Alicia Keys rocked the stage with Usher and John Mayer on Thursday night, and all for a good cause. Keys played host for Time magazine's Black Ball, a fundraiser that concluded the magazine's Global Health Summit aimed at developing solutions to global health crises. All proceeds from the ball, held at Frederick P. Rose Hall in New York, will benefit Keys' charity, Keep a Child Alive, which helps provide HIV/AIDS medicine to children and their families in developing countries. Common and Angelique Kidjo were also on hand to perform, while Jessica Alba, Natasha Richardson, Cynthia Nixon and fashion designer Giorgio Armani were among those who came out to show their support. ...

([article id="1513014"]Click to see photos of Alicia Keys, Usher, Jessica Alba and more at the Black Ball.[/article])

The vibe was so right that even Beyoncé had to get up and throw the diamond sign in the air. Jay-Z joined Kanye West onstage Thursday night during Ye's tour stop at New York's Theater at Madison Square Garden, and ripped "P.S.A." and "Encore." ... Usher, who's currently dating model Eishia Brightwell, tells Cosmopolitan for its December issue that he's "probably been in love too many times. Maybe I'm just in love with the concept of being in love." Usher also tells the mag that he requires his dates to "be passionate about me," and not just in the bedroom. "If the relationship is based on all physical things, like I like the way she makes me feel in bed, that's not enough," he says. "If something goes wrong, will you stick around to work it out? That's why it's important to be friends first." ...

Colombian rocker Juanes nabbed the most trophies during Thursday night's Latin Grammy Awards in Los Angeles, taking home honors for Best Rock Song, Best Rock Vocal Album and Best Music Video. Among the other winners: Marc Anthony won for Best Salsa Album, Brazilian singer Ivan Lins took the top prize for Album of the Year, Spanish pop star Alejandro Sanz snagged two awards for Record of the Year and Song of the Year for "Tu No Tienes Alma," Bebe was named Best New Artist and Daddy Yankee won Best Urban Music Album. ... Will.I.Am's remix of Bob Marley's "Africa Unite" will be included on Africa Unite: The Singles Collection, the first Bob Marley & the Wailers greatest-hits package to include both his early material and his Island Records hits. "That was like the most beautiful experience I've probably had in my life," Will said of redoing the song. The album, due Tuesday, will also include "Slogans," which features Eric Clapton on guitar and is the first unreleased Marley track in more than a decade. Ashley Beedle's "Get Up, Stand Up vs. Jamrock," a mash-up of Marley's classic and "Welcome to Jamrock," the 2005 hit from youngest son Damian, is the other new track. ...

Bayside singer Anthony Raneri is pledging that the band will finish out the Never Sleep Again Tour in the wake of the October 31 van crash that killed drummer John "Beatz" Holohan and broke the back of bassist Nick Ghanbarian. In a post on BaysideRocks.com he writes, "The worst day of my life is over. It lasted 72 hours, but it's over. ... On November 16, [guitarist] Jack [O'Shea] and I will be flying out to St. Petersburg, Florida, to join up with the Never Sleep Again Tour. We will be playing an acoustic set that night and every night through the end of the tour on December 11th. We loved this tour. Beatz loved this tour and this is something that we need to do for ourselves, for our band and for John Beatz." ... Thrice will headline a November 22 benefit at West Hollywood's House of Blues for Invisible Children, a nonprofit organization that funds shelters and schools and raises international awareness for the children in civil-war-torn Uganda. Thrice's video for "Image of the Invisible" is about children being stolen from their parents. ...

Watchbands forged from leather goods from the personal collections of Ozzy Osbourne, Dave Navarro, Red Hot Chili Peppers' Anthony Kiedis, Velvet Revolver's Scott Weiland and Slash, Metallica's Kirk Hammett, Audioslave's Chris Cornell, Jeff Buckley and others will be sold as part of a benefit for MusiCares beginning November 15 at Barneys in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago and at Villains Vault in San Francisco. The one-of-a-kind watches, from Southern California-based accessories firm Nixon, will be accompanied by a certificate of authenticity. The name of the artist whose threads or guitar straps helped in the watch's fabrication will be etched into the band. ...

Heading to the theater this weekend? If you're catching "Jarhead," you'll also see the new trailer for "King Kong," debuting Friday (November 4). It will also be available for download to iPod video at Apple.com. The now three-hour "King Kong" epic comes out December 14. ... Harry Potter's cast a spell on the box office -- even though the fourth film of the franchise, "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," isn't due out until November 18. According to Fandango, advance ticket sales are showing that it's already the fastest-selling Potter installment to date, accounting for the majority of their weekly ticket sales. ...

