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For The Record: Quick News On Beenie Man, 'Superfly' Ron O'Neal, Aaron Carter, Michelle Branch, Toby Keith & More

Beenie Man was moved from the Spanish Town Hospital in St. Catherine to the private St. Joseph's Hospital in Kingston, Jamaica, on Thursday after undergoing surgery following his single-car accident earlier that morning. In a statement, police said they believe Beenie Man was speeding in his Hummer and not wearing a seatbelt at the time of the accident, which occurred along a stretch of the Mandela Highway that was under construction. He is expected to stay in the hospital for at least three weeks. ...

Ron O' Neal, who starred as the uptown drug dealer Youngblood Priest in the 1972 blaxploitation classic "Superfly," died Wednesday night after a lengthy bout with cancer. He was 66. While the film was criticized for glorifying the lifestyle of the inner-city drug dealer, O'Neal's character was celebrated by a generation of rap stars, such as Snoop Dogg, who mimicked his sartorially regal street style in his music videos. ... Willie Nelson and Toby Keith will perform at the Super Bowl XXXVIII pre-game show on February 1 at Reliant Stadium in Houston. They join previously announced acts Aerosmith and Josh Groban. ...

A hearing held on Thursday to determine whether C-Murder will get a new murder trial has been postponed until Wednesday. According to the rapper's attorney, the court is awaiting testimony from one of the key prosecution witnesses who appeared in the original trial. The witness was expected to appear at the hearing, but the prosecution claimed that it could not locate her to serve her with a subpoena. The defense is now trying to track the witness down to do so. In the previous hearing on December 12, prosecuting attorneys argued that they did not know that the witness was a convicted felon and had no method of finding out this information because her criminal record had been expunged. At the hearing this week, it was established that the witness' criminal record was on file, accessible, and had been there for over a year. ...

Aaron Carter, singer and brother of Backstreet Boy Nick Carter, dropped his request for legal emancipation from his parents after meeting with a family lawyer on Sunday. The request stemmed from allegations that his mother, Jane Carter, had taken more than $100,000 from his bank account without permission. Only two days later, Jane, who separated from Aaron's, father, Robert in March, was arrested for assaulting her estranged husband's new girlfriend, Ginger Elrod. Carter allegedly broke a window to get into her husband's home and then attacked Elrod, pulling her from the bed by her hair and beating her. ... Michelle Branch and Gavin DeGraw are going to college -- 18 of them, in fact. They, along with newcomers Joe Firstman and Michael Tolcher, will hit the road this spring on the Virgin College Megatour. Besides the performances, concertgoers can experience an interactive village and receive special giveaways. A full itinerary is expected to be announced next month. ...

The 14th Annual Tibet House Benefit concert hosted by composer and artistic director Philip Glass will feature ex-Talking Heads singer David Byrne, Kinks frontman Ray Davies, Bright Eyes, Keb' Mo', Yo La Tengo as well as a few surprise guests. The show will take place on February 25 at New York's Carnegie Hall. ... R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe and Bright Eyes' Conor Oberst will appear on the debut album from Now It's Overheard, a band fronted by Oberst's bandmate, guitarist Andy Lemaster. The album, called Hold on Love, is due March 9. ...

SoCal punks Pennywise will hit the road once again to support From the Ashes, their seventh album, which dropped in September. The five-week trek begins January 21 in Atlanta and runs through February 29 in Minneapolis. Guttermouth, Bleed the Dream and Stretch Arm Strong will open the shows. ... A new collection of music from late Grateful Dead frontman Jerry Garcia and mandolin virtuoso David Grisman, Been All Around This World, will be released on March 23. The seventh release culled from collaborations between the two will include covers of Bob Dylan's "The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest" and James Brown's "It'll Go Crazy." ...

Following a successful reunion tour last fall, Primus will play another 14 shows starting February 24 in Kansas City, Kansas, and running through March 13 in Washington, D.C. The band is playing with its original lineup for the first time since 1996. ... Skye Sweetnam, whose single "Billy S." was featured on last summer's "How to Deal" soundtrack, will release her debut album, Noise From the Basement, on April 20. The 15-year-old co-wrote and recorded the album in the basement of her parents' home with 21-year-old multi-instrumentalist James Robertson. Included are a cover of Blondie's "Heart of Glass" and the girl-power anthem and first single "Number One," which Eric Valentine (Good Charlotte) co-produced. ...

