John Legend's spiritual cover of Adele's 'Rolling in the Deep'

Right around the two-minute mark in John Legend's cover of Adele's "Rolling in the Deep," his voice breaks and cracks a few times, sounding like it might break permanently, a messenger finally worn out from delivering such heightened emotions.

Adele's captivating single from her latest album, "21," which has been holding strong on the charts (this week at No. 3), is perfect for the kind of cover treatment Legend has applied. Stripping the song down to its roots, nothing more than voices grappling with its tumult, he's turned "Rolling in the Deep" into an old-time spiritual, something that could be sung in a dark church on a stormy night when no one feels like the dawn will strike again.

The Internet, being the industrious meme-combining machine that it is, has birthed a mash-up of Adele's version and Legend's version but they are better taken as seperate expressions of a song that's so powerful, it'll probably proliferate many more copies of itself. Country-tonk version, anyone? How about chillwave?

John Legend -- "Rolling in the Deep (Adele Cover)" by johnlegend

-- Margaret Wappler

Photo: Legend performing at a workshop called "The Motown Sound: In Performance at the White House." Credit: Roger L. Wollenberg / EPA

 

Live from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony: Tom Waits, Dr. John, Darlene Love, Alice Cooper and Neil Diamond celebrate in New York

 

Now into its second quarter-century, its rebellious youth largely a memory and its adolescence rapidly receding into the past, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's annual induction ceremony canonized Neil Diamond, the Alice Cooper band, Tom Waits, Dr. John and Darlene Love as its newest performer honorees on Monday night at the Waldorf Astoria in Manhattan.

All five had long been eligible under the hall's requirement that acts only become candidates 25 years after the release of their first recording, making this something of a catch-up year for those like Cooper, Diamond and Love, all of whom sold millions of records in their prime, or in the cases of Waits and Dr. John, artists whose critically admired work hadn't been accompanied by the kind of commercial success that might have helped usher them into the hall earlier. Fellow pianist Leon Russell was inducted in the "sideman" category.

Rock Hall opens doors to ceremony rehearsals -- for a price

 

 

 

For the first time in its 25-year history, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame will allow an audience into rehearsals for its star-studded induction ceremony and dinner, which take place this year on March 14 at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York.

Through a new partnership between the Rock Hall and the Gilt City website, which specializes in luxury services and experiences, fans can buy tickets that will include admission to the March 13 rehearsal for this year’s event, at which the Alice Cooper Band, Neil Diamond, Tom Waits, Dr. John and Darlene Love are being inducted.

The privilege comes at a price, however. A VIP ticket that opens the door to otherwise closed rehearsals costs $3,500, and also includes entrance to the pre-ceremony cocktail party and the awards dinner itself. For $2,000, members of the public can get into the cocktail party and awards dinner.

This year’s honorees are being inducted by Neil Young (Waits), Paul Simon (Diamond), Bette Midler (Love), Rob Zombie (Cooper) and John Legend (Dr. John). Elton John will present Leon Russell with the hall’s new musical excellence award, which replaces the former Sideman category; Doors’ drummer John Densmore will usher in Elektra Records founder Jac Holzman as a non-performer; and Lloyd Price will do the same for Specialty Records founder Art Rupe.

-- Randy Lewis

Tom Waits, left, will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by Neil Young. Credit (Waits): Michael O'Brien; (Young): Jack Plunkett / Associated Press.

Presenters for 2011 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame class announced

What do Rob Zombie, Neil Young, Bette Midler, John Legend and Elton John have in common?

They’ll all be onstage in New York in March, along with Paul Simon, Lloyd Price and the Doors’ John Densmore, welcoming the latest class of inductees into the Rock and Roll of Fame, hall officials will announce Tuesday.

Zombie has been tapped to welcome in one of his musical forebears, shock-rock pioneer Alice Cooper; Young will induct fellow iconoclast Tom Waits; John will bring in his friend and recent collaborator Leon Russell; and Simon will deliver remarks on Neil Diamond. Legend inducts Dr. John,  Midler will handle Darlene Love and Densmore gets Elektra Records founder Jac Holzman, who signed the Doors and launched their recording career.

The ceremony is scheduled for March 14 at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City.

-- Randy Lewis

Photo (left) of Alice Cooper. Credit: Ethan Miller

Photo (right) of Rob Zombie: Credit: Stephen C. Mitchell / EPA

John Legend to pair up with Sade for summer tour

Sade, which is prepping its first tour since 2001, has announced that soul crooner John Legend will join the band on its 50-date summer trek.

The tour, which is in support of last year’s critically acclaimed “Soldier of Love” -- the band’s first in a decade -- begins June 16 in Baltimore. 

The Live Nation-produced tour will make a handful of stops in the Southland area, playing Staples Center on Aug. 19 and 20. Because of demand, a third date has been added at Anaheim’s Honda Center for Aug. 30.

Legend is nominated for five Grammy Awards for “Wake Up!,” his joint work with the Roots, and Sade is up for two awards at Sunday's ceremony: Best pop performance by a duo or group with vocals for its hit “Babyfather” and best R&B performance by a duo or group with vocals for “Soldier of Love.”

“Soldier of Love” has logged more than 1 million sales in the U.S.

Tickets are available through Ticketmaster and LiveNation.

Check out the announced dates after the jump; the rest of the cities will be released soon:

Album review: John Legend and the Roots' 'Wake Up!'

Conceived during and inspired by the 2008 presidential campaign, “Wake Up!” is a snapshot of R&B’s activist past. The suave crooner John Legend and impassioned hip-hop band the Roots resurrect 11 soulful protest songs of the ’60s and ’70s, aiming to conjure and capture a socially conscious fervor. Digging up cuts such as Les McCann’s “Compared to What” and Donny Hathaway’s “Little Ghetto Boy,” Legend and the Roots illustrate that these wartime, working-class narratives haven’t gone out of style.

Pleasures abound, even if the Roots don’t get too adventurous with the arrangements. The tone here is more revelatory than riotous, and the livelier moments are the stronger ones. A reworking of Baby Huey’s vivid “Hard Times” is punched up with a tension-filled bass, disarming horns and an assertive verse from the Roots’ Black Thought, while Ernie Hines’ “Our Generation” presents a funkier, dirtier Legend.

The Roots are no doubt in their comfort zone, and takes on Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes’ “Wake Up Everybody” and Mike James Kirkland’s “Hang on in There” are waiting-room coolness. Legend, however, is stretching out of his, and he packs far more spark here than he did on 2008’s “Evolver.” He cops a near spoken-word grit on Bill Withers’ “I Can’t Write Left Handed” and gets swept up in the reggae sway of Prince Lincoln’s “Humanity.” Credit Legend and the Roots for looking beyond the hits, and it’s a respectable love letter, if not quite an urgent one, to artists who shouldn’t be overlooked.

— Todd Martens

John Legend and the Roots
“Wake Up!”
Columbia
Two and a half stars (Out of four)

Live review: John Legend at the Gibson Amphitheatre

A big dose of vanilla smooth.

"John Legend is suave and smooth," read a text message crawling across the jumbo screen before the 13-time Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter's performance at the Gibson Amphitheatre on Tuesday. Indeed, with songs so silken and seamless as to be soporific, the 30-year-old R&B balladeer has emerged as the preeminent practitioner of vanilla latte soul for the sport coat-and-cravat crowd, a Brian McKnight for Generation Y.

To his credit, Legend affects a winsome affability on-stage and knows his role, winking at the audience, "I'm just here to set things off for y'all." In response, the capacity crowd swooned and swayed. The show was more akin to an hour-and-a-half love-in than rhythm-and-blues revue.