Songs

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Jeff Hanneman Founding member of metal band Slayer Jeff Hanneman, 49, a guitarist and founding member of the thrash metal band Slayer whose career was irrevocably changed after a spider bite, died Thursday of liver failure at a Los Angeles hospital, according to spokeswoman Heidi Robinson-Fitzgerald. Hanneman was born Jan. 31, 1964, in Oakland and co-founded the speed metal pioneers in Huntington Park in the early 1980s. He and Kerry King played screaming guitars, vocalist Tom Araya played bass and Dave Lombardo played drums (Paul Bostaph later replaced Lombardo)

Khadijah Williams stepped into chemistry class and instantly tuned out the commotion. She walked past students laughing, gossiping, napping and combing one another's hair. Past a cellphone blaring rap songs. And past a substitute teacher sitting in a near-daze. Quietly, the 18-year-old settled into an empty table, flipped open her physics book and focused. Nothing mattered now except homework. "No wonder you're going to Harvard," a girl teased her. Around here, Khadijah is known as "Harvard girl," the "smart girl" and the girl with the contagious smile who landed at Jefferson High School only 18 months ago. What students don't know is that she is also a homeless girl.

For three years, Brad Cross would rise at 5 a.m. and drive his grandson, Aaron, 53 miles from their home in Rialto to Santa Ana so Aaron could attend Mater Dei High School. He'd drive back to Rialto, then return to pick up Aaron after baseball practice. That's 212 miles a day, five days a week, and helps explain why his 2007 Nissan Sentra has passed 285,000 miles on its odometer. "I hated it, but we had committed to take Aaron to that school," Brad said. Aaron Cross' only sacrifice was listening to his grandfather's collection of oldies music.

Kaunakakai, Hawaii - A fire that raged through Hotel Molokai's Hula Shores restaurant last spring did not keep the kupuna - and their audience - from claiming their spots near the lapping sea and coconut palms. For more than a decade, at 4 p.m. Fridays, 10 to 30 kupun a ("elders" in Hawaiian) have gathered at the hotel to strum their ukuleles and sing the lost songs of their youth. Half of the kupuna had their backs to the audience; instead of performing they sat around card tables sipping wine, laughing and enjoying themselves.

'Songs and Dances of Imaginary Lands' Where: the Songs and Dances Warehouse, 8810 Washington Blvd., Culver City When: 8 p.m. Thursday-Sunday and 2 p.m. Sunday. Ends July 18. Tickets: $25-$50 Info: (323) 655-2410 or http://www.overtoneindustries.org

Google recently rolled out a free scan and match feature for its Music service, but it seems to be switching explicit versions of songs with clean ones and vice versa. The Mountain View, Calif., company rolled out the new feature a week ago giving consumers a free alternative to similar services offered by Amazon.com and Apple, which charge $25 for their services. But earlier this week, reports hit the Web saying users are having their songs switched out for incorrect versions that either bleep out words when they're not supposed to or don't when they should.

Carole King's life and times - and songs she wrote with her ex-husband, Gerry Goffin -- will be the stuff of “Beautiful: The Carole King Musical,” whose producers are aiming for a spring 2014 opening on Broadway. Playbill reports that producers Paul Blake and Sony/ATV Music Publishing are bannering the show's story as the biographical account of “Carole Klein [King's real name], Brooklyn girl with passion and chutzpah [who] fought her way into the record business as a teenager and, by the time she reached her twenties, had the husband of her dreams and a hot career writing hits for the biggest acts in rock 'n' roll.” Screenwriter Douglas McGrath (Woody Allen's “Bullets Over Broadway”)

Taylor Swift is firing back in her Vanity Fair cover story about all the rumors swirling around her: the boys, the songs, the houses. She even takes a moment to bash critically acclaimed Golden Globes hosts Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. In the magazine's April issue, Swift opens up about all the tabloid fodder the 23-year-old singer has amassed and reiterates a couple things she said in the March issue of Elle. Here are a few things we learned from the preview story: Despite popular opinion, Swift isn't boy crazy, and if you think she is, you're sexist: "For a female to write about her feelings," Swift said, "and then be portrayed as some clingy, insane, desperate girlfriend in need of making you marry her and have kids with her, I think that's taking something that potentially should be celebrated -- a woman writing about her feelings in a confessional way -- that's taking it and turning it and twisting it into something that is frankly a little sexist.

"People used to say nobody can sing my songs but me — they're too personal," Joni Mitchell explained last week during a rare interview. Apparently, nobody told John Kelly not to try adapting her songs. The renowned Obie Award-winning actor and performance artist has been belting out Mitchell's songs for more than 20 years. This weekend, the New York-based Kelly concludes the L.A. run of his acclaimed solo tribute to the iconic, iconoclastic singer-songwriter, "Paved Paradise: The Art of Joni Mitchell," at Renberg Theatre.

