Dylan's 'Blood on the Tracks' as a film? 10 albums seeking scripts

A Brazilian production company has acquired the rights to Bob Dylan's landmark 1975 album "Blood on the Tracks" for an English-language feature film, according to Variety, and considering the imagery of "Shelter From the Storm," "Buckets of Rain," "Idiot Wind" and "Tangled Up in Blue," there could be lot of bad weather up on the screen.

"Our goal is to work with a filmmaker who can create a classic drama with characters and an environment that capture the feelings that the album inspires in all fans," one of the producers told Variety. Maybe they're on to something here -- we can think of 10 other classic albums we'd like to see on the big screen.

Meatloaf's "Bat Out of Hell": Operatic, overwrought and and catchy, this 1977 tapestry of sexed-up youth with no place to go could be "Hairspray" meets "SuperBad" ... or "Glee" with leather pants.  

Guns N’ Roses' "Appetite for Destruction": Starring Tilda Swinton as an androgynous Axl Rose lookalike named Mr. Brownstone and Sasha Baron Cohen as a Slash-headed transvestite named the Rocket Queen, “Appetite: The Movie” could have the feel of a superhero flick. (Plot: Brownstone battles the Queen for control of a post-apocalyptic Sunset Strip, where a genetically evolved race of super-landlords called Adlers have kidnapped Brownstone’s love interest, Sweet Child.)  

Bruce Springsteen's "Darkness on the Edge of Town": Any album by the Boss could be turned into cinema of hope and despair, but the tracks on this 1978 collection already read like titles from a film score: "Streets of Fire," "Badlands," "The Promised Land," "Something in the Night."

Grammys 2012: Whitney Houston tribute to be sung by Jennifer Hudson

Whitney Houston, who found fame as one of pop’s biggest voices, has died. She was 48.

Grammys Executive Producer Ken Ehrlich and his team were scrambling Saturday night to find a poignant and proper way to mark the passing of Whitney Houston and their plan was to have Jennifer Hudson perform a "respectful musical tribute" on the CBS broadcast on Sunday night.

"It's too fresh in everyone's memory to do more at this time, but we would be remiss if we didn't recognize Whitney's remarkable contribution to music fans in general, and in particular her close ties with the Grammy telecast and her Grammy wins and nominations over the years," said Ehrlich, a key figure in the Grammys since the early 1980s.

PHOTOS: Whitney Houston, 1963-2012

Ehrlich said it was difficult for him to watch the decline of Houston through the years as addiction and chaos took away too much of her golden success story and her singular voice.

"It's hard to think of an artist who had such an incredible instrument, not to mention beauty, which made her difficulties in recent years even harder to accept," Ehrlich said.

Ehrlich recalled one shaky night in New York when word of Houston's behavior leading up to the award show spurred him to visit her dressing room at Madison Square Garden to gauge her ability to perform -- he marveled to find that she had already pulled herself together.

FULL COVERAGE: Whitney Houston dead at 48

A fonder memory was, in the 1980s, watching Grammy director Walter Miller show the young singer how to walk down a set of "TV stairs" -- they were the first ones she had ever navigated.

"She was like a young filly about to head out on the track for her first race, a race you knew she was not only going to win, but would set any number of records," Ehrlich said.

[For the record, 8:38 a.m. Feb. 12: An earlier version of this post misspelled the last name of Grammys Executive Producer Ken Ehrlich as Erhlich.]

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-- Geoff Boucher

Photo: Whitney Houston performs at the Anaheim Arena. Credit: Los Angeles Times

Grammys 2012: Paul McCartney rehearses 'My Valentine'

You could sense there was something special in the air at Saturday morning rehearsals for the 54th annual Grammy Awards, and with good reason --  Beatle Paul McCartney was in the house.

The final day of prep for the Sunday night awards show on CBS began with none other than McCartney, who did three run-throughs of his new song "My Valentine," a dreamy, bittersweet ballad. Diana Krall joined him on piano and Joe Walsh strummed guitar while, behind the three veteran artists, an entire orchestra gave body to the forlorn melody.

