TEKASHI 6IX9INE GETS RELEASED OVER COVID-19 FEARS
NEW YORK (AP) — Rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine was ordered immediately freed from a Manhattan federal lockup four months early yesterday by a judge who cited his asthma and the greater danger he would face behind bars during the coronavirus outbreak.
U.S. District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer made the ruling a day after telling lawyers on both sides he intended to do so. He cited “a raging and virulent pandemic that has entered federal prisons in New York City.” Prosecutors did not oppose the action.
Last week, the judge said he would have sentenced the 23-year-old performer, whose real name is Daniel Hernandez, to home confinement rather than prison when he announced the sentence in December had he known then of the coronavirus.
Engelmayer ordered the release the same day he asked lawyers to advise what should be done after a former associate of Tekashi 6ix9ine who was released from jail because of the coronavirus threat might have put himself in danger outside bars.
TAYLOR SWIFT HELPS RECORD STORE CLOSED BY COVID-19
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Pop superstar Taylor Swift is helping a Nashville record store closed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Grimey's co-owner Doyle Davis says the store got a call last week from Swift's publicist asking how Swift could help. It was just after Nashville's mayor issued a stay-at-home order and Davis was sending all the workers home.
The store, which also serves as a small concert venue, has been a Nashville fixture for 20 years, working closely with local record labels and many up-and-coming artists.
Swift's donation will provide direct relief to the store's 10 full time employees and three months of the health care costs for the store's group insurance plan.
Davis said he's never seen Swift in the store — but her publicist assured him she has purchased records there.
ASHLEY McBRYDE - REAL PEOPLE
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Ashley McBryde doesn’t have any problem with using real people to inspire her country songs and revealing the sordid details of their lives, even if she’s dishing dirt about her own family and friends.
Her new album “Never Will,” out today, is full of songs about opinionated women, small-town secrets, motel trysts and revenge fantasies. One of the songs is “Martha Divine”: The name may not be real, but the person behind the song is.
“Maybe I’m gonna piss my father off by saying this, but I don’t care,” McBryde said. “The song, and what I did to that person in the song, was based off one of my dad’s girlfriends. I really wanted to hit her in the head with a shovel.”
The Mammoth Spring, Arkansas-native is just at home in a biker bar as on a red carpet. She carved her own path in country music after her 2018 major label debut earned her a string of new artist awards from the CMAs, ACMs and CMT and multiple Grammy nominations.
JAZZ GUITARIST PIZZARELLI DIES
SADDLE RIVER, N.J. (AP) — Jazz guitarist John “Bucky” Pizzarelli, who was inducted to the New Jersey Hall of Fame, has died at the age of 94.
The virtuoso who had played for presidents at the White House during his long and esteemed career died Wednesday at his home in Saddle River, New Jersey.
His family tells The New York Times they believe the cause of death was the coronavirus. The Bergen Record reports Pizzarelli tested positive for the virus on Sunday.
“There will be some kind of tribute as soon as we can all get within 6 feet of each other,” his son John Pizzarelli, also a renowned jazz artist, told the Bergen Record yesterday. on Thursday.
Pizzarelli was born in Paterson, New Jersey, and had a career that spanned eight decades. He showed off his musical chops for former presidents like Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton and played alongside musical icons like Frank Sinatra.