R.A. Dickey, David Price win Cy Young awards

NEW YORK (AP) — R.A. Dickey languished in the minors for 14 years, bouncing from one team to another before finally perfecting that perplexing knuckleball that made him a major league star.

David Price was the top pick in the draft and an ace by age 25, throwing 98 mph heat with a left arm live enough to make the most hardened scout sing.

Raised only 34 miles apart in central Tennessee, Dickey and Price won baseball's Cy Young awards on Wednesday — one by a wide margin, the other in a tight vote.

Two paths to the pantheon of pitching have rarely been more different.

"Isn't that awesome?" said Dickey, the first knuckleballer to win a Cy Young. "It just shows you there's not just one way to do it, and it gives hope to a lot of people."

Dickey said he jumped up and yelled in excitement, scaring one of his kids, when he saw on television that Price edged Justin Verlander for the American League prize. Both winners are represented by Bo McKinnis, who watched the announcements with Dickey at his home in Nashville, Tenn.

"I guess we can call him Cy agent now," Price quipped on a conference call.

The hard-throwing lefty barely beat out Verlander in balloting by the Baseball Writers' Association of America, preventing the Detroit Tigers' ace from winning consecutive Cy Youngs.

Runner-up two years ago, Price was the pick this time. He received 14 of 28 first-place votes and finished with 153 points to 149 for Verlander, chosen first on 13 ballots.

"It means a lot," Price said. "It's something that I'll always have. It's something that they can't take away from me."

Other than a 1969 tie between Mike Cuellar and Denny McLain, it was the closest race in the history of the AL award.

Rays closer Fernando Rodney got the other first-place vote and came in fifth.

The 38-year-old Dickey was listed first on 27 of 32 National League ballots and totaled 209 points, 113 more than 2011 winner Clayton Kershaw of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Washington lefty Gio Gonzalez finished third.

Cincinnati right-hander Johnny Cueto and Atlanta closer Craig Kimbrel each received a first-place vote, as did Gonzalez. Kershaw had two.

Dickey joined Dwight Gooden (1985) and three-time winner Tom Seaver as the only Mets to win the award. The right-hander went 20-6 with a 2.73 ERA, making him the club's first 20-game winner since Frank Viola in 1990, and became the first major leaguer in 24 years to throw consecutive one-hitters.

Perhaps most impressive, Dickey did it all during a season when the fourth-place Mets finished 74-88.

"It just feels good all over," he said on MLB Network.

Dickey switched from conventional pitcher to full-time knuckleballer in a last-ditch effort to save his career. It took him years to finally master the floating, darting pitch, which he often throws harder (around 80 mph) and with more precision than almost anyone who used it before him.

"I knew what I was going to be up against in some regard when I embraced this pitch," Dickey said.

He was the first cut at Mets spring training in 2010 but earned a spot in the big league rotation later that season and blossomed into a dominant All-Star this year. He led the NL in strikeouts (230), innings (233 2-3), complete games (five) and shutouts (three) — pitching through an abdominal injury most of the way.

"I am not a self-made man by any stretch of the imagination," Dickey said. "The height of this story, it's mind-blowing to me, it really is."

A member of the 1996 U.S. Olympic team and a first-round draft pick out of Tennessee, Dickey was devastated when the Texas Rangers reduced their signing-bonus offer from more than $800,000 to $75,000 after they discovered during a physical that he was missing a major ligament in his pitching elbow.

Undeterred, perseverance got him to the big leagues anyway. When he failed, the knuckleball brought him back.

Among those he thanked ceaselessly for helping him on that long and winding road to success were all his proud knuckleball mentors, including Charlie Hough, Tim Wakefield and Hall of Famer Phil Niekro.

"It brings a real degree of legitimacy I think to the knuckleball fraternity and I'm glad to represent them and I'm certainly grateful to all those guys," Dickey said. "This was a victory for all of us."

Dickey said he received 127 text messages and 35-40 phone calls in the moments immediately following the Cy Young announcement.

The only call he took was from Niekro, a 318-game winner from 1964-87. The first texts Dickey responded to were from Wakefield and Hough.

