The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's discord progression-latimes.com

Its 25th anniversary concerts' lineups, and the institution itself, are worth arguing about.














Bruce Springsteen

By ANN POWERS
Pop Music Critic

In pop, as in the sporting world that provided a model for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, one fan's dream is another's disappointment. This is true of the annual artist inductions, which elevate some while ignoring others -- Rush was robbed again! -- and the pattern will repeat Thursday and Friday in New York at the hall's 25th anniversary concerts.
The shows at Madison Square Garden promise everything a classic rock fan desires. The headliners are U2 and Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, rock's most reliably awe-inducing live acts. Soul legends including Stevie Wonder and Aretha Franklin will collaborate with worthy inheritors including John Legend and Annie Lennox. Heavy ax men Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Metallica likely will reach new heights of guitar-face.
For those baby boomers who come to sing along, Simon & Garfunkel and Crosby, Stills and Nash will harmonize with pals including Dion and Bonnie Raitt.
Yet these once-in-a-lifetime shows are missing so much. Where's the hip-hop? The disco? The funk? The punk? (Proto-punk's in the house: Lou Reed will perform with Metallica.) Why no Latin music, not even Carlos Santana? Wasn't Madonna invited?
Madonna might show up, I suppose, in one of the montages sure to be shown during the evening's intermissions. Her 2008 induction exemplified how the Rock Hall is adapting to a new era, one in which the grand narratives of capitol-R rock 'n' roll have given way to a broader understanding of contemporary pop music.
Mutual admiration
The Rock Hall was founded as a kind of countercultural Friars Club, in which the titans of the post-Elvis and Little Richard era feted each other at black-tie dinners, which always ended in star-studded jam sessions. It was a flush time for the music industry, and the once scruffy street heroes who'd made rock a viable career seemed happy to join an establishment they could control.
Highlights from these dinners are now vicariously open to all, via "Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Live," a nine-DVD collection that also features footage from the stadium concert that celebrated the Cleveland museum's opening in 1995. Viewers will be drawn to these discs for the performances, but the induction speeches are more revealing. The one Mick Jagger gave for the Beatles in 1988 sounds like a wedding toast.
"They had on these beautiful long black leather trenchcoats," Jagger recalled of the night he first spotted his rivals standing in the back of a club. "I could really die for one of those. And I thought, even if I have to learn to write songs, I'm gonna get this." Jagger's impish smile as he said these words showed that, just then, he was less concerned with making history than with getting a laugh out of the room.
Such moments reveal the driving force behind the Rock Hall in its pre-museum days: an interest in tracing personal connections instead of larger cultural shifts. Because its ceremonies revolved around either peers or heirs giving personal testimonies about the artists being inducted, the Rock Hall grew up as a family institution, one that encouraged an understanding of rock music and culture as something passed on from one musician to another.
It took eloquent speakers like Bono and Springsteen to connect the ideas of inheritance with legacy and to argue for the music as both traditional and dynamic. Inducting the Boss in 1999, Bono compared him to Elvis, Brando and Steinbeck, but he also said that his music offered "the first whiff of Scorsese, the first hint of Patti Smith, Elvis Costello and the Clash."
Honoring U2 in 2005, Springsteen remembered that he discovered the band on a night out with Pete Townshend, "to catch the first whiff of those about to unseat us."
All this whiff-catching portrays rock's spirit as something in the air, not necessarily passed from hand to hand, but preserved and adapted by strangers who then become artistic stepchildren. That's legacy. The shift toward this point of view began when the museum opened in 1995, transforming the Hall from what was essentially a private club into a public institution.
(Full disclosure: I have given talks at the museum several times throughout the years, and when I worked for the Experience Music Project in Seattle, the Rock Hall's former education director, Robert Santelli, who is now with L.A.'s Grammy Museum, was my boss.)
In 1997, Santelli, then the education director of the fledgling institution, wrote that the task of the Rock Hall's first curatorial team was twofold: "[N]ot just to preserve rock 'n' roll history, but to identify it. The curatorial team attempted to build a rock and roll historiography, one that would create a basic foundation from which future discourse on the music could be launched."
He was using curatorial lingo to say something Rock Hall haters should be happy to acknowledge: At least since it took on the larger project of archiving and interpreting pop history since the rock era, this is an institution whose primary purpose is to cause arguments.
Quarrelphenia
In the 1980s, arguments about the Rock Hall reflected many people's discomfort with the insider mood of those dinners and the idea that pop music (and especially rock) could support an elite at all. The squabbles shifted in tone in the 1990s. The idea of authenticity was big then, as punk, hip-hop and indie rock rose in influence; so was the romance of the rock underground.
To many, the Rock Hall came to represent corporate excess, especially after its museum's five-hour opening concert in Cleveland's Municipal Stadium with an overstuffed lineup featuring young mainstream stars such as Bon Jovi and Sheryl Crow seemed antithetical to the notion of rock as a grassroots art form.
Today, the arguments have shifted again. Pop has replaced rock as the ruling force within contemporary music, and instead of seeming inauthentic, the Rock Hall appears too focused on authenticity. Pop is all about mixed-up fun -- it's multicultural, global and novelty-obsessed. (It's also feminine, and its return to dominance makes one long for more female voices and faces in the Hall.) Its champions don't care much about tracing the legitimacy of inheritance. They open their arms to every stray sound and shiny star.
This weekend's concerts, with their heavy focus on 1960s countercultural icons and arena rockers, might be great, but they seem old-fashioned. After all, this year's Rock Hall nominees include ABBA -- to many, the cheesy Nordic antithesis of acts the Rock Hall was established to celebrate. But that's how inheritance expands into legacy. And it's also a case of what goes around comes around.
When the Beatles were inducted, Ringo Starr responded to that gentle ribbing from Jagger with a zinger of his own. "The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame," he said from behind his aviator shades. "I love it. They always called us a pop group!"
If he hadn't been grinning so widely, one might have thought he was trying to start an argument.

