Digest: Prince Sued For $700,000; Elton John Admits He'll Attend Royal Wedding

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Prince Sued For $700,000
The New York City law firm Patterson Belknap Webb and Tyler have filed a lawsuit claiming that Prince owes them more than $700,000 in legal fees. The firm represented the singer in cases in Ireland, California and New York in addition to handling his divorce from Manuela Testolini in 2006. [Billboard]

Elton John Will Attend Royal Wedding
Elton John says that he will indeed attend the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton. In an interview with CTV, the singer initially claimed that he was not invited to the event, but admitted that he would be going when pressed by the interviewer. According to John, he was trying to be discreet about the matter. [Reuters]

Odd Future Duo Signed to Fat Possum
MellowHype – a duo featuring Hodgy Beats and Left Brain of the red-hot Los Angeles rap collective Odd Future – have signed a one-album deal with Fat Possum for the physical release of their previously released album Blackenedwhite. The album was originally released for free on the Odd Future site on Halloween, but will be expanded with bonus material for the Fat Possum edition. [Press release]

Peter Murphy Announces New Album and Tour
Former Bauhaus frontman Peter Murphy will release Ninth, his first album in seven years, on June 7th. Murphy will preview material from the record with a tour beginning on March 7th in Seattle. [Billboard]

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Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

More Song Stories entries »

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