By Ron Wynn CBS’ decision to air the Grammy Awards earlier than usual didn’t pay off as well as they hoped, though it certainly did enough to give CBS a comfortable edge for Sunday Night viewing. Sunday’s show, which ran three hours and 40 minutes, was the earliest a Grammy telecast had been presented in seven years. It drew, at least in the preliminary numbers available at press time, 16.54 million viewers and a 4.7 rating among adults 18-49 in the fast national ratings. These are the earliest — and least accurate — figures available. The adjusted numbers are reported…
Author: Ron Wynn
Sometimes tragedies occur involving people whose loss transcends their particular occupation or profession, and that certainly was the case this past Sunday when news began spreading of the helicopter crash that claimed the lives of five people, including longtime Los Angeles Lakers superstar Kobe Bryant. Bryant had become a transcendent figure both during his 20-year career and in his days after the NBA. Sadly. he and four others died in the crash at a remote field 40 miles northwest of central Los Angeles according to stories in both Reuters and the Associated Press. Though no names were released of the…
Steven Canals has previously struck creative gold for FX with the drama “Pose.” It spotlights the ballroom culture of the ‘80s and ‘90s, and was the first show Canals created along with Ryan Murphy. Besides earning multiple Emmy and Golden Globe nominations and getting a breakout Emmy win for main star Billy Porter, it’s earned Canals a lot of attention and exposure in Hollywood. That’s now resulted in a new deal with Disney’s 20th studios. The new pact, announced this week in the Hollywood Reporter, will allow Canals to continue overseeing “Pose” for FX, while also developing new projects for…
NASHVILLE, TN — Among the many questionable omissions of Black performers from major awards consideration, none seems more glaring according to many critics than the absence of Alfre Woodard. She is the principal star in the film “Clemency,” which opens at the Belcourt Friday. It is written and directed by rising star Chinonye Chukwu, and co-stars Richard Schiff, Danielle Brooks, Michael O’Neill, Richard Gunn, Wendell Pierce and Aldis Hodge It was a sensation at the Sundance Film Festival, and both Woodard’s performance and the overall writing, direction, score and production have been heavily praised. It received a limited opening Dec.…
NASHVILLE, TN — The Tennessee Titans’ valiant string of playoff victories ended Sunday one game short of the Super Bowl as the Kansas City Chiefs defeated them 35-24 to take the AFC title. The Titans had previously won road games at New England and Baltimore, but were unable to hold a pair of early 10 point leads in Kansas City. The Chiefs scored 28 unanswered points in the second and third quarters, turning a 17-7 deficit into a 35-17 lead, making a final Titans score anticlimactic. The Titans were unable to clamp down on Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes, who hurt…
NASHVILLE, TN — The offensive production problems for an injury plagued Vanderbilt Commodores squad continued Saturday as a 21-5 surge in the opening moments of the second half propelled Tennessee to a 66-45 victory over Vanderbilt in Nashville. Making matters worse was the loss dropped Vanderbilt to:0-4 in the SEC, and 8-9 overall. It also marked and end to a streak that began with the introduction of the three-point line into college basketball in the 1986-87 season. Vanderbilt had made at least one-three pointer every game since. That was a streak of 1,080 games over 34 years. But the Commodores…
A couple of years ago it looked like perhaps the National Football League had turned the corner in dealing with a persistent problem: getting more Black head coaches. A record number of Blacks were leading teams and it seemed perhaps a new and positive trend was definitely underway. But flash forward to the present and things suddenly look as dreary as they did before. At press time there had been four vacancies filled, all by whites. Unless the Cleveland Browns break the pattern, when the new season begins, there will be a grand total of three Black coaches in the…
By Ron Wynn Monday morning brought the latest nominations for this year’s Oscar Awards, and with it came the familiar lament that has accompanied pretty much every recent awards nominations announcement with a couple of exceptions: the list of nominees are very lacking when it comes to diversity and inclusion. The first and arguably most surprising omission came in the Best Actress category. Lupito Nyong’o got a Critics Choice nomination for Best Actress for her performance in “Us,” and it was widely assumed that she would be followed by an Oscar nod. That didn’t prove the case. Nor did Eddie…
By Ron Wynn Harmonica ace Mark Hummel has long been blending vintage and contemporary influences in his writing and playing, perfecting for decades a style that manages to balance modern concerns with the classic ethos and sensibility of the classic blues from the ‘30s and ‘40s that Hummel admires. That’s definitely the case on his latest LP “Wayback Machine” (Electro-Fi) that’s being released this week. Hummel is joined on this stirring session by guitarist Billy Flynn, Mississippi blues star Joe Beard and the West Coast combo The Deep Basement Shakers. It was recorded by Chris Kid Andersen at Greaseland Studios…
By Ron Wynn Xandra Lee embodies a new artistic vision for contemporary Nashville vocalists, an engaging mix of vintage influences and modern production techniques and musical elements. Gifted with a powerful, rangy and highly expressive mezzo soprano voice, Lee has both a strong natural sound and polished performance ethic that reflects her longtime involvement in the arts world, despite still being quite young. Lee has been a Music City resident for over five years now, but was born in Arizona and started her career as a dancer. She calls herself “an old soul in a young person’s body,” something that’s…