Source: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/music/la-ca-hall-of-fame25-2009oct25,0,2398479.story

Harvey Levin stands for a principle-latimes.com

'Beach Bums' and Mini-Me's sex tape notwithstanding, the man behind TMZ is a champion of the 1st Amendment.

Harvey Levin


By James Rainey

My 1st Amendment hero brings close-up photos of celebrity rear ends to the world, under the witty, witty headline "Beach Bums." My 1st Amendment hero delivers us the news any time someone famous looks fat, drunk or plain gaga.
My 1st Amendment hero posts Mini-Me's sex tape and treats the Kardashians as if they were America's first family. And my hero also lands real scoops that the rest of the media, including this newspaper, would love to have.
Yes, Harvey Levin is my 1st Amendment hero, and I'm not (that) embarrassed to admit it.
The man who stirs the putrid caldron of banal, soul-sucking celebrity infotainment -- epitomized by his TMZ website and TV show -- also works harder than just about anyone else in media and delivers a measure of what even traditional outlets must concede is real news.
Levin has earned his outrage in recent days over the revelation that the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department (perhaps with the aid of the district attorney's office) and a Superior Court judge think it's a good idea to snoop around in a journalist's phone records.
The multiple arms of the law went after Levin's phone logs in the apparent belief that it's more important to expose the individual who leaked the embarrassing news of Mel Gibson's drunken, anti-Semitic rant than to attend to messy technicalities like the independence of the press.
I suspect many media outlets have ignored this story because they can't reconcile the idea that a website appealing to our lower instincts can also defend our higher principles.
The contretemps coming to the fore in recent days began three years ago with the arrest in Malibu of Mel "Braveheart" Gibson. His simple DUI beef would have been relatively small potatoes if someone hadn't told Levin that the actor also insulted the Jewish sheriff's deputy who made the arrest.
Most significant, Levin uncovered what appeared to be an instance of celebrity justice -- sheriff's supervisors keeping the actor's ugly behavior quiet and even ordering the arresting deputy to keep Mad Mel's rantings out of the public arrest report.
The captain who oversaw the original investigation told me Thursday that he wanted Gibson's tirade confined to a "supplemental" report in an attempt to avoid the sort of public outrage that might taint a jury pool that could have heard the case of driving under the influence.
We'll never know for sure about law enforcement's private motivations, but let's just say I'm skeptical.
Sheriff Lee Baca's department -- apparently students of the Shoot-the-Messenger School of Management -- instead spent the last three years trying to find out who revealed the full scope of Gibson's bad behavior.
My colleagues Jack Leonard and Richard Winton reported last week that the D.A.'s office had concluded over the summer that it could not prove who leaked the information.
A summary of the case findings also revealed, for the first time, that investigators had looked at phone records of TMZ's Levin, as well as those of Deputy James Mee, who made the arrest.
When I called Baca to ask him Thursday about his department's foul-up, he said he didn't know much about the matter. That became clear when he insisted, incorrectly, that only Deputy Mee's phone logs, not the newsman's, had been searched.
I set him straight on that point, but he insisted, nonetheless, that the whole thing was "much ado about nothing," because his department had never intended to target Levin or his website, which draws as many as 10 million unique visitors a month.
"This is a story of the media, by the media and for the media," Baca said. "There is no harm to Harvey Levin, and if there is any intent by anyone in the organization I run to harm a reporter, they are going to have to answer to me."
But the sheriff said something else that I think calls into question how his department handled the Gibson affair from the very start.
"Drunks do a lot of things when they are drunk," Baca said. "Mel Gibson made some anti-Semitic comments and, in that regard, further verified that he was drunk."
Exactly. And that's doubtless why Deputy Mee included those facts in his original report, the one a captain ordered kept out of public view and put in a supplemental report.

