Chicago rapper 엔도 Endo began releasing his dance-indebted tracks in 2018, and he’s since gravitated toward a loose collective of experimental pop, hip-hop, and dance musicians supported by production company Reset Presents. It booked Endo for his first live set in February 2019, on a show that also featured rising locals such as R&B artist Hxry and rapper Mohawk Johnson.…Read More
The Chicago Bears head into what will be their most pivotal offseason of the last decade. One of the big storylines will surely be the future of impending free agent receiver Allen Robinson.
Dating back to his collegiate career, Robinson has hardly had a capable passer under center. He’s been able to string together an impressive run from Penn State to the Jacksonville Jaguars and now with the Bears. Regardless of the inconsistency at quarterback, Robinson continues to prove his worth.
The talent a team receives when they get Robinson is beyond what the majority of wideouts give NFL offenses. He’s the total package: speed, separation, route-running, and the ability to go up and make the difficult grabs.
Some would say he would be the one player who could put certain teams over the top — say, maybe a team eliminated over the weekend.
Bryan Perez of BearsWire recently posted a tweet linking Robinson to last year’s MVP Lamar Jackson and the Baltimore Ravens.
The Ravens should just hand Allen Robinson a blank check. He’s everything Lamar needs in 2021.
Sure enough, even though he wasn’t tagged, Robinson liked the tweet.
The Ravens were sent packing over the weekend after a strong defensive performance from the Buffalo Bills. Late in that game, Jackson exited with a concussion, further cementing their fate.
But, what would happen if in 2021 that same Ravens team featuring a more-experienced Jackson and the same, healthy defense, also added Robinson?
You could argue they may be a Super Bowl favorite. Imagine seeing Robinson on the field as the team’s true number one guy, but then also having the speed of Marquise Brown to take the top off a defense. Baltimore also boasts one of the best tight ends in football in Mark Andrews.
Oh, and by the way, J.K. Dobbins, a candidate to fully break out in 2021, is entering his second season as a pro and will look to fully take over the back field.
But, enough about Robinson possibly heading to Baltimore. Bears fans are focused on just what in the world Ryan Pace is going to do to change Robinson’s heart and keep him in Chicago. By now, most of us would assume Robinson wants out based on his recent comments.
In 43 games with the Bears, Robinson has caught 255 passes for 3,151 yards and 17 touchdowns. Removing him from the Bears’ offense takes away roughly a third of this team’s production through the air on most game days.
The Bears cannot afford to lose Robinson this offseason and must do whatever they can to retain him. The last thing they can afford is yet another top draft need like finding a replacement for their number one receiver. Sure, there are some good candidates out there, but none as good as Robinson.
Good morning! A very happy Martin Luther King Day to all. As the winter leagues continue through their playoffs, Cubs prospects are playing key roles. For more about their feats, take a look inside!
Venzuelan Winter League
Bravos de Margarita
Manuel Rondon
It was a doubleheader sweep for Margarita on Sunday as they completed it with a 6-2 victory over Caracas in the nightcap. Cubs left-hander Manuel Rondon was able to nail things down in the seventh by setting down the side in order, including a swinging strikeout to end the game. Margarita 6 – Caracas 2, 7 innings
Cardenales de Lara
Lara brought out the bats in Game 1 of a doubleheader on Sunday as they beat Aragua 11-4. Ildemaro Vargas led off and lined up at second base, going 1-for-3 with two walks and two runs scored in the win. Lara 11 – Aragua 4, 7 innings
The Cardenales started the playoffs right on Wednesday by edging out Aragua 7-6. Second baseman Ildemaro Vargas was a big contributor, as he went 3-for-4 with a walk, double, and triple from his lead-off spot as he scored three runs. Lara 7 – Aragua 6
It was another tight contest on Thursday as the Tribe bowed to Aragua 5-4 to make the series even at 1-1. Ildemaro Vargas continued to impress at lead-off, as the second baseman went 2-for-5 with a run scored in the loss. Aragua 5 – Lara 4