Afterward, Walsh sighed when he spoke of the song. "It's a beautiful song," the Eagles guitar hero said. "He wrote that for his wife. He just did an album of standards, something he wanted to do for a long time. It's a side of Paul we never really heard before. It's a side he never really heard before. He didn't know it was in him."

PHOTOS: Pre-Grammys activities

Walsh (whose brother-in-law happens to be a fellow named Ringo Starr) has become friends with McCartney in recent years, and they have talked about the curious rhythms of genre experimentation.

"He was trying to sing these songs and he found that they are different. It's real easy to get Vegas, you know? But he got in there and found a style. And now we have a new side to Paul McCartney."

McCartney may be seeking his inner Cole Porter these days, but he's still in touch with his teenybopper heritage; at the end of the second take of "My Valentine" he curled his hands in front of him and, pressing his thumbs together, he made a heart symbol -- yes, that's right, the sweet salutation favored by modern-day moptop Justin Bieber.

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-- Geoff Boucher

Photo: Paul McCartney digs into his rock 'n' roll songbook at the Hollywood Bowl in 2010. Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times.

Grammy 2012: Bruno Mars lights it up at rehearsals

Here's one way to get your name up in lights at the Grammys -- bring your own marquee to the stage.

It was like the Apollo Theatre of Figueroa Street on Friday when the rehearsal stage for the 54th Annual Grammy Awards was given over to a wall of flickering light bulbs and a giant marquee that read: "Live on Stage Bruno Mars."

The pyro and giant spotlights that accompanied the signage will give the 26-year-old Mars the most incandescent production of the Sunday night broadcast on CBS, but the music he brings with him lives up to the look-at-me glare. 

His practice run-throughs of "Runaway Baby" were high-adrenaline, brassy adventures in old-school revue entertainment. It's safe to say that the late, great James Brown would have approved if he saw the dance moves and heard the stage yelps. 

The number, it turns out, is one that Mars (who is up for six Grammys) and Grammy executive producer Ken Erhlich discussed for more than a year. "It's a song I loved when I went to see him in concert and we talked about it last year," Ehrlich said between takes at Friday rehearsals.

"It's going to really grab people." At rehearsals, Mars, in sunglasses with jacket sleeves rolled up, cut loose with whiplash energy even though he was playing to thousands of empty seats. "Everybody stand up!" He yelled and then, when he saw a gaggle of fans in distant corner of venue he laughed. "I got seven of you!"

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-- Geoff Boucher

Photo: Bruno Mars in November 2011. Credit: Matt Sayles/ Associated Press

Grammys 2012: Tony Bennett watches Bruce Springsteen rehearse

You know you're a big star when Tony Bennett comes to watch you rehearse.

On Friday, during prep for the 54th annual Grammy Awards that air on Sunday, Bennett was guided by flashlight to a center seat in the nearly empty Staples Center so he could watch Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band run through "We Take Care of Our Own," which will open the awards show.

Springsteen and his band — now, sadly, moving forward without the late Clarence Clemons — played with a 14-piece string section but far more guitar thunder than Bennett would ever use.

PHOTOS: Grammy Awards 2012 rehearsals

Springsteen, in gray jeans, a dark V-neck shirt and a necklace laded with silver charms, executed some guitar windmills and jumped up on an amp at the finale.

Not exactly the way Bennett did his set at Carnegie Hall back in 1962. "I like the way it looks, it's great, the stage," the elder icon said with a smile. "The song repeats itself a lot, though, doesn't it?"

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— Geoff Boucher

Photo: Tony Bennett and Carrie Underwood rehearse the duet they will perform at the Grammy Awards on Sunday. Credit: Katie Falkenberg / For The Times

Grammys 2012: Beach Boys reunite for rehearsal

After hearing "Good Vibrations" for the third time Thursday, Grammy Executive Producer Ken Ehrlich finally let himself smile. "That was pretty great, right? I think that was pretty great." Up on stage, five members of the Beach Boys -- Brian Wilson, Mike Love, Bruce Johnston, Al Jardine and David Marks -- were stepping away from their instruments and microphones and there were sunny expressions all around, which is a big deal when you're talking about the Beach Boys.
 
