​Leonard Bernstein’s 1971 album of his musical theater work MASS: A Theatre Piece for Singers, Players and Dancers, along with other historic discs from the likes of Miles Davis (‘Round About Midnight), Fats Domino (“I’m Walkin’”) and Dolly Parton (“Coat of Many Colors”), is among 25 recordings inducted this year into The Recording Academy’s Grammy Hall of Fame. Composed by Bernstein—who also wrote the text (Stephen Schwartz supplied additional text and lyrics)—MASS was commi

Michel Legrand performs "The Windmills of Your Mind" Michel Legrand, the French composer and winner of Academy Awards for the song “The Windmills of Your Mind” from The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) and the scores for Summer of ‘42 (1971) and Yentl (1983), died yesterday at 86. “Michel Legrand wrote the music for one of my most treasured songs to perform, ‘How Do You Keep the Music Playing?’” tweeted Tony Bennett, whose concert version of the Oscar-nominated song from the 1982 r

The Browns perform "The Three Bells" Maxine Brown and younger siblings Jim Ed and Bonnie—The Browns--“will forever be celebrated as one of country music’s most beloved trios,” noted the Country Music Association’s CEO Sarah Trahern in a statement following Maxine’s death Monday at 87. Sure enough, The Browns was maybe the most important vocal group of the “Nashville Sound” era. Indeed, their 1959 hit “The Three Bells,” as Robert K. Oermann noted in his Music Row obituary, was

There may have been a bigger star at last week’s Association of Performing Arts Professionals (APAP), but his name, of course, is Chubby, and Chubby Checker most certainly was at the very least the most recognizable celebrity at the annual trade gathering at the New York Hilton Hotel Midtown. Indeed, the artist behind the immortal 1960 No. 1 hit “The Twist” was essentially stopping for warm meet-and-greets throughout the APAP exhibition halls, that is, when he wasn’t holding