The captain and other sheriff's officials insist Gibson's ugly-speak eventually would have been taken to the D.A.'s office, even without Levin's expose.
Maybe. But it seems to me that, without the public exposure, the makings of a coverup were all in place.
The actor previously had a cozy relationship with the Sheriff's Department, serving as a "celebrity representative" on a group that supports the children of slain deputies and even dressing in a sheriff's uniform to film public service announcements.
Baca's department gets, at best, a fig leaf of cover by arguing that the D.A.'s office gave advice on the warrants (something that office has denied) and that the warrants were issued by a judge, Deborah Andrews of the L.A. County Superior Court.
The D.A.'s own media guidelines, drawing from the state Penal Code and the reporter's Shield Law, conclude that "a search warrant cannot be used to obtain the source of any news information, or unpublished news information in the possession of the news media."
I called Judge Andrews to find out how she could reach a different conclusion, but she didn't call me back. Perhaps she believed reporter Levin and his sources would be protected, because the phone records have been kept under seal.
But the law does not allow for any fudging when it comes to invading media records. The government simply can't go there.
As a practical matter, the case has already shown how easy it is for supposedly secret facts to creep into broad daylight.
"These sources might have reason to worry now," said Levin, who is considering legal action. "Maybe they get a little more skittish about talking to me or anyone else in the media the next time."
It doesn't really matter much that a tequila-pickled movie star acted like a lout after a night on the town. But it's a considerably weightier matter when authorities, whose salaries we all pay, show even a hint of favoritism to those with special clout.
Our free speech champions -- from Hustler Publisher Larry Flynt to New York Times reporter Judith Miller -- don't always come in the most appealing packages.
We must not turn the press into an arm of law enforcement. For reminding us of that principle, we have a new 1st Amendment hero to thank.

Source: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-et-onthemedia23-2009oct23,0,7269954.column?page=2

Philadephia Phillies again beat Los Angeles Dodgers at game 5/ 5phillies-4dodgers

One more win and the Fightin’ Phils will have another World Series trip to celebrate.





