Today on NPR's ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, they noted the musical giant Nina Simone who passed away in 2003:
JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
For this 250th anniversary year of the United States, pianist Lara Downes is on the road exploring the nation's history through song. For her latest stop, she traveled to Tryon, North Carolina, to talk with Pulitzer Prize-winning author Salamishah Tillet about the subject of her upcoming biography. On a bright sunny day, when the birds were singing, they met at the birth home of singer, pianist and Civil Rights activist Nina Simone, and their conversation focused on one Nina Simone song.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I WISH I KNEW HOW IT WOULD FEEL TO BE FREE")
NINA SIMONE: (Singing) I wish I knew how it would feel to be free.
LARA DOWNES, BYLINE: I keep going back to this song, "I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free"...
SALAMISHAH TILLET: Yeah.
DOWNES: ...Because for me, it really is, like, a personal statement of liberation.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I WISH I KNEW HOW IT WOULD FEEL TO BE FREE")
SIMONE: (Singing) I wish I could say all the things that I should say.
DOWNES: For me, it's been very important to look at her legacy. I think for you too 'cause we were talking about your journey from academia to writer to, like, protagonist and freedom of self-expression.
TILLET: She's a lot of different things at different moments in my own artistic and political journey. The song, it's also a way of kind of marking the Civil Rights Movement - right? - because Billy Taylor writes the song in 1963 as an instrumental...
DOWNES: Right.
TILLET: ...For his daughter.
(SOUNDBITE OF BILLY TAYLOR'S "I WISH I KNEW HOW IT WOULD FEEL TO BE FREE")
TILLET: That's, like, a really beautiful gift for your child. She represents the possibilities of this battle. This is the generation that you're actually fighting for to have freedoms that you didn't experience in your own childhood.
DOWNES: It's very interesting now. You know, I'm moving around the country, and I'm doing this big project that is considering 250 years of American history through music.
TILLET: Yeah.
DOWNES: And I'm working with all these young people, and I'm learning that they don't know anymore who Nina Simone is. So then I have the challenge of explaining her, and I find that the only way I can do that is say, here, watch.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I WISH I KNEW HOW IT WOULD FEEL TO BE FREE")
SIMONE: (Singing) Wish I knew how it would feel to be free.
DOWNES: I played for them the video of Nina singing "I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free." It's Montreux in 1976. And it's a crazy performance. She's full of rage, and she's full of pain. And she's also got this fire in her belly, and there's no way not to experience this and have your mind changed.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I WISH I KNEW HOW IT WOULD FEEL TO BE FREE")
SIMONE: (Singing) Free. Free. Free. Free. I'm free. And I'm not. Don't want to be here (ph). And I shan't, but I'm still free. Believe in me.
TILLET: And so what I love about this song, it's a really up-tempo song. And in many ways, it's a song that's about lament, though. So the wish fulfillment is freedom, but you haven't experienced it yourself. So I wish I knew how it feels to be free. But the song itself is so upbeat that you actually feel like you're experiencing some sense of it as you're listening to it. So it's just a lot of complications, like...
DOWNES: That's what I'm talking about.
TILLET: Yeah.
DOWNES: All of those emotions that coexist, I think that's what those kids were responding to.
TILLET: Yeah.
DOWNES: But it's not just I wish I knew how it'd feel to be free. It's I wish I could give all the love that's in my heart.
TILLET: Yeah.
DOWNES: It's like, I am not allowed to be fully myself.
This is the performance that they were talking about.
In other news, Joe Taysom (FAR OUT) reports:
For the first time in history, The Beatles have released a colourised video of their famous ‘All You Need Is Love’ performance.
The video was released for Global Beatles Day on June 25th, which is also the day in 1967 when The Beatles were Britain’s submission for Our World, delivering a debut of ‘All You Need Is Love’ from Abbey Road to 400 million people across the entire globe via satellite link.
John Lennon wrote the song specifically for the satellite broadcast, aiming to bring as many people from around the world together for a few minutes through the medium of song.
Ringo Starr later said of the song and Our World in Anthology, “We were big enough to command an audience of that size, and it was for love. It was for love and bloody peace. It was a fabulous time. I even get excited now when I realise that’s what it was for: peace and love, people putting flowers in guns.”
