During the dawn of the rock ‘n’ roll era, greasy-haired youth of every ilk chose Johnny Mathis as the backdrop for their initial romantic conquests. While their older siblings preferred the darker, more jazz-orientated worlds of Sinatra and Nat King Cole, the kids took to the sunnier and glossier Mathis style. This Bay Area native was the last classic Columbia Records crooner to dominate the pop charts by singing standards in a Technicolor tenor that put a rosy, fireside glow to complex emotions. Mathis had a string of hit albums throughout the ’60s and, thanks to his younger fan base, survived the soft rock ’70s better than artists such as Sarah Vaughan. Today, Mathis remains a big concert draw and alternates Adult Contemporary albums with the same upscale collections of standards that got all that blood boiling back in the ’50s.
- Nick Dedina

A popular brother-and-sister team, the Carpenters sold millions of hit records in the early ’70s. Richard started taking piano lessons at age 12 and studied classical piano at Yale before the family relocated to Downey, California, in 1963. Richard studied at USC and Cal State at Long Beach. He formed his first group in 1965, a jazz-pop instrumental trio that included younger sister Karen on drums and their friend Wes Jacobs (who later abandoned pop for a seat in the Detroit Symphony) on bass and tuba. The group won a battle of the bands at the Hollywood Bowl and subsequently signed with RCA. Four sides were recorded, but after label executives deemed them not commercially viable, they were never released. In late 1966 the trio broke up. Richard and Karen recruited four Cal State students into the vocal harmony-oriented band Spectrum. They played various Southern California venues to less than ecstatic response and disbanded.

The Carpenter siblings’ densely layered, pop-oriented demo tapes eventually caught the attention of Herb Alpert, who signed them to A&M in 1969. They released their first album that November. Originally titled Offering, it was ignored until it was repackaged as Ticket to Ride, on the strength of the moderate success of their Beatles-cover single. Close to You’s title track, a Burt Bacharach tune, sold more than a million copies and went to Number One in the U.S. and several other countries. Their hits continued: “We’ve Only Just Begun” (Number Two, 1970), “For All We Know” (Number Three, 1971; it won an Oscar for Best Song in 1970), “Rainy Days and Mondays” (Number Two, 1971), “Superstar” (Number Two, 1971; written by Leon Russell), “It’s Going to Take Some Time” (Number 12, 1972), “Hurting Each Other” (Number Two, 1972), “Goodbye to Love” (Number Seven, 1972), “Sing” (Number Three, 1973), “Yesterday Once More” (Number Two, 1973), “Top of the World” (Number One, 1973), “Won’t Last a Day Without You” (Number 11, 1974), “Please Mr. Postman” (Number One, 1975), and “Only Yesterday” (Number Four, 1975).

The 1973 LP The Singles 1969–1973 was a bestseller, and the Carpenters were three-time Grammy winners. They hosted a short-lived variety series, Make Your Own Kind of Music, on NBC in 1971. At the request of President Nixon, they performed at a White House state dinner honoring West German Chancellor Willy Brandt on May 1, 1973. They toured internationally through the mid-’70s. Their 1976 tour of Japan was, at the time, the biggest-grossing concert ever in that country. From 1976 to 1980 the pair hosted five ABC television specials. Through the late ’70s the Carpenters were noticeably absent from the charts, but returned to the Top 20 in 1981 with “Touch Me When We’re Dancing.”

On February 4, 1983, Karen Carpenter died in her parents’ home of cardiac arrest, resulting from her long struggle with anorexia nervosa. Her story was presented in the highly rated made-for-television movie The Karen Carpenter Story in 1988. The posthumous LP Lovelines drew critical notice for its inclusion of four tracks Karen had recorded for an unreleased 1980 solo album. Richard’s solo effort, Time, featured duets with Dionne Warwick and Dusty Springfield yet failed to chart. The followup merely features easy-listening, instrumental revisions of various Carpenters songs.

With time, the duo’s saccharine image has receded somewhat, and Karen Carpenter is acknowledged by women rock musicians, including Chrissie Hynde and Madonna, as a pioneer. Sonic Youth, Sheryl Crow, Matthew Sweet, Cracker, and the Cranberries were among the fourteen acts who contributed to the 1994 Carpenters tribute album If I Were a Carpenter. Around the same time that fall, the Karen and Richard Carpenter Performing Arts Center at Cal State University opened in Long Beach, California. Karen Carpenter’s eponymous solo debut, recorded in 1979 and 1980 but unreleased until 1996, continued to keep her memory alive. The somewhat mature — but hardly edgy — album found her experimenting with disco and mildly suggestive lyrics.

from The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll (Simon & Schuster, 2001)

You love Vince Guaraldi’s piano jazz whether you know it or not. Guaraldi wrote and performed the delightful scores for the Peanuts cartoons. This San Francisco native added his hard hitting yet sensitive piano skills to Cal Tjader’s Latin Jazz band after a stint with the great Woody Herman. Guaraldi’s keyboard style mixed the beauty of Bill Evans’ melodic explorations with Horace Silver or Ramsey Lewis’ crowd pleasing funkiness. He formed his own trio and had a Top-40 hit with “Cast Your Fate to the Wind” in 1963. His sublime work on the Peanuts television specials got no finer than on A Charlie Brown Christmas, which brings a touch of bittersweet tenderness to holiday cheer. Though he died young at the age of forty-seven in 1976, Guaraldi had already made his musical mark.
- Nick Dedina

