado Con El Amor.” The song also reminded me of Schubert — maybe a page off “Winterreise,” the romantic song cycle composed in 1827.

Had I accidentally discovered a supernatural portal where time and space didn’t exist, one where random phenomena of blinding beauty could materialize on this plane without any logical explanation?

To figure out why “Cien Años” still resonates, I decided to consult with a few notable singer-songwriters.

First I thought of Spanish rock star and longtime Los Angeles resident Enrique Bunbury, who himself traffics in the diffuse territories of the ominous and esoteric. I sent him a rambling voice memo, trying to convey my bewilderment as best as I could. True to his character, he replied with a terse but eloquent text.

“I apologize for the delay in responding, as I was busy promoting my new album,” he wrote. “I have to agree that Pedro Infante’s version has an incredibly evocative air to it that is not common in rancheras. This may be related to the classical violin training of Rubén Fuentes, who was also an arranger. Alberto Cervantes, on the other hand, was a bolero guy. I imagine he contributed the intense Acapulco scent that emanates from this song. I’m so sorry that my ignorance on this subject will probably not be of great help in your inquiry.”

I marveled at Bunbury’s humility, but agreed with him that the mystery was far from solved.

Maybe a young Mexican singer could shed some illumination, I thought, before sending a somewhat incoherent email to Silvana Estrada. I was right to assume that the 29-year-old prodigy behind 2025’s “Vendrán Suaves Lluvias” — one of the most spiritually devastating albums of the decade, and the second best album of last year — would have something to say.

“This is one of the most gorgeous boleros in the Mexican repertoire,” Estrada replied.

“I always thought the Pedro Infante version was mind-boggling. There is something in the string arrangement that sounds a bit impressionistic to me, but also profoundly Mexican, with the trumpets doubling the violin lines. There’s also a sense of maximalism that sums up the old Mexico as a time of splendor. And when I think of this song, I think of something splendid.”

At least now I knew that I was not alone in my overwhelming passion for this strange little gem. But neither Bunbury nor Estrada had addressed the eerie supernatural vibe that emanates from the recording — the feeling that when “Cien Años” was recorded somewhere in Mexico City, Pedro and company connected with another dimension.

I was scheduled to interview Mexican American singer Lila Downs the following day, and I decided to bring this up at the end of our chat. She was sitting down in her stately Oaxaca home when we connected over Zoom, and smiled widely the moment I brought up my metaphysical query.

“I’ve experienced a similar feeling with other songs that I’ve performed,” she said. “It’s like they transport me to a más allá [a far beyond], a certain undefined something that doesn’t belong in my own era. ‘La Llorona,’ in fact, connects me to something that is not even human — a force that exists in the shape of waves. It’s the essence of the very mystery that music itself evokes in all of us.”

Downs pointed out an important detail: that “Cien Años” could not have emerged from any country other than Mexico.

“Our subconscious is loaded with the spirit of the ancestors,” she added. “There is a deep connection with the cosmos in Mexico. I’ve seen it in anthropology books; this vision of art as a healing agent that facilitates spiritual growth.”

I was finally ready to put the matter aside, when I spoke to Gepe. The Chilean singer-songwriter has crafted many tracks that have a timeless, soulful quality to them. “Desastre,” a lovely tune released in 2024, feels almost as unearthly to me as “Cien Años.”

I asked him to listen to the song.

“That intro is definitely striking,” he told me in the first of many voice memos. “It has a psychedelic tinge that didn’t really exist in the 1950s. It reminds me of someone like Peter Drake and his slide guitar playing, which had more of a Hawaiian sound. I think it’s beautiful that such a short intro can leave you with more questions than answers. That’s part of the magic, isn’t it?”

Gepe made an astute observation: that my life-changing experience with “Cien Años” was not due to a single factor. It was a layered, complex combination of different details.

“You have this incredible, hypersensitive performance by Pedro, coupled with a timeless arrangement which was definitely ahead of its time,” he explained. “The cinematic, almost Hawaiian touch on the guitar, but also a strong affinity to the bolero aesthetic — there’s a subtle softness in the maracas, so that the voice can grow and shine with so much sweetness.”

