Former X-Ray Spex  lead singer Poly Styrene, a.k.a. Marianne Elliott-Said, who began resurrecting her dormant musical career with the December release of a holiday single and recently completed work on a new solo album, announced Friday that she has been diagnosed with cancer. A statement issued by her publicist didn’t specify the type of cancer she has, but said she is undergoing “various treatments.”

She has been tweeting about her diagnosis, telling her Twitter followers, "It's been a bit of a battle fighting this cancer but hey ho I'm still alive,” and “Hoping & praying I can fight this cancer. Thank u all 4 ur positive vibes, I'm overwhelmed, ur keeping me in the land of living.”

Consequently she said she will not be lining up any live performances but still expects to release her album, “Generation Indigo,” on April 26 as scheduled. She and members of X-Ray Spex reunited in 2008, whetting her appetite to make music again.

A rare female presence on the male-dominated British punk rock scene of the late-'70s, Elliot in her band’s short-lived career provided a role model for female musicians of the subsequent Riot Grrrl movement.

X-Ray Spex, a contemporary of the Sex Pistols and the Clash, created a classic single of first-wave British punk with its feminist anthem “Oh Bondage, Up Yours.” Following the release of her debut solo album "Translucence" in the '80s, Elliot dropped out of the music scene and joined a Hare Krishna sect.

Elliot’s recent holiday single carried the appropriately bleak title “Black Christmas.” She’s already assembled a video for her new album's first single, “Virtual Boyfriend,” a bouncy, dance-minded track about a couple whose only contact is over the Internet.

--Randy Lewis

Photo: Poly Styrene. Credit: Fabrizio Rainone.

Moby, the Crystal Method and artist Shepard Fairey will headline the Courage Campaign's “Dance for Equality” fundraiser on Tuesday, March 2, at Avalon in Hollywood in support of legal efforts defending same-sex marriages.

Other celebrities scheduled to  be on hand include “House” star Lisa Edelstein, who will host the evening; Oscar-winning writer-director Paul Haggis (“Million Dollar Baby,” “Crash”); and AIDS activist Cleve Jones. KCRW-FM program director and “Morning Becomes Eclectic” host Jason Bentley and DJ Dan also will participate.

Proceeds benefit the Courage Campaign’s efforts to overturn California’s Prop. 8 banning same-sex marriages.

Tickets are $25 in advance, available through the Courage Campaign’s web site, and $35 at the door.

--Randy Lewis

Photo of Moby performing in Malibu in 2008. Credit: Los Angeles Times.

Country kingpin Garth Brooks, Oklahoma rocker Leon Russell and New Orleans R&B godfather Allen Toussaint are among the 2011 inductees to the Songwriters Hall of Fame. They’ll be honored at a June 16 ceremony in New York City along with John Bettis and the team of Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelly, whose songs became hits in the hands of Michael Jackson, Madonna, Cyndi Lauper, Whitney Houston and many others.

Toussaint’s compositions over nearly six decades have been recorded by artists including Paul McCartney, Elvis Costello, the Rolling Stones, Glen Campbell, the Pointer Sisters, Irma Thomas and Lee Dorsey.

"We are inspired by the striking caliber and range of the 2011 Songwriters Hall of Fame class," hall chairman and songwriter Jimmy Webb said in a statement issued Tuesday announcing the honorees for the organization's 42nd induction and awards dinner.

Upon the announcement, Brooks issued a statement saying, “To consider myself a 'songwriter' is something I find hard to agree with, for it is the songwriter that is the most gifted and most important ingredient in the music formula.  I am humbled and flattered by this award and want to thank the songwriters I have written with in the past.  I feel it is because of them I am receiving this award."

Previous inductees include Kris Kristofferson, Bruce Springsteen, Dolly Parton, Van Morrison, Leonard Cohen, Elton John and Bernie Taupin  and James Brown.

-- Randy Lewis

Photo: Garth Brooks during 2008 benefit performance at Staples Center in Los Angeles. Credit:  Los Angeles Times

The musical treats for pop fans continue to roll out in conjunction with national Record Store Day on April 16, the annual event hosted by a consortium of independent record  retailers to recognize merchants who still sell music from brick-and-mortar stores.

Capitol/EMI will put out a 78 rpm vinyl double disc set pairing two Beach Boys’ high watermark recordings, “Good Vibrations” and “Heroes and Villains,” both recorded after the “Pet Sounds” album during sessions for the highly anticipated “SMiLe” album that was eventually shelved. The Record Store Day set will include commercially released versions of both songs on the first disc, and early alternate takes of both on the second. 

 
Along with the coup of what figures to be one of a small handful of Eminem live appearances in 2011, this year’s Bonnaroo Festival in Tennesee also has in store a reunion performance in June by surviving original members of Buffalo Springfield, festival organizers announced today.