"Most well-deserved," Niekro said in a comment provided by the Hall of Fame. "I'm super proud of him, as a pitcher and as an individual."

Dickey has one year left on his contract at $5.25 million and New York general manager Sandy Alderson has said signing the pitcher to a multiyear deal is one of his top offseason priorities. Alderson, however, would not rule out trading his unlikely ace.

"I believe the Mets are going to be a lot better and I want to be part of the solution," Dickey said, adding that he hopes the sides can strike a deal and he'd be happy to end his career in New York.

"I want to be loyal to an organization that's given me an opportunity," he said. "At the same time, you don't want to be taken advantage of. I've been on that side of it, too, as a player."

Price went 20-5 to tie Jered Weaver for the American League lead in victories and winning percentage. The 27-year-old lefty had the lowest ERA at 2.56 and finished sixth in strikeouts with 205.

Verlander, also the league MVP a year ago, followed that up by going 17-8 with a 2.64 ERA and pitching the Detroit Tigers to the World Series. He led the majors in strikeouts (239), innings (238 1-3) and complete games (six).

Price tossed 211 innings in 31 starts, while Verlander made 33. One factor that could have swung some votes, however, was this: Price faced stiffer competition in the rugged AL East than Verlander did in the AL Central.

"I guess it's a blessing and a curse at the same time," Price said. "There's not an easy out in the lineups every game. It feels like a postseason game."

The No. 1 pick in the 2007 amateur draft out of Vanderbilt, Price reached the majors the following year and has made three straight All-Star teams.

Despite going 19-6 with a 2.72 ERA in 2010, he finished a distant second in Cy Young voting to Felix Hernandez, who won only 13 games for last-place Seattle but dominated most other statistical categories that year.

The two MVP awards will be announced Thursday. Verlander's teammate, Triple Crown winner Miguel Cabrera, is a leading contender in the American League.

NOTES: The last AL pitcher to win back-to-back Cy Youngs was Boston's Pedro Martinez in 1999 and 2000. San Francisco RHP Tim Lincecum did it in the National League in 2008-09. ... Price and Dickey became the fourth pair of Cy Young winners born in the same state, according to STATS. The others were Jim Lonborg and Mike McCormick in 1967 (California), Viola and Orel Hershiser in 1988 (New York) and Pat Hentgen and John Smoltz in 1996 (Michigan). ... Niekro and his brother, Joe, both finished second in Cy Young voting, as did fellow knuckleballer Wilbur Wood.

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Springsteen, McCartney, Kanye set for Sandy show

NEW YORK (AP) — Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band and Kanye West will hit the stage at a Superstorm Sandy benefit concert next month at Madison Square Garden.

MSG announced Thursday that Billy Joel, The Who, Alicia Keys and Jon Bon Jovi will also perform at the Dec. 12 show, dubbed “12-12-12.” More performers will be announced at a later date.

Proceeds from the concert will go to the Robin Hood Relief Fund to benefit those affected by Sandy in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Sandy’s assault more than two weeks ago created widespread damage and power outages throughout the area.

Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Booze calories nearly equal soda's for US adults

NEW YORK (AP) — Americans get too many calories from soda. But what about alcohol? It turns out adults get almost as many empty calories from booze as from soft drinks, a government study found.

Soda and other sweetened drinks — the focus of obesity-fighting public health campaigns — are the source of about 6 percent of the calories adults consume, on average. Alcoholic beverages account for about 5 percent, the new study found.

"We've been focusing on sugar-sweetened beverages. This is something new," said Cynthia Ogden, one of the study's authors. She's an epidemiologist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention which released its findings Thursday.

The government researchers say the findings deserve attention because, like soda, alcohol contains few nutrients but plenty of calories.

But a liquor trade association said the findings indicate there's no big problem.

"This research shows that the overwhelming majority of adults drink moderately," Lisa Hawkins, a spokeswoman for the Distilled Spirits Council, said in a statement.

The CDC study is based on interviews with more than 11,000 U.S. adults from 2007 through 2010. Participants were asked extensive questions about what they ate and drank over the previous 24 hours.