Now, for the first time, it has been made available to watch in colour as The Beatles and Apple Corps acknowledge Global Beatles Day for the first time.
The special day was created by fan Faith Cohen in 2009, but it has taken almost 20 years for her campaign to receive the support from those it is intended to celebrate.
Yesterday was Carly Simon's birthday (happy belated birthday). Andrea Reiher (PARADE) noted:
In 1943, a future music icon was born in New York City. More than eight decades later, Carly Simon remains one of the defining singer-songwriters of her generation.
Simon turns 83 on June 25, capping a career that has produced some of the most enduring songs of the last half-century, including "Anticipation," "You're So Vain," "Mockingbird," "You Belong to Me" and the James Bond classic "Nobody Does It Better."
Long before "influencer" became part of the cultural vocabulary, Simon embodied a free-spirited artistic style that earned her the nickname "Boho Queen." In a 2005 profile, The Independent described Simon as the "Boho Queen," a fitting title for an artist whose flowing style, confessional songwriting and effortless cool helped define the singer-songwriter movement of the 1970s.
Her breakthrough came in 1971 when her self-titled debut album earned her the Grammy Award for Best New Artist and introduced audiences to "That's the Way I've Always Heard It Should Be." But it was 1972's No Secrets that transformed Simon into a superstar.
The album spent five weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and featured "You're So Vain," one of the decade's most memorable hits. The song topped the Billboard Hot 100 for three weeks and sparked one of pop music's longest-running mysteries as listeners debated the identity of its subject. More than 50 years later, the song remains Simon's signature recording and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2004.
Mayer Nissam (GOLD RADIO) picks ten great Carly songs. Elaine noted "Clive Davis" had passed earlier this week. SHOWBIZ 411 notes Carly posted about working with Clive earlier this week. And Olivia Klimek (PARADE) notes:
Fifty-five years ago, iconic singer-songwriter Carly Simon released "That's the Way I've Always Heard It Should Be," a song that, despite never claiming the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100, persevered as a definitive breakup anthem.
Released in April 1971 as the lead single from her self-titled debut album, "That's the Way I've Always Heard It Should Be" was a breakthrough success. Even though the song never reached the absolute top position, it thrived on the Hot 100. By July, the track peaked at No. 10, spending 17 weeks on the chart and marking a major milestone in her early career.
"That's the Way I've Always Heard It Should Be" achieved significant commercial triumph alongside its chart success. During its initial run, the track sold over 400,000 copies in the U.S. alone—a major feat for a debut project—and earned a Grammy Award nomination for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance at the 14th Annual ceremony. Outside of the single's solo success, the parent album eventually went on to be certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for its massive commercial impact.
Last month, Rhino announced its newest batch of Quadio titles, re-presenting vintage quadraphonic surround mixes on Blu-ray Audio Discs. This time out, the label has turned its attention to four ‘70s classics from three artists returning to the series (Carly Simon, Randy Newman, Seals & Crofts) and one making his Quadio Blu-ray debut (Mongo Santamaria). All four titles, also containing high-resolution stereo mixes of the original album, are shipping now exclusively from Rhino.com.
Carly Simon’s self-titled debut album arrived on Elektra Records in the spring of 1971, nestled in the label’s discography between singer-songwriter Paul Siebel’s Jack-Knife Gypsy and folk band Farquahr’s eponymous LP. Carly wasn’t quite a stranger to the music business, having recorded three albums for the Kapp and Columbia labels with her sister Lucy as The Simon Sisters, but her solo debut augured for a major talent. She was signed by the label’s founder, Jac Holzman, beginning an association with Elektra that would endure for the entirety of the 1970s. Carly Simon, produced by Eddie Kramer (Jimi Hendrix, Joe Cocker), introduced the singer-songwriter’s distinctive and personal voice on songs including the haunting hit single “That’s the Way I’ve Always Heard It Should Be” (co-written with Jacob Brackman), the folk-rock-flavored “Alone,” country-tinged “One More Time.” With “That’s the Way…,” Carly earned a Grammy nomination and her first top ten hit – no small accomplishment for what’s essentially an art song, beautifully crafted and intimately performed. It takes on a new dimension in this thoughtful and imaginative quadraphonic mix.
