Music: "Scratch" Perry has a new musical itch

According to Pitchfork, Jamaican musical sensation, Lee “Scratch” Perry, who has worked and inspired artists such as Bob Marley,  Paul McCartney , The Clash, Beastie Boys, and plenty others, has announced that he will be releasing a new studio album this year.

Must Be Free will be released on September 23rd, it is following up his 2014 Back on the Controls, and features a smattering of incredible musicians and producers. Subatomic Sound System, who is featured in the short documentary series for Intel’s Great Big Story Series, Groovematist, and Phlobi are just a few of the artist who helped Perry create this astounding 13-song collection.

The album will feature plenty of the sound that Perry is infamous for, but he has chosen to add a modern flair to his work due to all the emerging technology. The need to incorporate the modern world was too alluring for Perry not to use.

With the help of social media and the emerging online world, Lee “Scratch” Perry will be able to showcase his genius to the world even better than he used to. Hopefully this will mean a full tour to help support the new album and show the people what this man’s genius looks like on a live stage.

Must Be Free Official Tracklist:

01. Psycho Dread
02. Rat Race
03. House of Sin
04. Isabel
05. Jungle Tongue
06. No Evil
07. No Sorrow
08. On Nigeria
09. Strip Off
10. Too Much Is Too Much
11. Therapist
12. Must Be Free
13. House of Sin (Remix)

Lit: LA Times snags Booker winner Marlon James as Critic-at-Large

The Los Angeles Times welcomes the new critics-at-large and one of them is Jamaican

novelist Marlon James (top left in photo strip), author of A Brief History of Seven Killings, and whose debut novel "John Crow's Devil" wasa finalist in the LA Times Book Award . Congratulation! [The other critics are Laila Lalami, Susan Straight, Viet Thanh Nguyen, David Kipen of Libros Schmibros: Lending Library, Alexander Chee, John Scalzi, Rigoberto González, Rebecca Carroll, and Adriana E. Ramirez.] Here is an excerpt from the article:

Meet the new Critics-at-Large for our books pages. These 10 writers have beautiful voices, brilliant minds, critical insights and strong opinions. We are delighted that they will share them with us.

We see books as being more than something that sits on a shelf (although they are that, enduringly). Books are the keystone in how we define and understand our contemporary moment, our world.

With these 10 writers, we will investigate our culture through the conversations that books anchor, in deep dives and in real time. We will explore the mysteries of reading and writing; consider the achievements, acknowledged and under-acknowledged, of the writers who have come before; question the roles of race, heritage, class and gender in what we read; take on the vagaries of the publishing industry, and more.

These writers have won dozens of prizes, from a lifetime achievement award to a prize for an unpublished first book. They hail from four different nations and have lived all over the world. [. . .]

Marlon James: James won the 2015 Man Booker Prize for his novel “A Brief History of Seven Killings,” a fictionalized account of the 1976 assassination attempt on Bob Marley. He received the Dayton Literary Peace Prize for his prior novel, “The Book of Night Women,” a story of 19th century Jamaican slaves. Born in Jamaica in 1970, James now teaches at Macalester College and lives in Minneapolis

Books: HBO "Contracts" James' 'Seven Killings" for series

HBO has optioned screen rights to Marlon James’ novel, A Brief History of Seven Killings (Oneworld), for a series adaptation.

James’ novel, which was published last year, takes inspiration from the real-life incident when gunmen attacked Bob Marley’s house in 1976. Spanning three decades and crossing continents, the story chronicles the lives of a host of characters, from slum kids to drug lords and the CIA. The book won both the Anisfield-Wolf Fiction Prize for books that contribute to our understanding of racism and cultural diversity and the OCM Bocas Fiction Prize for Caribbean Literature.

HBO plans to produce an ongoing series, with award-winning screenwriter Eric Roth penning the script. Roth’s credits include adapting books into screenplays for Oscar-nominated films such as “Munich”, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” and “Forrest Gump”, as well as acting as the executive producer of Emmy-winning series “House of Cards”.

Oneworld is releasing the paperback edition of A Brief History of Seven Killings this June. It will publish James’ debut novel, John Crow’s Devil, in November, and it has also published his second novel, The Book of Night Women.

Bob (Marley) Heads to Baltimore

As reported in billboard.com - 

The godfather of reggae will live again when Marley has its world premiere at Center Stage in Baltimore next month.

Written and directed by award-winning British playwright Kwame Kwei-Armah (Elmina's Kitchen), the new musical featuring songs by Bob Marley tells the story of a pivotal moment of his life in the late 1970s, when he returned to Jamaica after two years of self-imposed exile in London following an assassination attempt. The show uses events surrounding that homecoming to chronicle the musician's transformation into a 20th century cultural icon.

The project marks the first time that Marley's songs have been featured onstage in a biographical context. The musical includes, among others, songs from the albums Exodus, Kaya and Rastaman Vibration, written during the period when the story is set.

The title role will be played by Mitchell Brunings, who became a YouTube sensation after performing Marley's songs on the Dutch version of The Voice.

The cast also includes Broadway regular Saycon Sengbloh (Motown: The Musical, Fela!) as Rita Marley; Mykal Kilgore as Stevie Wonder, Krystal Joy Brown as backup singer Judy Mowatt; and Ano Okero as producer and filmmaker Don Letts. Other real-life figures portrayed in the show include Peter Tosh (Michael Luwoye), Island Records founder Chris Blackwell (John Patrick Hayden), Bunny Wailer (Damian Thompson), Marley's art director Neville Garrick (Jaime Lincoln Smith) and Jamaican Prime Minister Michael Manley(Howard W. Overshown).

The production features music direction by Jason Webb, choreography byGermaul Barnes, scenic design by Neil Patel and costumes by ESosa.

Suzette Newman and Blackwell are producing for Stageplay. The Baltimore engagement runs May 7 through June 14, and while no plans for the project have been announced beyond the premiere, theater insiders are speculating about a future commercial life in New York or London if Marley is well-received.

This article originally appeared in THR.com. 

A Beatle, a "Crazy Horse" and other film creatures

http://movies.yahoo.com/news/martin-scorsese-george-harrison-doc-frederick-wiseman-crazy-074001764.html;_ylt=AmL55Fbge3OydUKG5wloFgX1X4sC;_ylu=X3oDMTM3aWZrcnF0BHBrZwNiMGZmOTQ2ZS0yMGE4LTMwMzgtYTE2Mi0xOWU1MmNiYWEzZDEEcG9zAzEwBHNlYwNsbl9USFJfZ2FsBHZlcgNjNzM3YWY3MC1jMzQ1LTExZTAtOTNkZS02ZDIzNTdjYmM5M2U-;_ylv=3

The San Sebastian Film festival offers a fair feat for real movie buffs, ad the above link will attest. The mention of a Scorcese- helmed biopic on former Beatle, the late George Harrison, brought to mind the Bob Marley biopic that Marty was set to direct, beforevthe project passed to Johnathan Demme (Philadelphia) and then the Weinstein Co. apparently reached a deal with Rita Marley ( Bob's widow) for the rights to her memoirs.

Will a Marley movie be made -and released - in my lifetime? Remains to be seen.