Canadian singer Bryan Adams tests positive for COVID after flying to Italy

MILAN, Nov 25 (Reuters) - Canadian singer Bryan Adams said on Thursday he had tested positive for COVID-19 after flying into Italy and was going to hospital.

Adams, who is also a photographer, came to Milan to promote Pirelli's 2022 calendar, which he had shot.

"Here I am, just arrived in Milano and I've tested positive for the second time in a month for Covid. So it's off to hospital for me," he said in a post on Instagram, showing a photo of himself wearing a mask, sat behind a table.

"Thanks for all your support," he said.

Adams wrote in a post dated Oct. 31 that he had had COVID, but had not suffered any symptoms. He subsequently performed concerts in Las Vegas before heading to Italy.

Reporting by Crispian Balmer; Editing by Daniel Wallis

-reuters-

Justin Bieber hit with 'Sorry' copyright suit

NEW YORK, United States - An indie pop singer has filed a copyright violation lawsuit against Justin Bieber, saying the superstar stole the distinctive vocal riff in his hit "Sorry" from her.

Casey Dienel -- who performs under the stage name White Hinterland and has won acclaim in indie music circles -- said she was entitled to "substantial" profits from Bieber's song, saying the amount should be determined at a jury trial.

"Ring the Bell," a track from White Hinterland's third album "Baby," released in early 2014, opens with a repeated four-note progression in her airy voice before synthesizers come in.

"Sorry," from the Canadian celebrity singer's album "Purpose," which came out in November, is also built on a repeated vocal riff interspersed with a dance beat.

"An ordinary lay listener would instantly recognize the sample and similarity between the songs," said the lawsuit filed this week in a federal court in Nashville.

The complaint alleges that the riff is so similar -- moving from the notes of B-flat to C to E-flat to F -- that Bieber's team took "Ring the Bell" as a sample and distorted it electronically without her permission.

Dienel said she repeatedly tried to contact Bieber's team to no response.

Bieber did not immediately comment on the lawsuit.

The suit also names Bieber's songwriters as defendants, including Skrillex, a leading electronic music producer.

Skrillex and Diplo, another prominent producer, helped Bieber craft a new tropical house sound for "Purpose," the third top-selling album in the United States last year.

Some fans interpreted "Sorry" -- with its refrain "Is it too late now to say I'm sorry?" -- as the former child star's apology of sorts for his past antics or a message to his ex-girlfriend, fellow singer Selena Gomez.

The 22-year-old has had a string of legal run-ins for incidents including throwing eggs at a neighbor's house, driving under the influence of alcohol without a license and allegedly assaulting a photographer.

The number of copyright cases against major musicians has been growing in recent months.

Last year, a Los Angeles jury ordered pop stars Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams to pay more than $7 million to the estate of the late Marvin Gaye over their hit song "Blurred Lines."

Dienel, who was raised in Massachusetts and lives in the indie rock capital of Portland, Oregon, was initially known for jazzy, piano-backed pop but has increasingly brought in electronic elements.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Singer Celine Dion's brother near death - newspaper

Canadian singer Celine Dion, whose husband died earlier this week, is facing another family crisis with a brother on the verge of death, a Montreal newspaper reported on Friday.

Daniel Dion, 59, one of her 13 siblings, has cancer and may have only a matter of days to live, sister Claudette Dion told the Journal of Montreal.

"It's very painful. It's a matter of days or hours," she told the paper after visiting her brother in the hospital.

Celine Dion, 47, asked for privacy after she announced on Thursday the death of her husband and long-time manager, René Angélil, at the age of 73 after a long battle with throat cancer.

"He will be remembered as a gentle man, generous and kind, an unprecedented visionary, a modern Pygmalion, a Renaissance man," she said in a Facebook post.

She has not made any recent comments on the site about her brother.

Angélil stepped down as Dion's manager in 2014, turning her career over to a friend of the couple but he remained involved in business decisions.

The Canadian entertainment manager, who discovered Dion when she was 12-years-old and drove her career to stardom, married her in 1994 at a lavish wedding in Montreal's Notre Dame Basilica.

The couple have three sons, René-Charles, 14, and 5-year-old twins Nelson and Eddy.

Angélil's illness, first diagnosed in 1999, prompted Dion to put her career on hold in 2014, suspending her Las Vegas residency. Dion said he supported her later return to the stage.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com