Lenny Kravitz's participation in a concert for Marlboro's 50th anniversary is being criticized by the NYC Coalition for a Smoke Free City, which organized a letter-writing campaign among the rocker's fans to ask him to pull out. Youth activists from various tobacco-control programs called on Kravitz to refuse the tobacco company's money, pointing out that Kravitz had insisted a London nightclub go smoke-free before he played there in July so he wouldn't harm his voice. "When cigarette smoke was a threat to you, you did something about it," one such letter asks. "Don't you think it's important to take a stand to protect other people's health, too?" Kravitz's rep didn't respond to requests for comment. ... Hilary Duff's mother/manager, Susan Duff, just hit by a lawsuit from a clothing company for interfering with an exclusive deal it made with the singer for her Stuff by Hilary Duff line, is planning to countersue. The Duffs' company calls NTD Apparel's suit, filed last week in Los Angeles, "without merit," since they're planning a suit against them for failing to produce and deliver the quality of goods specified in the first place. NTD Apparel's lawyer declined to comment. ...

11.03.2005

All but one of the tracks on Madonna's upcoming Confessions on a Dancefloor have leaked onto the Internet, but that's not going to force her hand to put out the album any sooner. Confessions is still slated for a November 15 release, according to Madge's label rep. ...

Ashanti's upcoming remix album will feature four new tracks, including the first single, "Still on It," with Paul Wall and Method Man. "I Love You," "Show You" and "Found It in You" are the other new tracks on Collectables by Ashanti, due December 6. ... Salt-N-Pepa are reuniting for one night on Thursday (November 3) for Motorola's annual Hollywood benefit for Toys for Tots. Paris Hilton, Eva Longoria and Nicole Richie are among those expected to attend. ...

On December 6, the White Stripes will release Walking With a Ghost, an EP featuring not only Jack White's revved-up cover version of Tegan & Sara's tune of the same name, but also four live tracks, two of them recorded at the Teatro Amazones in Manaus, Brazil, hours after White tied the knot with model Karen Elson. The other two are from the Stripes' appearance on radio station KCRW-FM's "Morning Becomes Eclectic" program in September. The EP will also be available for download on iTunes November 14. ...

MySpace Records will launch on November 15 with a compilation disc, MySpace Records: Volume One. The album will feature contributions from Weezer, AFI, Fall Out Boy, All-American Rejects, Dashboard Confessional, the Click Five and others. ... Shinedown have canceled Thursday's show in Orlando, Florida, as singer Brent Smith is being monitored at a hospital for a non-threatening blood circulation problem. Status of further shows will be determined on a day-to-day basis. ...

The Isley Brothers will release a career retrospective DVD called "Isley Brothers: Summer Breeze - Greatest Hits Live" on November 15. Starting off the set is "Between the Sheets" (which forms the bedrock of Notorious B.I.G.'s "Big Poppa" as well as Gwen Stefani's current single, "Luxurious"), followed by "Footsteps in the Dark," rock standards "Shout" and "Twist and Shout" and covers of Seals & Crofts' "Summer Breeze" and Todd Rundgren's "Hello It's Me." Ronald Isley's alter ego, Mr. Biggs, also makes an appearance with "Down Low" and "Contagious" (featuring cameos from R. Kelly). ... Papa Roach singer Jacoby Shaddix just began shooting his first feature film, an as-yet-untitled supernatural thriller directed by Ryan McKinney. Lou Diamond Phillips and Pam Grier are co-starring in the flick, which is shooting in Sacramento, near Shaddix's hometown of Vacaville, California. ...

Mudhoney's seventh studio album, Under a Billion Suns, will see the fuzzy glow of retail light on March 7. It's the Seattle group's first fresh offering since 2002's Since We've Become Translucent, and will feature 11 tracks, including "A Brief Celebration of Indifference," "Where Is the Future" and "I Saw the Light." ... "The Simpsons" creator Matt Groening has announced plans to release All Tomorrow's Parties: Pacific 2003, a collection of live tracks taken from the 2003 ATP festival he curated in California. Artists on the comp include Modest Mouse, the Shins and Sonic Youth. The album is due in stores on December 6. ... "All Dolled Up," a DVD featuring some of the earliest live performances by the recently reunited New York Dolls, will hit stores December 6. Compiled from more than 40 hours of footage shot during the early 1970s by rock photographer Bob Gruen, the feature-length documentary includes performances of "Frankenstein," "Pirate Love," "Bad Detective" and other songs at New York's Kenny's Castaways and Max's Kansas City as well as West Hollywood's Whisky a Go Go and other iconic venues, not to mention revealing interviews, "backstage banter and late-night debauchery." ...

After bloggers flamed the action, Sony Music said on Wednesday that it will distribute a free software patch that reveals hidden files that are automatically installed on computer hard drives by some of its music CDs. According to an Associated Press report, the software was designed to block music piracy, but when a Windows expert reported that his CD drive was disabled when he tried to remove the hidden files, it unleashed charges that Sony was attempting to guard its intellectual property by secretly installing software on the PCs of unsuspecting users. The company said the patch was being offered as a precaution, not because of any security vulnerability, though computer experts cautioned that the software could be used by hackers to mask their programs. The copy-protection technology, which limits how many times a CD can be copied, was included on about 20 titles, including albums by the Bad Plus and Vivian Green. The patch does not remove the copy-protection software. ...