Down 10-8 to Aragua on Friday, Lara stepped on the gas in the top of the ninth and cruised past the Tigres 19-10. Top of the order man Ildemaro Vargas walked and score in the ninth, as the second baseman was 1-for-5 with two walks, a double, two runs scored, and 2 RBI in the victory. Lara 19 – Aragua 10
Caribes de Anzoategui
Things didn’t start out well for Anzoategui on Sunday as they dropped the opener of a doubleheader with Zulia 4-1. Lead-off hitter Rafael Ortega was 1-for-3, while Designated Hitter Erick Castillo went 0-for-2 in the loss. Zulia 4 – Anzoategui 1, 7 innings
Wednesday was swing from the heels night as the Tribe and Magallanes combined for 29 hits, with Anzoategui coming out on top 12-9. Centerfielder Rafael Ortega went 1-for-2 with a walk and two runs scored from his lead-off spot. Ortega also contributed on defense, nailing two runners, at second and at third, for two outfield assists. Anzoategui 12 – Magallanes 9
The playoff series with Magallanes evened up on Thursday, as the Caribes fell 2-1. Rafael Ortega would go 1-for-3 with a walk and a stolen base in the loss as he remained at lead-off and centerfield. Magallanes 2 – Anzoategui 1
It was a total collapse for The Tribe on Friday, as neither the offense or pitching were able to contain Magallanes as Anzoategui lost 4-1. Rafael Ortega moved to second in the batting order going 2-for-2 while Erick Castillo went 0-for-1 as a defensive replacement at catcher. Magallanes 4 – Anzoategui 1
Someone fired shots at an off-duty suburban police officer Jan. 17, 2021, in Gresham. | Sun-Times file photo
The officer, a 52-year-old man, got into an argument with three males in a red Kia Sorento about 10:35 p.m. after the officer was rear-ended on a expressway ramp, Chicago police said.
Someone fired shots at an off-duty suburban police officer Sunday during a road rage incident in Gresham on the South Side.
The officer, a 52-year-old man, got into an argument with three males in a red Kia Sorento about 10:35 p.m. after the officer was rear-ended on a expressway ramp, Chicago police said.
When the vehicles pulled away from the light, someone in the Sorento fired shots at the officer’s vehicle in the 1000 block of West 87th Street, shattering the rear window, police said.
No injuries were reported, police said. The officer did not return fire.
Police would not immediately disclose which suburb the officer works in.
Music producer Phil Spector sits in a courtroom for his 2009 sentencing in Los Angeles. | Jae C. Hong/AP Photo (file)
California state prison officials said he died Saturday of natural causes at a hospital.
LOS ANGELES — Phil Spector, the eccentric and revolutionary music producer who transformed rock music with his “Wall of Sound” method and who later was convicted of murder, has died. He was 81.
California state prison officials said he died Saturday of natural causes at a hospital.
Spector was convicted of murdering actress Lana Clarkson in 2003 at his castle-like mansion on the edge of Los Angeles. After a trial in 2009, he was sentenced to 19 years to life.
While most sources give Spector’s birth date as 1940, it was listed as 1939 in court documents following his arrest. His lawyer subsequently confirmed that date to The Associated Press.
Clarkson, star of “Barbarian Queen” and other B-movies, was found shot to death in the foyer of Spector’s mansion in the hills overlooking Alhambra, a modest suburban town on the edge of Los Angeles.
Until the actress’ death, which Spector maintained was an “accidental suicide,” few residents even knew the mansion belonged to the reclusive producer, who spent his remaining years in a prison hospital east of Stockton.
Decades before, Spector had been hailed as a visionary for channeling Wagnerian ambition into the three-minute song, creating the “Wall of Sound” that merged spirited vocal harmonies with lavish orchestral arrangements to produce such pop monuments as “Da Doo Ron Ron,” “Be My Baby” and “He’s a Rebel.”
He was the rare self-conscious artist in rock’s early years and cultivated an image of mystery and power with his dark shades and impassive expression.
Tom Wolfe declared him the “first tycoon of teen.” Bruce Springsteen and Brian Wilson openly replicated his grandiose recording techniques and wide-eyed romanticism, and John Lennon called him “the greatest record producer ever.”
The secret to his sound: an overdubbed onslaught of instruments, vocals and sound effects that changed the way pop records were recorded. He called the result, “Little symphonies for the kids.”