“That’s the Way” immediately makes an impression with strings and piano in the rear channels, and Carly’s voice joined by drums in the fronts. Though most of the album is mixed with piano and voice up front, drums often extend to the rear channels where they’re joined by background vocals and additional instrumentation such as steel guitar. (Ed Freeman and Pat Rebillot are responsible for the striking string charts throughout.) Guitars are beautifully spread on “Alone,” with well-defined bass up front.
The quad mix brings out the details in “One More Time,” too, both in Simon’s vocals and the twangy instrumentation. The choral section of “The Best Thing” features one of the strongest uses of the quad soundscape, both gentle and enveloping as the song marries country-and-western and baroque textures. The mix cuts loose on “Just a Sinner” with its prominent, front guitars; the rollicking “Rolling Down the Hills” similarly sparkles in four channels. Carly Simon would experience her commercial breakthrough two albums later with 1972’s No Secrets, also the recipient of a strong quad mix (available on Rhino’s recent Blu-ray Audio presentation), but this self-titled debut has never sounded better or more powerful than in this pristine issue.
Ikeoluwa Ogungbangbe (BILLIONAIRES AFFICA) writes:
The year was 1981. Diana Ross sat across a negotiating table from executives at RCA Records and signed a seven-year contract worth $20 million, the largest recording deal in the history of the music industry at that moment. She had just walked away from Motown after two decades, collected a $250,000 severance from Berry Gordy and decided, at 37, that the next chapter of her career would be written entirely on her own terms. Her first RCA album, "Why Do Fools Fall in Love," sold over a million copies. The gamble worked. It almost always did with Diana Ross.
That negotiation is not simply a data point in a long career. It is a window into the commercial instinct that has made Ross one of the wealthiest Black female entertainers in American history. She has never been the loudest voice in any room. She has also rarely been the one who left money on the table.
[. . .]
The late-career chapter of Diana Ross's financial story is, in its own way, as remarkable as any deal she signed at the height of her commercial power. In 2021, at 77, she released "Thank You," her first album of original material in 19 years. It earned a Grammy nomination for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album. In 2022, she received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award as a solo artist, the second time she has received the honor, having previously received it as a member of The Supremes in 2023. She is the only woman in Grammy history to have been honored in both categories.
She launched The Music Legacy Tour in 2023, followed by "Diana Ross: A Symphonic Celebration" in 2025, a residency-style series built around her catalog with full symphony orchestra accompaniment. In 2026, she launched "Diana in Motion," a new series of concert engagements scheduled to run through the year. She is 81 years old and in her fifth consecutive active touring year.
The touring income is material. A solo Diana Ross concert event in a premium venue commands ticket prices that reflect her status as a living monument to American popular music. A single evening at Carnegie Hall or the Hollywood Bowl carries a gross ticket revenue in the hundreds of thousands of dollars before production costs. A multi-city tour across North America and Europe generates millions in gross revenue, of which Ross takes a significant percentage as the headlining artist and her own production company as the rights holder.
Closing with C.I.'s "The Snapshot:"
One of the only nice things about downtown Washington, D.C. is the fact that anyone can stroll freely through the Mall. Now that’s been ended. To celebrate America, security fencing has been erected and entry is restricted to a couple of access points that are manned by heavily armed National Guard, Metro Police, Park Police, Capitol Police, U.S. Marshals, Secret Service, TSA, and anyone else capable of carrying a gun and doing seemingly nothing at all. All of this to access a space that consists of: sod. The grass is nice. Unbroken by a single tree, its greenness under the broiling sun is a nod to the golf course style that is fascism’s highest aesthetic.
“When you walk around Washington, D.C.,” said Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, one of the night’s warmup acts, “not only is it safe again. It’s beautiful again.” As she spoke, a line of black-clad snipers were clearly visible on the roof of the Agriculture Department headquarters across the street. Their rifles commanded the entire field of sweltering sod. These square blocks of our nation’s capitol, from 12th to 14th street, have been made both safe and beautiful, simply by fencing them off, filling them with soldiers, and redesigning them as a suburban lawn. First, these blocks, and next, the world.
You might already know the humiliating backstory of this entire event: first it was announced as a big concert, and then the announced acts — all the way down to Milli Vanilli and Bret Michaels—pulled out in fear of public backlash, prompting a petulant President Donald Trump to declare that he would “take the place of these highly paid, Third Rate ‘Artists,’ and give a major speech, rallying the Country forward.” So the unlucky planners of the event were forced to cobble together a show plausible enough to satisfy the president’s ego, without the benefit of any actual celebrities.
