Random music news for Friday, June 7, 2019

On this day in 1982, Graceland opened to the public. The bathroom where Elvis died was kept off-limits. On to music news for June 7, 2019.

1. New Orleans funk legend Dr. John has died at the age of 77.
2. This musician used to be a target of the KGB and the FBI for an interesting reason.
3. It looks like Siri will come to other non-Apple products.
4. Baby Shark, the TV series. Seriously.
5. Universal has signed a deal with a company called Super Hi-Fi which uses artificial intelligence to place additional audio between songs as music is streamed.
6. How Celine Dion changed not only Vegas but the music industry.
7. Chris Brown: plagiarist?
8. Barack and Michelle Obama are now in the podcast business for Spotify.
9. Pussy Riot is coming to the rescue of the women of Alabama.
10. Madonna recalls working with Harvey Weinstein back in the 90s. She doesn’t remember that fondly.
11. This is how people talked about iTunes when it first launched in 2001.
12. Here’s the story of the cover of Nirvana’s Nevermind album as told by photographer Kurt Weddle.
13. R Kelly has pleaded not guilty to his latest accusations.
14. As we continue to remember the 75th anniversary of D-Day, here’s a story about a British POW forced to play music for his Nazi captors.
15. Billboard is going to add new charts to highlight songwriters and producers.
16. Attention musicians: Spellcheck your merch!
17. There’s a lot of controversy over this new NWA-related park bench.
18. Labels are spending a ton on A&R (US$4 billion) because new artists are driving streaming–and streaming is driving revenues.