Journalist, Author & Syndicated Columnist
At barely 5 feet and 90 pounds, Anita Baker is as talented as she is petite. Her soldout concert Saturday night at the Arie Crown Theater — the second of three consecutive Chicago dates – proved that she has no problem matching the exuberance and joy she expresses on her gold album, “Rapture.”
A lot of people are fooled by his name. Patrick Francis Bishop sounds about as American as you can get. But the Eurasian star of “General Hospital” considers himself more Asian than Caucasian. “I think it’s the same for most kids of mixed marriages,” Bishop said. “If a person’s half black and half white, society tends to think of him or her as black.”
Blame it on the babies. That’s what General Public’s Ranking Roger (a.k.a. Roger Charlery) said when asked why the group took two years to release its second album. Both Roger and Dave Wakeling, the British nucleus of the band, became fathers for the second time during the recording of “Hand to Mouth,” the followup to 1984’s “. . . All the Rage.”
“I know to some people we sound like a magician act,” said singer David Baerwald. “But we decided on our name quite simply. David (Ricketts) and I were rehearsing, and people would just talk to us as if we were one person. It’d be, `What do you think about that, David and David?’ It was kind of funny at first, but then we just ended up liking the sound of it. We couldn’t think of a better name that described us, so well, so we stuck with it.”
“Our music is live sex,” said Adam Sherburne, singer and guitarist for the San Francisco-based trio Until December. “We look good, sound great and put on fun shows for the audience. We’re your atypical all-American band out for a good time.”
Before he hit it big last year as the Russian boxer in “Rocky IV,” Dolph Lundgren was best known as the boyfriend of singer/actress Grace Jones. Today, the Swedish actor doesn’t have a steady girlfriend. He’s too busy starring in “Masters of the Universe” for Cannon Films.