AUSTIN, Texas (AP) ― The South by Southwest Music Festival released its first list of artists for 2014 on Wednesday, featuring acts ranging from New Orleans rapper Vockah Redu to Texas country singer Rodney Crowell and Swedish rock band INVSN.The first batch of 183 acts from 27 countries will only be the first of many, said Elizabeth Derczo, publicist for the six-day festival and music conference. South by Southwest was created to showcase up-and-coming acts, build industry contacts and a includ

PARIS (AFP) ― At 67, Cher is one of a generation of 1960s performers holding out against retirement, and she says she has no plans to make room for younger singers like 20-year-old Miley Cyrus.“I’ve noticed ... (with) my mother’s generation and my grandmother’s generation, that at a certain age they would just kind of move aside,” the U.S. singer told reporters in Paris, where she was promoting her first album in 12 years.“In my generation ― especially in music ― if you can move us out you can g

LONDON (AFP) ― They’ve been dubbed the new Beatles and now British boy band One Direction have the seal of approval from one of the original Fab Four ― Paul McCartney.“I like One Direction. They’re young, beautiful boys and that’s the big attraction,” the 71-year-old said in an interview with Sky News television on Monday.“But they can sing, they make good records, so I think that’s what I would see in common (with The Beatles) ― girls love them.”He cautioned against taking the comparison too fa

NEW YORK (AP) ― To mark the 10th anniversary of the Louis Armstrong museum in the modest brick house where he lived for 28 years, curators are unveiling one of the jazz trumpeter’s most unusual artifacts ― a plaster mask that had been stored in a cupboard for decades.Armstrong, who was known for documenting his career in unusual ways, had the life mask with a painted bronze-patina finish made in the 1950s. David Reese, curator of the Louis Armstrong House Museum, said it reveals creases on his f

Will.i.am says his heart is connected to Britney Spears’ upcoming album.He’s the executive producer of the pop star’s untitled eighth album, to be released Dec. 3. “This Britney record is like a piece of me, no pun intended!” will.i.am said, referring to Spears’ 2007 single, “Piece of Me.”“I appreciate Britney ― how she is as a person, all that she’s accomplished, how down to Earth and humble she is, sweet, but at the same time fierce. She don’t play. She wants to win.”Spears’ will.i.am-produced

NEW YORK (AP) ― The Metropolitan Opera has commissioned an adaptation of the Euripides play “Iphigenia in Aulis” from composer Osvaldo Golijov and intends to give the long-delayed work its world premiere during the 2018-19 season.The company originally announced a Golijov commission six years ago in collaboration with the English National Opera and said it tentatively was slated to open in London in 2010.Academy Award-winning filmmaker Anthony Minghella was to write the libretto, and the work wa