CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
September 11, 2012 | Gale Holland
Ian White was taking his toddler son up into the hills above Altadena when he spotted the long-lost gravestone of abolitionist Owen Brown in a dirt patch off the trail. Owen Brown survived the ill-fated Harper's Ferry raid led by his radical abolitionist father John Brown and later retreated to a hilltop rancho in Altadena. When he died in 1889, he received a hero's funeral. His lonely grave site is in the scrub on a hill above Altadena named Little Round Top, after the strategic hill at the battle of Gettysburg.
ENTERTAINMENT
September 11, 2012 | By Scott Collins, Los Angeles Times
Singing competition shows were supposedly about finding the best young talent. But that's taken a back seat to a different imperative: Who's got the biggest pop stars on the marquee? That's why Simon Cowell's "X Factor," which returns for Season 2 on Wednesday, dumped Paula Abdul and Nicole Scherzinger in favor of a pair with much better recent Billboard stats, Britney Spears and Demi Lovato. And it's why "Idol," coming back in January, grabbed pop diva Mariah Carey for $18 million and is reportedly waving enormous checks at current hit-makers Nicki Minaj (Randy Jackson, a producer little known outside the music business when he signed on for "Idol's" first season in 2002, will reportedly return as a judge after producers failed to make a deal with another current hit maker, Enrique Iglesias)
ENTERTAINMENT
September 7, 2012
KCET-TV is expanding "SoCal Connected. " The former PBS station, now based in Burbank, will make the award-winning news and public affairs show a nightly offering starting Oct. 29. Anchored by Val Zavala, "SoCal Connected" grew out of "Life & Times," KCET's nightly local news show that aired from 1992 to 2001, followed by "California Connected" for five seasons and then "SoCal Connected. " Until now, "SoCal Connected" has been weekly. Last season, "SoCal Connected" won a public service award from the Los Angeles Press Club for exposing lavish spending at the Housing Authority of Los Angeles.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
September 6, 2012 | Los Angeles Times staff and wire reports
Joe South, a versatile singer-songwriter who penned "Games People Play," "Down in the Boondocks" and other pop-rock hits in the 1960s and '70s, has died. He was 72. South died Wednesday at his home in Buford, Ga., northeast of Atlanta, said Butch Lowery, president of the Lowery Group. The company published South's music. Marion Merck of the Hall County coroner's office said South died of natural causes stemming from a heart attack. Beginning in the late 1960s, South rode a wave of success with his combination of melodic songs and compelling lyrics.
ENTERTAINMENT
September 6, 2012 | By Randy Lewis
Last week, Adele's “21” album dropped out of the Top 10 of the Billboard 200 ranking of national album sales for the first time since it was released last year and subsequently turned into one of the biggest-selling albums in pop music history. Its exit from the Top 10 after 78 weeks bordered on the unnecessarily cruel: that left it tied with Michael Jackson's “Thriller.” This week, however, “21” has returned to the Top 10 for a 79 th week, edging past Jackson's landmark collection.
ENTERTAINMENT
September 5, 2012 | By Reed Johnson, Los Angeles Times
More than 30 years ago, video killed the radio star. Is YouTube killing MTV's Video Music Awards? On the surface, the VMAs are alive and well - even thriving. Last year's broadcast by the 31-year-old music video network was the No. 1 attraction among all TV programs in its Sunday evening time slot. Thursday night's broadcast from Staples Center is expected to fare comparably well. But just as MTV's arrival in the early 1980s permanently changed the way that popular music was seen and listened to, Internet music channels like YouTube and social-networking platforms are reinventing the way that music (including music videos)