Neil Young, Richie Furay and Stephen Stills played together for the first time since 1968 last fall at Young’s annual Bridge School benefit concerts in Mountain View in Northern California. For those two shows, Springfield charter members were backed by longtime Young bassist Rick Rosas (filling in for Bruce Palmer, who died in 2004) and Crosby, Stills & Nash drummer Joe Vitale (taking over for Dewey Martin, who died in 2009).

They ran through a generous sampling of Springfield’s influential rock-folk-country songbook, including “For What it’s Worth (Stop, Hey, What’s That Sound),” “Rock & Roll Woman,” “Mr. Soul,” “Bluebird,”  “Kind Woman,” “I Am A Child” and “On the Way Home.”

After those performances, the three reportedly were so satisfied by the outcome that they started talking about doing more shows in 2011. Nothing is official yet, but the announcement of the Bonnaroo appearance raises the possibility of Springfield dates in Southern California, where the group formed in 1966.

In addition to the Springfield reunion, the Bonnaroo lineup also has a tantalizing reunion of two of the key forces in New Orleans R&B and funk: Dr. John and the Meters.  They plan to play their 1974 collaborative album “Desitively Bonnaroo,” from which the festival takes its name, in its entirety for the first time in public.

Bonnaroo will run June 9 through 12 in Manchester, Tenn.

— Randy Lewis

Photo of reunited Buffalo Springfield at Neil Young's Bridge School concerts in October 2010: drummer Joe Vitale, left, Stephen Stills,  Richie Furay, Neil Young and bassist Rick Rosas. Credit: Eleanor Stills.

 
Americana songwriter, singer, guitarist and producer Buddy Miller’s latest project, the Majestic Silver Strings, surfaces March 1 in a new album named for the stellar collection of players who join him: Marc Ribot, Bill Frisell and Greg Leisz.

In conjunction with the album’s release, the quartet of esteemed guitarists will make what’s billed as their only concert appearance together this year at a performance and question-answer session the following week at the downtown L.A. Grammy Museum.

At the March 10 session, they plan to discuss the album’s reinterpretations of country and folk music standards including George Jones' first hit, “Why Baby Why,” Eddy Arnold’s “Cattle Call,” Roger Miller’s “Dang Me” and the cowboy classic “Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie,” along with several originals. Among the guest vocalists on the album are Emmylou Harris, Patty Griffin, Shawn Colvin, Lee Ann Womack, Chocolate Genius Inc. and Miller’s wife, singer-songwriter Julie Miller.

For the Grammy Museum show, Buddy Miller, who produced Robert Plant's latest album, "Band of Joy," Ribot, Frisell and Leisz will be backed by bassist Dennis Crouch and percussionist Jay Bellerose, who also play on the album. Tickets go on sale Friday at Ticketmaster or through the museum’s box office.

The album release will include a DVD with highlights of the only other performance by the Majestic Silver Strings, last year in Nashville.

-- Randy Lewis

Photo of the Majestic Silver Strings, from left: Bill Frisell, Buddy Miller, Greg Leisz and Marc Ribot. Credit: Michael Wilson.

What do Rob Zombie, Neil Young, Bette Midler, John Legend and Elton John have in common?

They’ll all be onstage in New York in March, along with Paul Simon, Lloyd Price and the Doors’ John Densmore, welcoming the latest class of inductees into the Rock and Roll of Fame, hall officials will announce Tuesday.

Zombie has been tapped to welcome in one of his musical forebears, shock-rock pioneer Alice Cooper; Young will induct fellow iconoclast Tom Waits; John will bring in his friend and recent collaborator Leon Russell; and Simon will deliver remarks on Neil Diamond. Legend inducts Dr. John,  Midler will handle Darlene Love and Densmore gets Elektra Records founder Jac Holzman, who signed the Doors and launched their recording career.

The ceremony is scheduled for March 14 at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City.

-- Randy Lewis

Photo (left) of Alice Cooper. Credit: Ethan Miller

Photo (right) of Rob Zombie: Credit: Stephen C. Mitchell / EPA

Elvis Costello’s Spinning Songbook will whirl once more. The singer and songwriter will trot out the device he used on tour in 1986 for a new round of shows that allows audience members to select the songs at each night’s performance.

The game show wheel will include the titles of 40 songs and a different audience member will be invited onstage to spin the wheel to determine each successive song. While their song is being played, fans will have a choice of sitting in the “Hostage to Fortune Go-Go Cage” or in the onstage “Society Lounge,” where they will be served light refreshments. His 1986 tour with the spinning wheel remains one of Costello’s most celebrated.

Costello’s tour, dubbed “The Revolver Tour,” will encompass 10 shows in eight cities, starting May 7 in Reno, Nev., stopping May 11 at the Wiltern Theatre in Los Angeles and concluding with a pair of shows May 22-23 at New York’s Beacon Theatre.

