Joan Baez Among This Year’s Recipients of the Kennedy Center Honors

Joan Baez is set to receive a special honor in Our Nation’s Capital.

The 80-year-old half-Mexican American contemporary folk singer has been selected to receive the 43rd Kennedy Center Honors alongside Garth Brooks, violinist Midori, choreographer Debbie Allen and the ageless Dick Van Dyke.

Joan Baez

“It has been my life’s joy to make art,” said Baez in a statement. It’s also been my life’s joy to make, as the late Congressman John Lewis called it, ‘good trouble.’ What luck to have been born with the ability to do both; each one giving strength and credibility to the other.”

Traditionally held in December, the 2020 edition of the Kennedy Center Honors was postponed to May 2021 due to the ongoing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Live events and filming are planned for the week of May 17-22. The Honors Gala will be recorded for broadcast on CBS as a two-hour primetime special that will air on June 6 at 9:00 pm ET/PT.

But the pandemic will have an impact on how the event is staged, with live-filmed tributes and virtual moments to take the place of the traditional event in a packed Kennedy Center Opera House.

“The center’s entire campus will come alive with small, in-person events and re-envisioned virtual tributes. Featuring multiple events for physically-distant audiences in locations across the Kennedy Center’s campus…Programs for each event will encompass both performances and speaking tributes for the honorees,” according to a statement. “Virtual events will also be held throughout the week beginning May 17, and the viability of additional in-person events will be considered as COVID-19 safety protocols evolve over the upcoming months…An honoree medallion ceremony for the honorees and a limited audience will be hosted by the Kennedy Center during [the week of] May 17–22.”

Joan Baez

President-elect Joe Biden is expected to attend the Honors Gala, as presidents traditionally have done (barring a national crisis). Donald Trump was the first president to decline the invitation every year of his term.

This is the first time in five years that a majority of the honorees have been women. Carole King, Rita Moreno and Cicely Tyson were three of the five honorees in 2015.

“The Kennedy Center Honors serves as a moment to celebrate the remarkable artists who have spent their lives elevating the cultural history of our nation and world,” said David M. Rubenstein, Kennedy Center Chairman.

Here’s a look at each of this year’s honorees:

Joan Baez: The folk legend had three top 10 albums on the Billboard 200 in the 1960s, including Farewell, Angelina. Her classic version of Robbie Robertson’s “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1971. Baez was just 21 when she made the cover of Time in November 1962. Baez has one of the longest spans of Grammy nominations in history, from 1962 to 2018. She has yet to win a Grammy in competition (despite nine nods), but she received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Recording Academy in 2007.

Garth Brooks: The country star, 58, is one of the best-selling recording artists in history. The RIAA lists him second only to The Beatles, with 157 million albums sold in the U.S. (compared to 183 million for the Fab Four). He has had nine No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200, including Ropin’ the Wind, which topped the chart for 18 weeks, still the record for a country album. Brooks has amassed 14 CMA Awards, including a record seven awards for entertainer of the year. He was artist of the decade for the 1990s at the ACM Awards. He has won two Grammys. He received the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song last year. He made the cover of Time in 1992 in a story headlined “Country’s Big Boom.”

Midori: The Japanese-born American violinist, 49, was just 19 when she received her first (and to date only) Grammy nomination for best classical performance, instrumental soloist (without orchestra) for the album Paganini: 24 Caprices For Solo Violin Op. 1. She made her debut with the New York Philharmonic at age 11 as a surprise guest soloist at the New Year’s Eve Gala in 1982. 

Dick Van Dyke: The actor, 95, won three Emmys for The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961-66), which is widely regarded as the granddaddy of smart, sophisticated sitcoms. He also won an Emmy in 1977 for Van Dyke & Company, which took outstanding variety or music series. He was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame in 1995. He won a Tony in 1961 for Bye, Bye Birdie (in which he introduced the jaunty “Put on a Happy Face”) and a Grammy for 1964’s Mary Poppins (in which he took the lead in singing the Oscar-winning “Chim Chim Cher-ee”).

