Zach Bryan Brings ‘Pink Skies’ and Red-Hot Fervor to an L.A. Arena Three-Night Stand: Concert Review

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Daryl Hall and Elvis Costello, take a seat. That might be a thing to shout out as a request the next time these two veteran singers co-headline a tour together, rather than calling out for “Maneater” or “Pump It Up.” It’s not that they aren’t standup guys, or that there is anything about their energy levels that suggests they need to take a load off.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic During Dead & Company’s current run of 30 shows at Las Vegas’ Sphere, no one is exercising the gift of gab on stage. As is typical for the Grateful Dead spinoff group, the music does all the talking, for three and a half hours — with additional non-verbal help from the world’s most advanced concert video design on the dome’s wrap-around screen.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic It’s been just over one year since the Tonys gave the Pasadena Playhouse an award for regional theater, and that honor looks more justified than ever now that the venue is presenting a much-needed production of “Jelly’s Last Jam.” It feels like they’re re-earning that brass medallion, rather than coasting on it, with a fresh production of writer-director George C. Wolfe’s early ‘90s hit, a show that that helped changed the course of stage musicals and helped set a course for jazz consciousness on Broadway, yet can barely get a revival to save its life.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Zach Bryan once release a surprise live album on Christmas Day. So for his next long-awaited studio album, why not keep the tradition of holiday drops alive? “The Great American Bar Scene,” a new release Bryan has been teasing for a while, now has a release date — the 4th of July. The singer-songwriter made the announcement via a social media post Thursday evening.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Before John Williams became the flagship film composer-conductor anyone thought of when they thought about the Hollywood Bowl, that honor belonged to Henry Mancini. And in some years, when Los Angeles is particularly lucky, it still does, even though the scorer behind “The Pink Panther,” “Days of Wine and Roses” and other classic scores has been gone for 30 years now. This Sunday, the LA Phil will devote the Bowl’s traditional opening night to a 100th birthday celebration for the man who, arguably more than any other, turned movie scores into a truly populist artform… and who conducted at the Bowl 29 times.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Country stars Lainey Wilson, Alan Jackson, Luke Bryan and Trisha Yearwood will be among the recipients of the Special Awards being given out at the annual ACM Honors program in August. The Academy of Country Music will celebrate the honorees during a ceremony taking place at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium on Aug.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Post Malone, Doja Cat, Jelly Roll and Rauw Alejandro will provide the music at the 2024 Global Citizen Festival, a concert set to kick off New York’s musical autumn on Sept. 28. The annual gathering will be held, as always, on Central Park’s Great Lawn, with free tickets available by using Global Citizen’s app to take action toward one of the advocacy organization’s key missions.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic A lot of bong water has passed under the bridge since “Reefer Madness: The Musical” first premiered at the Hudson Theatre on Santa Monica Blvd. in 1998. Like, legalization of the demon weed in most states… plus, about a million more camp musicals that have come down the pike since then, maybe lessening any obvious need to bring back a show satirizing long-bygone pot paranoia.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Mark James, a Songwriters Hall of Fame member who wrote or co-wrote “Suspicious Minds,” “Always on My Mind” and “Hooked on a Feeling,” died June 8 at his home in Nashville. The news was reported by his hometown newspaper, the Houston Chronicle. James was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2014.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic For his new “Honeymind” album, singer and actor Ben Platt brought in an especially honeyed voice as a counterpart on one song, Brandy Clark. He had written “Treehouse” in a writing session with Clark well before the album was being put together, and then he and producer Dave Cobb had the eureka (or as Platt puts it, “duh”) moment of realizing just how much more haunting it might sound as a duet with the co-writer, whose chops obviously don’t begin and end with songwriting prowess.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Françoise Hardy, a French singer, actor and model whose classical beauty and often melancholy music combined to transfix fans internationally in the 1960s and beyond, has died at age 80. Her son, Thomas Dutronc, also a musician, reported the death on his Instagram account, posting a baby photo of himself with his mother and writing: “Maman est partie.” Or, mom is gone.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Sometimes girls just want to take a load off, too. Cyndi Lauper will be calling it quits as a touring performer after she does what is billed as her “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun Farewell Tour” in arenas this fall — an outing she insists really will have her calling it a day on any kind of road show, although she’s not ruling out one-offs.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic There was no official explanation offered for exactly why Silvana Estrada and Cécile McLorin Salvant were co-headlining a show at Walt Disney Concert Hall — and none was needed, for discerning L.A. audiences who know better than to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Zach Bryan is on top of the charts with his new song “Pink Skies,” but he doesn’t want it to be a pop hit.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Country stars Jelly Roll and Ashley McBryde will team up as hosts for ABC’s annual “CMA Fest” special, set to be taped at the festival this week and then air on the network June 25. It’s the first time either singer has hosted a prime-time special. The 16-day window between the end of CMA Fest and the ABC special bearing its name will seem like a short one to those who remember the long period of years when the special was held back for airing in the dog days of August or September.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic ABBA fans had not necessarily expected to see the group together again after previous statements that they had no further plans to reunite after recording a 2021 comeback album. But the prospect of being knighted brought all four members back together again Friday in their native Sweden, as they showed up at the royal palace in Stockholm to be honored by the king and queen.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic When Billy Joel’s camp decided to commemorate his 100th show of a mega-residency at Madison Square Garden with a television special, the question arose of whether to go with a major streamer or a major broadcast network. But there was little doubt in the end that they would go with the most populist possible pick, as the producers of “Billy Joel: The 100th Live at Madison Square Garden” explained in a panel discussion for the Variety FYC Streaming Room. “No one has ever sold out a hundred shows at Madison Square Garden, and I don’t think anybody ever will,” said Steve Cohen, a cohort of Joel’s for about 50 years who is one of the show’s executive producers.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic There are subwoofers embedded in the seats of Las Vegas’ Sphere, which is part of the reason why Mickey Hart‘s nightly extended percussion segment, titled simply “Drums,” is one of the clear highlights of Dead & Company’s current 30-show residency at the venue. But that’s not the only great use Hart has been making of low-end frequencies that people can experience when they come in for a show by the Grateful Dead offshoot.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Members of the Grateful Dead and its currently playing spin-off group, Dead & Company, have taken to social media after the death of basketball legend Bill Walton to share their grief and love for the man who was considered the Dead’s biggest celebrity superfan. Dead & Company, which is in the midst of a residency at Las Vegas’ Sphere, posted a collective statement as well, on top of those of individual members. “Fare you well, fare you well, we love you more than words can tell,” the band posted.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic If Memorial Day weekend is the unofficial start of summer on most Americans’ calendars, then it makes sense that the real tentpole kicking off tent season for a lot of people is not “Furiosa” or “Garfield” but “The Beach Boys,” a streaming documentary devoted to the least wintery group of all time. The Disney+ film, co-directed by music-doc stalwarts Frank Marshall and Thom Zimny, focuses on the first decade and a half, in the 1960s and ’70s, of the career of the rock band that still might rightfully be considered America’s greatest all-time group.