On this New Year’s Eve day, as I write this, a heavy snow is falling outside and they’re playing a segment of Wagner’s ‘Parsifal’ on the classical radio station… but I had a dream last night and I wanted to write this down. I clearly remember seeing Mr. Schneider, I think it was at a show but it wasn’t typical because I don’t remember specifics about it…

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Kanye West, T.I., Katy Perry and other big names see holiday sales boosts.
By James Montgomery

Taylor Swift’s <i>Fearless</i>

Photo: Big Machine Records

Taylor Swift is going to have a pretty excellent New Year’s Eve (even though she’ll be sharing a stage with ex-boyfriend Joe Jonas). She’ll close out 2008 with the #1 album in the country, as her Fearless will top the Billboard albums chart yet again.

Fearless sold more than 262,000 copies in the last full retail week of 2008, giving Swift her third-consecutive week at #1 and pushing sales of the album past the 2 million mark in just seven weeks.

Following closely at #2 was Beyoncé, whose I Am … Sasha Fierce sold almost 211,000 copies in its sixth week of release. Britney Spears‘ Circus falls to #3, with sales of just under 203,000 copies, but the album still managed to break the 1 million mark in its fourth week. Nickelback’s Dark Horse sits at #4, with sales of 177,000 copies.

Perhaps benefitting from some last-minute holiday shopping, Kanye West’s 808s & Heartbreak jumped from #11 to #5, selling more than 165,000 copies. The “Twilight” soundtrack is next at #6, with sales of more than 148,000 copies. Keyshia Cole’s Different Me — which bowed at #2 on last week’s chart — falls to #7, selling close to 127,000 copies.

The 29th volume of the ubiquitous Now That’s What I Call Music! collection, Jamie Foxx’s Intuition and David Cook’s self-titled debut round out the top 10.

There were plenty of other big names who posted tremendous leaps in sales, thanks again to those last-minute shoppers. Sales of T.I.’s Paper Trail jumped 43 percent, bringing the album all the way up from #34 to #15. Katy Perry’s One of the Boys posted a 41 percent sales boost, rising from #44 to #23. Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter III saw a 53 percent jump, moving from #49 to #32. Metallica’s Death Magnetic, Ludacris‘ Theater of the Mind, Coldplay’s Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends and Ne-Yo’s Year of the Gentleman also posted double-digit percentage bumps.

And perhaps owing to their placement on several year-end Best-Of lists, albums like MGMT’s Oracular Spectacular, TV on the Radio’s Dear Science and Fleet Foxes‘ self-titled disc all saw huge jumps in sales too. (And, by the way, you can still check out our own year end lists: the Mixtape Monday Awards, Bigger Than the Sound’s top albums and songs, and the rest of the MTV News staff picks.)

Related Artists

• Taylor Swift
• Katy Perry
• T.I.
• Kanye West

Defense attorney says Jennifer Hudson’s estranged brother-in-law has been charged because he ‘was the convenient person to go to.’
By Jocelyn Vena

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William Balfour (file)


Photo: Newscom/Illinois Department of Corrections

William Balfour, Jennifer Hudson’s estranged brother-in-law, was indicted on three counts of murder on Tuesday, CNN reported.

Earlier this month, Balfour was denied bail after being charged with the murders (and one count of home invasion) of the Oscar winner’s brother, Jason Hudson; mother, Darnell Donerson; and nephew, Julian King, in October. No new charges were brought up on Tuesday, but a grand jury must indict the defendant before the case can go to trial, a Cook County state’s attorney’s office spokesperson explained to The Associated Press.

Balfour denies the charges and has pleaded not guilty. Defense attorney Joshua Kutnick has argued that there is no forensic evidence to tie him to the crimes. Balfour appeared in court for the indictment, where Kutnick asked that his client be moved to the Cook County jail to facilitate communication between lawyer and defendant, the AP reported. That decision will be made on January 20.

“The police believe it is William Balfour, but the problem is what they have done. They find their suspect and build evidence around the suspect. That’s not the way it should work. They should gather evidence, and it should lead to a suspect,” Kutnick said. “This was the convenient person to go to. It is bolstered by the fact that it took them so long to get him arrested and charged.”

The prosecution has said that Balfour was jealous that his wife, Julia Hudson, was dating another man and went to the Hudson home on the day of the killings to confront her. His mother, Michele Davis Balfour, has argued that her son was dating three other women at the time, and that jealousy would not have been an issue.

Since the tragedy, Jennifer Hudson has kept a low profile. She has been nominated for four Grammy Awards and was reportedly going to head back to work on a music video, but later reportedly scrapped those plans.

Related Artists

• href="http://www.mtv.com/music/artist/hudson__jennifer/artist.jhtml">Jennifer Hudson

After many years of watching music videos, I have come to the conclusion that it takes an extraordinary type of human being to put together a complete piece of garbage. You have to have a total lack of taste, creativity and talent to pull this type of thing of. It’s not an easy task to piss off the entire human race while not having the faintest idea what you were doing.