The study found:

—On any given day, about one-third of men and one-fifth of women consumed calories from beer, wine or liquor.

—Averaged out to all adults, the average guy drinks 150 calories from alcohol each day, or the equivalent of a can of Budweiser.

—The average woman drinks about 50 calories, or roughly half a glass of wine.

—Men drink mostly beer. For women, there was no clear favorite among alcoholic beverages.

—There was no racial or ethnic difference in average calories consumed from alcoholic beverages. But there was an age difference, with younger adults putting more of it away.

For reference, a 12-ounce can of regular Coca-Cola has 140 calories, slightly less than a same-sized can of regular Bud. A 5-ounce glass of wine is around 100 calories.

In September, New York City approved an unprecedented measure cracking down on giant sodas, those bigger than 16 ounces, or half a liter. It will take effect in March and bans sales of drinks that large at restaurants, cafeterias and concession stands.

Should New York officials now start cracking down on tall-boy beers and monster margaritas?

There are no plans for that, city health department officials said, adding in a statement that while studies show that sugary drinks are "a key driver of the obesity epidemic," alcohol is not.

Health officials should think about enacting policies to limit alcoholic intake, but New York's focus on sodas is appropriate, said Margo Wootan, director of nutrition policy for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a public health advocacy group.

Soda and sweetened beverages are the bigger problem, especially when it comes to kids — the No. 1 source of calories in the U.S. diet, she said.

"In New York City, it was smart to start with sugary drinks. Let's see how it goes and then think about next steps," she said.

However, she lamented that the Obama administration is planning to exempt alcoholic beverages from proposed federal regulations requiring calorie labeling on restaurant menus.

It could set up a confusing scenario in which, say, a raspberry iced tea may have a calorie count listed, while an alcohol-laden Long Island Iced Tea — with more than four times as many calories — doesn't. "It could give people the wrong idea," she said.

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Online:

CDC report: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/

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Stars honor Veloso as Latin Grammys person of year

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Juanes, Juan Luis Guerra, Nelly Furtado and Natalie Cole are among the artists who celebrated Brazilian musician Caetano Veloso at a ceremony honoring him as the Latin Recording Academy's Person of the Year.

Veloso's influence as a composer and activist also was the subject of a video featuring Sting and Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar that was shown at the tribute Wednesday at the MGM Garden Arena in Las Vegas.

Veloso said in the video that he never decided to become a musician, but fate and the circumstances of life in Brazil moved him in that direction.

Considered among the most influential Brazilian artists of modern times, the 70-year-old entertainer has recorded more than 40 albums, and won eight Latin Grammys and two Grammy Awards. With his eponymous 1968 album, Veloso launched a new style of music, tropicalia, that saw his Brazilian musical roots mixed with other contemporary styles, including blues, psychedelic rock and the sounds of the Beatles.

The movement comprised a new generation of artists, including Gilberto Gil, Gal Costa and Maria Bethania, who openly expressed political opinion in their music.

In accepting the honor, Veloso said, "It's too much."

The Latin Grammy Awards are scheduled to be presented Thursday at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas. The show will be broadcast live on Univision.

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Online:

www.latingrammy.com

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BP to pay $4.5B fine, admit guilt in Gulf spill

BP said Thursday that it will pay $4.5 billion in a settlement with the U.S. government over the disastrous 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and plead guilty to criminal charges related to the deaths of 11 workers and lying to Congress.

The day of reckoning comes more than two years after the nation's worst offshore oil spill. The figure includes nearly $1.3 billion in criminal fines — the biggest criminal penalty in U.S. history — along with payments to certain government entities.

A person familiar with the settlement said two BP employees will also face manslaughter charges over the 11 deaths in the oil-rig explosion that triggered the spill. The person was not authorized to discuss the matter on the record and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Up to now, the only person charged in the disaster was a former BP engineer who was arrested in April on obstruction of justice charges. He was accused of deleting text messages about the company's response to the spill.

