After basking in the overwhelming success of "Behind the Music," VH1 has returned to its first franchise: "Storytellers." The series, which generally finds a singer-songwriter explaining the creative process through anecdotes, resumes in March and April with shows that are being shot this month and next.
VH1 is going after three veteran WEA-distributed acts: Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Steely Dan and Don Henley. CSNY, which performs Saturday at the Staples Center, will shoot a seg in Los Angeles next week as will Henley, whose next disc will be released March 21. Steely Dan, with a new album, "Two Against Nature," on Giant arriving Feb. 29, had an episode shot in New York. Pete Townshend will be shooting a seg in London on March 23.
VH1 will host a "Storytellers" premiere week starting April 24 that will feature the new shows as well as a "best of." Interscope Records will release a "Best of Storytellers" compilation in conjunction with the revival of the series.
-- Phil Gallo
Nyman to score 'Kingdom'
Composer Michael Nyman, in Los Angeles recently to promote his score for Oscar-hopeful "The End of the Affair," is next jetting to Calgary, Canada, where he'll be working with director Michael Winterbottom on "Kingdom Come," a loose adaptation of Thomas Hardy's "The Mayor of Casterbridge" reset during the 1850s Gold Rush in California.
Film stars Wes Bentley ("American Beauty"), Milla Jovovich and Nastassja Kinski. Nyman, who juggles classical music, opera and film score commitments, says it's the first time he'll be working on a feature in the pre-production stage since 1993's "The Piano." He adds that along with scoring the film, he'll be writing songs for Jovovich, a pop chanteuse.
"We're thinking of making her a Portuguese fado singer," explains Nyman as a way of dealing with the Ukrainian-born actress's Euro accent. This is Nyman's second collaboration with Winterbottom, having scored "Wonderland," which screened in the world cinema section of Sundance in January. Nyman will be premiering his new opera, "Facing Goya," in Madrid in the coming year.
-- Steve Chagollan
TRACKS: Madonna's video for "American Pie" will premiere today at 3:30 p.m. on MTV's "Total Request Live"... Little Latin Larry & the Loopie Louies, a New England oldies act from the early 1970s whose members have since become professional musicians, magazine editors and record company execs, will play a benefit concert for multiple sclerosis on Feb. 20 at the Roxy... On March 14, three weeks before the opening of the baseball season, EMI will release "Big League Rocks," a 14-track collection of players such as Yankees Bernie Williams and Paul O'Neill and Mr. Cub, Ernie Banks, performing.
Contact Variety Staff at
news@variety.com