King of Pop

Michael Jackson may be gone in life but the music hasn’t gone anywhere, as Pepsi shows with its latest campaign.

In honor of the 25th anniversary of Michael’s “Bad” album and tour, the company plans to produce one billion Pepsi cans bearing the silhouette of the late King of Pop, in addition to new mixes of Michael’s music from the multi-platinum album, which was released in 1987.

Adam Yauch, one-third of the pioneering hip-hop group the Beastie Boys has died at the age of 47. Yauch, also known as MCA, had been in treatment for cancer since 2009. The rapper was disgnosed in 2009 after discovering a tumor in his salivary gland.
The group was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2012.

Duran Duran will release a new live-set on July 2 in the U.K. (date not yet announced for the U.S.) called “A Diamond in the Mind.” According to Duran Duran’s official site, the Deluxe Edition of the set will include a Blu-Ray, DVD, CD and booklet.

The concert was filmed on December 16, 2011 at the MEN Arena in Manchester, England.

Never mind that the average age of the five main members of the reunited Beach Boys is 68, it didn’t stop them from putting on a two-set, 42-song show for the opening of their 50th Anniversary Tour Tuesday night in Tuscon. Reviews have generally been very good for the show with critics marveling at how well Al Jardine and Mike Love can still hit the notes on the classics.

Dick Clark, the music industry maverick, longtime TV host and powerhouse producer who changed the way we listened to pop music with “American Bandstand,” and whose trademark “Rockin’ Eve” became a fixture of  New Year’s celebrations, died today at the age of 82.

Clark’s agent Paul Shefrin said in statement that the veteran host died this morning following a “massive heart attack.”

Rod Stewart will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on Saturday for the second time. He was originally inducted in 1994 as a solo act and is about to go in as a member of the Faces. Unfortunately, Stewart will not be at Saturday’s ceremony due to contracting the flu. His publicist, Hannah Kampf, said “Unfortunately Rod is battling the flu this week and regrettably he is unable to accept his induction in person in Cleveland.”

The remaining Jackson brothers, Jackie, Jermaine, Marlon and Tito, will be taking the Unity Tour on the road this June and July. It’s the first time they have toured together since The Victory Tour, with their brother Michael, in 1984.

Rock ’n’ roll legend Jerry Lee Lewis has married for a seventh time in Mississippi, and the new bride is his cousin’s ex-wife.  The Adams County circuit clerk’s office said the marriage license shows Lewis was married March 9 to Judith Ann Coghlan Brown in Natchez, Miss. The 76-year-old Lewis, also known as “The Killer,” is famous for top hits like “Great Balls of Fire” and “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On.”

The bride, who is in her early 60s, was previously married to one of Lewis’ cousins and was close to his daughter, Phoebe Lewis, said the bride’s sister, Carolyn Coghlan Gremillion of Madison. She said Brown started working for Lewis several years ago as his caretaker.

“Deliverence” theme anyone??

Singer Robin Gibb, who spoke last month of making a “spectacular” recovery from cancer, had slipped into a coma raising fears that the 62-year old star is in the final stages of cancer. Gibb has been battling colon and liver cancer and recently developed pneumonia. Earlier this week he was admitted to hospital again and could not attend the premiere of his stage production ‘Titanic’. He reportedly awoke from his coma on April 21st.

His brother Barry has flown to London to be by his side. His wife Dwina, and children Melissa, Spencer and Robin-John are keeping vigil by his bedside.

The 62-year-old is a founding member of the hit machine the Bee Gees.

Earl Scruggs, who as a child developed the distinctive picking style that forever changed banjo playing, and whose association with Lester Flatt cemented bluegrass music’s place in popular culture, died Wednesday of natural causes at a Nashville hospital. He was 88.

For many of a certain age, Scruggs’ banjo was part of the soundtrack of an era on “The Ballad of Jed Clampett” — the theme song from the CBS sitcom “The Beverly Hillbillies,” which aired on CBS from 1962 to 1971 and for decades afterward in syndication.