By his mid-20s his “little symphonies” had resulted in nearly two dozen hit singles and made him a millionaire. “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling,” the operatic Righteous Brothers ballad which topped the charts in 1965, has been tabulated as the song most played on radio and television — counting the many cover versions — in the 20th century.
But thanks in part to the arrival of the Beatles, his chart success would soon fade. When “River Deep-Mountain High,” an aptly-named 1966 release that featured Tina Turner, failed to catch on, Spector shut down his record label and withdrew from the business for three years. He would go on to produce the Beatles and Lennon among others, but he was now serving the artists, instead of the other way around.
In 1969, Spector was called in to salvage the Beatles’ “Let It Be” album, a troubled “back to basics” production marked by dissension within the band. Although Lennon praised Spector’s work, bandmate Paul McCartney was enraged, especially when Spector added strings and a choir to McCartney’s “The Long and Winding Road.” Years later, McCartney would oversee a remixed “Let it Be,” removing Spector’s contributions.
A documentary of the making of Lennon’s 1971 “Imagine” album showed the ex-Beatle clearly in charge, prodding Spector over a backing vocal, a line none of Spector’s early artists would have dared cross.
Spector worked on George Harrison’s acclaimed post-Beatles triple album, “All Things Must Pass” and co-produced Lennon’s “Imagine” and the less successful “Some Time in New York City,” which included Spector’s picture over a caption that read, “To Know Him is to Love Him.”
Spector also had a memorable film role, a cameo as a drug dealer in “Easy Rider.” The producer himself was played by Al Pacino in a 2013 HBO movie.
“A genius irredeemably conflicted, he was the ultimate example of the Art always being better than the Artist, having made some of the greatest records in history based on the salvation of love while remaining incapable of giving or receiving love his whole life,” Steven Van Zandt of Springsteen’s E Street Band said Sunday on Twitter.
Getty ImagesPhil Spector signs an autograph in 2000 as daughter Nicole looks on.
The volume, and violence, of Spector’s music reflected a dark side he could barely contain even at his peak. He was imperious, temperamental and dangerous, remembered bitterly by Darlene Love, Ronnie Spector and others who worked with him.
Years of stories of his waving guns at recording artists in the studio and threatening women would come back to haunt him after Clarkson’s death.
According to witnesses she had agreed, somewhat reluctantly, to accompany him home from the Sunset Strip’s House of Blues in West Hollywood, where she worked, Shortly after their arrival in Alhambra in the pre-dawn hours of Feb. 3, 2003, a chauffeur reported Spector came out of the house holding a gun, blood on his hands, and told him, “I think I killed somebody.”
He would later tell friends Clarkson had shot herself. The case was fraught with mystery, and it took authorities a year to file charges. In the meantime, Spector remained free on $1 million bail.
When he was finally indicted for murder, he lashed out at authorities, angrily telling reporters: “The actions of the Hitler-like DA and his storm trooper henchmen are reprehensible, unconscionable and despicable.”
As legal proceedings began, his eccentricity took center stage. He would arrive in court for pretrial hearings in theatrical outfits, usually featuring high-heeled boots, frock coats and wildly styled wigs. He arrived at one hearing in a chauffeur-driven stretch Hummer.
Once the 2007 trial began, however, he toned down his attire. It ended in a 10-2 deadlock leaning toward conviction. His defense had argued that the actress, despondent about her fading career, shot herself through the mouth. A retrial got underway in October 2008.
“Lana Clarkson was a warm, compassionate, kind, loving woman who would be 58 years old now. Her energy, brightness and love of life have sustained her family since her murder 18 years ago in 2003,” Clarkson’s mother, Donna Clarkson, said in a statement Sunday.
Harvey Phillip Spector, in his mid-60s when he was charged with murder, had been born on Dec. 26, 1939, in New York City’s borough of the Bronx. Bernard Spector, his father, was an ironworker. His mother, Bertha, was a seamstress. In 1947, Spector’s father killed himself because of family indebtedness, an event that would shape his son’s life in many ways.
Four years later, Spector’s mother moved the family to Los Angeles, where Phil attended Fairfax High School, located in a largely Jewish neighborhood on the edge of Hollywood. For decades the school has been a source of future musical talent. At Fairfax, Spector performed in talent shows and formed a group called the Teddy Bears with friends.