And then, he told me the one thing that brought it all together.

“It’s funny, because you keep saying that this song sounds like it landed from another world, but there’s a stark contradiction in that statement,” he said. “Pedro’s delivery is so marvelous and sensitive, that it goes beyond male or female — it sums up the human experience in all its subtlety and aching beauty. I think what happened here was that the composers, arrangers, musicians and Pedro got together in a studio and created something so immense and luminous that it ended up transcending its own sense of time.”

Dolly Parton was the last star in music everyone in America could agree on. Her brilliant career as a carefully-sculpted backwoods icon (one with unmatched insight into the human heart) told the nation stories it craved to hear about itself — songs about resilience and dignity under poverty and labor, how to hold conflicting feelings of devotion and loss. None of the canon of extras — the charmingly ramshackle Dollywood theme park, the purehearted children’s literacy initiatives, the rhinestone cowgirl aesthetics — would be possible without one of the most emotionally attuned, beautifully performed and broadly reaching catalogs in American music.

She is one of the finest singer-songwriters this country ever produced, and it’s inconceivable to sum up her catalog in just an LP’s worth of tunes. But Parton — the songwriter, the vocalist, the instrumentalist, the collaborator — only ever wanted to invite a listener in, wherever they arrive from. Here are 10 songs to start with.

Coat of Many Colors (1971)

The foundational text of Parton’s career, this 1971 single lovingly details her mother’s make-do resilience, stitching a fall coat from scraps of cloth in the spirit of a beloved Bible story. Its storytelling economy is just as crafty, finding splendor with humble tools, and distills Parton’s whole persona into one perfect song.

Touch Your Woman (1972)

You could spend tens of thousands on couple’s therapy and never get as good advice as “We can’t always both be right, we sometimes disagree / But you’ve got the right to speak your mind and it’s the same with me / When the anger’s at an end, and you want inside my arms again / All you have to do to make it right is just / Touch your woman.”

Jolene (1974)

Try to forget how ubiquitous this song is in pop culture, even though it’s been covered by Beyoncé (who laced her own domestic strife into a version), the White Stripes and Parton’s goddaughter Miley Cyrus. Listen to how eerie the thing actually is, how the harmonies capture the desperation, panic and preemptive grief of losing a love to someone whose appeal is undeniable. Nothing that haunted can ever be overplayed.

I Will Always Love You (1974)

Any songwriter should be so lucky — to have one of your hallmark tunes be lovingly swept out from under you and become one of the definitive ballads of pop music. Whitney Houston’s powerhouse version stands alone, but Dolly’s quieter, mournful ode to her collaboration with Porter Wagoner is the artful, formative sketch to a colossal mural.

The Bargain Store (1975)

Taking the themes of “Coat” in intimate new directions, there’s a pained, darker tang to lines like “Take these old, used memories from the past / And these broken dreams and plans that didn’t last / I’ll trade them for a future, I can’t use them anymore.” A perfect distillation of Parton’s themes and craftsmanship, where melancholy and resilience fight it out in the empty spaces.

Two Doors Down (1977)

One of Parton’s first forays into purer pop, this single has the stomp and shuffle of funk and could easily be retrofitted into disco DJ sets. Soul horns and synths liven the production up, but it all underlines how far her writing and vocal performances could travel through genres.

9 to 5 (1980)

The song that made Parton a true pop crossover, a movie star with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin and an Oscar nominee. But don’t let the relatable career-girl pluck of the movie dilute the fact that this song is pissed off about capitalism, even as its hooks make the grind of working life more bearable.

Old Flames (Can’t Hold A Candle To You) (1980)

Dolly chose her covers carefully, but even she couldn’t have known how full-circle this would come around. A take on songwriter Pebe Sebert’s ballad that went to No. 1 on the country charts in 1980, Sebert’s daughter Kesha would eventually return the favor with a version decades later, two women who turned an act playing ditzy into resonant, affecting music.

To Know Him Is To Love Him (1987)

Parton’s pen and persona had no equals, but she was an enthusiastic collaborator as well, from her early partnership with Porter Wagoner up to her 2023 hard rock LP. She was at her best with the women of Trio, a supergroup with Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris, and this regal single of nascent, unrequited commitment is as lovely as they come.

