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      Frankie Beverly, Soul Singer and Maze Frontman, Is Dead at 77

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      He had announced a short farewell tour earlier this year and said he would retire after more than 50 years in the music business.Frankie Beverly, the lead singer and songwriter of the soul and funk band Maze, who wrote and performed songs including “Golden Time of Day,” “Joy and Pain,” “Happy Feelin’s” and others that provided the soundtrack to countless summer cookouts and family reunions for more than five decades, died on Tuesday. He was 77.His death was announced in a statement by his family posted to his Instagram account. A cause of death was not given.“He lived his life with pure soul as one would say, and for us, no one did it better,” the statement said. “He lived for his music, family and friends.”Earlier this year, Mr. Beverly announced a farewell tour with a handful of dates. He said he would go on the road one last time and then retire.Frankie Beverley in 1987. David Corio/Michael Ochs Archive/Getty Images“Thank you so much for the support given to me for over 50 years as I pass on the lead vocalist torch to Tony Lindsay,” Mr. Beverly said in a statement to Billboard at the time. “The band will continue on as Maze Honoring Frankie Beverly. It’s been a great ride through the decades. Let the music of my legacy continue.”It would be difficult to count the number of artists who have cited Mr. Beverly’s music as inspiration or sampled from his ever-expanding playbook of infectious melodies and harmonies, but many have lovingly covered his work — some with more fanfare than others.Mr. Beverly’s 1981 song “Before I Let Go,” which The New York Times described in 2021 as having a unique ability to gather and galvanize, was covered by Beyoncé on her live album “Homecoming” in 2019.In 1970 in Philadelphia, Mr. Beverly formed the group “Raw Soul” and soon moved to San Francisco. Marvin Gaye eventually took the group under his wing, according to Mr. Beverly’s official website. Mr. Gaye also suggested the group change its name to Frankie Beverly and Maze.Earlier this year, Mr. Beverly had announced a farewell tour with a handful of dates. Getty ImagesThe group released a debut album in 1977 under Capitol Records and released at least eight more albums, not including live recordings, over the next few decades, including “Silky Soul” in 1989 and “Back to Basics” in 1993.A full obituary will follow. More

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      Trump Dismisses Taylor Swift’s Harris-Walz Endorsement

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      Former President Donald J. Trump was not happy that Taylor Swift endorsed his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, though perhaps he was not surprised.“She seems to always endorse a Democrat. And she’ll probably pay a price for it in the marketplace,” Mr. Trump said Wednesday morning on Fox News. Ms. Swift, one of the most successful musical artists in the world, endorsed President Biden in 2020. Mr. Trump said in the interview that he preferred Brittany Mahomes, a fitness entrepreneur who is married to Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes and was reported to have liked a social media post supporting Mr. Trump. Ms. Swift and Ms. Mahomes are friends, as are Mr. Mahomes and his teammate, Travis Kelce, who is dating Ms. Swift.“I actually like Mrs. Mahomes much better, if you want to know the truth,” Mr. Trump said. “She’s a big Trump fan. I was not a Taylor Swift fan.”“I think Brittany’s great,” he went on. “Brittany got a lot of news last week. She’s a big MAGA fan. That’s the one I like much better than Taylor Swift.”Ms. Mahomes has not endorsed Mr. Trump.Ms. Swift’s endorsement disgruntled a number of Trump supporters, including Elon Musk, the tech billionaire, who responded on X, the social media platform he owns.“Fine Taylor … you win … I will give you a child and guard your cats with my life,” Mr. Musk wrote.Ms. Swift had signed her endorsement on Instagram with the words “childless cat lady,” a reference to past comments by Senator JD Vance of Ohio, Mr. Trump’s running mate. More

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      Trump Claimed a Fake Taylor Swift Endorsement. Fans Are Not Happy.