Debbie Allen: The actress, dancer, choreographer, singer-songwriter, director and producer, 70, has won three Emmys for choreography: two for Fame and one for Motown 30: What’s Goin’ On. She also received two Tony nods for acting in revivals of West Side Story (1980) and Sweet Charity (1986). She is a former member of the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities.

Monica Alba to Serve on NBC News’ White House Coverage Team

Monica Alba is heading to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

The Latina political reporter is joining NBC NewsWhite House team for coverage of President-elect Joe Biden’s administration.

Monica Alba

Alba covered President Donald Trump and the 2020 campaign. For the first two years of the Trump administration, she worked as a White House producer, traveling extensively with the president domestically and overseas.

Prior to that, Alba followed Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail as an embedded reporter for 18 months. And before the 2016 election, she was an associate producer in the NBC Investigative Unit in New York City.

Alba joins a team that includes Peter Alexander and Kristen Welker, who will serve as chief White House correspondents, and Geoff Bennett and Kelly O’Donnell, who will continue to serve as White House correspondents.

Correspondents Mike Memoli and Carol Lee also will continue in their roles covering Biden and politics.

Hallie Jackson, who had been chief White House correspondent, will take on a new role as senior Washington correspondent. She’ll continue to anchor the 10 a.m. hour on MSNBC, and plans are in the works for a new show on NBC News Now, which streams on Peacock.

NBC News president Noah Oppenheim announced the changes in a memo to employees.

Meanwhile, Andrea Mitchell, who has been chief foreign affairs correspondent, also will take on the title of chief Washington correspondent.

Shannon Pettypiece will continue to serve as senior digital White House reporter, and she’ll be joined by politics reporter Lauren Egan, who will cover breaking news.

Selena Gomez Calls Out Facebook, Twitter & More for Inability to Control Spread of Misinformation & Violent Rhetoric on Their Platforms

Selena Gomez has some harsh words for the leaders of the world’s biggest social media and web outlets…

After a massive crowd of rioters supporting President Donald Trump violently clashed with law enforcement Wednesday, storming the U.S. Capitol and sending the building into lockdown, both social media outlets imposed temporary freezes on Trump’s social media accounts.

Selena Gomez

Gomez, however, is calling out the tech giants for not doing enough, and for their inability to control the spread of misinformation and violent rhetoric on their platforms in recent months — which has allowed for both the President himself and his supporters to spread baseless claims of election fraud.

In a note shared to Twitter following the chaos in Washington D.C., Gomez specifically called out Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Google as entities, plus YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, and CEO of Alphabet Inc. and Google Sundar Pichai.

“Today is the result of allowing people with hate in their hearts to use platforms that should be used to bring people together and allow people to build community,” she wrote, before naming the aforementioned list of tech leaders. “You have all failed the American people today, and I hope you’re going to fix things moving forward.”

Gomez has openly shared her condemnation of Facebook’s misinformation before.

In December, she called out inaccuracies about the COVID-19 vaccine on the platform. “Scientific disinformation has and will cost lives,” she wrote. “@Facebook said they don’t allow lies about COVID and vaccines to be spread on their platforms. So how come all of this is still happening? Facebook is going to be responsible for thousands of deaths if they don’t take action now!”

Alex Padilla to Become First Latino to Represent California in U.S. Senate

Alex Padilla is the next senator from the great state of California…

Gov. Gavin Newsom is appointing the 47-year-old Mexican American politician, the state’s current Secretary of State, to fill Kamala HarrisU.S. Senate seat.

Alex Padilla

Padilla will be the first Latino senator to represent the Golden State.

“Through his tenacity, integrity, smarts and grit, California is gaining a tested fighter in their corner who will be a fierce ally in D.C., lifting up our state’s values and making sure we secure the critical resources to emerge stronger from this pandemic,” Newsom said in a statement. “He will be a senator for all Californians.”

Newsom posted a video, taken on Monday evening, in which he asked Padilla whether he wanted to take the post.