Sun-Times filePhil Spector (left) poses with his bandmates in the Teddy Bears, Annette Kleinbard and Marshall Lieb, in 1958
He was reserved and insecure, but his musical abilities were obvious. He had perfect pitch and easily learned to play several instruments. He was just 17 when his group recorded its first hit single, a romantic ballad written and produced by Spector that would become a pop classic: “To Know Him is to Love Him,” was inspired by the inscription on his father’s tombstone.
A short, skinny kid with big dreams and growing demons, Spector went on to attend the University of California, Los Angeles for a year before dropping out to return to New York. He briefly considered becoming a French interpreter at the United Nations before falling in with the musicians at New York’s celebrated Brill Building. The Broadway edifice was then at the heart of popular music’s Tin Pan Alley, where writers, composers, singers and musicians turned out hit songs.
He began working with star composers Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, who had met at Fairfax High a few years before Spector arrived. Ultimately, he found his niche in producing. During this period he also co-wrote the hit song “Spanish Harlem” with Ben E. King, and played lead guitar on the Drifters’ “On Broadway.”
“I had come back to New York from California where there were all these green lawns and trees, and there was just this poverty and decay in Harlem,” he would recall later. “The song was an expression of hope and faith in the young people of Harlem … that there would be better times ahead.”
For a time he had his own production company, Philles Records, with partner Lester Silles, where he developed his signature sound. He assembled such respected studio musicians as arranger Jack Nitzsche, guitarist Tommy Tedesco, pianist Leon Russell and drummer Hal Blaine, and gave early breaks to Glen Campbell, Sonny Bono and Bono’s future wife, Cher.
In the early 1960s, he had hit after hit and one notable flop: the album “A Christmas Gift to You,” released, tragically, on Nov. 22, 1963, the day President Kennedy was assassinated, the worst possible time for such a joyous record. “A Christmas Gift,” featuring the Ronettes singing “Frosty the Snowman” and Love’s version of “White Christmas,” is now considered a classic and a perennial radio favorite during the holiday season.
Spector’s domestic life, along with his career, eventually came apart. After his first marriage, to Annette Merar, broke up, Ronettes leader singer Ronnie Bennett became his girlfriend and muse. He married her in 1968 and they adopted three children. But she divorced him after six years, claiming in a memoir that he held her prisoner in their mansion, where she said he kept a gold coffin in the basement and told her he would kill her and put her in it if she ever tried to leave him.
When the Ronettes were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007, Spector sent along his congratulations. But in an acceptance speech by his ex-wife, she never mentioned him while thanking numerous other people.
On Sunday Ronnie Spector said, “he was a brilliant producer, but a lousy husband.”
“Unfortunately Phil was not able to live and function outside of the recording studio,” she wrote on Instagram. “Darkness set in, many lives were damaged. I still smile whenever I hear the music we made together, and always will. The music will be forever.”
Darlene Love also feuded with him, accusing Spector of failing to credit her for her vocals on “He’s a Rebel” and other songs, but she did praise him when inducted into the Hall.
Spector himself became a Hall member in 1989. As his marriages deteriorated, recording artists also began to quit working with Spector and musical styles passed him by.
He preferred singles to albums, calling the latter, “Two hits and 10 pieces of junk.” He initially refused to record his music in multichannel stereo, claiming the process damaged the sound. A Spector box set retrospective was called “Back to Mono.”
By the mid-1970s, Spector had largely retreated from the music business. He would emerge occasionally to work on special projects, including Leonard Cohen’s album, “Death of a Ladies’ Man” and The Ramones’ “End of the Century.” Both were marred by reports of Spector’s instability.
In 1973, Lennon worked on an album of rock ‘n roll oldies with Spector, only to have Spector disappear with the tapes. The finished work, “Rock ‘n’ Roll,” didn’t come out until 1975.
In 1982 Spector married Janis Lynn Zavala and the couple had twins, Nicole and Phillip Jr., before divorcing. The boy died at age 10 of leukemia.
Six months before his first murder trial began, Spector married Rachelle Short, a 26-year-old singer and actress who accompanied him to court every day. He filed for divorce in 2016.
In a 2005 court deposition, he testified that he had been on medication for manic depression for eight years.
