Category: pop music

• Gwen Stefani recently came under fire for saying “I’m Japanese” in a new interview.
• Stefani is just one of many pop stars who have been accused of cultural appropriation over the years.
• Insider spoke to experts on race and advocacy about this offensive trend in pop music.

Pop music has a cultural appropriation problem, and we were reminded of it again this week by Gwen Stefani.

Stefani brought the topic again to the fore by telling an Asian American journalist in a recent interview, “I’m Japanese.”

During an interview with Allure magazine, Stefani was asked to reflect upon her Harajuku era in the early aughts, which has received criticism for co-opting Japanese aesthetics and objectifying her backup dancers — four Japanese and Japanese American women known as the Harajuku Girls. Stefani has also been criticized for appropriating African, Indigenous, and South Asian cultures in the past. 

“If [people are] going to criticize me for being a fan of something beautiful and sharing that, then I just think that doesn’t feel right,” she told Allure’s senior editor Jesa Marie Calaor.

Pop music is a ‘repeat offender’

Robert Buscher, a lecturer at the Asian American Studies Program at the University of Pennsylvania and chapter president of Philadelphia’s Japanese American Citizens League, told Insider he was “horrified” by Stefani’s latest comments. He was also quick to note that she’s far from the only culprit.

“Pop music, in general, seems to be one of the repeat offenders as far as an art form that tends to commercialize and appropriate Asian cultural aesthetics for the purpose of profiteering,” Buscher said. “We see this time and time again.”

Indeed, Nicki Minaj’s 2018 music video “Chun Li” was accused of parroting an “insulting Asian fetish.” Coldplay and Beyoncé presented India as “a white person’s fever dream” in 2016’s “Hymn for the Weekend.” Major Lazer’s “Lean On” (2015) and Iggy Azalea’s “Bounce” (2013) have faced similar scrutiny. The list goes on.

Buscher specifically called out Katy Perry’s performance of “Unconditionally” at the 2013 American Music Awards, which saw her wearing a kimono, holding a parasol, and performing dainty choreography.

“The lyrics are talking about loving someone unconditionally, and then she dressed up somewhat similar to what a Japanese geisha looks like,” Buscher explained. “[She’s] reinforcing these ideas about Asian women being submissive and demure. Objects.”

Reinforcing negative and dangerous stereotypes

Much like Perry’s 2013 performance, Stefani’s employment of the four Harajuku Girls plays into “this idea of a sexually available, commodified Asian female body,” Buscher said.

While the Harajuku Girls would frequently flank Stefani at red carpet events and photoshoots, the women never spoke in public; Korean American comedian Margaret Cho described their role in Stefani’s life as ”a minstrel show.”

In one 2004 performance, the dancers can be seen forming a circle around Stefani, bowing on their hands and knees.

“Just from body language and physical gestures, it really describes visually what the hierarchy is in that situation,” Buscher said. “This is a kind of white supremacy — Gwen being this blonde-haired, blue-eyed pop idol in the center and using this Japanese aesthetic to, I guess, celebrate that in some ways.”

An ‘alarming level’ of racist abuse

The fetishization of women of color can have dangerous consequences.

As Insider’s Kristie-Valerie Hoang previously reported, Asian American and Pacific Islander communities have been facing “an alarming level” of racist abuse and violence since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2021, a string of shootings at Atlanta-area spas left eight people dead, including six Asian women. The shooter reportedly yelled, “I want to kill all Asians.”

Although a pop star’s representation of Asian women doesn’t carry the weight of these horrific crimes, Buscher clarified, it may contribute to a pattern of anti-Asian racism and misogyny that has existed in the US since the 19th century. “It’s just another way of pushing that forward into the next generation,” he said.

Other pop stars have also been accused of treating marginalized women like props, including Miley Cyrus, whose 2013 album “Bangerz” was deeply rooted in the sounds and aesthetics of hip-hop, a genre created and carried by Black artists.

In music videos and performances around this time, Cyrus would often twerk and surround herself with Black women, sometimes grabbing their butts or other parts of their bodies. Buscher described this as “egregious objectification.” (She later apologized for her “insensitive” behavior.)

The stakes of cultural appropriation are high, particularly given the history of colonialism, imperialism, and slavery Black women in this country have faced, said Riche Richardson, a professor of Africana studies at Cornell University.

“What’s at stake when one is not really a part of that culture’s history — does not share its traumas or the burdens that are associated with that identity — is the potential for commodification and profiteering” at the expense of the people who are the original creators in the culture, Richardson said. 

The difference between inspiration and appropriation

Some pop stars have responded to accusations of appropriation by insisting they simply “admire” the culture, or claiming their actions are born from “love and appreciation.” “[It] should be okay to be inspired by other cultures because if we’re not allowed then that’s dividing people, right?” Stefani told Allure.

Many artists have been able to express that “love and appreciation” successfully and respectfully. Beyoncé’s 2022 album “Renaissance” has been celebrated for incorporating queer themes and genres in a respectful way, even though she is a straight woman. The singer also paid homage to many cultures within the African diaspora in her visual album “Black Is King.”

“This gets into the idea of elevation, which I say makes the cultural exchange satisfied, as opposed to putting on a costume and doing things that might defile the sanctity of the culture it’s drawing from,” Ruka Hatua-Saar White, an assistant professor at the Boston Conservatory at Berklee, explained.

Of Beyoncé’s recent works, White said it’s clear she did “her due diligence.”

“Objectively, I think that there’s nothing wrong with that kind of cultural exchange as long as the person who is doing it is given permission to do that, and that it’s a willing exchange by both parties,” Buscher added. “It becomes a more complicated scenario when one person or one group within that conversation holds a lot more power and privilege than the other.”

Cultural appropriation occurs when someone borrows practices, ideas, or any element of another culture for one’s own fiscal or material gain, White explained. But an artist can use their celebrity to elevate and bring awareness to a marginalized culture.