Smoky Mountain Memories (Live – 1994)

Parton was a virtuoso at staying, if not apolitical, at least a neutral zone of relatability for conservatives and leftists alike, each of whom had ways to read their lives into her storytelling. A song like “Smoky Mountain Memories,” a gut-wrenching live rework of an earlier song, lent dignity to her family’s toil and loneliness, while raging against the circumstances that created it — “It takes all I’ve got to give what life demands / Oh, you go insane if you give into it.”

Dolly Parton, the singer and songwriter from Locust Ridge, Tenn., who willed herself into being the very symbol of country music stardom, has died in Nashville.

Parton died peacefully Tuesday, her nephew Bryan Seaver announced in a press release shared with The Times. Seaver also announced her death in a video shared to the singer’s Instagram page. She was 80.

The fabled entertainer died after a series of health issues that led her to postpone several performing commitments. In September 2025, she missed the announcement of a Dollywood attraction to recover from a kidney stone. Later that month she delayed her residency at Caesars Palace — her first residency on the Las Vegas Strip in more than 30 years — due to unspecified “health challenges.”

Over the course of a flamboyant 50-plus-year career as a songwriter, recording artist, actor and businesswoman, Parton reinvented the American success story through a combination of grit and wit, faith and sex appeal, virtuosity and plainspokenness, empathy for the human condition and plastic surgery.

She seized on the roles that American culture allowed for women in the spotlight — waif, trollop, fallen woman, country girl in over her head — and played them to the hilt, achieving artistic and financial heights few female performers have ever reached. By the time of her death, she was said to be one of the few things that Americans of most every persuasion could agree on.

One of the most honored musicians in modern history, Parton earned 10 Grammy Awards, two Academy Award nominations, a Primetime Emmy, 10 Country Music Assn. awards, and in 1999 she was enshrined in the Country Music Hall of Fame.

In 2005 President George W. Bush presented Parton with the National Medal of the Arts, and a year later she was given a Kennedy Center for the Arts Award for her lifetime contribution to the arts. Parton logged some 25 gold or platinum records and 25 No. 1 songs on the country chart. Parton also won a Liseberg Applause Award, the biggest prize in the theme park industry, for her fabled tourist attraction Dollywood.

Parton’s rags-to-riches tale reads like a classic country music story-song. But before it became mythical, it was only incredibly hard.

Dolly Rebecca Parton was born in Locust Ridge, Tenn., in the Great Smoky Mountains, on Jan. 19, 1946. Her father was a tobacco sharecropper and she was the fourth of 12 children. In her autobiography, “Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business,” Parton related how her parents were so poor they paid the doctor who delivered her with a sack of cornmeal.

Raised in a one-room cabin with no electricity, she listened to the Grand Ole Opry on a battery-powered radio. When she was 7 she started writing songs; a year later she picked up the guitar. At 10 she was singing on a Knoxville radio and TV program, “Cas Walker Farm & Home Hour.”

The Parton family was musical, and there were always banjos, fiddles, mandolins and guitars around the cabin. Her voice, a birdlike soprano with an animated trill, hadn’t changed much from her youth: “I sound like a little girl singing all these Lord-awful songs,” she told “Fresh Air’s” Terry Gross in 2001.

On a Friday night in 1964, Parton became the first in her family to graduate from high school. The next afternoon she was on a bus heading for Nashville, targeting a career in country music.

Bob Hope gets an adjustment to his reindeer costume as he and Dolly Parton prepare to tape a 1988 Christmas special on a cruise ship docked in Miami.

(Kathy Willens / Associated Press)

Women had little real power in Nashville at the time, and though rural women were a growing part of the country music audience, they were marginalized as artists. Parton signed to the Monument label, but felt that they wanted a pop singer more than they wanted her. An early breakthrough came when singer Bill Phillips heard a demo version of her “Put It Off Until Tomorrow”; not only did he want to record the song, but he recorded it with Parton singing harmony on it. The song went to No. 6 on the country chart in 1966.