"We believe this resolution is in the best interest of BP and its shareholders," said Carl-Henric Svanberg, BP chairman. "It removes two significant legal risks and allows us to vigorously defend the company against the remaining civil claims."

The settlement, which is subject to approval by a federal judge, includes payments of nearly $2.4 billion to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, $350 million to the National Academy of Sciences and about $500 million to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC accused BP of misleading investors by lowballing the amount of crude spewing from the ruptured well.

London-based BP said in a statement that the settlement would not cover any civil penalties the U.S. government might seek under the Clean Water Act and other laws. Nor does it cover billions of dollars in claims brought by states, businesses and individuals, including fishermen, restaurants and property owners.

A federal judge in New Orleans is weighing a separate, proposed $7.8 billion settlement between BP and more than 100,000 businesses and individuals who say they were harmed by the spill.

BP will plead guilty to 11 felony counts of misconduct or neglect of a ship's officers, one felony count of obstruction of Congress and one misdemeanor count each under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the Clean Water Act. The workers' deaths were prosecuted under a provision of the Seaman's Manslaughter Act. The obstruction charge is for lying to Congress about how much oil was spilling.

Attorney General Eric Holder was scheduled to discuss the settlement at an afternoon news conference in New Orleans.

The penalty will be paid over five years. BP made a profit of $5.5 billion in the most recent quarter. The largest previous corporate criminal penalty assessed by the U.S. Justice Department was a $1.2 billion fine imposed on drug maker Pfizer in 2009.

Greenpeace blasted the settlement as a slap on the wrist.

"This fine amounts to a rounding error for a corporation the size of BP," the environmental group said.

Nick McGregor, oil analyst at Redmayne-Bentley Stockbrokers, said the settlement would be seen as "an expensive positive."

"This scale of bill is unpleasant, but I think it will be seen over time as being positive. The worst-case scenario for BP would be an Exxon Valdez-style decade of litigation," he said. "I think that is the outcome they are trying to avoid."

The Deepwater Horizon rig, 50 miles off the Louisiana coast, sank after an April 20, 2010, explosion that was later blamed by investigators on time-saving, cost-cutting decisions by BP and its drilling partners in cementing the well shaft.

The well on the sea floor spewed an estimated 172 million gallons of crude in the Gulf, fouling marshes and beaches, killing wildlife and shutting vast areas to commercial fishing.

After several failed attempts that introduced the American public to such industry terms as "top kill" and "junk shot," BP finally capped the well on July 15, 2010, halting the flow of oil after more than 85 days and putting an end to one of the most closely watched spectacles on TV and the Internet: the live spill-camera image of the gushing crude.

Nelda Winslette's grandson Adam Weise of Yorktown, Texas, was killed in the blast. She said somebody needs to be held accountable.

"It just bothers me so bad when I see the commercials on TV and they brag about how the Gulf is back, but they never say anything about the 11 lives that were lost. They want us to forget about it, but they don't know what they've done to the families that lost someone," she said.

The spill exposed lax government oversight and led to a temporary ban on deep-water drilling while officials and the oil industry studied the risks, worked to make it safer and developed better disaster plans. BP's environmentally friendly image was tarnished, and CEO Tony Hayward stepped down after the company's repeated gaffes, including his statement at the height of the crisis: "I'd like my life back."

The cost of BP's spill far surpassed that of the Exxon Valdez disaster in 1989. Exxon ultimately settled with the U.S. government for $1 billion, which would be about $1.8 billion today.

The government and plaintiffs' attorneys also sued Transocean Ltd., the rig's owner, and cement contractor Halliburton, but a string of pretrial rulings by a federal judge undermined BP's legal strategy of pinning blame on them.

U.S. District Carl Barbier in New Orleans will have the final say over the settlement.

He is also the judge deciding whether to give final approval to the $7.8 billion deal involving shrimpers, commercial fishermen, charter captains, property owners, environmental groups, restaurants, hotels and others who claimed they suffered financial losses.

Relatives of workers killed in the blast have also sued. And there are still other claims against BP from financial institutions, casinos and racetracks, insurance companies and local governments.