Ludacris, Ne-Yo and Jay-Z also improved songs with their notable cameos.
By Shaheem Reid and Jayson Rodriguez

src="http://www.mtv.com/shared/promoimages/bands/w/west_kanye/kroq_perf_121408/281x211.jpg"/>



Kanye West


Photo: John Shearer/ Getty Images

We know that Lil Wayne and T-Pain are the top-two guest appearances in the game either way you rank them. In 2008, the two worked with just about everybody, from T.I. to Fall Out Boy. Bankable! Having T-Wayne on your record practically guaranteed you big airplay on at least one radio format.

Who else put it down this year? Glad you asked. We ranked our top cameo performers of 2008 not named T-Pain or Weezy.

1. Kanye West

Best Cameo: His work on
Young Jeezy’s “Put On” was amazing. On the song, ‘Ye went from talking about the pain of losing his mom to needing at least one of the Simmons sisters to help soothe him. Yet we have to go with his verse on T.I.’s “Swagger Like Us”: blissful confidence wrapped around melodic wordplay. As a sidebar, don’t sleep on his verses from
Jamie Foxx’s “Digital Girl.”

2. Young Jeezy

Best Cameo:
Usher’s “Love in This Club” was the biggest song he hopped on, giving the Snowman some great crossover, mainstream exposure, but we’ll go with Young on Shawty Lo’s “Dey Know” remix. You had us at “hello.” “I’m in my cool whip, insides Jell-O/ Hop up out that pretty mutha—-a, like, ‘Helllllll-ohhhh!’ ”

3.
Ludacris

Best Cameo: ‘Cris rips the meat off the bone every time he sinks his teeth into a record. The beloved blabbermouth has more styles and metaphors than entire rap crews. This is a tough one, considering how much we love his threat to Samuel L. Jackson on T.I.’s “Top of the World.” But we’ll go with T-Pain’s “Chopped N Screwed” — vintage ‘Cris lyrics with an animated style.

4. Jay-Z

Best Cameo: His name alone on your track makes it an event. His stint on T.I.’s “Swagger Like Us” had us singing, but the bars he just snuck in on DJ Khaled’s “Go Hard” remix are so mean. Did you hear the reference to Heath Ledger? And let’s not forget his cautionary line about Andy Griffith’s alias: “Number-one rule if ya ass get caught/ Don’t chatterbox to the Matlock.”

5. Fabolous

Best Cameo: “Addicted,” of course. Fab and
Ryan Leslie made a dope tandem on that track and on Slim’s “Good Lovin.” Let’s not forget that Loso also shined on songs that paid homage to his hardcore roots, such as the remixes of Red Cafe’s “Paper Touchin” and Maino’s “Hi Hater.”

6. Rihanna

Best Cameo: Uh, this one is as easy. The absolute standout was “Live Your Life,” one of T.I.’s biggest records ever. Rih Rih’s word to the wise is a mantra to live by: “So keep on gettin’ ya paper/ And keep on climbin’/ Look in the mirror/ And keep on shinin’/ Till the game end, till the clock stop/ We gonna post up on the top spot.”

7. Ne-Yo

Best Cameo: He helps more rappers in a bind than Murray Richman. Just ask the Game (”Camera Phone”) and
Jadakiss (”By My Side”), who connected with the talented songwriter in 2008 to turn what would have been album cuts into radio-friendly hits. But unequivocally, Ne-Yo’s biggest guest turn was on Plies’ “Bust It Baby (Pt. 2).” His nimble crooning smoothed out the goon’s rough edges and inched Plies closer toward mainstream stardom.

8. Ron Browz

Best Cameo: “Eeeeeether boooy” laced Busta Rhymes’ “Arab Money” with his Auto-Tune-enhanced vocals and then upped the Vocoder a notch on
Jim Jones’ “Pop Champagne.” He might not be T-Pain yet, but Harlem’s newest heatmaker is two-for-two and recently inked a deal with Universal Motown for a solo project.

9. Jim Jones

Best Cameo: Jones has a way of making every song he jumps on uniquely his, so when he latched onto Kid Cudi’s “Day ‘N’ Nite,” well, the gruff Dipset honcho murdered the Cleveland newcomer on his own ish. Dark, unrelenting and woozy, it’s classic Capo.

10. Akon

Best Cameo: ‘Kon kept his top-40 rep in tune on Kardinal Offishall’s “Dangerous,” but the Senegalese singer certified his ‘hood cred when he belted out the hook on
DJ Khaled’s posse cut “Out Here Grinding.” He balances out a lineup of thugs with his elastic vocals wailing over the Runners’ rumbling synths. Watch for the hook on this one.

Related Artists

• href="http://www.mtv.com/music/artist/west_kanye/artist.jhtml">Kanye West
• href="http://www.mtv.com/music/artist/jeezy_young/artist.jhtml">Young Jeezy
• href="http://www.mtv.com/music/artist/ludacris/artist.jhtml">Ludacris
• Ne-Yo
• Jay-Z

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