Nothing comes easy with the Beach Boys, a group that only specialized in harmony when they were actually singing. Like so many signature Los Angeles groups -- the Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, Van Halen, the Red Hot Chili Peppers -- the history of the Beach Boys is defined by dysfunction and discord between the seasons of platinum. But Wilson said Thursday that none of that matters now, especially since the Grammy appearance is the kickoff to larger reunion this year for the group's 50th anniversary.
 
"I'm very excited," Wilson said. "We just had to make our minds up to do it. It's a thrill, I like being with the guys. I didn't see them for a long, long time and then I've been seeing them recently because we're getting ready for our tour. The music is going very well. We really put a lot into our music."

PHOTOS: Grammy Awards 2012 rehearsals
 
Johnston, sitting down to lunch before Thursday's rehearsal, said that he's been surfing this late-career surprise but he knows at some point, when audiences are paying for tickets, the group will have to live up to their own legend. 
 
"I never hoped for [a reunion] because I never thought any of us wanted to do it," the 69-year-old said. "So it's kind of cool, I'm looking forward to it. We have probably, you know, the presidential honeymoon of six months but then we have to show something to keep it going. The challenge is going to be the set list [for the tour shows] and choosing the songs that reflect our sort of simplicity and our more complex stuff. We have to make sure we have a great flowing song list but also make sure we don't sound like a greatest hits band. We have a lot to balance."
 
For the Grammys, Erhlich was trying to find that balance by coming up with a sequence that meshed the past and the present. That's why Maroon 5 will perform "Surfer Girl" and then hand off to newcomers Foster the People for "Wouldn't It Be Nice" before the Beach Boys step to center stage for "Good Vibrations." For the younger artists, there was a giddy excitement to the cross-generational exercise even in the rehearsals.
 
"It's a total dream come true, it's one of my all-time favorites," Maroon 5 lead signer Adam Levine said after snapping photos with the elder musicians. For Erhlich, the three acts were linked by harmonies, falsettos, layered approaches to music and their Southern California heritage. That made the sequence easy on paper, at least.

FULL COVERAGE: Grammys

"It was hard to get it done," Erhlich said. "We started talking to the Beach Boys months ago. We were hoping to announce it at the nominations show [in November], but there were a couple of hitches and we weren't able to do it. Things were resolved on both sides and we worked it out. We wanted to do this from the beginning. If feels right when you see it and I think it's going to be worth all the work."

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--Geoff Boucher

Photo: Adam Levine of Maroon 5 performs a sound check before his group's rehearsal with the Beach Boys. Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times.

Grammys: The races to watch

Cowgirl Gaga in the wings?

Lady Gaga might be showing signs that she wants to add a little country sugar to her pop-star glitter. Pairing with Jennifer Nettles of Sugarland during Wednesday's Grammy nomination broadcast for the closing ballad “You and I,” Gaga lustily slammed on the piano in her black eye makeup, seeming more like a caffeinated raccoon than an outre pop monster. Weird cosmetics aside, she seemed delighted to take a little roam in the country. Could a Lady Gaga number with cowgirl boots and lasso be far behind?

That big news? Never mind

Where was the announcement of a legendary band reunion promised during the February awards broadcast? CBS and the Recording Academy had publicized that Wednesday's broadcast would disclose the name of a historically significant band that would reunite for the upcoming show, but that never happened. Producers were mum, but sources close to the show said that talks with the band — reportedly the Beach Boys — fell apart in the 48 hours leading up to the nomination show.

Minaj a shoo-in, or maybe not

Judging by applause only, Nicki Minaj is the crowd favorite for best new artist. If she wins, it'll be the first time since Lauryn Hill won in 1999 that a female MC takes the trophy. But it's possible that one of the dark horses could take the race, like Esperanza Spalding did last year. Sonny Moore, an L.A. native known as Skrillex, has taken dubstep-enhanced dance music to the public, with high-profile remixes for Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars. If Moore wins, that'll be the first time a dance-music producer has won best new artist.

Grammys: Is a Beach Boys reunion in the works?

