People
LOS ANGELES — Jose Feliciano is celebrating the 50th anniversary of his bilingual Christmas classic “Feliz Navidad” by releasing a new version featuring Jason Mraz, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Shaggy and more.
Pop balladeer Michael Bolton, Latin boy band CNCO, country duo Big & Rich, and Mexican singer and actress Patricia Manterola are among the 30 acts who teamed up remotely for the reimagined track, which is being released by Amazon Music. The collaboration of artists from different backgrounds and musical genres reflects Feliciano’s original goals for the song.
“The idea of ‘Feliz Navidad’ was to try and unite the people,” the nine-time Grammy winner said. “My thought when I wrote the song was that it didn’t matter what language you were singing in, the feeling of Christmas is privy to all of us.”
The 75-year-old Puerto Rican singer-songwriter says that back in 1970, he never imagined the song’s catchy but minimalist lyrics — just six words in Spanish, 14 in English — would become a holiday standard.
“I would have to say it fulfills a dream,” he said in an interview over Zoom from his home in Connecticut. “I had the dream in my mind, but that’s as far as it went until I wrote ‘Feliz Navidad.”’
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LOS ANGELES — Rachel Maddow made an emotional return Thursday to her MSNBC show, saying her partner’s bout with COVID-19 was so serious they thought it might kill her.
Maddow has been off the air for roughly two weeks since disclosing she had been in close contact with someone who tested positive for the coronavirus. Maddow didn’t disclose who it was at the time, but said Thursday evening it was her partner, Susan Mikula.
“At one point, we really thought it was a possibility it might kill her and that’s why I’ve been away,” Maddow said.
“She is the center of my life,” she added.
Maddow said her partner is recovering and will be OK, but that it didn’t seem that way at the outset of her illness. Maddow said she’s tested negative so far for the virus.
She is the host of MSNBC’s most-watched show and did the broadcast from inside her home, encountering some technical difficulties before laying out their coronavirus experience.
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BOSTON — A long-lost trove of Bob Dylan documents including the singer-songwriter’s musings about anti-Semitism and unpublished song lyrics has sold at auction for $495,000.
Boston-based R.R. Auction said Friday the collection privately held by the late American blues artist Tony Glover, a longtime Dylan friend and confidante, was sold Thursday to a bidder whose identity was not made public.
The collection included transcripts of Glover’s 1971 interviews with Dylan and letters the pair exchanged. The interviews reveal that Dylan had anti-Semitism on his mind when he changed his name from Robert Zimmerman, and that he wrote “Lay Lady Lay” for Barbra Streisand.
Dylan, 79, was close with Glover, who died last year. The two men broke into music in the same Minneapolis coffeehouse scene. Glover’s widow, Cynthia Nadler, put the documents up for auction online.
By Associated Press
