Melissa Etheridge, the singer, songwriter and activist whose distinctive, smoky vocals, heartland ballads and love songs have earned her multiple Grammy nominations and wins, as well as an Academy Award, will be performing during the upcoming AMP Awards for Music & Sound.
Etheridge will be introducing several categories during the presentation, set for July 22 at 7 pm ET. Her appearance, courtesy of BMG, is in support of her new album, “One Way Out,” set for release on Sept. 17, 2021. The artist will perform a new song from the album, as well as one of her most memorable hits.
Viewing the AMP Awards is free, courtesy of event sponsors, but registration is required. To RSVP for the show, which will premiere on Zoom, click here.
“Melissa is a songwriters’ songwriter, and her role as an inspirational artist and activist fits in perfectly with how music has helped lead advertising through a very challenging year,” said Groove Guild’s founder Al Risi.
A member of the AMP Awards Committee as well as the AMP Board, Risi has been the person behind all of the performances the AMP Awards have presented since the second year of the show. “We’re beyond excited that she’s agreed to perform these songs exclusively for our audience,” said Risi, adding, “we’re so grateful to Melissa, her manager, Deb Klein, and to Charlie Davis at BMG for helping to make this a reality.”
Review: Malcolm Washington Makes His Feature Directing Debut With “The Piano Lesson”
An heirloom piano takes on immense significance for one family in 1936 Pittsburgh in August Wilson's "The Piano Lesson." Generational ties also permeate the film adaptation, in which Malcolm Washington follows in his father Denzel Washington's footsteps in helping to bring the entirety of The Pittsburgh Cycle — a series of 10 plays — to the screen.
Malcolm Washington did not start from scratch in his accomplished feature filmmaking debut. He enlisted much of the cast from the recent Broadway revival with Samuel L. Jackson (Doaker Charles), his brother, John David Washington (Boy Willie), Ray Fisher (Lymon) and Michael Potts (Whining Boy). Berniece, played by Danielle Brooks in the play, is now beautifully portrayed by Danielle Deadwyler. With such rich material and a cast for whom it's second nature, it would be hard, one imagines, to go wrong. Jackson's own history with the play goes back to its original run in 1987 when he was Boy Willie.
It's not the simplest thing to make a play feel cinematic, but Malcolm Washington was up to the task. His film opens up the world of the Charles family beyond the living room. In fact, this adaptation, which Washington co-wrote with "Mudbound" screenwriter Virgil Williams, goes beyond Wilson's text and shows us the past and the origins of the intricately engraved piano that's central to all the fuss. It even opens on a big, action-filled set piece in 1911, during which the piano is stolen from a white family's home. Another fleshes out Doaker's monologue in which he explains to the uninitiated, Fisher's Lymon, and the audience, the tortured history of the thing. While it might have been nice to keep the camera on Jackson, such a great, grounding presence throughout, the good news is that he really makes... Read More