Costello will be accompanied by the Imposters: his longtime keyboardist Steve Nieve, drummer Pete Thomas and guitarist Davey Faragher. Costello donated the original Spinning Songbook wheel to the Hartlepool (England) Museum of Showbusiness Machinery. The one he’ll use on the new tour has been reconstructed from the original blueprints.

Tickets for the Wiltern show go on sale Feb. 11; details are on Costello's website.

--Randy Lewis

The White Stripes are calling it a day.

In a statement posted Wednesday on their website, interest in which apparently caused the site to crash Wednesday morning, Jack and Meg White jointly said they will make no more recordings or live appearances as the White Stripes.

Here’s the full text:

The note Lucinda Williams sent when I asked Wednesday for her reflections about Louvin Brothers singer Charlie Louvin, on getting word of his death at age 83 from pancreatic cancer, was exceptionally touching, and warm and funny.

I quoted just part of it in the obituary I wrote for Thursday's paper, but the whole thing is worth sharing:

"I got word of Charlie Louvin's passing today, which is also my birthday. Losing Charlie means that we have lost one of the last of the founding fathers of honest-to-god country music. Charlie was a legend as one half of the Louvin Brothers and left a deep impression on me. I had the honor of working with him in the studio and touring with him.

"Every show would end with the two of us trading out verses on his song, 'When I Stop Dreaming' followed by my song 'Get Right With God,'" Williams wrote in her e-mail, "Charlie loved that song and he loved to dance and as the band rocked out, he would grab my arms and spin me around.

"One time we were performing in Kansas City outdoors and it was very windy that evening. Charlie's set list kept blowing away. At one point, he'd finally had enough and he grabbed his pocket knife and planted that thing right through the set list into the stage floor to keep it from blowing away. Later, that same night, after the show, we sat on the bus and, with sadness in his eyes, he told us that, on the way to Kansas City, we had driven right by the milepost where his brother, Ira, had been killed in a car wreck.

"Charlie was eternally youthful, full of spitfire, vim and vigor and, like Hank Williams, was a true punk, in the best sense of the word. We will miss Charlie but like he said, shortly before he left us, 'I'm ready to go home.'"

Hollywood Bowl-minded pop, rock, jazz and country fans have some intriguing choices ahead in the 2011 season being announced Wednesday.

Perhaps tops on the list is an Aug. 17 date in which the music of the acclaimed singer and songwriter Joni Mitchell will presented with a “Jazz at the Bowl” evening under the direction of drummer Brian Blade and featuring jazz musicians still to be announced. In addition, country music queen Dolly Parton is slated to give her first Bowl concerts on July 22 and 23, and Canadian singer-songwriter Sarah McLachlan makes her concert debut with an orchestra when the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra accompanies her on July 15 and 16.

The pop offerings will also include the usual sampling of international music under the umbrella of the KCRW-FM (89.9) World Festival, this year featuring a Serge Gainsbourg Tribute with Gainsbourg’s longtime collaborator, conductor and composer Jean Claude Vannier and guest singers Beck, Sean lennon, China Forbes and Charlotte Kemp Muhl on Aug. 28. 

Other highlights of the world festival include the reunited Japanese electronic band Yellow Magic Orchestra, with Big in Japan and Cibo Matto, on June 26; a reggae program with Ziggy Marley, Maytals singer Toots Hibbert and the Mighty Diamonds (July 31); and a soul review led by “American Idol” bandleader Rickey Minor with guests Stevie Wonder, Rocky Dawuni and Ceci Bastida (July 24).

In the Beatles’ song “Across the Universe,” John Lennon famously sang that “Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup,” and next year a slew of the former Beatle’s words that flowed onto paper in the form of his private letters will be collected in a volume to be published by London-based Orion Books, according to the Guardian in London.

Orion bought the rights from Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono, to about 150 letters filling hundreds of pages that Lennon wrote over the years to friends, fans and business associates. The physical letters have been in the possession of Beatles biographer Hunter Davies, but Ono controls the intellectual property rights to them.

"These letters have never been collected in one place before, and for the most part they have never been seen before," Orion Publishing Group executive Alan Samson told the Guardian. "The other reason people have gone crazy for it is the fact that there are half a dozen icons of the 20th century –- Marilyn Monroe, Kennedy, Elvis –- and Lennon is one of them."

Orion plans to publish them in October 2012 in conjunction with the 50th anniversary of the release of the Beatles' first hit single, “Love Me Do.” The price Samson and Orion paid has not been specified, but is said to be between 500,000 and 1 million pounds, or between $800,000 and $1.6 million U.S. dollars.

"They are full of wonderful drawings,” Samson said. “They are funny, sad ... they are very human letters."

-- Randy Lewis

Photo of John Lennon in 1980. Credit: David Spindel/PBS