Madonna, for example, profited from the ballroom scene with the release of “Vogue.” However, the song also elevated the community through her support, giving a platform to ballroom houses and performers and donating to Black and LGBTQ causes.

In Stefani’s case, it’s obvious that she’s profited from Japanese culture through her numerous Harajuku clothing lines, products, and hit singles, but it’s unclear whether Stefani’s adoption has given anything back to Japanese culture. 

“It’s about elevation, acknowledgment, and honor within cultural exchanges,” White said. “The question is, how are you giving back?”

Rolling Stone‘s interview series King for a Day features long-form conversations between senior writer Andy Greene and singers who had the difficult job of fronting major rock bands after the departure of an iconic vocalist. Some of them stayed in their bands for years, while others lasted just a few months. In the end, however, they all found out that replacement singers can themselves be replaced. This edition features former Manzarek–Krieger singer Dave Brock.

In the aftermath of Jim Morrison’s death in 1971, the surviving members of the Doors tried all sorts of ways to carry on. They initially attempted to soldier forward as a trio with keyboardist Ray Manzarek and guitarist Robby Krieger sharing lead vocals, but they gave that up after just two underwhelming albums. In 2002, Krieger and Manzarek rebooted the band (minus drummer John Densmore, and plus singer Ian Astbury) as the Doors of the 21st Century. That project petered out, too, due to a nasty legal battle with Densmore over the use of the Doors name, and Astbury’s commitments to his main band, the Cult.

Fuel’s Brett Scallions and Steelheart’s Miljenko Matijevic both had brief runs fronting the band after Astbury left, but Krieger and Manzarek didn’t settle on a winning formula until 2010, when they brought in Dave Brock, lead singer of the long-running Doors tribute band Wild Child. “We’ve always been kind of afraid to ask him to play with us, because people say, ‘Oh, you’re using a tribute singer. Now you’re your own tribute band,’” Krieger told Billboard in 2011.

“But then Journey got a karaoke singer [Arnel Pineda] and everyone loved it,” he continued. “We said, ‘If they can do that, we can use David.’…. When people come to see Ray and I, they want to see us do the Doors music as it should be done, so why not use a guy who really is an expert? He knows the songs better than we do, really.”

Brock grew up in San Francisco and loved groups like Steppenwolf, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Jefferson Airplane, and Led Zeppelin as a kid. His first concert was Sammy Hagar, and he followed it up with 1978’s Day on the Green featuring AC/DC, Van Halen, Foreigner, and Aerosmith. But a career in music wasn’t much of a thought when he finished high school and enrolled at Long Beach State.

“One of my mother’s last wishes was that I follow business administration,” Brock tells Rolling Stone on the phone from his home in Huntington Beach, California. “She passed away when I was just out of high school. I majored in marketing. I gotta say, it probably did me some good in the career that I’m in.”

During his time at school, he heard a commercial on the radio that Gazzarri’s on the Sunset Strip was going to stage a rock opera dedicated to the life of Jim Morrison. He’d recently read the Doors biography No One Gets Out of Here Alive, and decided to check out the show. “I drove down there,” he says. “Turned out to be a live audition. Honestly, it was a surprise. But I got the lead role. I only knew one Doors song, ‘L.A. Woman.’ It was kind of my theme song at the time.”

As the years went by, his knowledge of the Doors went way, way beyond “L.A. Woman.” It was a journey that ultimately led Krieger and Manzarek to tap him as their final Jim Morrison replacement. Brock — who’s still touring with Wild Child to this day — told us the whole story.

Tell me about this Jim Morrison rock opera that cast you as the lead in the early Eighties.
It was put on by his sister Anne and her husband at the time. They were not show-business people. They gave it a good try, but getting funding was a lot more work than they thought it would be. It never fully developed. We ended up opening for two weekends before it just stopped. They were hoping to get some major funding that didn’t come through so they could do it right. I was just 22 at the time.

What was happening in those years to cause this groundswell of interest in the Doors, including the famous Rolling Stone cover?
You had “The End” appearing in Apocalypse Now, which I think was the beginning of that. The book No One Gets Out of Here Alive was a bestseller for a long time. That had just come out. And the Rolling Stone cover was big. “He’s Hot, He’s Sexy, He’s Dead.”

There’s also the 20-year rule of nostalgia. The original teenage Doors fans were in their thirties by then, and they were suddenly nostalgic and playing those songs for their kids.
The music itself is in a unique place. It was not pop music. It wasn’t really famous with people interested in pop music. It had a different crowd. At that time, punk rock was getting really big. I think even part of that crowd found something in that music to listen to. It didn’t have all the typical love and flowers messages that were in the majority of the Sixties music. It had a lot more to it.

What happened to you after the production shuttered?
I probably had a year off after that. I got a job at Oshman’s Sporting Goods and worked as a ski technician. And I had gone through such intensive training for this rock opera that I thought I had my own tools to put a show together. About a year later, I got some good musicians together to play Doors music. After some test gigs, we did our first real show July 3, 1986 at the Whiskey.

What’s the philosophy behind Wild Child? You’re not wearing a costume or a wig or doing the stage dialogue, right?
I didn’t feel comfortable doing that. There were times I had the leather pants on and similar type clothing, but I didn’t go too far with that. I just wanted to perform the music and feel it and share that with people since I kind of had my finger on the pulse of what people liked at the time, and I knew it would be successful.

Are you watching VHS tapes of shows and listening to bootlegs and learning the nuances of Morrison’s singing voice and the way the music was played live?
Absolutely. I listened to a lot of bootlegs and live recordings, everything I could get my hands on. There was a lot of good stuff out there. That was an intense studying period.

Are you trying to sing like him? Is your natural voice just similar to his?
Well, my basic voice is very, very similar. Nobody is exact. But I guess it was close enough to where I didn’t have to strain my voice. I’ve seen cover acts where the singer is really struggling. No matter how much you love the music, you need a voice within the same ballpark. I was fortunate to have that.