In 1967 she recorded Curly Putman’s “Dumb Blonde,” her first charting song as a singer and a savvy choice that spoke to her as both an image and as flesh and blood, as she sang:

Just because I’m blond
Don’t think I’m dumb
‘Cause this dumb blond ain’t nobody’s fool

Nashville noticed. That year, country music star Porter Wagoner was looking for a new “girl singer” for his popular TV show, after Norma Jean left. Parton got the gig, and for weeks, legend has it, was greeted by the studio audience shouting “Norma Jean” when Parton opened her mouth. It was the kind of challenge she lived for. Carefully deferential to the star, Parton carved out a foothold for herself.

They were a complicated team. Tall, gaunt and calculating, Wagoner’s angles had angles, but somehow standing next to her, his pompadour dwarfing her considerable bouffant, it worked. At their peak, they had a weekly TV viewership of over 3.5 million, and recorded numerous hit duets, “Holding on to Nothin” (1968), “If Teardrops Were Pennies” (1973) and “Please Don’t Stop Loving Me” (1974) among them.

On her solo recordings at the time, Parton included a raft of songs about poor children in trouble. These gothic, occasionally autobiographical compositions, including “Coat of Many Colors,” “My Blue Ridge Mountain Boy,” “Evening Shade,” “Daddy Come and Get Me” and “Down From Dover,” would have been more than enough to make her, if not a star, at least a country music legend. But the kind of attention even her lesser work with Wagoner enjoyed continued to elude her own material.

Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers laugh together backstage at an April 2010 show honoring her “Islands in the Stream” singing partner.

(Rick Diamond / Getty Images)

By 1973, Parton realized that if she was going to be her own star she would have to be on her own. Wagoner fought and threatened, and finally, Parton wrote a song as a way to help him understand both her gratitude and her need for independence, “I Will Always Love You.” He liked the song, but it didn’t convince him. Wagoner sued her for $20 million over breach of contract and settled for $1 million.

But Parton had won her freedom, and she made the most of it. Her album from that year, “My Tennessee Mountain Home,” was a reintroduction to her audience, an autobiographical cycle of songs telling the story of a singer leaving home to make it on Music Row. And in 1974, “Jolene” became her chart-topping breakthrough.

The title was the name of a red-haired, green-eyed young fan Parton met signing autographs, and the story of a woman begging a rival to leave her man alone. Parton said she made it up after discovering a bank teller had a crush on her husband. With a beveled chord progression and a haunting repetition of the name, it became perhaps her most requested song, and was covered by many, including the White Stripes, Candi Staton, Reba McEntire and Olivia Newton-John.

“I wanted to be seen, I wanted to be recognized, I wanted to be a star,” she explained. The last part was now coming into focus.

In 1976 she hosted a short-lived variety TV series, “Dolly!” Her name was her brand, and so, too, was her profile: the full bosom and tiny waist, platinum wig and baubles like sprinkles on an ice cream cone, 5 feet tall standing in five-inch heels. She was a disarming contradiction: manufactured and utterly sincere.

“A country girl’s idea of what glamour was,” she explained.

“I didn’t have any money to have stuff and I’ve often joked about it, but it’s the real truth that I patterned myself after what they considered the trash in our hometown.” She took shame and made it a flag, one big enough for all sorts of Americans to settle beneath.

Dolly Parton checks out an exhibit honoring her life and career at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in May 2025.

(Jason Kempin / Getty Images)

Building on her fame, in the mid-’70s Parton decided to reinvent herself by reaching beyond the confines of country music. She signed with L.A.-based talent manager Sandy Gallin, who had made Mac Davis a country crossover star and would soon work with Cher and Michael Jackson.

Parton laid off her longtime Traveling Family Band and sought out musicians and songs that were more purely pop. Hits that followed included “Here You Come Again” (No. 20 on the pop chart, 1977), “Heartbreaker” (No. 37, 1978) and duets with Kenny Rogers like “Islands in the Stream” (No. 1, 1983).

The pop move was muttered over and seen by gatekeepers as a rejection of Southern-based authenticity. It was the era of “Urban Cowboy” and purity was being policed. “I love country music. It’s my first love,” she told the SoHo News. “But it was confining. You can only go so far in a circle.”