Rollins lined a two-run double with two outs in the ninth inning off All-Star closer Broxton and the Phillies rallied past the Dodgers 5-4 Monday night for a 3-1 lead in the National League championship series.
The defending champions can earn their second consecutive pennant with a victory at home in Game 5 on Wednesday night.
Last year’s NLCS and World Series MVP Cole Hamels take the mound for the Phillies.Clayton Kershaw or Vicente Padilla will start for Los Angeles. “This is big,” Rollins said. “The pressure’s all on them.”

Trailing 4-3, the Phillies started their rally with one out in the ninth when pinch-hitter Matt Stairs walked on four pitches against Broxton. Stairs hit a two-run homer off Broxton in Game 4 of the NLCS last year at Dodger Stadium.

Rollins, just 3 for 18 in the series to that point, ripped a 99 mph fastball to right-center and the ball rolled to the wall. Andre Ethiers throw toward the infield was high and off line, and Ruiz slid home without a play. “I’m all right. I had to curl up in the fetal position and throw some punches of my own,” Rollins said before taking a cream pie in the face from a teammate. It was the sixth time two postseason games have ended in walk-off fashion on the same day, according to STATS LLC. The previous time was Oct. 5, 2007, when Boston beat the Angels and Cleveland topped the Yankees in AL division series. J-Roll got the biggest hit for Philadelphia.

“He likes the moment,” Phillies manager Charlie Manuel said. “He wants to be there, and he can control his adrenaline and he can handle the moment. The bigger the stage, the better he likes to play.”Before Rollins came through, Dodgers relievers hadn’t allowed a hit in 3 1-3 innings. “They’re a very tough lineup to go through,” manager Joe Torre said. “You try to be careful. He almost dug himself out.”
Wolf of Dogers pitched 5 1-3 effective innings against his former team while his “Wolf Pack” fan club sat in seats he left for them—and rooted against him.

George sherill struck out Howard with two runners on in the eighth and Broxton retired Jeyson Werth on a fly ball to end the inning. At that point, Torre had made all the right moves one day after hearing criticism for starting Hiroki Kuroda in Game 3. Torre let Sherrill face Howard, even though he was 0 for 10 against Broxton.

“He put some good wood on it and it went to the wall,” Broxton said. “It was a good game, just let it get away in the ninth.”

Trailing 4-2 in the sixth, the Phillies got within a run on Chase Utley's RBI single. Shane Victorino tripled into the left-field corner as Ramirez nonchalantly chased after it. Victorino scored on Utley’s liner to right.

It was another brisk night—48 degrees for the first pitch—at Citizens Bank Park. Bundled-up fans kept warm by waving their “Fightin’ Phils!” rally towels and screaming “Beat LA! Beat LA!”

They had plenty to cheer early when Howard ripped a 3-1 pitch to the seats in right, giving the Phillies a 2-0 lead in the first. Fans gave Howard a standing ovation and many chanted “M-V-P!” as he came out for the early curtain call.

The streaking slugger has driven in a run in each of the Phillies’ eight playoff games this year. Gehrig’s streak stretched over two World Series with the Yankees in 1928 and 1932.

“I’m just going to go up there and keep throwing my bat at the ball,” Howard said.

Making his first start since he lasted only 3 2-3 innings in Game 1 of the division series against St. Louis, Wolf gave up three runs and four hits. The Wolf Pack—a group of fans who used to sit in the upper deck and cheer for Wolf when he pitched in Philadelphia—was in the crowd. Wolf left them tickets, knowing they would root for their beloved Phillies.

Read More:http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/recap;_ylt=ApQ5wSgJN0gCeJPrEkyvVmIkPMsF?gid=291019122&prov=ap

Phillies come back to beat Dodgers in the 9th, 5-4-latimes.com

Jonathan Broxton gives up a two-run walk-off hit to Jimmy Rollins. Philadelphia takes a commanding three games to one lead in best-of seven series.



Carlos Ruiz leaps in the air as he scores the winning run on a Jimmy Rollins double off Dodgers closer Jonathan Broxton, background, with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 4 of the NLCS. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

Reporting from Philadelphia - Once Game 4 of the National League Championship Series turned into a battle of bullpens, the Dodgers had to like their chances.