And you were backed by a three-piece band like the Doors?
Exactly.

No bass player.
Nope. We tried to present a show as similar to a real Doors show as we could without a lot of that dialogue between songs, trying to tell the audience what someone was thinking when they wrote a song.

By the Nineties, there were lots of prominent tribute acts on the road, like the Bootleg Beatles and the Australian Pink Floyd Show. What was the scene like in the Eighties, though?
I don’t even believe the term “tribute band” was a phrase in the Eighties. I really don’t. There weren’t that many people doing that. It really took off in the Nineties. I started this band in the very jaded Los Angeles market. It was a time where new music was demanded. Punk rock, New Wave was flourishing. Sixties music was really passé. I think what gave this show an edge is that it really wasn’t about the Sixties, flower power, and stuff like that. It had something else going for it.

I tried to book it at many of the national-act club venues and theaters. They wanted nothing to do with a show where somebody was doing somebody else’s music.

This is the era of Ratt and Guns N’ Roses.
Yeah. Glam. This is before grunge. Glam was probably huge, maybe the biggest. Rock & roll was taking another twist. Also, New Wave was strong in the early Eighties, and glam took over with bands like Poison.

How did you build up the band when nobody else was doing this kind of thing?
I had to put on my own show. Here comes my marketing experience from college. I had very little money. I rented out the Whiskey. They didn’t want to put the show on, although Mario Maglieri was always very supportive. He owned the Whiskey for decades, since the beginning.

So I rented the place out on a Sunday night. I had an adverting budget of $400, which turned into flyers on windshields at the Greek Theater, Universal Ampitheatre when John Kay [of Steppenwolf] was playing, Neil Young, bands like that. There were nice fliers on every windshield, and at every Ticketmaster outlet in Southern California, due to a lot of driving.

Did you pass out the flyers personally?
I never handed a flyer out to a person in my life. Didn’t feel good about that. But I did put plenty of them on windshields.

How did the first show go?
I didn’t know what to expect. I’d never put on a show before. As it turned out, we turned the house three times. There was a line down the block, around the corner, and back again. I really didn’t know what to do with it. That was quite a success, and it caused a big buzz. It’s a small town, and everyone heard about it. Now I’m getting these phone calls from venues that didn’t give me the time of day, inviting me to play at their clubs. I was like, “OK, I guess this is something that can make us money.”

Some people probably saw the Doors back in the day, and others were probably too young and this was their first chance to experience it.
There were a lot of Doors fans at those early shows that were still in their thirties that had seen the Doors. I met hundreds of them that wanted to congratulate us for bringing that music back live to them.

How did the show change throughout the late Eighties and into the Nineties?
Well, we sold out every show we played for probably close to ten years. And then we jumped over to Europe. Amsterdam was our headquarters over there. We did about ten tours over there, including Italy, Germany, France, Netherlands, which was probably our biggest market, and England. We were pretty well-known.

By this time, it’s the early Nineties. This is when the tribute band movement started picking up a lot of speed. In Los Angeles, we were playing all the rooms that the traveling, national club acts were doing, the ones that weren’t playing arenas anymore. We were selling out all the time. I think there were about two million musicians in Los Angeles that saw that, and decided to form their own bands.

Then the Oliver Stone movie hits in 1991, causing a whole other revival of the band.
Yeah. I was actually the first one to read for that part.

Tell me about that.
Oliver Stone was doing Evita. [Former Doors manager] Danny Sugerman had been lobbying him for a long time to do a Doors movie. He sort of had a treatment for him. I think it was taken from No One Gets Out of Here Alive. Evita with Meryl Streep collapsed. She walked off the set and never came back. He had a crew to feed. So he said, “OK, I guess I’ll do this Doors movie.”

They had to put it together quick. By the time I got the phone call from Danny Sugerman saying, “Oliver Stone is going to call you, you better not mess it up.” And I’m putting that nicely [laughs]. Within a few days, I was reading for Oliver from a script in his office. He was writing it as he was going along, honestly.

That happened a few times. Then he started coming to our shows. It was pretty exciting. Unfortunately, I think [producer] Sasha Harari was putting up $40 million for it. And it was like, “Dave who?” [Laughs.]

How do you think Val Kilmer did with the part?
Well, Val was at our shows too. He was in the back, kind of gleaning what he could. He really wanted that part. Oliver told me that he was lobbying him very heavily. He even slept outside of his front door on his porch like he was Jim Morrison in Venice [laughs]. He wanted it bad.

Do you think he did a good job with it?
I think he did, yes. He did a very good job with it. I think the story itself, unfortunately, since it was put together so fast, lacked a bit of what it was supposed to be.

Do you ever think about what would have happened to your career if you had gotten that part?
Maybe for about ten minutes. It really doesn’t do you any good. The fact of the matter is I got the pleasure of reading for it. That was an experience. Maybe I wasn’t supposed to do that.

You did play Jim Morrison for a second in Death Becomes Her.
That was a real fun thing to do. I got another one of those phone calls out of nowhere from an agent in Hollywood. I don’t even know how they tracked me down. They asked me to try out for the part. I did. I got it. It was just a little cameo. The funnest part of that experience was…Robert Zemeckis shot the scene where Bruce Willis crashes through the glass, into the pool, and runs out. It wasn’t enough for him. He came to me and said, “What do you think Jim would have said in a situation like this?” I said, [deadpan] “That was neat.” He goes, “Great, we’re going to shoot it.” They shot it one time, and it was probably one of the biggest laughs in the movie.

Tell me more about how you were structuring the Wild Child show. Do you ever recreate a 1970 show or a 1967 show or do an album straight through or anything like that?
I realized that some of the songs are really good showpieces and come off better than other songs. They have more meat for a live performance. So I gravitate towards about 25 to 30 songs out of the catalog. I might put in one or two obscure songs per show, but there are some songs that just bring the place down that have to be in there almost every time.

