D'Angelo Busted for Drugs

Neo-soul star D'Angelo was arrested Sunday and charged with drunken driving, possession of marijuana and possession of a controlled substance (believed to be cocaine) after police pulled him over in a suburb of his hometown of Richmond, Virginia. The thirty-year-old singer, born Michael Eugene Archer, is due to appear in court next Tuesday.

D'Angelo won a pair of Grammys in 2000, garnering the nod for Best R&B Vocal Performance and Best R&B Album, for his critically acclaimed album Voodoo. Sunday's arrest is his second since the release of that album.

D'Angelo was previously detained by police in November of 2002 and charged with resisting arrest, along with four other misdemeanor counts -- aggressive driving, assault, curse and abuse and disorderly conduct -- after an altercation with a woman at a Virginia gas station.

The singer's five-year absence from recording has drawn notice, most recently from fellow star and fan John Mayer.

"I'm writing to ask you to put out a follow-up to one of the few records to change my life forever, Voodoo," said Mayer in an open letter to D'Angelo printed in Esquire. "When Voodoo came out in 2000, I stood in line at Tower Records in Atlanta at midnight to get it . . . I'm no less excited by it today than I was when I played it full blast in my mother's Plymouth Voyager on the way to my bullshit job."

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Song Stories

“(We're Not) The Jet Set”

George Jones and Tammy Wynette | 1973

George Jones and Tammy Wynette were still married when they recorded the tongue-in-cheek "(We're Not) The Jet Set." The lyrics, written by Nashville songwriter Bobby Braddock, who also penned Wynette's "D-I-V-O-R-C-E" and Jones' "He Stopped Loving Her Today," make fun of the good life by declaring, "We're not the Jet Set/We're the old Chevrolet set." Braddock recalled that while writing the song, he needed the name of a city that evened out the rhyme he had with "Riviera" and "Missourah." “I got out a Rand McNally atlas," he said. "In the first part are the maps. The last part is an alphabetical listing of cities. I wanted a rustic, small-time sound. I went to the listing for Missouri. And I found 'Festus.' I loved the sound of it."

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