Singers

Earlier this month Josh Groban's "All That Echoes" knocked Justin Bieber's new album out of the top spot on the Billboard 200, and that's not the crooner's only incursion into territory normally reserved for pop stars. The crossover artist's latest release features material by Stevie Wonder and Jimmy Webb, while a deluxe edition available at Target adds Groban's take on the Dave Matthews Band's frat-house staple "Satellite. " The album's producer? Rob Cavallo of Green Day and Adam Lambert fame.

The first song the broader world heard from the Beatles wasn't one of the pop-music gems that seemed to flow so effortlessly from the pens of John Lennon and Paul McCartney, nor was it any of their versions of American R&B and blues songs that were a crucial component of their early repertoire. It was a Scottish folk song, "My Bonnie," a recording made in 1961 -- two years before Beatlemania erupted. On that record, Lennon, McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr's predecessor in the group, drummer Pete Best, backed another British rocker, Tony Sheridan.

The VH1 biopic of platinum-selling girl group TLC is taking shape. Rapper and VMA stage crasher Lil Mama, Keke Palmer and actress-singer Drew Sidora (“The Game”) are set to portray the groundbreaking R&B/hip-hop/pop trio known for its brazen anthems and fiery interpersonal drama. "I would sing 'No Scrubs' over and over again to the point my parents would have to tell me to stop, but I never did, I had my little hairbrush as my mic and nobody could tell me I wasn't the fourth member of TLC," Palmer said in a statement announcing her casting.

Country singer Mindy McCready was found dead by apparent suicide on her front porch Sunday, the victim of a single, self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, according to officials in Arkansas. She was 37. Her death comes a little over a month after David Wilson, her partner and the father of her younger son, died of a gunshot wound to the head on that same porch in Heber Springs, Ark. "Just got a call from Mindy McCready's best friend that she shot and killed herself this evening," NBC's Andrea Canning wrote on Twitter on Sunday night.

Country music singer Mindy McCready has died, officers report. The 37-year-old singer was found Sunday night in Heber Springs, Ark., according to reports . The Cleburne County, Ark., Sheriff's Office has confirmed the singer's death. “Just got a call from Mindy McCready's best friend that she shot and killed herself this evening. My heart breaks for her two boys. RIP,” Andrea Canning, a reporter for NBC's "Dateline," tweeted late Sunday. Canning later tweeted that police had yet to confirm whether McCready's death was a suicide.

Ed Sheeran had plenty to be proud of Sunday night at the Grammy Awards, where the English singer-songwriter's "The A Team" was nominated for song of the year. Not only that, but Sheeran performed the tune - a sympathetic ballad about a troubled woman who turns to drugs and prostitution - on the telecast as an intergenerational duet with Elton John. Reflecting on the experience the day after the ceremony, however, Sheeran seemed less than satisfied. The problem wasn't that he'd lost the award to "We Are Young" by Fun., but that he'd attended Justin Timberlake's late-night post-Grammy concert at the Hollywood Palladium.

Michael Parrish Former editor of the Los Angeles Times magazine Michael Parrish, 67, who oversaw the reinvention of the Sunday magazine in the Los Angeles Times in the mid-1980s, died Friday of liver failure while under hospice care in the Los Angeles area, friends said. When the newspaper replaced the Home magazine it had long published with the broader-interest Los Angeles Times magazine, Parrish served as its editor, from 1985 to 1989. During his tenure, the magazine's reporting and writing was repeatedly recognized by the Greater Los Angeles Press Club.

On a recent morning at singer-guitarist Ben Harper's Westside studio, famed blues harmonica player Charlie Musselwhite sits with a metal briefcase filled with instruments and gear, his thin mustache and slicked-back hair an elegant gray. The room is crowded with instruments, including a baby grand piano and racks of electric and acoustic guitars. At the center is Harper's empty chair, an array of effects pedals on the carpet. Harper and Musselwhite just released a new album together, "Get Up!"

Frank Ocean stood alone onstage, his now trademark headband wrapped tightly, to sing "Forrest Gump" on a set that made it seem as though he were on an outdoor treadmill. The singer had won two Grammys, had thanked an audience that was just getting to know him. He had watched the Black Keys run toward a sweep, only to be later silenced by Mumford & Sons. He'd been robbed by future one-hit-wonders Fun. for best new artist and beaten by Gotye for song of the year. The losses no doubt stung.

Carly Rae Jepsen's “Call Me Maybe” was impossible to escape last summer. The sugary song, with its infectious chorus and bouncy dance-pop beat, shot to No. 1 and stayed there for nine weeks. From “Sesame Street” to “Glee,” the song ruled the second half of 2012 and broke the 27-year-old Canadian singer internationally. “Call Me Maybe” is up for two Grammys, including song of the year, a surprising feat given the Recording Academy's reputation for ignoring youthful pop (case in point: Justin Bieber)