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Soldier Field getting new sod; damage from Sunday's game cited

Tribune video by Fred Mitchell.

Soldier Field will get new sod after two inches of rain fell during the Chicago Bears' 13-6 loss Sunday to the Houston Texans and left the turf in poor condition, drawing criticism from Bears kicker Robbie Gould, stadium general manager Tim LeFevour told the Tribune on Wednesday.

Gould was among those who criticized Soldier Field personnel for not covering the field with a tarp before the game. 

The middle 40 yards of the field will be removed Thursday and replaced with new sod Friday, LeFevour said.  Shortly after the game, LeFevour and Bears general manager Phil Emery met to begin to take action.

The entire field was resodded six weeks ago before the Notre Dame-Miami game, and the hope was another major resodding would not be necessary until the playoffs, assuming the Bears would be hosting a game.

But the damage incurred Sunday in the areas where linemen trod was too severe.  LeFevour said the areas outside the hash marks are fine and do not need to be addressed.

As for Gould's criticisms, LeFevour said the field was covered from Friday through Sunday morning.  Forecasts called for rain to begin between 4:30 and 5 p.m. Sunday evening. Game time was 7:20, and an NFL rule states tarps must be off the field 90 minutes prior to kickoff.

LeFevour said a 50-man crew was ready to cover the field Sunday afternoon if it had been deemed necessary.

LeFevour said it takes about 30 to 40 minutes to cover the field with a tarp, and another 30 minutes to remove it.  So the benefits of covering the field when the rains came would have been minimal, if there were any at all.

In an interview on WMVP-AM 1000, Gould asked why the field was not covered in the hours leading up to the game.  He also said the field has been uneven and treacherous the whole year.

"I don't know what's happening,” Gould said. “This year our field has been really bad. It's been tore up. There have actually been some places on the field where some portions of it have actually sunk to a new low level, and the other spots are high.”

Gould also said, “But it's been really interesting to watch this year how bad our field has really been. I know we have talked about this every single year. ... Can we please get somebody in there that watches a news report?”

LeFevour said the Soldier Field grounds crew monitors the weather constantly.  Bears groundskeepers also are involved in decision making regarding the grass.

Asked about Gould’s criticisms, LeFevour said, “Those are ridiculous comments.  He doesn’t know what he is talking about.  The field has not been an issue all year, and we haven’t heard anyone else complaining.”

LeFevour pointed out that this season after Gould complained about not having enough space on the sideline, Soldier Field roped off a special area where he can practice his kicks.

“He is never satisfied,” LeFevour said.

Told Wednesday that Soldier Field was being resodded, Gould said, "Obviously, they saw it was an issue because if it wasn't an issue, they wouldn't have to re-sod. Obviously, the field was in pretty poor shape. That's the only reason you resod a field."

Contributing: Vaughn McClure

dpompei@tribune.com

Twitter@danpompei

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Facebook stock jumps as share lockup expires

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Shares of Facebook Inc jumped as much as 11.2 percent on Wednesday, even as the biggest block of shares held by insiders became eligible for sale for the first time since the social media company's disappointing debut in May.

Facebook shares were up 8.8 percent at $21.60 in heavy mid-day trading on the Nasdaq, off an earlier high at $22.09.

"While the lockup is expiring, there is nothing requiring anybody to sell," said Tim Ghriskey, chief investment officer at Solaris Group in Bedford Hills, New York. "Given the low price, these long-term holders are deciding to hold the stock, and that is lifting it here as the fear of the expiration subsides."

Roughly 800 million Facebook shares were eligible for sale on Wednesday after restrictions on insider selling were lifted on the biggest block since the May initial public offering.

The lockup expiration greatly expands the 921-million-share "float" available for trading on the market until now.

"We've seen this before with other lockups. People sell them leading up to the lockup period expiring, and then they have a bit of a relief rally," said Ryan Jacob, chief executive of the Jacob Funds, which does not own Facebook shares.

The world's No. 1 online social network, became the only U.S. company to debut with a market value of more than $100 billion. But its value has dropped nearly 50 percent since the IPO on concerns about money-making prospects over the long term.