“No sleep, depression, mood changes, mood swings, hard to live with, hard to concentrate, just hard — a hard time getting through life,” he said. “I’ve been called a genius and I think a genius is not there all the time and has borderline insanity.”
Linda Deutsch is a retired special correspondent for The Associated Press. The Spector murder trial was one of many sensational cases she covered during her 48-year career as a Los Angeles-based trial reporter.
In “The Journey,” presented by Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Scottish illusionist Scott Silven does magic tricks for an audience of 30, whose images at home are sometimes incorporated onto the screen. | Neil Steinberg/Sun-Times
Theater has the power to move us, shape us — to take a moment, or an image, and make it part of our consciousness, forever. That’s something we’ve been missing sorely for the past 11 months.
The initials in the title “R.U.R” — a science fiction play by Czech writer Karel Čapek — stand for “Rossum’s Universal Robots,” which introduced the word “robot” into the English language. The production I saw at Cleveland’s Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival ended with the robot lovers, Primus and Helena, freezing on stage as the lights came up, a neat bit of stage business. I kept turning as I filed out with the rest of the audience, to see if they were still standing there, motionless, holding hands. They were.
That was also 50 years ago, a reminder of the power of theater to move us, shape us, take a moment, or an image, and make it part of our consciousness, forever.
Something we’ve been missing sorely for the past 11 months — those who go to shows, anyway — and it might give a sense of how small a crew that is if you consider the verbiage spent mourning the inability to eat in restaurants versus the scant attention given the near complete loss of Chicago’s vibrant live theater. Not to forget the hole kicked in the livelihoods of thousands of actors, stagehands, wardrobe chiefs, lighting technicians and ticket salespeople.
On-screen live performance just isn’t the same. Since the pandemic struck, I’ve seen three theatrical productions online.
There was a TV version of Jane Austen my wife was watching that seemed tinny and abrasive. I bailed out after 10 minutes. And I tried to introduce “Hamilton” to the boys, but we weren’t in a theater, hadn’t paid $180 a ticket, and the show never grabbed them. After a polite half hour they begged off.
And “The Journey” Thursday night, a one-man show by Scottish illusionist Scott Silven, presented by Chicago Shakespeare Theater, which cracked the secret of getting me to try live online performance. They asked. It’s a magic act, not a play, but I don’t mind magic. The last show I saw in Chicago before the world shut down was Penn & Teller at the Chicago Theater in November 2019. A century ago. They were good.
“The Journey” takes place in a single room, and close-in magic works well on a small screen. The audience, limited to 30, is at times projected in the room, and the basic conjurer’s routine of asking questions of volunteers draws viewers in, underscoring the live quality. We’d been asked to bring an object of personal significance, and I brought a fossil trilobite, which meshed nicely — or should that be inexplicably? — with Silven’s theme of home and time and stones, small cairns which were part of the act.
Magic is not theater, but the tricks are usually set in a dramatic context. Before the show the audience was asked to watch a brief film of Silven striding across the starkly gorgeous Scottish coast. Some might find that captivating; to me it was off-putting, in the luxury perfume commercial sense. I would have preferred patter that was more real, heartfelt and specific, to an hour of astral bosh about the myth of Kali. But Silven is a likable young man, with a mentalist’s ability to retain complicated details.
My standard was “Did this take me out of myself, isolated at home in the middle of a dual global pandemic/American political meltdown?” Yes. Would I have felt cheated had I paid the $40 ticket price? Probably not. Would I see another online theatrical production? Absolutely. Does watching “The Journey” online pale compared to being in a theater seat, watching live actors perform “Hecuba”? Absolutely.
The best news is that top Chicago theaters do not seem to be in the grip of existential crisis. You don’t operate Chicago Shakespeare without deep pocketed donors, and they have stepped up. Ditto for The Goodman. Turns out live-streaming free theater can be a business model. The Goodman’s audio play of “A Christmas Carol” had an audience of 100,000 all over the world. Donations poured in. They also made money working with schools and getting out the vote.
“The Journey” runs through Jan. 24, which meshes with the show’s wide-eyed, mystical demeanor because — well, I don’t know how Silven did it, that’s why they call it “magic” — the day after it closes, Jan. 25, is the 100th anniversary of the premiere of “R.U.R.” at the National Theater in Prague. It’s still a wonderful world, if you take time to connect the dots.
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