The movie “9 to 5” from 1980 settled her broadening stardom; acting alongside Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin in a comedy about three office workers who get even with an abusive boss, Parton charmed viewers. It was her first acting role, and Roger Ebert called her “a natural born movie star.” She wrote and sang the movie’s theme song, which topped Billboard’s pop and country charts.

Dolly Parton and her “9 to 5” castmates Jane Fonda, left, and Lily Tomlin assemble at a 1980 news conference to promote the movie.

(Wally Fong / Associated Press)

Parton would go on to act in “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas” (1982), “Rhinestone” (1984), “Steel Magnolias” (1989), the “Hannah Montana” TV series (she was Miley Cyrus’ godmother in real life too), and in many more films and TV shows. But her biggest cinematic moment came with a song she’d written years before; “I Will Always Love You” was sung by Whitney Houston in the 1992 film “The Bodyguard,” turning her air kiss to Porter Wagoner into a No. 1 hit for 14 weeks.

In the mid-1980s, Parton suffered a number of setbacks. She experienced depression. “I was just broken down,” she said later. In 1982, abdominal pain and bleeding forced her to cancel a tour, and in 1984 she had a partial hysterectomy. There were bouts of binge eating, and when she hit bottom she considered suicide. A series of conversations with God were instrumental in her recovery, Parton said.

Underscoring her connection to her origins while also illustrating how far she had gone, in 1986 she bought an old amusement park in Pigeon Forge, Tenn., and reinvented it as Dollywood, a booming theme park, resort and theater. Other businesses included Sandollar Productions, a film and TV company. In the 1990s Parton formed her own label, Blue Eye Records.

Success meant she could settle into being Dolly. A trio of beloved bluegrass albums, “The Grass Is Blue,” “Little Sparrow” and “Halos & Horns,” around the turn of the millennium reestablished her as a performer with extensive roots in rural America. She recorded with everyone from Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris to Ladysmith Black Mambazo. Her 2019 cover of John Hiatt’s “Faith,” made with Swedish duo Galantis, topped the EDM charts.

She embraced her Christian and LGBTQ+ fans, and perhaps no American artist had more of each. Inclusivity mattered to Parton. She was an icon to the LGBTQ+ community. In 2002 at the House of Blues in Los Angeles, Parton replaced the name Jolene with “drag queen” and sang her famous song as a roster of drag performers looked on.

Dolly Parton at the 57th Academy of Country Music Awards in 2022.

(John Locher / Associated Press)

Just two years later, in 2004, the Library of Congress presented Parton with the since-retired “Living Legend Medal,” which sought to recognize those that made significant creative contributions to American life.

Singer and songwriter Brandi Carlile called Parton “an angel on my shoulder and also the devil on my other shoulder.”

“When I was 15 years old I read the back of Dolly Parton’s book when she became the first country artist ever to speak out in support of LGBTQ people. And I can tell you that as a queer kid from a small town, getting love from Dolly is second only to God.”

Parton has been honored in musical tributes by Carrie Underwood, Alison Krauss and Shania Twain. “Jolene” became the subject of the short story “Jolene: A Life,” by E.L. Doctorow. In 2019 WNYC and Jad Abumrad presented “Dolly Parton’s America,” a nine-segment podcast devoted to, and with the cooperation of, Parton; it examined her persona and impact on American life.

That same year Netflix presented “Dolly Parton’s Heartstrings,” an anthology series in which each episode presents a fictional narrative built around a Parton song; the series features appearances by Kathleen Turner, Delta Burke and Melissa Leo.

Dolly Parton and President Carter embrace as First Lady Rosalynn Carter looks on before a White House luncheon in October 1979.

(Georges / Associated Press)

Her influence was so vast she has even been proposed as a field of academic study, and scrutinized in the 2018 academic study from Leigh H. Edwards, “Dolly Parton, Gender, and Country Music.”

She was married to the same man, Carl Thomas Dean, for over 50 years. They met on the day she arrived in Nashville in 1964, as she stood outside a laundromat. Parton and Dean were rarely seen in public together, and renewed vows in 2016. Dean died at age 82 in March 2025.

“Carl and I spent many wonderful years together,” Parton said in a statement at the time. “Words can’t do justice to the love we shared for over 60 years. Thank you for your prayers and sympathy.”