Do you play the live versions? A song like “The End” is obviously very different onstage than on the record.
That’s right. I’ve switched up the songs and done different versions. We have different versions for many of the songs. Maybe one night we’ll do a studio version, and another night we’ll do the Hollywood Bowl version.

Did band membership change a lot as the years went on?
Well, people have careers and they move and they have families. It has changed. I’ve always had really good musicians. That’s a key. It’s not hobbyists who love a certain kind of music, but guys who can really pull it off. Those are the people that I hire.

When was the first time you met a member of the Doors?
Danny Sugerman kind of helped me along when I started. He was Ray’s manager. He was even the Doors’ manager for a few years. He was able to get Ray, Robby, and John down to see our show. He wanted them to see us.

What did they say to you?
After seeing one of the shows, the next show we did, Ray Manzarek came onstage and talked to the audience for about five minutes. I guess he was on board with what we were doing. At the time, he wasn’t doing a lot of playing. I didn’t play with him at any period when I was with Wild Child.

The same with Robby?
That was a lot different. A couple years later, I got a call from Robby’s manager. We had a big show on Hollywood Boulevard going on around 1989 or 1990. She said, “Robby wants to come down and sit in with you guys.” What an honor that was. We had never met before. We met at soundcheck, and did the show. From that point on, he would come down and play with us once a year. We even did a tour in Europe together.

Having the guy onstage that co-wrote and played on all the songs must have been incredible.
[Laughs.] Yeah. That was really neat. As a matter of fact, I remember telling our guitar player, “If Robby comes up, just leave. Let him take over.” There was no ego there.

What did it feel like the first few times to turn to your side and see Robby playing there? It must have been surreal.
Yeah. I don’t even know if I can truly explain it. I’m at a loss for words. But perhaps the biggest honor I could ever get doing what I do.

They could have been hostile. They could have been like, “You’re making money off our music. Screw you.” But they embraced it.
They never went in that direction.

When did you tour Europe with Robby on guitar?
Well, Robbie was never part of Wild Child. We were touring Europe pretty often. This was probably 1992 or so. Robbie has always been an active player. He’s always in at least one or two bands. At the time, he had kind of a jazz band he was touring around with. We went over there as a two-band package. We would open up for Robbie. A lot of times, he’d invite me onstage to sing a song or two with their band. When we played, he’d often come onstage for a couple songs with us. So we played together, but we had our separate bands.

Did you meet John Densmore also in this period?
I can’t claim to have met him. It was just in passing. He’s never been warm and fuzzy about us or Ray. There was quite a bit of animosity between those two.

What did you think about the Doors of the 21st Century when they started touring with Ian Astbury?
I thought that was great. Ian was a pretty good friend of mine. We went to each other’s shows a lot before that. I met him at the Whiskey when we were playing there. I’d see him quite often. What a performer he was. I think that it was a really cool thing when he teamed up with Ray and Robby.

Did it hurt your bookings that suddenly two of the actual band members are on the road and playing the music?
No. Not at all. We were still in a separate pond, so to speak. They were playing some pretty big venues. I think they were together for about five years or something like that.

It’s crazy it took them so long to just get a great singer and get on the road. It seems like such an obvious move.
Especially since they saw there was such a demand for it. Any time they went to any of our shows, the place was jam-packed with people going nuts. I don’t know if that had any influence on them at all, but it couldn’t have hurt.

Ian left in 2007. They replaced him with Brett Scallions of Fuel for three years. And then Miljenko Matijevic joined for a few months in 2010. What do you think those two guys brought to the group?
They were with the band for lot shorter time than Ian. I think Brett was there for a couple of years, and Miljenko for one tour. I think it was just great that Ray and Robby were out there playing. People came to see them, and they got a great opportunity to do it.

During this period when they were going through singers pretty quickly, did you think in the back of your head it was possible they’d call you up?
Well, yes. That was a fantasy of mine. Actually it wasn’t too far from reality. Fantasy is probably the wrong word, since it ended up happening.

How did that come about?
They always knew who I was and what I could do, but they were hiring pretty big artists to play with them. I think that was for credibility’s sake. But their third singer, Miljenko, I don’t know what happened, but for some reason, it didn’t work out. They had just finished a European tour, and they had some more dates on this side of the Atlantic right afterwards.

They parted ways, and I got a phone call asking me if I’d play with them. I think it was a few days away. I flew into Detroit, crossed the border, and met them at a place called Chatham in a big park. This was August of 2010. Half of me was saying, “Of course!” I gladly accepted.

How much rehearsal time did you have before the show?
I met them in Canada. They knew that I knew all the songs, probably as good as anyone. It was a huge crowd at this particular park. It was maybe 10,000 or 15,000 people. There we were, ready to go on. We’re in the wings of the stage, ready to step out. That was a very special moment for me.

You played “Roadhouse Blues” first. Do you recall that moment?
From the very beginning, the crowd went nuts. It was a great feeling to look to my right and see Ray, look to my left and see Robby. It was the biggest honor I could ever feel.

After the Canada gig, how did you find out it was going to be more than just this one show?
Well, they just kept calling me to do more shows [laughs]. Maybe they were testing the waters to see if they’d get any backlash, but all the reviews I saw were nothing but great.

What’s happening with Wild Child at this point?
Ray and Robby were only going out on tour about four times a year at this point. They were two or three weeks each. They told me to continue to do Wild Child, which surprised me. But it never conflicted. I just had to book Wild Child around whatever they were doing.

Was it weird to go back and forth between gigs with Wild Child and the actual guys from the Doors?
Yeah. It was.

Your bandmates didn’t mind?
I think they were as happy for me as I was. We were still doing shows. Maybe not quite as many as we had been, but plenty enough.

