Band News

AP - Madonna has left Malawi after a nearly weeklong visit with her family, airport and charity officials said Saturday.

AP - U2 brought three generations of chart-toppers — Mick Jagger, Bruce Springsteen and the Black Eyed Peas — with them onstage Friday at another night of mix-and-match magic at Madison Square Garden.

Reuters - Carrie Underwood just spent several hours sitting in Audio Productions — a Music Row radio and TV production facility — doing interviews with radio stations across the country, but she looks fresh and relaxed as she prepares for her final chat of the day.

AP - Celebrities Oprah Winfrey, George Clooney and Denzel Washington, prominent Democratic fundraisers and heavyweights from the financial services and high-tech industries were among those landing visits with President Barack Obama or others at the White House during Obama’s first months in office.

Reuters - Lil Wayne always keeps it moving. That’s the one absolute you learn about the rapper after talking with him.

Reuters - Robbie Williams has pulled out of a scheduled appearance at the 2009 MTV Europe Music Awards.

Reuters - Alejandro Sanz knows his fans have different definitions of paradise.

Reuters - Big & Rich’s Big Kenny Alphin says his second solo album, “The Quiet Times of a Rock and Roll Farm Boy,” is the work of “a man on a mission.

Reuters - It took 22 years, but U2 has broken its own attendance record for the best-attended single concert performance at a U.S. venue by one headliner.

Reuters - Starting November 23, musical theater fans visiting New York won’t just be angling for tickets to Broadway productions of “Chicago,” “Mamma Mia!” and “Rock of Ages.” They’ll also have the chance to see “Fela!” — a new musical at the Eugene O’Neill Theater about the influential Nigerian musician Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, and the opportunity to choose Afrobeat over show tunes, ABBA hits and Disney songs.

AP - A Florida man wants rappers Lil Wayne and Birdman to show him respect — for using his voice in an album track called just that.

Reuters - Orianthi Panagaris thought she had the perfect plan. The 24-year-old guitar virtuoso, who hails from Adelaide, Australia, was all set to shred as part of Michael Jackson’s band during his comeback shows in London. She was also working on a solo debut, but thought it would be released after the run of shows that would establish her as the female Carlos Santana.

AP - A Florida man wants rappers Lil Wayne and Birdman to show him respect — for using his voice on a song with that title.

Reuters - Girls Aloud singer Cheryl Cole is a tabloid fixture in the United Kingdom, thanks to her marriage to the soccer star Ashley Cole and her role as a judge alongside Simon Cowell on the TV ratings topper “The X Factor.” She’s also a model for the cosmetics brand L’Oreal and still a member of Girls Aloud, which has enjoyed 20 U.K. top 10 hit singles since 2002.

Reuters - Omara Portuondo’s Latin Grammy Award-nominated “Gracias” was released in the United States in 2008, but she wasn’t able to tour stateside in support of the album until now.

Reuters - One of Britain’s most beloved entertainers, with global career sales estimated at 135 million by her label, Shirley Bassey hardly needs to make albums anymore.

Reuters - Bon Jovi had great crossover success after putting a little bit of country into its rock ‘n’ roll with the 2007 “Lost Highway.” But the New Jersey group gets back to the business of rocking on its 11th studio album, “The Circle.” The band hits a classic Bon Jovi stride out of the gate with the first single, “We Weren’t Born to Follow,” a common-man anthem that draws its buoyant chorus straight out of the group’s 1988 song “Born to Be My Baby.” Also in that mold are tracks like “Work for the Working Man,” “Thorn in My Pride” and “Broken Promiseland.” Meanwhile, U2’s trademark ambient dynamics can be found on “Love’s the Only Rule,” “Happy Now” and “Learn to Love.” Bon Jovi gets political on “Bullet,” and “When We Were Beautiful” is wistfully nostalgic, right down to the sha-la-la backing vocals. The country-friendly elements are still there — the fiddle and steel on “Live Before You Die,” for example — but “The Circle” rides closer to the New Jersey turnpike than the band’s “Highway” run.