“You serious?” Padilla says in the video.

“This is the official, this is the ask, brother,” Newsom says.

Near tears, Padilla says, “I’m honored, man, and I am humbled.”

Padilla will face an election in 2022.

Padilla was atop the list of possible successors to Harris even before she was elected to the vice presidency. He’s a former Los Angeles city councilman and state senator, and was first elected secretary of state in 2014. He was re-elected in 2018.

He also has longtime ties to Newsom, having been chair of his first gubernatorial campaign in 2009.

“Whether you voted for (Joe) Biden or (Donald) Trump…  whether you live in the North State or the Southland…  whether you grew up speaking English, Spanish, Korean or Cantonese…  we are all Californians,” he wrote. “And I intend to be a Senator for all the people.”

Padilla emphasized his roots in the San Fernando Valley. The son of Mexican immigrants, he grew up in a three-bedroom house in Pacoima. “It wasn’t the safest neighborhood, but we had a backyard,” Padilla wrote.

Harris, the first California Democrat on a presidential ticket, hasn’t said whether she will resign her Senate seat before the President-elect Biden’s inauguration on January 20.

Naya Rivera Among The Celebrities Featured in Chris Barker’s Annual Beatles-Style Tribute to 2020’s Biggest Losses

Naya Rivera is getting a special tribute…

British artist Chris Barker‘s annual Beatles-style tribute to lost celebrities features some of 2020’s biggest losses, including the late half-Puerto Rican actress/singer and Glee star, who drowned in July while on an outing with her son on California’s Lake Piru, as well as soccer legend Diego Maradona, Little Richard, Chadwick Boseman and Van Halen guitarist Eddie Van Halen.

Naya Rivera

Barker, who has been meticulously crafting his homage to the infamous cover of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band since 2016 as a tribute to dearly departed pop culture icons and newsmakers — said his initial idea was to start with a blank slate in January and just add faces as the year went on.

The approach would’ve simply meant swapping out some images for more prominent ones as the year went on for a more “interactive” art project. But as this year just kept getting worse, he was glad he didn’t switch up his style.

Chris Barker's 2020 Sgt. Peppers Tribute

“Early spring I thought the devastating wildfires in Australia would be the defining moment of the year but, goodness me, 2020 just kept piling it on,” he tells Billboard. “So I had a couple of options of how to show this year was a year like no other. My immediate thought was social distancing; to have the characters all really spread out. But that would have proved really impractical.”

Instead, he stuck to the template of cramming as many singers, actors, athletes, public figures and news events as possible into the image, which this year includes everyone from police violence victim George Floyd to actors Kirk Douglas, Dave Prowse (Star WarsDarth Vader), Sean Connery, Diana Rigg, Monty Python‘s Terry Jones, Fred Willard and Jerry Stiller, as well as musical icons Florian Schneider (Kraftwerk), Peter Green (Fleetwood Mac), Kenny Rogers, Adam Schlesinger (Fountains of Wayne), reggae great Toots Hibbert, Neil Peart (Rush), Ronald Bell (Kool & the Gang), DJ José Padilla, Bonnie Pointer (Pointer Sisters) and Afrobeat star Tony Allen, among many others.

Barker’s next idea was to include a nod to how important masks were this year during the pandemic, but that would have made the concept way too complicated to pull off. After starting work a month earlier than usual (in September), he realized masking the figures would make many of them unrecognizable, and posting it around the American election as he usually does would likely leave too many important figures off in a year when the devastating hits just kept on coming.

“Who knew what else could be just around the corner? It has been such an awful, bleak year,” he said, revealing that his original background was a red sky with burning forests in a nod to the devastating Australian and American wildfires. But with Joe Biden‘s victory over one-term President Donald Trump last month and talk of a COVID-19 vaccine right around the corner, suddenly there was a glimmer of hope. And instead of sticking the Biden/Harris logo “in the middle of a burning hellscape,” the Trump campaign gave him an unexpected gift with lawyer Rudy Giuliani‘s legendarily disastrous presser at Four Seasons Total Landscaping.