But against one of the most airtight closers in baseball, the Philadelphia Phillies rallied for an improbable 5-4 victory tonight at Citizens Bank Park.

Jimmy Rollins' two-run double into the gap in right-center field off Jonathan Broxton drove in the tying and go-ahead runs in the ninth inning to give the Phillies a commanding 3-1 lead in the best-of-seven series.

The teams will take Tuesday off before resuming the series with Game 5 here on Wednesday.

Things began to unravel for Broxton in the ninth when he walked pinch-hitter Matt Stairs -- who had hit a game-winning, two-run homer off Broxton in Game 4 of the 2008 NLCS -- on four pitches with one out and hit Carlos Ruiz with his next pitch.

Pinch-hitter Greg Dobbs hit a soft liner to third baseman Casey Blake for the second out. That brought up Rollins, who was mobbed by teammates after delivering his winning hit.

Trailing by a run, the Phillies threatened in the eighth when Dodgers reliever George Sherrill hit Shane Victorino on the right foot with one out and then walked Chase Utley. Dodgers Manager Joe Torre let Sherrill face the left-handed-hitting Ryan Howard even though Howard was 0 for 8 with six strikeouts in his career against Broxton. The move worked when Sherrill struck out Howard.

After falling behind by two runs in the first inning, the Dodgers tied the score in the fourth and took a 3-2 lead in the fifth on Matt Kemp's homer off Phillies starter Joe Blanton. The Dodgers added a run in the sixth thanks to third baseman Pedro Feliz's throwing error and a pair of bloop singles, including one to right field by Blake with two out that drove in Manny Ramirez.

James Loney and Russell Martin each drove in a run during a fourth-inning rally in which the Dodgers tied the score but stranded the bases loaded when Blake grounded out to second baseman Utley. You could almost feel the sellout crowd of 46,157 hold its collective breath before Utley, who had committed a pair of throwing errors in the first two games of the series, made an uneventful throw to first baseman Howard.

Randy Wolf rebounded from a rough start in his first postseason appearance against his former team, giving up three runs in 5 1/3 innings. He surrendered a two-run homer to Howard in the first inning before retiring 14 of the next 15 batters.

Wolf spent the first eight years of his career with the Phillies but never reached the postseason and acknowledged that he was jealous when his former team won the World Series last year.

The left-hander ran into trouble with one out in the sixth inning. Victorino hit a standup triple into the left-field corner and scored on Utley's single past second baseman Ronnie Belliard. Wolf walked Howard on five pitches, prompting Torre to bring in reliever Ronald Belisario to face Werth.

Werth hit what looked like a potential double-play grounder to third baseman Blake, who threw the ball to Belliard for a force out. But Belliard dropped the ball attempting to transfer it from his glove to his throwing hand, putting runners on first and third with two out.

Torre brought in left-handed reliever Hong-Chih Kuo to face left-handed-hitting Raul Ibanez, who momentarily put a charge into the crowd when he ripped Kuo's first pitch to left. But Ramirez silenced the crowd and elicited profanity from Howard in the dugout when he charged forward to make a shoestring catch.

The Dodgers plan to juggle their rotation for Game 5, starting Vicente Padilla ahead of Clayton Kershaw. Padilla has been the Dodgers' best starter in the postseason, allowing only one run in 14 1/3 innings during his team's victories over St. Louis and the Phillies.

Philadelphia will counter with Cole Hamels, who has not resembled the pitcher who twice defeated the Dodgers in the 2008 NLCS. He has not pitched more than 5 1/3 innings in either of his postseason starts this year, giving up four runs in each outing.

Source:http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-dodgers-phillies20-2009oct20,0,7427549.story

Beyonce delays Malaysia show amid Muslim criticism-latimes.com

R&B star Beyonce Knowles has postponed a planned concert in Malaysia, the event's organizer said Monday, following accusations by Islamic conservatives that the show would be immoral.

Knowles, known for her provocative clothes and choreography, had been scheduled to perform at a Kuala Lumpur stadium Oct. 25. The show "has been postponed to a future date to be announced shortly," Malaysian entertainment company Marctensia said in a statement.