In 2011, you want to Israel, France, Prague, and all over the world. What was it like to travel so extensively with those guys?
That was terrific. Ray was kind of an alpha dog. He was the captain of the ship, and kind of enjoyed that role. He was very entertaining. A great person to talk to all those times, and travel with. We could be in a situation where we were like, “Here we are, waiting to get on an airplane again?” But I remember one time we were leaving St. Petersburg to go to Italy. They had this big piece of plexiglass between the waiting area and outside. He was pressing his face and hands up agains the glass with his ticket in his hand, pretending like he didn’t know how to get in. It wasn’t just us, but everyone around us was just losing it.

Are you asking them questions about the Doors that you always wanted to ask? Are you getting stories out of them?
I never asked him anything. I was so tempted to, but I didn’t want to be that guy.

When you’re onstage, are you approaching the songs the same way you did in Wild Child as far as imitating Jim Morrison?
It was a bit different. I just tried to come off as a good singer. That’s what my focus was. People were there to see Ray and Robby. If I could add something to that…the only thing I truly had to offer was giving as good a vocal as I possibly could. That’s what I focused on. It worked really well.

I really pulled back as far as being a frontman. I was still a frontman, but I didn’t want to tarnish anything by overdoing it.

Did you travel by bus?
We traveled by bus a lot on the east coast of the United States. We even traveled by bus in Europe. It was all of us on one, the crew as well. We had the big double-decker bus. It was like a moving hotel. We usually did get five-star hotel rooms wherever we went. That was great.

It must have been weird at times to walk around the bus and see half of the Doors just asleep in little bunks.
[Laughs.] Yeah. That was, again, one of those special memories.

Did you watch movies or TV together? What did you do in the downtime?
We were so tired. We spent a lot of time in those bunks, or around the back table upstairs. Those guys were tour animals. We were in a different country almost every night. There was a lot of traveling, a lot of really nice five-star hotel rooms left behind, unused [laughs].

There was a lot of tension between that camp and John Densmore. Did you feel any of that tension being in the middle of it?
No. I imagined Ian did, since they were being sued actively when he was in the band. I think he was even named in the lawsuit. I never had to go through any of that. That was pretty much over when I was there.

They also weren’t being billed as the Doors of the 21st Century by that point.
That was part of the problem. The promoters, no matter where they played, couldn’t help but put “The Doors” and use the logo, which they weren’t supposed to. I think they had to make a new contract stating that any promoter that does that…they weren’t telling them to do that. It just happened. They made it seem like an actual Doors show. And the Doors are defined as Jim Morrison, Robby Krieger, Ray Manzarek, and John Densmore. It can’t be the Doors unless all four of those guys are going to show up.

It seems unfair. It was half the guys. I just saw Yes and it was basically just Steve Howe and replacement members; it’s not much different with Journey. Ray and Robbie had a pretty strong claim to that name.
A lot of that is rooted in the band’s original contracts they made with each other. In the very beginning, it was Jim Morrison’s idea that if the band was going to do anything, it had to be absolutely unanimous. One person could veto any business decision.

Right. That’s a recipe for chaos in the long run.
[Laughs.] I guess. But that was the letter of the law.

What are your memories of the final shows you played in 2012?
We did a European tour in the summer. One thing that pops is that we were in Austria for a festival. It was quite a long ride to the festival grounds from Vienna. I remember it was summertime. Ray got in the vehicle, bundled up with gloves, a coat, and a hat. It was the middle of summer. I thought that was strange. He looked over at the tour manager and went, “When can I go home?” I went, “Wow.”

He must have been feeling it. Like I said before, we were in a different country almost every day. I was having trouble keeping up with that. But they had to work harder. They had to do these autograph sessions for a couple of hours, almost every show. I was feeling pretty worn out myself, but Ray had bile duct cancer. I don’t know if he was just worn down, or something was starting to happen already. That was quite a few months before he died.

The last show was in Tarrytown, New York. Do you recall that night?
Yeah. It was a great night. Ray liked to engineer the setlist. Robby would get together with him sometimes to do that. Ray asked me, “Is there anything that you want to do?” He would do that once in a while. And just to test him, I’d say something off the wall, like “Mystery Train” or an obscure blues song I heard a bootleg of a couple of times. He’d go, “OK. We are going to do that song tonight.”

At Tarrytown, he wanted to do “Mack the Knife.” When we did our “Alabama Song/Back Door Man” medley. He wanted to throw in a verse of “Mack the Knife,” which is something they did back in 1967. That’s one thing I remember in particular from our last show. But again, it was a great crowd. The following day, we went our separate ways. And that was it.

Did you see Ray again after that?
No. Not after that tour. We were supposed to do a tour of India in December, but then that got cancelled out of the blue. I think Ray might have been sick around that time. He kept it from everybody. He didn’t even tell Robby.

Hearing the news that he died must have been devastating.
I found out that he was sick about a week before. I was playing golf with Robby. That’s something Robby and I did a lot on tour. We’d bring our golf clubs. He’s a golf fanatic, and he’s really good. But we’d travel around and sometimes we’d rent a car and go away from the bus so we could catch a round of golf.

We were playing golf one day. He goes, “Listen to what I’ve got on my cellphone.” He played the message back from me. It went, “Robby, this is your keyboard player, Ray Manzarek. And I’m dying.” Then he got more frank about it, instead of trying to be funny, and explained the situation. He was going to Germany for some treatment, and he didn’t make it out of there. It was heartbreaking.

Did you attend his funeral?
Yeah. There was a memorial about two months later. It was up in Wine Country.

Was Densmore there?
No.

From what I’ve read online, they made peace shortly before Ray died.
OK. I’m not going to dispute that. I don’t want to talk about things like that since I have no idea. If you say that, great. [Softly.] But I don’t think that happened.