“The surreal backdrop perfectly encapsulates the final nail in the coffin of the nightmarish Trump administration that inspired this whole project,” Barker said. “When I first did the 2016 montage, the loss of such an overwhelming number of iconic heroes was undoubtedly one of the defining stories of the year — even overshadowing Brexit and Trump. But this year, obviously the huge number of deaths from coronavirus is far more significant.”

With the real human cost of losses from COVID-19 piling up every day, Barker decided that the chalky floor of the Four Seasons parking lot was the perfect backdrop for an homage that also includes the losses of nearly 1.5 million worldwide to COVID, Trump’s presidency, Spencer Davis, Jeopardy host Alex Trebek, drag queen Chi Chi DeVayne, directors Alan Parker and Joel Schumacher, magician Roy Horn, Glee‘s Rivera, Lakers legend Kobe Bryant, Vera Lynn, Kelly Preston, and Gone With the Wind star Olivia de Havilland.

“Every line a reminder of a life taken, a family ripped apart. Every time I do this montage it is an emotional journey, however detached I may get from the subject matter while I’m in the thick of the Photoshop, when I put the list together for the key at the end and look at it, it is a quite sobering moment,” he said. “I know a lot of people who have lost family members this year and I always try to remember that all the people I am including have left people behind too. I have to try to be respectful to everyone and to pay tribute to them and the way they lived their lives.”

There are always a few losses that hit Barker the hardest, and this year for him it was Kraftwerk’s Schneider, Game of Thrones star Rigg and Python’s Jones.

All he asks is that if you are moved by his work, donate to the UK’s NHS charities this year.

Alejandro Mayorkas to Become First Latino to Helm the U.S. Department of Homeland Security

Alejandro Mayorkas is making political history…

U.S. president-elect Joe Biden has nominated the 61-year-old Cuban lawyer and former deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security as the first Latino to helm department.

Alejandro Mayorkas

Mayorkas will be tasked with rebuilding an agency that carried out some of the most draconian measures associated with President Donald Trump‘s hardline immigration policy, including family separations at the US-Mexico border.

The choice reflects Biden’s desire to construct a diverse Cabinet with experts versed in public policy and deep experience in government.

In taking over the DHS, Mayorkas faces the greatest domestic challenge.

The department became the enforcement arm of some of Trump’s most controversial programs.

His selection received an early endorsement from former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro, who ran in the Democratic presidential primary and has emerged as a leading immigrants’ rights advocate.

“Alejandro Mayorkas is a historic and experienced choice to lead an agency in desperate need of reform,” Castro tweeted. “As an immigrant and a creator of the DACA program, he’s well suited to undo Trump’s damage and build a more compassionate and common sense immigration agenda.”

Dr. Robert Rodriguez Named to President-Elect Joe Biden’s COVID-19 Advisory Board

Dr. Robert Rodriguez is ready to fight the coronavirus pandemic in a big way…

The Latino doctor, a native of Brownsville, Texas, is among the health officials named to President-elect Joe Biden‘s COVID-19 advisory board.

Dr. Robert Rodriguez

Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris received their first briefing from the board on Monday morning in Wilmington, Delaware.The team will be led by three co-chairs: former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, former Food and Drug Administrator commissioner Dr. David Kessler and Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith, a professor of medicine at Yale University.

Thirteen co-chairs and members will comprise the board, including Rodriguez.

He graduated from Harvard Medical School, returned home to the Rio Grande Valley as the number of people dying from coronavirus soared over the summer. He volunteered to help with the critical surge in the ICU.

He told ABC News in July that he saw at least one person die daily from the virus.

“Everybody is wearing masks here. The spread is not because people aren’t being responsible. I think it’s largely due to socioeconomic issues,” Rodriguez said at the time. “The best way you can take care of frontline providers and everybody else here in the hospital is by taking care of yourself.”