"The postponement is solely (the) decision of the artist and has nothing to do with other external reasons," the statement said.

A Marctensia representative declined to say whether the decision was prompted by criticism from the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party, the country's largest opposition group, which has called for the show to be scrapped because it would promote "Western sexy performances."

Knowles also canceled a planned performance in Malaysia in 2007 following protest threats by the opposition Islamic party. At the time, her talent agency said the show was called off due to a scheduling conflict.

Instead, Knowles went to Indonesia, also a largely Muslim country, which has less stringent rules about how performers should dress and behave. Female artists at Malaysian concerts are required by government rules to cover up from the shoulders to knees, with no cleavage showing.

Last month, Marctensia addressed concerns that Knowles might wear inappropriate outfits, saying "all parties have come to an amicable understanding" about stage costumes.

Other female pop stars such as Avril Lavigne and Gwen Stefani have performed in Malaysia despite similar protest threats by conservative Muslims. Both singers wore clothes that revealed little skin.

Some entertainment industry officials say the strict regulations and frequent controversies have discouraged many international artists from visiting Malaysia.


Source:http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-beyonce-malaysia-19oct19,0,5144336.story

Roger Daltrey at the Orpheum Theatre Live

The Who's 65-year-old frontman flourishes as a solo act in the intimate confines of the historic downtown L.A. venue.

What's the difference between hearing Roger Daltrey perform the Who's music when he's fronting the legendary band versus hearing him play those same songs solo? With the Who, you get Daltrey's voice, one of the Olympian wonders of classic rock; with Daltrey alone, you get an entire human being.

Daltrey spent a generous amount of time sharing of himself during a nearly two-hour show Saturday at the historic Orpheum Theatre in downtown Los Angeles, the fifth concert on his first solo trek in nearly a quarter-century. Creating that level of intimacy can be difficult when the juggernaut that is the Who is in motion and playing to capacity crowds in 18,000-seat sports arenas.

Justifiably, Pete Townshend always has been considered the heart and mind of the towering British quartet because of the remarkable body of songs he's written since the beginning. But on Saturday the 65-year-old Daltrey made it clear what he's given Townshend in return for such grandly emotive source material: an expressive instrument capable of channeling feelings from primal rage to the joy that comes from spiritual liberation.

For the record, a Townshend was there: Pete's younger brother, Simon Townshend, who looks, and more significantly, sounds, a great deal like his older sibling, played guitar in Daltrey's backing band, which also included Jon Button's free-range bass and Scott Devours' Keith Moon-inspired drumming.

Reports from previous shows had indicated that the singer's set relied predominantly on the Who's deep catalog, but for L.A., Daltrey split things about half and half. He touched down on the early "Pictures of Lily," an ode to a young boy's struggle with raging hormones, in addition to material from what is arguably the band's finest moment, 1971's "Who's Next": "Baba O'Riley," "Behind Blue Eyes" and "Going Mobile."

The emotional evolution that comes with age was most striking in the phrase of "Behind Blue Eyes" in which he sings, "My love is vengeance/That's never free." What sounded like a threat nearly four decades ago emerged Saturday as a sorrowful confession for such a primitive impulse.

Interestingly, there was nothing from "Tommy," though Daltrey did offer up the Who obscurity "Naked Eye," a strong treatise on self-deception that's long been one of Townshend's favorite subjects.

Unexpected song choices made for some of the most revealing parts of the show. Daltrey delivered a straightforward reading of the Johnny Cash hit "Ring of Fire" and a pair of numbers from the 1998 concept album/song cycle "Largo," a multi-artist project coordinated by members of the band the Hooters.

Daltrey wasn't part of that project, but he chose to sing "Freedom Ride" and "Garth Largo," performed on the album by Taj Mahal and the Band's Garth Hudson, respectively, because he said they brought together his longtime love of Celtic and folk music with the rock that's been his bread-and-butter for nearly 50 years.

