Recording Industry

Back in the day, you weren't anyone in the blues world unless you were signed to Chess Records, the label that made stars out of a generation of rough and tumble musicians, notably Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Willie Dixon and Howlin' Wolf.

Paul McCartney said Monday that negotiations on a long-awaited deal to make the Beatles' catalog available on the online music service iTunes have stalled. "The last word I got back was it's stalled at the whole moment, the whole process," the former Beatle said. "I really hope it will happen because I think it should." The band's holding company, Apple Corps Ltd., has so far declined to allow the Fab Four's music on any Internet music service, including iTunes.

EMI Group cut its revenue and profit forecasts for the second time this year as music sales slump in the U.S. EMI shares had the biggest slide in two years Wednesday after the company said full-year sales at its recorded music division would fall 15% and earnings would miss analysts' estimates. London-based EMI last month predicted a 10% sales drop.

James Brown's partner and the mother of his young son has signed with a record label to make a tribute album featuring several duets she recorded with the late singer. Tomi Rae Hynie's tribute album, tentatively called "Mrs. Brown: This Is for You," will be released by the Groove Records. She also plans to produce television, literary and online projects with the Machines Productions, an entertainment company in Irvine that runs the record label.

You want a CD with that latte? On Monday, Starbucks and Concord Music Group announced the formation of a joint record label, Hear Music. The label plans to sign artists and release original music via music stores and the Internet in addition to Hear Music's existing platform, Starbucks coffeehouses, by the end of the year.

About 5 billion songs were downloaded illegally last year, far outnumbering the more than 500 million purchased legally, market researcher NPD Group said Tuesday. The number of U.S. households participating in illegal file swapping rose 8% to 15 million, Port Washington, N.Y.-based NPD said. The growth in the number of households involved slowed from 2005. At the same time, legal online purchases of music jumped 56% and the number of U.S. households buying legally rose to 13 million, NPD said.

Customers of Apple Inc.'s iTunes store will soon be able to play downloaded songs by the Rolling Stones, Norah Jones and other top-selling artists free of the copying restrictions once imposed by their label. EMI Group, the world's fourth-largest record label, and Apple, the biggest seller of digital music and players, plan to announce a landmark deal today that would remove copying protections from songs, according to two people familiar with the negotiations.

Artists and fans lined up to give thanks to a music mogul for years of support and cherished records upon his retirement from the business. No, Clive Davis is not packing it in. If he ever does, the send-off will be a huge gala with the biggest names in the pop world paying tribute. This event was at the tiny Silver Lake club Spaceland the musicians on hand last Friday for the most part hardly known outside of indie-hipster circles.

U.S. album sales fell 17% in the first quarter as rising online piracy and fewer new hits accelerated the music industry's decline. Retailers sold 117.1 million albums in the three months that ended April 1, researcher Nielsen SoundScan said Thursday. Nielsen said Universal Music Group retained its lead with 32% of U.S. new-album sales. Although online purchases rose, they failed to make up for rising piracy and declining demand for compact discs. Album sales fell 4.9% last year after a 7.