Insider trading lockup provisions started to expire in August, and the rolling expirations have added to the pressure on the stock.

Restrictions on insider selling have expired in waves. A limitation on more than 200 million shares expired on October 29.

COST OF SHORTING

Pivotal Research Group analyst Brian Wieser said he did not expect Facebook insiders to sell all of their shares as the lockups expired.

"I would expect heavy volumes over the next few weeks, but not undigestible volumes," said Wieser. By his estimate, roughly 486 million of the nearly 800 million newly freed Facebook shares will be sold.

There is some evidence the heavy interest in "shorting" the stock was dissipating, given the poor performance since it first sold shares in May. Investors who believe a stock will fall can bet against it by shorting the stock - that is, borrowing it and selling it in the hopes it will decline.

According to Markit, a financial information services company, about 28 percent of the shares available for short-selling were being borrowed for that purpose, down from a high of more than 80 percent in early August.

Similarly, SunGard's Astec Analytics, which also tracks interest in shorting, noted that the cost of borrowing Facebook shares is down more than 50 percent since the beginning of the month.

"Everything would seem to indicate the market is losing its appetite to short Facebook," wrote Karl Loomes, market analyst at Astec.

The cost of shorting Facebook has declined to 0.18 percent on an annualized basis, Astec said on Wednesday. By contrast, shortly after the IPO, the cost to short the stock ranged from 40 percent to 50 percent annually.

"It's become somewhat of a controversial stock. It always adds fuel to the fire if you have a sizable short position," said Stephen Massocca, managing director at Wedbush Morgan in San Francisco.

"But the unlock is not new news. It doesn't mean everyone is going to sell, and it doesn't mean every order is going to come in today."

Facebook, with roughly 1 billion users, has faced a tough reception on Wall Street amid concerns about its slowing revenue growth and nascent advertising efforts on mobile devices.

But the company delivered better-than-expected third-quarter results on October 23 and revealed that 14 percent of its advertising revenue is now from mobile ads, reassuring some investors it was beginning to figure out how to earn money from smartphone and tablet users.

"They had a pretty good quarter. I think a lot of investors, though, are waiting to see some consistency in the results," said Jacob.

Several members of Facebook's senior management have sold millions of dollars' worth of shares in recent weeks through pre-arranged stock trading plans as lockup restrictions expired.

Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg has sold roughly 530,000 shares this month, netting just over $11 million, though she still owns roughly 20 million vested shares in Facebook.

In August, Facebook board member Peter Thiel sold roughly $400 million worth of Facebook stock, the majority of his stake, when an earlier phase of lockup restrictions expired.

Facebook's 28-year-old chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, has pledged not to sell any shares before September 2013.

(Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Matthew Lewis)

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Roethlisberger has rib injury too, out vs. Ravens

PITTSBURGH (AP) — Ben Roethlisberger's sprained right shoulder is just the start of his problems.

The Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback said Tuesday he also dislocated a rib while getting sacked in the third quarter of Monday night's win against Kansas City. Roethlisberger sprained the SC joint in his shoulder on the play but says the rib issue is a bigger concern.

Roethlisberger said doctors are concerned the rib could cut into his aorta. He's already been ruled out of Sunday's game against the Baltimore Ravens. Backup Byron Leftwich will start in his place.

Roethlisberger said there is no timetable for his return because of the unusual nature of the injury. He is hopeful that he can return at some point but added he's in considerable pain and has slept just four hours over the last two nights.

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Online: http://pro32.ap.org/poll and http://twitter.com/AP_NFL

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Wakeman reworks rock epic Journey to Centre of Earth

LONDON (Reuters) – The story behind the upcoming re-issue of Rick Wakeman‘s 1974 concept album “Journey to the Center of the Earth” sounds almost as unlikely as the Jules Verne tale that inspired it.

Progressive rock veteran Wakeman had presumed the original orchestration to his chart-topping disc was lost for good when his record company MAM, where the manuscripts had been stored in boxes, was brought to its knees in the early 1980s.