As those years have rolled by, Daltrey's voice has gained sonority, while appearing to have lost a bit of range. He struggled with notes at the top of the scale and had to take three stabs at "Blue Red and Grey," a tune from 1975's "The Who by Numbers." He sang accompanied by his own ukulele strumming and some nicely restrained keyboard work from Loren Gold. A rock deity with a more fragile ego might have given up after a failed first attempt, but Daltrey simply explained that taking a day off before the Orpheum show left his vocal cords not quite supple enough for the song's higher notes. Even after muffing it a second time, he came back to it once more at the end of the set.

When he successfully scaled the passage that had tripped him up previously, a wave of elation rippled through the audience. Daltrey demonstrated in that moment that while rock godhood has its benefits, connecting human to human ultimately is the more profound experience.


Source:http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/music_blog/2009/10/live-review-roger-daltrey-at-the-orpheum-theatre.html

Michael Jackson's final steps Recalling

With the documentary 'This Is It' due out soon, some who worked with Michael Jackson recall his final days.

MOVING: Choreographer Travis Payne, who had worked with Michael Jackson for years, is in step with some of the star's backup dancers. (Nancy Pastor)


Short of someone inventing Smell-o-Vision before Oct. 28's global rollout of the feature documentary "Michael Jackson's This Is It," fans will never get to know one of the most visceral aspects of working with the King of Pop. ¶ "He had this amazing fragrance," said Mekia Cox, one of 11 backup dancers who worked with Jackson between April and June on "This Is It," his series of 50 sold-out concerts scheduled to start taking place at London's O2 Arena over the summer. The shows would have marked the superstar's return to performing after a 12-year touring absence. ¶ Another dancer, Daniel Celebre, referred to Jackson's singular musk as "the love potion," recalling its ability to trigger an almost Pavlovian response in those downwind. "No matter what you're doing, as soon as you smell that smell, boom! You have to get more focused," Celebre recalled. "Because he needs to know we're having that love. And throwing the love around." ¶ It's not uncommon for those who worked with Jackson in his final months to speak about the entertainer in emotionally overheated terms. Several close collaborators on what was being touted as Jackson's final tour -- a concert extravaganza that could have resurrected his finances, reestablished his cultural relevancy and spread messages of global interconnectivity, love and environmentalism -- seem to have gotten swept up in his grandiose vision. It's one that would have involved elaborate aerial dance numbers, the world's largest three-dimensional LCD screen, pyrotechnic illusions, 12 original short films and even the presence of a bulldozer and a children's choir onstage. ¶ With the release of "Michael Jackson's This Is It" next week for a limited two-week theatrical engagement, his fans and doubters alike can see a nearly actualized version of that vision for themselves. To hear it from those who worked on "This Is It," the film will provide new insight into the private Jackson that few outside his inner circle ever see.

"Michael was a new Michael," said "This Is It" concert director Kenny Ortega, who also directed the film. "He was 12 years a dad, a businessman, an entertainer's entertainer. That wonderful, innocent part of Michael was ever present, but there was another Michael there with more worldly concerns. He had deeper reasons for wanting to do this than I've ever seen for him to want to do anything else before."

Consisting of digital video footage shot in rehearsals during the weeks before the production moved to London for final run-throughs, the movie also will throw Jackson's physical and mental bearing into stark relief -- at a time when many are still struggling to understand the circumstances surrounding his death. Jackson, 50, died of acute intoxication by the anesthetic propofol on June 25, and according to his autopsy, he also had been taking a laundry list of sedatives, anti-anxiety medications and painkillers.

Some people who worked with the entertainer daily, however, insist there were no outward signs of his drug dependence.

"He was on a whole new level," said backup dancer Dres Reid. "When you saw Mike, it was a different Michael. He had a swagger about him."

Ortega directed the singer's "HIStory" and "Dangerous" tours in the '90s and is the force behind the "High School Musical" franchise and the "Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour." The director had been in talks with Jackson for more than two years about mounting some kind of performance. Yet Jackson had held out for a "substantial reason" to return to performing, Ortega said.