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      Nine days after former President Donald J. Trump falsely claimed to accept an endorsement from the pop superstar Taylor Swift, thousands of Swift fans, including some high-profile cultural and political figures, gathered on a video call with the goal of ensuring his defeat.They shared their favorite Swift songs. They quoted their favorite Swift lines. And then they assailed Mr. Trump’s political agenda as a threat to women.One fan, the singer Carole King, sang Ms. Swift’s song “Shake It Off.” Another, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, described Mr. Trump as a bully who was “trying to claw us back into the dark days.”Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a New York Democrat who attended two concerts on Ms. Swift’s Eras Tour, made a series of jokes at Mr. Trump’s expense that played on the singer’s lyrics.They all were gathered on Tuesday under the banner of Swifties for Kamala, a group that is not officially affiliated with Vice President Kamala Harris or Ms. Swift — who has not publicly endorsed a candidate in the election — but that is seeking to deploy the intensity of Ms. Swift’s vast fan base in support of Ms. Harris’s bid for the White House.“For me, Kamala is really a relaxing thought,” Emerald Medrano, 22, a founder of the group, said on the call, alluding to the singer’s lyrics in the song “Karma.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Basel Will Host Eurovision Song Contest (Unless Its Taxpayers Revolt)

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      Many in the Swiss city celebrated the announcement. But after a debate about the cost, a conservative party wants a referendum over whether the public should pay.Basel, a quaint riverside city in northern Switzerland, on Friday won the right to host next year’s Eurovision Song Contest, the high-camp international singing competition.To many Basel residents, the news, which Eurovision’s organizers announced in a release, was a cause for celebration: Next May, the city would have a moment in the international spotlight.Yet some lawmakers in Switzerland had an altogether different reaction. To them, Eurovision is not a fun spectacle; it is a waste of money and “a celebration of evil” that has no place in their country.Members of the Federal Democratic Union of Switzerland, a conservative Christian party, are campaigning for a referendum to stop Basel’s government contributing tens of millions of dollars toward Eurovision’s running costs.Samuel Kullmann, the lawmaker leading the campaign, said that Eurovision had a “cultural agenda” that threatened Christian values. That included, he added, allowing musicians to promote Satanism onstage.At this year’s Eurovision, Kullmann said, entrants included Bambie Thug, a heavy metal act representing Ireland, who sang standing in a pentagram. “People might say it’s metal or Gothic music, but they’re ignoring the obvious,” Kullmann said. “It was a celebration of evil.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Is This Massive Attack Concert the Gold Standard for a Green Gig?

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      Coldplay and Billie Eilish have tried to drive down carbon emissions while touring, but the British band Massive Attack has tried to take the efforts even further.When the British band Massive Attack was halfway through a West Coast tour in 2019, flying from show to show, the rapper and singer Robert Del Naja had a moment of crisis. Given all the carbon emitted by moving the band and its equipment around, he recalled wondering: Can I justify this anymore?Not long afterward, the band made a decision. It would work with climate scientists to develop a model for touring that made as little climate impact as possible.On Sunday, Massive Attack staged a daylong 35,000-person festival in the band’s home city of Bristol, England, to showcase the carbon-cutting measures it has developed with the Tyndall Center for Climate Change Research, a British organization, and A Greener Future, a nonprofit focused on lowering the music industry’s emissions.The concert on Sunday was powered by batteries charged from wind and solar energy.Sandra Mickiewicz for The New York TimesFans were encouraged to travel to the show by walking, cycling or using public transportation.Sandra Mickiewicz for The New York TimesWhereas other bands, including Coldplay, have staged attention-grabbing stunts to draw awareness to the industry’s climate impacts, they have sometimes ignored the main sources of emissions from gigs, such as audience travel and venues’ power supplies. With its show on Sunday, Massive Attack wanted to show how to tackle all of the polluting parts of a show.In an interview a few days before the event, Del Naja said that previous music industry efforts to cut emissions had not been in line with the United Nations-agreed goal to stop average temperatures rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 Fahrenheit.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Maurice Williams, Whose ‘Stay’ Was a Hit for Him and Others, Dies at 86