Parton remained a source of interest and fascination, and though few if anyone could really claim to know her, many thought they did. As she once put it: “I look one way and am another. It makes for a good combination.”

Early Motown songwriter Janie Bradford Hobbs, who helped pen hits including “Money (That’s What I Want)” and “Too Busy Thinking About My Baby,” has died following an extended illness at a Los Angeles hospital, her family said Saturday. She was 87.

Bradford Hobbs was born in Charleston, Mo., and later moved to Detroit.

She was introduced in the late 1950s to Motown founder Berry Gordy by neighbor and singer Jackie Wilson. She joined Motown as a receptionist in 1958 and like many of the company’s employees took part in the creative process that helped make Motown a music industry powerhouse.

She and Gordy co-wrote “Money (That’s What I Want).” The song was recorded in 1959 by Barrett Strong and became an early hit. It was covered by the Beatles, which also become a hit.

“Too Busy Thinking About My Baby” first was recorded by The Temptations and later became a hit for Marvin Gaye. Bradford Hobbs also wrote songs for Stevie Wonder, the Supremes, Martha & The Vandellas and others.

“Janie was there with me from the very beginning, before there was even a Motown, and she will always hold a very special place in my heart and in the Motown family,” Gordy said in a statement.

“Janie was one of a special group I have always thought of as the original Motown family — the unsung heroes who believed in the dream before anyone knew what Motown would become,” Gordy continued. “She was one of the people who helped make Motown what it became.”

Bradford Hobbs later became head of writer relations for Jobete, Motown’s publishing company. After leaving Motown, she founded the annual Heroes and Legends Awards. The event spanned about 30 years, honoring music stars and awarding scholarships, according to her family.

She is survived by her husband, Wardean Hobbs; daughter, Nicole Hobbs; son, Lance Finney; and two grandsons.

Williams writes for the Associated Press.

Grammy-winning singer Jill Scott brought her “To Whom This May Concern” album — her first in more than a decade — to life at Inglewood’s YouTube Theater last week. Backed by a razor-sharp 11-piece all-male band (including background singers fittingly dubbed “Freeman”), Scott moved effortlessly through a two-hour set filled with songs from the genre-expansive album along with several fan favorites like “He Loves Me (Lyzel in E Flat)” and “Gettin’ in the Way.”

Enforcing a phone-free policy at her personal request, the North Philadelphia native kept the audience intensely locked in — hanging onto her every word and every seemingly impossible note she struck with ease. Before long, it was easy to forget that we didn’t have our devices. Smiles filled the intimate room. Couples danced together. Strangers sang to each other in joyful unison, while others closed their eyes or held their hands on their chest in complete awe of witnessing a veteran artist in her element.

Jill Scott is on tour for “To Whom This May Concern,” her first album in over a decade.

(Jada Imani M)

In her only interview during the tour thus far, we caught up with Scott backstage to talk why she never performs a song the same way twice, how removing devices makes concerts better and why she thinks “To Whom This May Concern” deserves several accolades.

I’m still coming down from all of the energy from the show. How are you feeling post-show?

I am hot from the inside, and it’s gonna take me hours to calm down. [Laughs]

You’ve always described music as an intimate, two-way conversation between you and the audience. For this tour, you created a strictly phone-free space. Why did you decide to do that and how did this shift the experience for you as a performer?

In a couple of ways. One part is that it’s terrifying because there’s no buffer between me and them, so that’s actually scary, but I embrace it. The other part of it is that it’s wonderful because people initially come in kind of nervous about not having a buffer between myself and the space or themselves and space. Then I watch them gradually release, and I get a kick out of that every night. That’s my favorite part.

I’m surprised to hear that it’s scary for someone like you who’s been performing at such a high level for so many years.

