* After the single Somewhere reached #1 on the Billboard Hot Singles chart last month, a new posthumous album from Jimi Hendrix, called People, Hell and Angels, is set for release on Tuesday. The songs were originally planned as a follow-up to the guitarist’s seminal 1968 album Electric Ladyland, before he died from an accidental drug overdose.
* Steven Spielberg has told the French TV station Canal Plus he is working on a screenplay of Stanley Kubrick’s Napoleon, not for the big screen but for a TV miniseries. The late filmmaker wrote the script for the movie, which he meticulously researched, but never made. If you’re in LA, I highly recommend LACMA’s Kubrick retrospective, where you’ll see some of the dedication the director poured into the would-be movie. Spielberg will no doubt see the project to its rightful light of day.
* With Paris Fashion Week underway, Givenchy drew great applause on Sunday night for Riccardo Tisci’s Ready-to-Wear Fall 2013 collection – during which singer Antony Hegarty (from Antony and the Johnsons) sang.
* Now that Billie Joe Armstrong has checked out of rehab, Green Day’s debut at SXSW next week is one of the festival’s most anticipated shows. The trio will perform on the same day of the world premiere of their film Broadway Idiot and also a screening of the documentary ¡Cuatro! In a Q-and-A with Rolling Stone, bassist Mike Dirnt said the band is feeling “cautiously optimistic – anxious as well” about Armstrong’s recovery.
* Legendary South African singer and human rights activist Miriam Makeba, known as Mama Afrika, would have turned 81 today. The Grammy-winning star died in Italy in 2008. Thank you, Google Doodle for recognizing the day.