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      A chart topper in 1960 for him and his doo-wop group the Zodiacs, it inspired several notable cover versions and was heard in the 1987 film “Dirty Dancing.”Maurice Williams, the singer and songwriter whose 1960 single “Stay,” recorded with his doo-wop group the Zodiacs, shot to No. 1 and became a cover-song staple for a long line of musical acts, including the Four Seasons, the Hollies and Jackson Browne, died on Aug. 6 in Charlotte, N.C. He was 86.His death, in a hospital, was confirmed by Ron Henderson, a former member of the Zodiacs.Mr. Williams owed a considerable career debt to a girl he dated when he was 15. She provided the inspiration for his two biggest hits: “Little Darlin’,” recorded when his group was called the Gladiolas, which hit No. 41 on the Billboard pop chart in 1957; and “Stay,” which briefly topped the chart in 1960.Mr. Williams recalled the origins of “Stay,” his only chart-topping single, in a 2018 video interview. “This young lady I was going with, she was over to my house, and this particular night, her brother was supposed to pick her up at 10,” he said. “So he came, and I said, ‘Well, you can stay a little longer.’ And she said, ‘No, I gotta go.’”The next morning he woke up and wove that and other snippets from their conversation — “Now, your daddy don’t mind/And your mommy don’t mind” — into song form, building to its indelible signature line, which, seven years later, the Zodiacs’ Henry Gaston would render in a celestial falsetto: “Oh, won’t you stay, just a little bit longer.”Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs’ recording of the song stood out not only for its infectious hooks but also for its eye-blink length — slightly over 90 seconds.“We wanted to make it short so it would get more airplay,” Mr. Williams said. And, he added, “It worked.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Amid Heightened Security, Taylor Swift Will Return to the Stage in London

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      Fans gathering at Wembley Stadium in London said they trusted British security officials to keep them safe.When Taylor Swift canceled three concerts in Vienna last week after officials there foiled a terrorist plot, Swifties soon expressed fears about the pop star’s next shows, in London.Would Swift go ahead with the concerts at the 90,000-seat Wembley Stadium? Given the pop star once said that her “biggest fear” was a terrorist attack on one of her shows, some fans had doubts. Was it even safe to attend those London dates?When Swift didn’t comment on the thwarted attack in Vienna or the upcoming London gigs, fan anxieties only grew.Yet at Wembley Stadium on Thursday afternoon before the first of five concerts there, worry seemed to have given way to excitement at the chance to see Swift perform the latest leg of her globe-spanning Eras tour.In interviews, over a dozen fans, including many from the United States, all said that they felt safe attending the event. Kyle Foster, 46 — wearing a Kansas City Chiefs jersey like Swift’s partner, Travis Kelce — said he had flown from North Carolina with his partner and two daughters for the show. “We didn’t think twice about coming,” he said, adding he felt confident that security would “be on high alert.”Maya Arbad, 18, who had traveled from Dubai, said two friends had decided not to attend the concert because of the foiled attack. “Their families were just too anxious to send them here,” Arbad said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Los fans de Taylor Swift ansían su respaldo a una candidatura presidencial

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      La cantante dio su codiciado apoyo al presidente Joe Biden en 2020. Ahora, una silueta en una foto de Instagram ha llevado a algunos swifties a especular que defenderá a Kamala Harris.[Estamos en WhatsApp. Empieza a seguirnos ahora]¿Están solo viendo cosas o la silueta de una bailarina de apoyo de Taylor Swift se parece a la vicepresidenta Kamala Harris?El ejército de fans de Swift en internet por lo general trata de descifrar los mensajes ocultos de la estrella del pop como un trabajo a tiempo parcial, por lo que la especulación se extendió cuando algunos sugirieron que una foto que Swift había publicado en Instagram de su Eras Tour, que ha estado recorriendo Europa este verano, podría ser una pista de su apoyo a una determinada candidatura presidencial.Sin embargo, no ha habido ningún respaldo por parte de Swift, quien ha puesto cada vez más su enorme influencia al servicio de la política progresista. En octubre de 2020, su declaración de apoyo a Joe Biden no dejó nada a la interpretación.La foto en cuestión, que Swift incluyó en una publicación sobre sus recientes conciertos en Varsovia, coincide con una transición estándar de la gira en la que sus bailarines de apoyo —con trajes de pantalón no muy diferentes de los que Harris prefiere— desfilan fuera del escenario entre canciones.A pesar de los argumentos en contra, algunos swifties estaban convencidos de que la publicación era un mensaje en clave. Un segmento liberal del público está ansioso por que la cantante dé a conocer sus lealtades, y la urgencia subraya el poder de Swift como alguien que puede influir en la política electoral con una sola publicación en las redes sociales. (En 2023, una publicación suya en Instagram dio lugar a 35.000 nuevos registros de votantes).We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More