Because I care. It matters to me. I really want them to have a good time. I really want them to release some things, allow themselves to be. If you want to make out, if you want to dance, if you want to cry, if you want to shout, or put up your hands in the air, or sit still, I want them to be able to do that. I think it’s important. That’s the relationship. That’s the real relationship between artist and fans of the music. It’s the connection between the music. I’m here to [be of] service. I’m here to push the ship along, but it’s really their relationship with the music and I’m a conduit. That part is probably one of my other favorites. You have to relinquish your id and allow the thing to be the thing. I think sometimes you can practice the joy and the life out of a thing. We practice a lot, but then we forget everything we practice so that it’s alive. My musicians’ freedom is mandatory. It’s a part of the job. So if they show up and play the exact same thing in the exact same way every night, they’re probably not going to be around very long. I need them to be wide open and to rediscover the music every night from their perspective. It’s their 11 perspectives on stage, and then of course there’s the lighting designer. I need him to be free. Don’t give me the same light at the same time every night. Even front-of-the-house sound engineer as well as our in-ear monitors, everybody is playing a part. “What does she need? Let’s read her. Let’s, you know, pay attention. What does she want?” It’s a lot of fun.

You could see really feel that from you and your entire band.

Tonight was a different audience. They were very attentive. Last night they danced all night long from the very beginning. I couldn’t even see the floor. Tonight they were listening. I know it’s a Wednesday night. Everybody’s got to go to work [the next morning], but they were beautiful. The listening audience is probably my favorite. They get quiet and I’m like “Oh, it’s so scary. Am I doing the right thing?” [Laughs] But that means they’re listening. Who doesn’t want to be heard?

Your son came out with you tonight. How was that experience for you?

It’s beautiful to see. He told me Tierra Whack is not traveling with us because she has a new album out, “Whack’s Museum,” so she’s a little busy. He was like, “Mom, how do you feel about me doing the second verse?” and I was like “Be at sound check tomorrow with a mic in your hand.”

He looked so comfortable on stage.

He does. It’s kind of scary. Super exciting. I don’t know what he’ll want to do, but he’s working our set, so he’s a part of the crew. So after he does his performance, he puts back on his blacks and he does his job, and I love that for him, to have that sense of responsibility. He’s exceeding anybody’s and everybody’s expectations. He’s so good at this. All the clothes you see, he steamed up.

He’s really working his way up.

Yes, you must earn your way.

Your album “To Whom This May Concern” released in February, and it feels like a love letter from your favorite auntie. There’s lessons about learning from your mistakes, honoring your ancestors and loving yourself. Now that your fans have been living with these songs for several months, I’m curious if performing them live has shifted your relationship with them at all?

No. On a great night, I like telling the stories that I’ve read. I like embodying them in front of other people. I like watching them experience them in a new way. I’m a fan of that. It just makes it more and more true. Then I see how many people are singing along and how many people are looking at me, and I’m like “Yesss.” It’s reaching the people and I know it’s going to be different because there’s a different audience every night. So I’m thrilled about the project and how it’s touching people. You hope you don’t work this hard at a thing for it to fall on deaf ears, and I know how microwavable music has been, but I believe the cream rises to the top. It’s been a beautiful 26 years. I look forward to 26 more — in my way.

Your album has been receiving a lot of praise from fans and critics. There’s still a few months before the Grammy nominations are announced, but at this point in your career, how important is that recognition to you? Is it as important as it was when you first started your career?

I think I deserve it. That’s all. [Flashes a smile]

I mean everything about this project from beginning to end is blood, sweat and tears. I stayed up many nights just to write, a hunger in my belly and a savage appetite. And I mean it. Everything is true and I love that for me. That’s the kind of thing that takes time and I think musically, it’s incredible. I think the stories are awesome and intentional, and everything about it, from the planning of it to the marketing, has been from my soul, and I think it deserves several.

In the beginning of 2025, Taylor Olin had decided she’d seen enough of Echo Park and decided to relocate to a cozy ranch up in Altadena. There, she’d begun to plant her roots in an artistic community, spending most of the last year and some change nestled in with her new flock of bohemian neighbors.

It would be the perfect sanctuary for the Something Specials frontwoman, that doubled as a creative space.

By the first week of January, she moved her belongings into a rented stationary camper situated on a ranch owner’s sprawling land, that they’d lived on for more than 25 years. In the shadow of the San Gabriel Mountains, her L.A. chronicle would continue, as dreamed.