Currently, Rodriguez serves as a Professor of Emergency Medicine at the UCSF School of Medicine, where he works on the frontline in the emergency department and ICU of two major trauma centers.

According to a release from Biden’s transition team, Rodriguez has authored over 100 scientific publications and has led national research teams examining a range of topics in medicine, including the impact of COVID-19 on the mental health of frontline workers.

It’s not clear whether or not President Donald Trump‘s administration will work with Biden’s task force. However, Biden says he plans to reach out to governors about a state mask mandate as soon as possible.

Alejandro Escovedo Earns First Entry on a Billboard Latin Chart with “La Cruzada”

Alejandro Escovedo is celebrating a special first…

The 69-year-old Mexican American rock musician has notched his first entry on any Billboard Latin chart as La Cruzada, with Don Antonio, arrives at No. 8 on the Latin Pop Albums chart (dated November 7) with 1,000 equivalent album units earned in the week ending October 29, according to Nielsen Music/MRC Data.

La Cruzada is the Spanish version of Escovedo’s 2018 album The Crossing, with Don Antonio, which bowed at No. 6 on the Heatseekers Albums chart and at No. 28 on the Rock Albums Sales charts in September 2018.

Alejandro is a member of the storied Escovedo music family, which includes his brothers Pete and Coke, and niece Sheila E.

“It’s been a while since I was on the charts,” Escovedo tells Billboard from his home in Austin, Texas. “To have this record on the chart is very rewarding, such a beautiful thing for me. It seems my whole lifetime has led to this record. This is kind of the epitome of what I always wanted to do and express. I love the concept of an album, I love the storytelling of an album, this one gave me an opportunity to fully express in a way that I don’t think I had in previous records.”

Escovedo’s The Crossing, with Italian band Don Antonio -fronted by multi-instrumentalist Antonio Garmantieri, was co-written with Garmantieri and recorded in Emilia-Romagna, Italy. Its Spanish version, La Cruzada, was released via Yep Roc/Redeye and pressed on red, white and green striped double vinyl exclusively for Record Store Day.

Two years after the release of its original English version, La Cruzada secures a spot on the Latin charts. “I thought the message had to be heard,” Escovedo adds. “My father was born in Saucillo, Mexico and crossed the border in 1907 when he was 12. I come from a musical family, my brother Pete and Coke Escovedo played for Santana, and Sheila E is my niece. The story of The Crossing and La Cruzada is really about my family, my father.”

He continues, “When (Donald) Trump came down the escalator and announced that some Mexicans were rapists and drug dealers I really took a stand, of course, as a lot of us probably did. I thought this is something that needs to be addressed. I’ve always tried to tell my Dad’s story, but I’ve never had a large Latin audience because I come from rock-and-roll, punk rock, and I sing in English.”

About La Cruzada’s 1,000 limited copies, Escovedo adds: “The record was just going to be a Record Store Day release in vinyl with the special packaging. Then the label was supposed to put it out as a general release for everyone on CD and vinyl, but because of Covid our tour was cancelled, and the release of the record was delayed. Not sure where that hangs right now with but hopefully with this Billboard attention they see there’s potential for a larger audience.”

“We used the same backing tracks we recorded for The Crossing,” Escovedo adds. “We translated the lyrics and Alex Ruiz, lead singer of band Del Castillo, recorded the vocals in Spanish at Rick del Castillo’s studio. I did some of the background vocals with him. I wanted Alex’s voice, though, I thought he could articulate the words in a way I probably wouldn’t because my Spanish isn’t that great.”

About the production of The Crossings Escovedo remembers: “My wife and I flew to Italy and spent a month making this record out there with Don Antonio. The distance somehow gave me the way of seeing the story and America in a different eye. Traveling is something I recommend, to see the world through other people’s eyes, to have a different view point.”

The album tells the tale of two boys — Diego from Mexico and Salva from Italy — who meet while working in a restaurant in Galveston, Texas to chase their American rock-and-roll dreams. La Cruzada gets the same treatment en español and earns Escovedo and Don Antonio their first top 10 on any Latin chart.

