Kanye West's "Curb Your Enthusiasm"-Style Show in Jeopardy

Does HBO care about black people? The answer is no, according to Borat and Religulous director Larry Charles, who was slated to helm a Kanye West show similar to the HBO hit Curb Your Enthusiasm for the cable network. In an interview with ComingSoon.net, Charles implied the improvised show has been shelved, though a pilot has been shot. "What Kanye West said to me the first time, he said, 'I'm the black Larry David,' " Charles said. "[The new show] was really good, but again I think it was too hardcore for HBO. ... HBO doesn't have a good track record when it comes to black shows and I felt like that may have had something to do with it also. I don't see a lot of shows about that experience at all."

Charles also gave an update on his other music-related projects: According to the director, the film version of Motley Crue's The Dirt is in limbo. "They've killed people, they've hurt people, they've crippled people, they've done all kinds of crazy things. You'd have to show that for real and I think there was a little bit of reticence about doing that ultimately," he said. Charles is, however, still working on a Rick Rubin/Owen Wilson collaboration.

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Song Stories

“All Along the Watchtower”

The Jimi Hendrix Experience | 1968

Jimi Hendrix got hold of Bob Dylan's early John Wesley Harding tapes and in late 1967 recorded a version of "All Along the Watchtower" with the Experience in London. Dissatisfied with that first development, Hendrix brought those tapes with him to New York in early 1968 when he began work on Electric Ladyland. Eddie Kramer, Hendrix's engineer at the time, told Rolling Stone that Hendrix "was still looked upon by his basically white audience as the mammoth black guitar hero. There was a constant fight within him to expand himself." Hendrix's successful take on Dylan's work has long been recognized by the songwriter. "I liked Jimi Hendrix's record of this and ever since he died I've been doing it that way," Dylan wrote in the liner notes to his Biograph box set. "Strange how when I sing it, I always feel it's a tribute to him in some kind of way."

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