The Grammy nomination show had a notable void — where was the promised announcement of a legendary band's reunion?

CBS and the Recording Academy had publicized that Wednesday's broadcast would have the name of a historically significant band that would reunite for the February award show, but it never came. Producers were mum but sources close to the show said that talks with the band — reportedly the Beach Boys — fell apart in the 48 hours leading up to the nomination show.

There's hope, however, that the Beach Boys will still be available for the Feb. 12 Grammy Awards.

Here is what the Recording Academy promised in its press releases leading up to the nomination concert: "In addition to unveiling nominations for the 54th GRAMMY Awards, 'The GRAMMY Nominations Concert Live!!' will feature a special live announcement from a truly iconic group regarding their historic band reunion set to take place on the GRAMMY stage on Feb. 12, 2012."

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— Geoff Boucher

Photo: The Beach Boys in 1966. From left are Al Jardine, Mike Love, Dennis Wilson, Brian Wilson and Carl Wilson. Credit: Associated Press.

Personal Playlist: Patti Smith listens to opera — and Adele

Patti Smith can’t stop listening to Adele’s ‘Rolling in the Deep.’ She’s been busy touring, accepting awards for ‘Just Kids,’ acting in a Law & Order’ episode and writing a crime novel.

 We ran into Patti Smith in London when she dropped by the set of “Dark Shadows” to visit with her good friend Johnny Depp. She wanted to “see him work and watch his process” on the Pinewood Studios soundstages, where Tim Burton is making his latest eyeliner epic.

As it happens, the 64-year-old made her acting debut last month on an episode of “Law & Order: Criminal Intent,” but it’s hardly a surprise to see her pushing into new areas of art and expression. Smith just won a Polar Music Prize in May and is still collecting trophies (a National Book Award among them) for “Just Kids,” the 2010 memoir of her relationship with artist Robert Mapplethorpe.

Smith has said that she’s also working on a crime novel set in London, but when we bumped into her all she wanted to talk about was opera — and her singular obsession in the pop music world.

“I've been listening to Adele nonstop,” Smith said. “That ‘Rolling in the Deep’ song, I must have listened to that a thousand times. I’ve been on tour and I got really sick. I had bronchitis, but to rev myself up I listen to Adele's ‘Rolling in the Deep.’ I would just play that and feel stronger. I just love her. She’s got a very touching yet mature delivery. I love her voice, and that is just a killer song. I'm going to get my band to cover it. I have to sing it in a lower range. She’s so young, too. I’d love to meet her ... and tell her to stop smoking cigarettes.”

— Geoff Boucher

Foo Fighters hit 80 U.S. theaters on April 5 with live concert and documentary

EXCLUSIVE

 

The Foo Fighters and "Wasting Light" are coming to a theater near you.

On April 5, the band will perform a live concert that will reach more than 80 U.S. theaters -- a presentation that will follow screenings of the new documentary "Foo Fighters: Back and Forth," directed by Oscar-winner James Moll ("The Last Days").

The Foo Fighters will play their seventh studio album, "Wasting Light," front-to-back during the tie-in performance, which comes a week before that new collection hits stores on April 12.

The participating theaters will be announced by Cinedigm, a player in the alternative programming sector (sporting events and concerts, shorts, cartoons, live Q&A's, etc.) now reaching movie theaters more frequently.

The Foo Fighters documentary, produced by Nigel Sinclair (“No Direction Home: Bob Dylan," "Amazing Journey: The Story of the Who"), will also air April 8 as a "VH1 Rock Doc" on VH1, VH1 Classic and Palladia.

The documentary culminates with the making of "Wasting Light," which finds the band going back to basics by recording entirely on analog tape and (literally) in the garage of Dave Grohl, the former Nirvana drummer who launched the Foo Fighters as a one-man project in 1994.

"Wasting Light" is the band's first full-length effort with Butch Vig, the producer known for Nirvana's landmark "Nevermind." That signature Seattle chapter of Grohl's life is also represented by the appearance of Krist Novoselic as one of the special guests in "Back and Forth."

-- Geoff Boucher