“It’s crazy!” Escovedo muses. “When my manager Randy gave me the news, it just went over my head and I didn’t understand it. I thought, ‘Oh, we’re going to do an interview with Billboard on the record,’ which I thought was wonderful, any attention is great. Then at the end of the conversation I said, ‘Tell me that again, what happened with the record?’ and he says: ‘You are No. 8 — in the top 10 — on the Latin Pop Albums chart.’ I flipped out; that’s something that’s never happened for me and this is a real blessing for us, it brought a lot of joy to another wise strange and dark and uncertain day.”

The Lincoln Project Releases Emotional Music Video to Demi Lovato’s “Commander in Chief”

The Lincoln Project is taking Demi Lovato’s politically charged new single “Commander in Chief” and building on it’s emotional message.

Demi Lovato

The anti-Trump political action committee has shared their own music video for the song. It shows clips of the devastating effects of the president’s mismanagement of the coronavirus, of people on ventilators in hospitals and families with masks only able to talk to each other through glass doors. The scene then turns to the Black Lives Matter movement, as thousands of protesters took to the streets across the nation to demand justice for George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and more who have been killed at the hands of police.

The vignette ends on an uplifting note, with people of all races, ages and genders coming together to vote in the presidential election.

“Demi Lovato put it best,” the description reads, and links out to a donation page for The Lincoln Project, which will go to voter outreach programs in an effort to “end the suffering, end the corruption, and end the presidency of the worst ‘Commander in Chief’ in our country’s history.”

Demi Lovato to Take Part in Vote With Us Virtual Rally on “Vote Early Day,” Saturday, October 24th

Demi Lovato is encouraging you to vote with her…

The 28-year-old part-Mexican American singer will appear during the Vote With Us virtual rally, which is set to livestream on “Vote Early Day,” on Saturday, October 24th.

Demi Lovato

Lovato joins a roster of A-list participants that includes Justin Bieber, Mark Ruffalo and Vic Mensa.

Andra Day will also perform “Remember I Bleed” and the War and Treaty will cover John Lennon’s “Power to the People” during the three-hour event, which highlights early vote events in Atlanta, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, and Phoenix.

The Vote for Us livestream will also show clips from the upcoming documentary Us Kids, featuring survivors of the Parkland school shooting-turned-activists Emma González, David Hogg, Jaclyn Corin, Samantha Fuentes, Bria Smith and Alex King.

“To vote is to harness your power, and we have to use the power that’s given to us,” Gonzalez said in a statement. “Don’t just vote for yourself, vote for every person; for every person whose basic rights are at risk, for every person who can’t vote because they are undocumented or incarcerated, for every person who is affected by the system and for every person who fought with everything they had just to give us the right to vote. Vote because you can. Vote because we haven’t always been able to.”

Organizers behind advocacy groups We Stand United, March On, Future Coalition, Us Kids Film (Sundance 2020), Black Voters Matter, M.O.B.B., Headcount, Vote Early Day, Future Coalition, All in for Voting, Pull Up Neighbor, Black Men Vote, Ballot Ready, Milk Studios, Collective Education Fund, APAI Vote, RepresentUs, League of Women Voters, The Early Vote, and Civic Power Media have united for the first time for the Vote With Us event, which aims to increase voter turnout among young voters.

“Young people are done watching older generations gamble our futures away for the sake of power,” said Katie Eder, Executive Director of Future Coalition, said in a statement. “We’ve spent much of 2020 making our message loud and clear in the streets, and we’re going to make it binding at the ballot box, too. After November 3, nobody will say anymore that young people don’t show up. We are showing up in record numbers and we are the ones who are about to decide the future of our country.”

The Vote With Us rally will livestream both at the official site and YouTube as well as partner coalitions’ social media pages on October 24th beginning 3:00 pm EST.

Lovato has upped her political voice in the last week, with the release of her Trump-bashing song “Commander In Chief.”