Grammy Award-winning production duo Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, Dionne Warwick, Big Daddy Kane, Pastor Shirley Caesar, music industry legend Clarence Avant and iconic label Stax Records will be feted during Celebrate the Soul: Black Music Honors. The two-hour television special—a partnership between Nashville’s National Museum of African American Music (NMAAM) and Central City Productions—will be taped on August 18 at Andrew Jackson Hall. Actor/Grammy winner Malcolm-Jamal Warner will host. Among the performers: Tina Campbell (Mary Mary), Andra Day, Chubb Rock, Mint Condition’s Stokley Williams and the SOS Band (BlackMusicHonors.org)
E-40 is set to headline KDAY, Los Angeles’ Fresh Fest (August 27). Rounding out the talent tally are DJ Quik, Sugar Free, N.O.R.E., Tha Dogg Pound, Ying Yang Twins and Rappin 4-Tay. The sixth annual Fresh Fest will take place at the Shrine Auditorium.
Hip-Hop Hitmaker Mike Will Made It on Miley, Beyonce and His ‘Raw and Real’ Music
Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds, Gladys Knight and Lalah Hathaway are the newest additions to The Black Movie Soundtrack II lineup at Los Angeles’ Hollywood Bowl (Aug. 31). The trio joins an earlier announced roster that includes Common, Charlie Wilson, Full Force, Alice Smith and Earth, Wind & Fire’s Phillip Bailey, Verdine White and Ralph Johnson. Created in 2014 by Grammy-winning musician Marcus Miller and producer/director Reginald Hudlin, the celebration of classic songs from black cinema will be hosted once again by actor/comedian Craig Robinson.
In honor of soul pioneer Otis Redding, who would have turned 75 on September 9, Stax/Concord Records will release Otis Redding — Live at the Whisky A Go Go: The Complete Recordings (Oct. 21). The six-CD collection encompasses the late singer’s pivotal three-night, seven-set stand (April 8-10, 1966) at the famed Sunset Strip venue. Among the music celebs in the house 50 years ago were Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, Robbie Krieger and Stephen Stills. Writes Lynell George in the compilation’s liner notes: “The Strip, like much of 1960s Los Angeles, had invisible but tough to permeate dividing lines…Redding began to see this three-night run as just the right spark to help him jump over all those many lines—from star to superstar, from R&B/soul to pop, from all-black rooms to arenas.”