NAMES & FACES: They feel fine about meeting Paul

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NAMES & FACES: They feel fine about meeting Paul

November 20, 2006

Paul McCartney

BRIEFLY

On sale: "Individuals: Portraits from the Gap Collection," a new book to benefit (PRODUCT) RED, the campaign to fight AIDS in Africa. It has six different covers featuring images of Kim Basinger, Dizzy Gillespie, Whoopi Goldberg, Willie Nelson, Sarah Jessica Parker and Will Kemp and includes a music CD with music from Gap commercials. Published by Melcher Media at $35, the book brings together 250 of the best celebrity images from Gap ads.

Delayed: "The Polish Muslims Christmas CD," originally scheduled for release Tuesday, will be out Nov. 28 instead. The parody disc, which is to include the previously released "Yuletide Rock Operas 1 and 2," will also have the previously recorded "Michael Jackson's Neverland" (to "Winter Wonderland") and "Bring 'Em Back From Iraq" (to "Jingle Bell Rock"). The band is finishing work on several new tracks for the disc at Ferndale's Tempermill Studios. The disc will precede the band's annual Toys for Tots benefit performance on Jim Harper's WMGC-FM (105.1) Morning Show from 6 to 10 a.m. Dec. 1 at Oakland Mall.

Charitable: Pop singer-actress Hilary Duff, who donated more than 200,000 Thanksgiving meals to two hurricane shelters in Houston. Duff bought the meals through USA Harvest, for which she has done relief work in the past.

Announced: By Bravo, the lineup for the new season of "Inside the Actors Studio," starting Dec. 18. Eddie Murphy, Forest Whitaker, Matt Damon and Kyra Sedgwick will sit down with former Detroiter and host James Lipton to share their craft.

Win tickets to 'The Nutcracker'

Joffrey Ballet's "The Nutcracker" premieres at the Detroit Opera House Nov. 30. It is one of Detroit's grand holiday traditions!

Tchaikovsky's immortal score, played by the Michigan Opera Theatre Orchestra, along with E.T.A. Hoffman's original story, features choreography by Robert Joffrey and Gerald Arpino.

We have five pairs of tickets for performances Nov. 30 to Dec. 3.

To enter to win, send your name, postal address, daytime phone and the date you'd prefer to The Nutcracker Contest, 40900 N. Woodward Ave., Suite 300, Bloomfield Hills 48034. We'll select the winners at random from all entries received and notify them in time for the show.

Larry Decker is a local singer-songwriter who has played with a band called the Shy since 1981.

Decker's niece, Stephanie, was Web-surfing when she found maccaradio.com, an Internet radio site dedicated to the Beatles. After corresponding with the music director from the station about plans by her family (mom, dad, brother, sisters, grandma, aunt and uncle) to see Paul McCartney, her stories were forwarded to Mark Haefel.

He's a producer best known as director and writer of the "McCartney in Red Square" DVD. As it turned out, Haefel was looking for such stories to document during McCartney's U.S. tour for a possible new DVD. A contact and some video interviews followed.

On the night of McCartney's show earlier this year at the Palace, Decker says, the clan stopped at the troupe's dining area: "Mark said, 'Have some food and soft drinks and I'll be back,' " Decker recalls, "As I started to eat, I heard my sister-law, Jody, let out a little scream. When I looked up, I saw Sir Paul, mild-mannerly, walking into the room. My jaw dropped, my heart sped up and my brain said: 'This isn't happening. I'm leaving.' I think I had an out-of-body experience."

He continues: "Paul was kind, attentive and genuine to me, my wife, my 75-year-old mother and my brother and his family. He shook each of our hands, looked us each in the eye and made us feel that he really cared about us. He fulfilled my every expectation of what I thought of him."

The big climax? " Mark had e-mailed me and told me my family would be "prominently featured" in the DVD, and he wasn't kidding!" The family gets about five minutes of coverage.

Aretha's new tune

Detroit's Harmonie Park Music recorded Aretha Franklin's vocals for the uplifting rendition of "Never Gonna Break My Faith," written by Bryan Adams for the "Bobby" movie soundtrack.

"Bobby" focuses on the day in 1968 when presidential hopeful Sen. Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated. The song is a duet with Mary J. Blige.

Michael J. Powell and Mark Pastoria recorded Franklin's vocals at the Harmonie Park studios downtown two weeks ago. Brian Pastoria, Mark's bro, says the hope is that the only major music award Franklin has never been associated with -- a best song Oscar -- might come with the new tune.

The movie's soundtrack album, which hits stores Tuesday, has a heavy Motown leaning with tunes from Smokey Robinson & the Miracles, the Supremes, and Marvin Gaye.

No sparks on 'Betty'

Seems many "Ugly Betty" fans who harbor a secret hope that resident lothario-boss Daniel Meade will eschew his taste for lanky supermodels and fall in love with his less-than-glamorous charge shouldn't hold their breath.

TV Guide reports audience testing showed "the two things that the audience did not like was Betty getting a makeover and marrying her boss." Instead, Daniel and Betty will continue to develop a relationship in which they help each other grow.

Boyfriend shake-up

Elsewhere, TV's "Extra" confirmed that Teri Hatcher of "Desperate Housewives" is indeed dating costar Eva Longoria's ex-boyfriend, director Stephen Kay.