After Ray died, did you just focus more on Wild Child?
Yeah. That never stopped. I didn’t have to step back into it. I was already doing it. I really miss playing with Ray and Robbie, though. That was the biggest thing I ever did in my career, obviously. And the biggest honor.

It’s great you got to spend so much time with Ray in the final years of his life.
I loved singing with him on songs like “Soul Kitchen,” on the choruses. That was pretty special. And watching him create a solo out of the air. He did a lot of one-off solos. His favorite song to play live was “Riders on the Storm.” He would always dedicate it to Jim and Pamela [Courson]. At the end of the song, he’d play a series of chords that matched his emotion. His eyes would be squinted closed, and he was just reaching for a chord that expressed what he was feeling. That was very touching to me.

What’s your relationship like with Robby these days?
We still play together fairly often. I’ve been sitting in with his band a lot more than he’s been sitting with mine. But we see each other all the time.

He’s played a few special events with John Densmore in the past few years.
I played with both of them at a St. Jude’s benefit, a couple of songs.

That must have been cool to finally play with the drummer.
Definitely. He’s a very unique drummer. He plays things from a different angle than most classically trained drummers. There’s a lot of extra fills and punctuation that he does very uniquely.

Is there ever talk of some sort of Robby Krieger Band featuring Dave Brock tour?
Well, right now, he’s playing with his son on vocals, Waylon. He’s really enjoying that. They are still packing them in, doing big business. I’ll come down and sit in for a few songs on some of those shows. I really love it. They’ve been doing some shows at the Whiskey lately.

You’ve been doing Wild Child now for 35 years now. It may be the longest-standing tribute act out there.
Perhaps it is. That could very well be the case.

You’ve been singing Jim Morrison songs longer than Jim was alive.
Oh yes. Quite a bit longer. I cannot believe my voice is still the way that it is. I’ve been extremely blessed to keep that tool. I gotta say, it seems as strong as ever, if not even a little better.

There are singers like David Crosby or Micky Dolenz that just keep their voice no matter how old they get.
Yeah. I feel very blessed for that. I’ve also taken it easy on myself, too. With Wild Child, I’ve always avoided the long tours that grind you into the ground and make agents lots of money and you don’t even know why you’re doing it anymore. I don’t do that. I haven’t had to.

How many times do you think you’ve sang the song “Light My Fire?
Thousands of times [laughs].

Do you still enjoy singing it?
Yes. I think what I probably enjoy more than anything else is the energy I get back from the audience. If that’s happening with a band, they’re going to keep playing. I’ve seen where the audience isn’t quite there anymore or into it. That’s when it turns into a job, and just hard work. That’s fine too, but I still enjoy what I do.

Do you still want to be doing this in your seventies?
I don’t think I’ve even thought about that. I pretty much go from year to year. I don’t need to do this anymore, that’s for sure. I’m pretty well set up. I’ll tell you what, I still get a pretty big charge out of it. As long as that keeps happening, I’ll probably be interested in doing it. I think the old adage of when you get to be 30 years old, you should move onto something else… I see all these classic artists that just play until they can’t play anymore, or they die. I’d like to ask them why they keep doing it, but I think it’s just something that nourishes your soul. There’s a spirituality in performing music. It’s almost like a ceremony. It feeds the soul.

It’s gotta feel good that the people that wrote this music picked you to sing it with them, and that you were a big part of the band’s final act.
I couldn’t have written a movie any better. I’m so lucky.

Stevie Wonder had the artistic wind at his back, teeming with creative energy and scaling new musical heights, when he met Jeff Beck in 1972.

Their encounter at a New York studio would soon bear fruit for the young Motown phenom and the British guitar hero — including the enduring “Superstition,” a song that became a signature piece for both artists.

Wonder said Wednesday evening he was saddened by news that Beck had succumbed to bacterial meningitis at a hospital near his home in England. The guitarist was 78.

“He was a great soul who did great music,” Wonder told the Detroit Free Press. “I’m glad that I was able to meet him and have him in my life, giving some of his gift to my music.”

Wonder and Beck were introduced to one another by Robert Margouleff and Malcolm Cecil, producers who had worked with Wonder on 1972’s groundbreaking “Music of My Mind” and were now involved in its follow-up, the album that would become “Talking Book.”

“I really didn’t know too much about him,” Wonder said of Beck. “But then I heard him play in New York. We were working on ‘Lookin’ for Another Pure Love’ (in the studio) and I said to him, ‘Why don’t you play on this?’ He thought that would be great. He laid one part down, then another part and another part. It was just amazing.”

That song — a rippling number that showcased Wonder’s growing fascination with keyboard sounds — was augmented by Beck’s lithe guitar solo, complete with Wonder’s approving “Do it, Jeff!” captured on tape.

“It was just a wonderful thing, the whole deal,” said Wonder. “He gave it such a mixture — sort of a jazz feel with a bluesy feel, with the chord structure he took from what I had done. It was great. He put his touch on it. It was just really cool.”

Beck had sprung from London’s fertile blues-rock scene in the ’60s, making his first big mark with the gritty psychedelic rock of the Yardbirds. But he had an expansive musical vocabulary — jazzy, melodic, sophisticated — that was right up Wonder’s alley.

Like many of his peers, the British guitarist was infatuated with Motown, even heading to Detroit in 1970 to cut tracks at Hitsville, U.S.A., with members of the Funk Brothers. (That material remains unreleased, and Beck told Rolling Stone magazine in 2010 the tapes may be lost forever.)

In New York in ’72, Wonder was thrilled with Beck’s work on “Pure Love.” He and Cecil encouraged the guitarist to record a version of a new, unreleased song Wonder had recently written and tracked: “Superstition.”

Beck saw it as a gift from Wonder.