The resulting event leaned heavily on speeches by second-tier members of the cabinet and music from the Marine Corps band, giving it the air of a boss who threw a birthday party and required his employees to attend. To honor the total capture of America’s institutions by cronyist incompetence, Alexis Wilkins, the country singer girlfriend of podcaster-turned-FBI Director Kash Patel, sung the national anthem. Christopher Macchio, a Trumpian crooner, did a cruise ship version of “Hallelujah.” The military band sent up uniformed singers and guitar players for karaoke-level covers of “Gloria” and “Walking on Sunshine.”
The whole thing felt like a show that might be inflicted upon a desultory crowd of students at a reform school, forced by their principal to listen to the hits of the past, with the threat of juvenile hall looming over anyone who made a wisecrack.
President Trump, facing a backlash from supporters of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for allying himself with the chemical industry, issued an executive order on Thursday aimed at reducing pesticides in the food supply and studying the health risks they pose.
The order does not involve new federal funding, and does not call for new regulations or legislation. Critics contended that it did little to meaningfully address the consequences of pesticide use. Two White House officials, speaking anonymously to preview the order before it was announced, said it was timed to coincide with a dinner Mr. Trump was hosting for farmers.
On Thursday, a federal judge based in Washington, D.C., ordered the Justice Department to unredact additional pages of the Epstein files in a suit brought by attorney and independent journalist Katie Phang.
The preliminary injunction orders redactions be removed in key documents of interest in the files, including “at least eight email exchanges with Mr. Epstein regarding a ‘torture video’ and sexual activity with young women, including minors” as well as interviews with a woman who said she was abused by President Trump as a minor.
“The Attorney General’s arguments are unpersuasive. First, Ms. Phang has identified ‘some concrete consequences of not receiving the information.’ She has identified ‘half a dozen stories she is currently unable to report’ because the Attorney General has not disclosed the information,” U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan wrote in a decision that also found Phang had a right to bring the case under the Administrative Procedures Act.
He also rebuffed the idea that Phang could have simply requested the documents through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), noting that the department itself had previously said the Epstein Files Transparency Act “directed a much broader and less redacted release of the files than would have been made under the FOIA. Certain exemptions which may have been made under FOIA were not made” in the Epstein Act release.
The Justice Department must either produce the documents or “show cause” as to why they cannot comply.
The Wage Theft Prevention and Wage Recovery Act would put money back in workers’ pockets by protecting their right to fair pay, strengthening accountability for violations, and improving recovery of stolen wages
One report estimates that roughly $50 billion is being stolen from American workers via corporate wage theft every year, potentially even more
Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), a senior member and former chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), and U.S. Representatives Rosa DeLauro (D-CT-03), Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Committee and Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Robert C. “Bobby” Scott (D-VA-03), Ranking Member of the House Committee on Education and Workforce, reintroduced their Wage Theft Prevention and Wage Recovery Act, comprehensive legislation that puts hard-earned wages back in workers’ pockets and cracks down on employers who unfairly withhold wages from their employees. The proposed legislation would give workers the right to receive full compensation for the work they perform and receive regular paystubs and final paychecks in a timely manner.
Each year, wage theft denies workers tens of billions of dollars in pay they have earned as employers commit a variety of minimum wage, overtime, off-the-clock, tip, and meal-break violations. Wage theft violations are pervasive at many large corporations. In fiscal year 2025, the U.S. Department of Labor recovered more than $259 million in stolen wages on behalf of workers—representing just a small fraction of wages stolen nationwide. These illegal practices disproportionately hurt low-wage workers—amplifying poverty and inequality in America. As many as 35% of tipped workers, and 17% of low-wage workers generally, report being paid less than the prevailing local minimum wage in their state—denying workers $50 billion annually from minimum wage violations alone, potentially even more.
“Wage theft is the biggest form of theft in America—but right now giant corporations are robbing workers blind,” said Senator Murray. “Workers are robbed of an estimated $50 billion every year, and this administration’s answer has been to slash enforcement to the lowest level on record and give the green light for employers to steal from workers—so I’m doing something about it. Our bill guarantees workers the full pay they’ve earned, strengthens accountability, and makes sure stolen wages actually get recovered. You do the work, you earn the pay—that’s a very basic contract we should expect every employer to uphold.”