Three decades ago, an east Texas singer named George Jones took on an impossibly melodramatic, shamelessly sentimental song about a man who desperately clutched at lost love until his dying breath. His 1980 recording of "He Stopped Loving Her Today" became one of the most revered songs in country music history. Singers Hank Williams, Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard were known for the poetically crafted lyrics of their country standards. But Jones' anguish-drenched vocals elevated "He Stopped Loving Her Today" above its soap-opera lyrics in polls of the greatest country music songs.

Tom Jones sits in a cozy booth along one wall of a favorite Beverly Hills restaurant. At 72, his curly hair and neatly manicured mustache and goatee are more salt than pepper after his decision to give up black hair dye a few years ago. But Jones appears dapper as usual, ultra-tan and fit in his smart black suit and dark, ribbed crew-neck shirt. The era-spanning entertainer is here to talk about his new album, "Spirit in the Room," coming out Tuesday. His latest work continues a career rejuvenation that kicked off in earnest three years ago with "Praise & Blame," a collection produced by Kings of Leon producer Ethan Johns.

Kaunakakai, Hawaii - A fire that raged through Hotel Molokai's Hula Shores restaurant last spring did not keep the kupuna - and their audience - from claiming their spots near the lapping sea and coconut palms. For more than a decade, at 4 p.m. Fridays, 10 to 30 kupun a ("elders" in Hawaiian) have gathered at the hotel to strum their ukuleles and sing the lost songs of their youth. Half of the kupuna had their backs to the audience; instead of performing they sat around card tables sipping wine, laughing and enjoying themselves.

New Zealand became the latest country to legalize gay marriage on Wednesday, spurring cheers and applause inside and outside Parliament. Smiling couples and their supporters in the House of Commons broke into a Maori love song after the 77-44 vote was tallied. “Nothing could make me more proud to be a New Zealander than passing this bill,” Louisa Wall, the lawmaker who sponsored the marriage law, said Wednesday after thanking her partner. “I thank my colleagues, for simply doing what is fair, just and right.” With the Wednesday vote, New Zealand has become the first country in the Asia-Pacific region where gay marriage is legal.

SEOUL-- It was neither the threat of a North Korean missile launch nor a visit to Seoul by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry that kept South Koreans on their toes during the weekend. Rather, South Korean rapping sensation Psy and his new song and music video took center stage on the Korean peninsula. The 35-year-old "Gangnam Style" star, whose real name is Park Jae-sang, unveiled his new single, “Gentleman,” at midnight Thursday and performed the song live at a solo concert Saturday night.

The bitter partisanship that surrounded Margaret Thatcher when she served as British prime minister is extending into her political afterlife. A campaign by leftists to push the song "Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead" from "The Wizard of Oz" up the charts as a rebuke to Thatcher and her Conservative legacy has split opinion between those who call the gesture "distasteful" and "inappropriate," and others who still chafe at mention of the "Iron Lady's" name. TIMELINE: Coachella and Stagecoach Already the campaign has helped push the single to No. 3 on the pop charts and the top perch on iTunes, according to London's Daily Mail . Meanwhile, BBC Radio 1 has said that a "four- or five-" second" clip of the song will be played on the station's weekly official chart show.

The London Olympics won't get underway until this weekend, but numerous songs from these pop-heavy games have already been released. As part of its "Rock the Games" music program, the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games commissioned five songs. The first to appear was Muse's "Survival," and the last will be Dizzee Rascal's "Scream," which will be released midway through the games on Aug. 6. Here, we pit the official Olympic songs against one another and rank them the only way the Olympics know how: gold, silver and bronze.

Ben Jaffe, the tuba player and creative director for the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, was sitting in his Faubourg Marigny house one spring morning, drinking fresh-brewed New Orleans chicory coffee and worrying about the oil spill. He and music producer Bill Lynn had just watched oil executives blame one another for the Deepwater Horizon rig disaster, and Jaffe, who comes from a long line of jazz musicians, was sick of it. He glanced over at a glum Lynn, and as if by instinct, they started riffing on a standard New Orleans tune, "It Ain't My Fault."

NEW YORK - The songs are among the most popular of the baby boom era - "My Girl," "I Want You Back," "Dancing in the Streets. " They may be the staple of oldies radio; they haven't been part of a big Broadway musical. Now "Motown: The Musical" is about to become this season's big bet on the drawing power of the jukebox. The show will tell the real story that "Dreamgirls" was merely based on: the life of producer Berry Gordy, a onetime boxer who founded the Motown record label and signed some of the decade's biggest R&B stars, including the Supremes, the Temptations, the Four Tops, Smokey Robinson, the Jackson 5, Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye.

NEW YORK - Cyndi Lauper, garlanded in enough jewelry to make the Queen of Sheba jealous, is wondering if she should add yet another bauble. "It's a whatchamacallit, like a Sicilian good luck charm. Whaddya think?" she asks a coterie of assistants buzzing around Sardi's restaurant in Manhattan preparing her for a photo shoot. "Less is more," someone pipes up. PHOTOS: Hollywood stars on stage Lauper fixes her with a self-aware gaze. "Look who you're talkin' to," she says.