When it comes to origin stories of songs from that era, details can be cloudy or lost to time. It has often been reported that “Superstition” emerged from an impromptu jam by the two artists, with Beck at a drum kit and Wonder at a clavinet keyboard. But Wonder clarified Wednesday that a rough track of the song was already complete when he first played it for Beck at the studio.

Wonder’s own final version of “Superstition” was a dazzling display of chunky funk, featuring one of the most memorable drum openings in pop music history.

“The first thing I played (for the recording of) ‘Superstition’ was the drums, carrying the melody and all the breaks I wanted in my head,” Wonder recounted. “Then I put on the clavinet, then a second clavinet, then the Moog (for bass).”

Trumpeter Steve Madaio and saxophonist Trevor Lawrence contributed the track’s horn punches.

A friend of Wonder, singer-songwriter Lee Garrett, put an unplanned exclamation point on the song’s bridge.

“He was hanging out in the front of the control room and he kept going, ’Aaagggh!’” Wonder recalled. “I was saying: ‘Shut up, Lee! Shut up! Look, do you wanna be on the record? OK, here we go.’ That was all Lee.”

Wonder’s “Superstition” track, complete with that late-addition “aaagggh!” scream, was headed to Side 2 of his “Talking Book” LP.

Beck, meanwhile, had his own designs for “Superstition,” a song Wonder had encouraged him to embrace. The guitarist was intent on recording it with his new rock trio Beck, Bogert & Appice, and their heavy, muscular version would ultimately appear on the group’s 1973 self-titled debut for Epic Records.

But the October 1972 release of Wonder’s “Superstition,” issued as a lead single at Motown’s insistence, wound up stealing the thunder.

“I told Motown, ‘Listen, I did this for Jeff Beck. He likes the song,’” Wonder said. “I thought we should make ‘Sunshine of My Life’ the first single (from the ‘Talking Book’ album). They said, ‘No, no, no, no. The first single should be ‘Superstition.’ So I went back to Jeff and had that discussion.”

Wonder’s single raced up the U.S. pop and R&B charts — hitting the top spot 50 years ago this month — as Beck and company wrapped up their album recording sessions. Wonder earned a pair of Grammys from “Superstition,” which Rolling Stone ranked No. 12 on its latest 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list.

Beck went on to record another pair of Wonder originals, “Cause We’ve Ended as Lovers” and “Thelonius,” for 1975’s “Blow by Blow.”

Wonder downplays the idea that the “Superstition” release situation caused a deep rift between the two artists (“we had always been cool”), and said he looks back fondly on their performance together at a 2009 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame concert, where they linked up for a sizzling, showstopping rendition of the song.

Wonder said Wednesday he continues to write and record material for his next album, which will be released on his So What the Fuss Music, the label he launched with Republic Records in 2020.

He has also taken to listening back to his older work with his 17-year-old son, Mandla, dissecting tracks and reflecting on the music.

On Wednesday, after word of Beck’s passing, one of those songs played at home was “Lookin’ for Another Pure Love,” featuring Beck’s distinctive solo.

“When I heard it today, it was emotional for me because I could remember the moment,” Wonder said. “There’s just something about music. I know for you, as a fan, songs take you back to a space in time — you’re right there, right then. The same thing happens for us as writers and singers.”

At age 72, Wonder has grown accustomed to losing fellow artists, friends and peers. But he takes solace in his faith in God and his certainty that spirits transcend death.

“As long as you talk about people, you keep them alive,” he said, citing an African proverb. “You keep their spirits alive.”

And an artist’s musical legacy, Wonder said, is part of that conversation:

“We get a chance to hear and feel that spirit, for as long as we can have all the music that motivates people to move forward and do better.”

Contact Detroit Free Press music writer Brian McCollum: 313-223-4450 or bmccollum@freepress.com.

If you’ve never heard of “mafia dance” before, the premise is pretty simple. Each member of the group is given headphones, and the song is played for the members to perform. The catch is that one (or more) members will be listening to a totally different song, and the goal is for the group to find out which member is listening to the wrong song. It’s a challenge for the group as well as the mafia—and it’s always entertaining to watch! If you’re in need of a good giggle, these “mafia dance” games will have you entertained for hours.

SEVENTEEN

The members of SEVENTEEN are kings of variety shows, and there’s hardly a single episode that doesn’t end in chaos. The competition is fierce right from the beginning, and it’s nothing but mind games before the music even starts! Set to their song “Left and Right,” the track is appropriate because fingers are pointed left and right before the game is over.

STAYC

If you want a master class in acting, then this is the episode for you! STAYC’s Yoon is so convincing with her arguments that you might even forget that she’s the mafia. Fellow mafia member Sieun, however, is eliminated immediately—she had to dance to her dad’s song, and the distraction was just too much!

NCT DREAM

NCT DREAM is known for their energetic choreography, so as soon as Jeno starts to slip up while performing their song “We Go Up,” he’s totally busted! The members are hilariously competitive when it comes to the discussion section, and the punishment for the losing team is every bit as funny as the game itself.

NCT 127

Having NCT 127 play the “mafia dance” games means that the youngest members Mark and Haechan are back for a second round—and they proved that they’re pros! Haechan is perfect as the mafia, and Mark guessed all three mafia members correctly on the first try. He gets eliminated before he can do anything about it though, meaning it’s all chaos from there!

Dreamcatcher

Dreamcatcher’s choreography is pretty detailed, meaning that it should be difficult for the mafia—however, the members are so suspicious of each other that even those who are listening to the right song get the beats wrong because they’re too busy looking around! Watching the mafia dance to the tune of a ringtone is hilarious, and the members are giggling the whole way through.

THE BOYZ

Main dancer Q, actor Hyunjae, and comedy king Sunwoo were chosen as the mafia for THE BOYZ’s round of “mafia dance,” so there’s no way it could be anything but hilarious! There are false accusations, drama, and tons of laughs, all thanks to the fact that THE BOYZ members take their mafia games really seriously. The results are unprecedented!