“Americans are living paycheck to paycheck,” said Congresswoman DeLauro. “Working people are earning wages that have not kept pace with the cost of living, and on top of that, our most vulnerable workers face the threat of employers stealing or withholding their wages with little to no consequence or ability to make themselves whole. This cannot stand—we are in a cost-of-living crisis. Billionaires and corporations are hoarding every cent they can from the working and middle-class which is struggling to just break even under President Trump’s administration. I am proud to partner with Senator Murray and Ranking Member Scott to introduce legislation to end this theft and give workers the ability to recoup their stolen wages. Americans deserve pay for all the hours they work, including overtime and tips. The theft must end.”
“It is unacceptable that dishonest employers can steal workers’ wages with little to no consequence. Each year, our most vulnerable workers are cheated out of billions of dollars. We cannot grow the middle class when we don’t even have adequate deterrents to prevent wage theft,” said Ranking Member Scott. “Workers and employers must be able to trust that our labor laws will hold unscrupulous employers accountable for violating the law and help workers recover the wages stolen from them. This bill would take critical steps to help workers receive the full pay they’ve earned for all hours worked, including overtime pay, and level the playing field for law-abiding employers.”
Every day, workers across the country work long hours, expecting proper compensation, only to have their employers withhold their wages. While many employers act honestly and treat workers fairly, too many others force their employees to work off the clock, refuse to pay the minimum wage, deny them overtime pay after working more than 40 hours a week, steal tips, and knowingly misclassify workers to avoid paying fair wages.
The Wage Theft Prevention and Wage Recovery Act would strengthen fundamental protections to help ensure workers receive the full compensation they have earned and crack down on corporations that subject workers to these abuses. Taking these steps will put money back in workers’ pockets and help ensure our economy works better for all Americans, not just the largest corporations and wealthiest few.
Specifically, the bill would help combat wage theft and improve wage recovery by:
- Strengthening workers’ right to fair pay and improving employer accountability
- Requires employers to pay all wages owed to an employee. Currently, under federal law, workers can only recover wages at the minimum wage or for overtime worked; for example, an employee may be hired at $9.00 per hour, but would only have the right to recover $7.25 of every $9.00 she was owed. This bill would allow workers to recoup the full compensation that employers have taken from them.
- Increasing deterrence of and penalties for wage theft violations
- Bolstering recovery of workers’ stolen wages
In the Senate, the legislation is cosponsored by Senators Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Dick Durbin (D-IL), John Fetterman (D-PA), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), John Hickenlooper (D-CO), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Ed Markey (D-MA), Chris Murphy (D-CT), Alex Padilla (D-CA), Jack Reed (D-RI), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Brian Schatz (D-HI), Adam Schiff (D-CA), Tina Smith (D-MN), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), and Ron Wyden (D-OR).
In the House, the legislation is cosponsored by Representatives Suzanne Bonamici (OR-1), Nikki Budzinski (IL-13), Andre Carson (IN-7), Mark DeSaulnier (CA-10), Dwight Evans (PA-3), Jahana Hayes (CT-5), Eleanor Holmes Norton (DC), Ro Khanna (CA-17), Jim McGovern (MA-2), LaMonica McIver (NJ-10), Ilhan Omar (MN-5), Andrea Salinas (OR-6), and Mark Takano (CA-41).
The legislation is endorsed by AFL-CIO, Economic Policy Institute, National Employment Law Project, SEIU.
“EPI’s research has shown that employers steal billions of dollars from workers’ paychecks each year — by misclassifying workers, paying workers less than the minimum wage, stealing tips, or keeping workers’ real hours off the books. Despite this, the federal agency responsible for protecting workers’ paychecks lacks adequate staffing and resources to investigate these violations at scale, and the deterrent penalties in many cases are not strong enough to stop employers from breaking the law in the first place. This bill would go a long way towards cracking down on employers who violate the law, ensuring workers have transparency to understand their rights, and making sure that workers are able to get back the stolen wages they are owed,” said Samantha Sanders, Director of Government Affairs and Advocacy at the Economic Policy Institute.
A one-pager on the bill is available HERE.
Full text of the legislation is available HERE.
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