In March, Jackson called Ortega with news that he had signed to mount a series of concerts with promoter AEG Live.

"He started saying, 'Kenny, my kids are so fascinated with what I've been doing my whole life, they're like super-fans. So I want to share with my children now that they're old enough to appreciate it and I'm still young enough to do it,' " Ortega recalled.

The superstar intended his concerts as payback to fans and a platform to broadcast his concerns. "The messages in my songs, the ones I wrote 10 years ago, are more meaningful today," Ortega quoted Jackson as saying.

Associate director Travis Payne, a choreographer who had worked with Jackson on world tours and music videos since the early '90s, said: "This was to be the biggest platform possible for him to refamiliarize the messages that had been in his music and films for years. . . . Michael was going to remind everyone of the job we have to complete with regard to reversing our damage to the planet."

Although the pop icon was about $400 million in debt heading into "This Is It," Ortega insists their conversations never broached Jackson's financial predicament. Nor, despite Jackson's long absence from the world's stages, did the word "comeback" factor into their discussions.

"One time, I said to Michael, 'You're going to get your crown back. I can't wait,' " Ortega said. "Michael just giggled at me. 'God bless you, Kenny. You're so funny.' He just didn't think that way."

"Michael Jackson's This Is It" will showcase a dimension of the performer that falls well outside the prevailing images of one of the most photographed men of the last half-century. Whether your notion of Jackson is as the surgical mask-wearing eccentric who was acquitted in a 2005 criminal trial on child molestation charges, the guy who dangled his baby over a hotel balcony, or the man who moonwalked across the stage during his epochal 1983 "Motown 25" performance and urged the world to "look at yourself to make a change" -- the movie presents a competing notion of the "Thriller" singer. Jackson as the boss, a perfectionist and creative visionary who was personally invested in the smallest details of his show.

"If he was in the middle of a dance number and something wasn't right, he'd say, 'Stop!' Everything would come to a stop," Ortega said. "And he'd say, 'Don't do that! Wait for me. Watch me.' And remind people that this wasn't an automatic production. You don't just push buttons. You watch Michael."

Cox said: "He was commanding."

"As much as he'd fire off what was on his mind at the time, he'd still have a light gesture at the end," added fellow backup dancer Shannon Holtzpffel. "But he'd be very direct. And we'd be like, 'Wow.' "

According to those close to him, Jackson's exacting nature took a physical toll on him that is visible in the film. Ortega said the singer had been losing weight and grew fatigued from missing more and more sleep as the production's London deadline neared. Both Payne and Ortega spoke of Jackson's penchant for rehearsing until as late as 1 a.m. and then calling them around 4 to brainstorm new ideas.

"He didn't sleep a lot," said Ortega, who like many others interviewed by The Times said he had no idea that Jackson had a drug dependency. "He had been losing weight and didn't like to eat much when he was in my company. It was always, 'I'm dancing. I don't want to eat.'

"I discussed it with him, with his doctor, with his team. I was really concerned about Michael getting the proper rest, the proper nourishment. We were told -- and Michael assured me -- that he was in good health," he said.

Payne, who had gotten to know the singer's professional M.O. working with Jackson on his "Dangerous" and "HIStory" tours, made sure to have Boost meal replacement shakes, Orangina and Martinelli's apple cider on hand to keep Jackson replenished.

"He'd go for periods of time without eating or sleeping because he was so immersed in what we were doing," Payne said.

Nonetheless, Ortega remains resolute that "This Is It" was nothing but a "nourishing" experience for the entertainer, not the cause of his demise. And that for Jackson fans -- for that matter, anyone curious about Jackson's final days -- the movie can still offer a meaningful interface with the King of Pop.

"The movie is dedicated to Michael's fans and his children," said Ortega. "But he's so alive and present in this movie, when we were in the editing room, there were times I'd forgotten he was no longer with us. . . . He's so big, so engaging. He draws you in. And I think there is a fascination that will go beyond the fans."

Source:http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/music/la-et-jackson19-2009oct19,0,3751825.story