Rain and TWICE

This version of “mafia dance” is a little different from the rest, but it’s still every bit as fun! The players are each given a set of earphones, only one of which plays no music. Everyone dances to the same song, and the mafia has to try to match them. The game even gets the producers laughing, and it’s down to the wire before the mafia is finally discovered!

What are your favorite episodes of “mafia dance”? Tell us in the comments!

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Joni Mitchell will receive the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song.

Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden announced Thursday that Mitchell will be honored with an all-star tribute concert on March 1 in Washington, D.C. “Joni Mitchell: The Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song” will premiere on PBS nationwide on March 31.

“Joni Mitchell’s music and artistry have left a distinct impression on American culture and internationally, crossing from folk music with a distinctive voice whose songs will stay with us for the ages,” Hayden said in a statement. “Joni Mitchell’s music has so many artists and music lovers all singing her tunes. We are honored to present the Gershwin Prize to this musical genius.”

Mitchell, 70, is the third woman to earn the prize following Carole King and Gloria Estefan, who won the honor alongside husband Emilio.

The Canadian icon has received nine Grammys Awards and the Polar Music Prize; she was celebrated at the Kennedy Center Honors; she was named MusiCares Person of the Year; and she’s been inducted into both the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. 

“This is a very prestigious award,” Mitchell said. “Thank you for honoring me.”

The Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song was created to honor the legendary songwriting team of George and Ira Gershwin. Last year’s recipient was Lionel Richie, and others who have earned the prize include Stevie Wonder, Paul McCartney, Billy Joel, Paul Simon, Willie Nelson, Smokey Robinson, Tony Bennett, Garth Brooks, Burt Bacharach and Hal David.

“Joni Mitchell: The Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song” is a co-production of WETA Washington, D.C., Ken Ehrlich Productions, Inc. and the Library of Congress.

With his Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour, Elton John confirmed his latest plans for retirement. The final show of the tour in July 2023 will be his last. However, deja vu suggests this might not be the last we see of Elton.

The singer has announced plans to retire at least five times since 1984 but is still going strong. By the end of his current tour, Elton John will have performed in over 300 concerts in the U.K., the U.S. and Europe and he shows no sign of slowing down. He’ll perform a headline slot at Glastonbury in 2023.

Elton is not the only performer with a history of retiring and unretiring. He is in good company with Barbra Streisand, Justin Bieber, Jay-Z, Lily Allen and Phil Collins.

Hip-hop star Nicki Minaj’s retirement lasted for only 22 days, while heavy metal singer Ozzy Osbourne’s valedictory No More Tours tour in 1992 preceded a further 30 years of performance.

In contrast with handsomely rewarded performances on the global stage, retirement can be an intermittent pipe dream for many musicians. Long, unsociable hours in the music industry often offer modest remuneration and few of the perks available in other sectors.

There is no compulsory retirement age in the U.K., which can be a godsend for lower paid professional performers who find that saving for an adequate pension is beyond their means. In these cases, working beyond the third age is a necessity.

For Elton and his internationally acclaimed peers, however, the incentive to return to performing is less likely to be financial. So why do some successful musicians find it so hard to stick to retirement?

The motivation of the stage

The key to understanding this lies in motivation.

For many musicians, the motivation to perform is intrinsic rather than extrinsic. Extrinsically motivated performers are interested in tangible rewards such as money. Intrinsic motivation meanwhile, is present when a musician performs mainly because of a strong inner desire to make music.

For intrinsically motivated performers, making music is inherently pleasurable and a means unto itself. This partly explains why the music profession remains attractive even if it does not always bring the financial security of other careers. It also explains why some celebrated performers find it difficult to stay out of the public arena.

Among those with a passion for music, the rewards of performance often exceed the financial benefits. The status and accolades derived from a celebrated performance career provide a source of affirmation which can become difficult to obtain elsewhere.

Once human beings have fulfilled their basic needs of food, water, shelter and relationships, self-actualisation becomes a significant driving force. For dedicated performers, achievement in the musical sphere can become an irreplaceable vehicle for attaining self esteem, personal growth and the satisfaction of fulfilling their potential.

You’re only as good as your last performance

Identity is also a central component in the motivation to perform. Continuing to perform professionally can provide validation for musicians, regardless of the level of income and recognition.

For many, being a musician is inextricably linked with their sense of self. Their self worth is then strongly affected by their capacity to perform. This is especially true for singers, as voice is an integral part of identify formation and expression.

There is some truth in the old saying; “You’re only as good as your last performance.” If you’re not performing at all, how good can you be?

For retired musicians, it can be challenging to find a comparable way to channel the energy they once dedicated to performance.

Musicians, like other professional groups, are diverse in many ways, but there are some personality traits different types of musicians tend to share.

For example, classical musicians typically score highly on introversion, which partly accounts for their ability to focus on the solitary practice necessary for developing technique before engaging in ensemble playing.

In contrast, rock and pop musicians tend to score highly on extroversion, often learning and rehearsing more informally in collaboration with their peers. Extroverted performers often derive their energy from audience interaction so it can be difficult to achieve that “buzz” once the music stops.

Don’t stop me now

Performing music is widely recognized as a way of achieving the highly desired state of “flow,” otherwise known as “peak performance” or being “in the zone.”

Providing that the challenge of performing closely matches the skill level of the performer, music can become an all-absorbing activity, which is so immersive that it distorts our sense of time and distracts us from our everyday concerns. During live concerts, the audience and performers can experience a sense of “collective effervescence” rarely achieved elsewhere.

Add in the emotional high derived from the adrenaline released in public performance and we can begin to understand why the rewards of performance can be difficult to replace in retirement.

Rihanna’s Don’t Stop the Music, Queen’s Don’t Stop Me Now and Elton’s I’m Still Standing are these musicians ways of telling us that they want to be in the limelight, just as much as their audiences want them to stay there.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.