But within a week of settling down, she’d receive a knock on her door, step out of her home, and see flames burning a nearby hillside. When she saw the fire she knew to leave, packing as much as she could before making a run for it.

“Every successive update we would get from her was just unbelievably surreal,” said Josh Augustin, who plays drums and keys and does production for the band.

She didn’t know it yet, but all that was left of her camper was its frame; it’s burned, twisted metal was another casualty of the L.A. wildfires. For the next couple of weeks, she’d couch surf until ultimately sleeping in her van, waking up early to wait tables at an oyster bar on Sunset Boulevard.

The remains of Olin’s rented camper.

(Taylor Olin)

“From there, I went back to Florida, and I put on a benefit show for some specific people in Altadena that I wanted to give some funds to,” Olin said.

She’d then relocate to Europe and start fresh with aid from a GoFundMe created by a friend. Roughly a year and a half later, she’s still there and has had time to reflect on the experience.

“As much as I was directly affected, I really have held the space in my heart for those who have been there for their entire lives,” she said.

“My commitment to the community had only been a year … whereas they had invested so much and lost so much.”

But something fascinating was happening behind the scenes, coinciding with the disaster that had sent Olin overseas and left her bandmates, Augustin and Nathan Slone — located in New York City — shocked.

One year earlier, the band had released “Love,” a pleasantly sweet, folky, country-adjacent tune that melts easily into eardrums. Though it hadn’t received much attention at the time, it began to gain some traction on social media right after Olin settled down in Europe, frequently appearing in short-form videos across Instagram.

“We had no idea where we were getting it from,” she said of the new listeners. “It was picked algorithmically and put at the top of recommended songs on stories and reels, and so we started seeing thousands of reels being used with its intro.”

The band unwittingly stumbled into virality.

“We would get maybe a few hundred listeners in a day across our entire discography,” Slone, guitarist and bassist, said. “It’s … come to life, die, come back to life, and died. Now our whole discography seems to be in a ‘high tide lifts all ships’ moment.”

At that time, “Love” was floating around 1 million listeners on Spotify. Today, it sits at nearly 20 million, with the band’s average monthly listeners at 1.2 million. Small highlights include being featured in a Reese Witherspoon carousel and Ashley Tisdale French gardening video on Instagram, the latter containing their other hit, “Aces.”

Now, the trio is gearing up to release its debut album, “Somewhere Up There,” on Friday. At just shy of an hour, the project is split almost evenly between new music and previously released tunes.

Album art for “Somewhere Up There.”

(Taylor Olin / The Something Specials)

Impressively, the band has met in person only three times, one of which was when they first agreed to work together. Better yet, when Olin and Slone first met, it was shaking hands on stage at the Echoplex before the band’s first show.

They’re all skilled musicians, having done their due diligence in different music groups, but nothing has clicked like the parasocial success that is the Something Specials.

“We need each other all the way through — we each bring a different thing to the project,” Slone said.

“I’ll go and write the bass of the song, and a riff if there’s a riff. Josh helps with keyboards and drums. We refine it a little bit together. We send it to Taylor. Taylor records over it. We get it back. We might add a part or two. We mix it. All say yes. Send it for mastering and upload it.”

In a modern world, it’s not unusual to hear of music production being done in such a way, but it’s the group’s limited personal relationship that makes it shine.

The plan is to keep being nonchalant about the whole thing, and hopefully their fan base will continue to grow. On Oct. 28, they’ll play the Sultan Room in New York City, their third time together as a band.

“It’s bizarrely easy,” Slone adds.

“With very few exceptions, if things are flowing well, we can wrap something up in a week or two,” Augustin adds about the outfit’s remote recording process.

They’re still winging it at this point, unsigned and with no representation, but “winging it has served us well,” Olin said.

“We’ve been approached many times [by labels],” Slone continues. “But we do pretty darn well on our own, and record labels don’t really have much to offer us, frankly.”

Olin says that in a time where the use of artificial intelligence is so prevalent, and particularly in creative spaces, doing things “DIY” is the best approach. They’re starting with an initial run of around 500 vinyl records, with plans to release the album on CD and cassette later down the line.

“With this kind of band — with our sound, with our aesthetic— I think that as old-school as possible feels best,” she said.