01.15.2004

P. Diddy received the Entrepreneur of the Decade Award from the Rev. Jesse Jackson's Rainbow/PUSH Coalition on Wednesday night. Exactly which decade wasn't mentioned, but we're assuming it was related to Diddy's decade-long stewardship of Bad Boy Records. The award was presented on the closing night of Jackson's Wall Street Project Conference, a gathering to discuss minorities in business. Jay-Z, Russell Simmons, Andre Harrell (Diddy's former Uptown Records boss) and Doctor Dre ("Yo! MTV Raps") were also in attendance. ...

Forget "golden tickets." Fans of Beck can win one of his pets. The folksy rocker is giving away his pet bunny rabbit Rocket (seen in the video for "Lonesome Tears") in celebration of the upcoming release of his Sea Change DVD. Fans are being asked to submit an essay through Beck's Web site (www.beck.com) on why they should be entrusted with Beck's animal. One person will win Rocket while four others will win autographed copies of the DVD. The deadline for entry is February 3. ... Benji and Joel Madden of Good Charlotte will appear on CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360" Thursday (January 15) at 7 p.m. ET to discuss their song "Hold On" and its video, which features real people whose lives have been affected by suicide. ...

The Flaming Lips' Wayne Coyne will face the music and several questions on March 19, when he is the subject of the SXSW Interview, at this year's South by Southwest Music Conference, set for March 17-21 in Austin, Texas. Artists performing this year include Liz Phair, David Cross, N.E.R.D., Papa Roach and the Walkmen. ... A new song by Duran Duran, "Sunrise," a Chemical Brothers remix of Kylie Minogue's new single, "Slow," and remixes of Sting's "Never Coming Home" and Elton John's "Are You Ready for Love" will be featured on the soundtrack to "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy," which comes out February 10. The record will also include Jamelia's U.K. hit "Superstar," the Fischerspooner vs. Billy Squier medley "Everybody Wants You to Emerge," the Basement Jaxx's "Good Luck" and songs by Junior Senior, OK Go and Liz Phair. ...

Fans can catch Nick Lachey's role as crooner Tom Jones on "American Dreams" sooner than expected. The episode of the NBC series on which he appears has been bumped from a March airdate to February 15. ... Fresh off the launch of his record label, BME Recordings, Lil Jon is heading back to the studio next week to begin work on the third Lil Jon and the East Side Boyz album. According to his spokesperson, the album is called Crunk Juice and is scheduled for a September release. Crunk Juice is also the name of Jon's forthcoming energy drink. ...

The Donnas are working on their next album, the follow-up to 2002's Spend the Night, with producer Scott Litt (R.E.M., Incubus). The ladies expect to drop an LP in August. ... Queen's 1976 single "Bohemian Rhapsody," Johnny Cash's 1969 prison album Johnny Cash at San Quentin and Led Zeppelin's 1969 self-titled debut are among the 33 recordings newly inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. A total of 639 titles have been honored since 1973. ...

Anthrax are looking for a few good metalheads for the video for "What Doesn't Die," the next single off their latest album, We've Come for You All, which dropped in May. At 6 p.m. on Monday, the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles should be teeming with fans eager for cameos in the clip, which was conceived by comedian Brian Posehn, best known for his work on the short-lived but long-heralded HBO series "Mr. Show With Bob and David." ... Former Smashing Pumpkins and Hole bassist Melissa Auf Der Maur and her band Auf Der Maur have been tapped to open up for A Perfect Circle on a European tour that starts January 20 in Lisbon, Portugal. Auf Der Maur's self-titled debut, prefaced by first single "Followed the Waves," is scheduled to drop May 4. ...

Former Judas Priest drummer Dave Holland is being tried in Northampton Crown Court in England for sexually abusing a mentally impaired 17-year-old boy who took drum lessons at his house in December 2002. The drummer faces one charge of attempted rape and five counts of indecently assaulting the teen. A second man, 22-year-old Spiros Laouitaris, is charged with four counts of indecent assault in the same incident. Both defendants deny the allegations. The boy's parents encouraged him to take drumming lessons to improve his self-esteem, and after their son took lessons with Holland for a while, they allowed the boy to spend nights at the drummer's house. The boy's parents first found out about the alleged molestation from a letter he sent them. The trial will continue Friday. ... James Lawrence, guitarist for British indie band Hope of the States, was found hanged at Real World studios, a recording studio near Bath, England, owned by Peter Gabriel. Lawrence's body was found Thursday at around 4:30 a.m. Hope of the States were planning to release their debut album in the spring. ...

The British music industry is taking a page from its U.S. counterpart and is cracking down on illegal file-sharing. On Tuesday Andrew Yeates, the director general of the British Phonographic Industry, said the organization intends to increase awareness of the unlawful practice and enforce its copyrights if the warnings are ignored. ...

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