Although he could have re-orchestrated the work from the original album, recorded live at the Royal Festival Hall in London in 1974, Wakeman knew it would be far from perfect.

And the original score was 55 minutes long whereas the 1974 version had to be cut to closer to 40 due to the constraints of vinyl recordings at the time.

“In about 1983 or 1984 I had an enquiry to do Journey again in America,” Wakeman recalled in a telephone interview.

“I thought ‘great’. But MAM had gone, and nobody there had any idea what had happened to all the stuff of mine,” the former Yes keyboardist told Reuters.

“Up until recently I would get phone calls to do it and I said ‘no, I can’t', there is no music any more. You just resign yourself to disappointment.”

Everything changed about four years ago when a box of papers arrived at his doorstep – a fairly regular occurrence, he explained, for a man who had been married several times and had “stuff in storage all over the place”.

Sifting through the contents, Wakeman found a pile of music that was not his own, but “something told me to empty the entire box.” At the very bottom was the long-lost conductor’s score of Journey, albeit so damp the pages were stuck together.

To this day Wakeman does not know where the box came from, and is amazed it reappeared nearly 30 years after going missing.

ORIGINAL SONGS

Once the music had been downloaded on to a computer, Wakeman set about reintroducing the songs and other sections he removed for the 1974 recording with the help of notes he had kept.

He decided to make a studio recording of the rock opera, and sought to replicate the sound of the original instruments.

For the narrator’s voice, he could not go back to David Hemmings, who died in 2003, and so invited actor Peter Egan.

The result is a re-mastered version of Journey, complete with 20 minutes of unheard music, which hits shelves on November 20. It comes in the form of a “fanback” comprising the music, a 132-page magazine and a replica of the program to the 1974 show.

For Wakeman it was a labor of love, but one he hopes will prove profitable.

“We did have record companies come forward,” the 63-year-old said. “But I don’t want an A&R (artists and repertoire) man coming in and saying it could do with this and that.

“The only way I can get this done as I believe it should be is to finance it and do it myself which we did. It broke the bank, there’s no doubt about it.”

While the concept of a rock opera based on French author Verne’s 1864 sci-fi classic may not instantly appeal to young listeners today, Wakeman believes there is a market for his latest release.

“Music audiences today don’t put a date on anything, they either like it or they don’t,” he said, adding that the “prog-rock” genre for which he is best known has made something of a comeback in recent years.

PROKOFIEV FAN

The prolific musician who has made around 100 albums and sold millions of records started piano lessons when he was seven, and at about that time the seeds of his career were sown.

“Story telling to music is something I have loved since my father took me to see ‘Peter and the Wolf’ aged eight, and (Sergei) Prokofiev became my hero,” he recalled.

By his late teens he was an established session musician and joined the band Yes in 1971 with whom he recorded the hit album “Fragile” and, the following year, “Close to the Edge”.

In 1973 he released “The Six Wives of Henry VIII” a solo concept album, and in 1974, which his official online biography calls “probably the most significant year in Rick’s career”, he made Journey and toured the world with it.

Another concept album, “The Myths and Legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table” followed in 1975, and Wakeman returned to Yes for spells throughout the 1990s.

Next week he plays six dates in South America, including the first concert performance of the new, full Journey and a rendition of The Six Wives.

The new “holy grail” following the rediscovery of Journey is to track down the original music to King Arthur, which was also lost. Wakeman is orchestrating the existing recording for a show next June, but would love to find the full score.

“All of us involved hope very much that it (Journey) makes its money back, because it would then allow me to look for the King Arthur music. We are doing a version next June and it would be lovely to say we’ve done it from the original music.”

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)

Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Bon Jovi daughter recovering after heroin OD in NY

HAMILTON, N.Y. (AP) — Authorities say Jon Bon Jovi's 19-year-old daughter is hospitalized after overdosing on heroin in a dorm at her upstate New York college.

Town of Kirkland police say an ambulance was sent to Hamilton College early Wednesday morning after a report that a female had apparently overdosed on heroin.

Investigator Peter Cania (KAYN'-yah) says Stephanie Bongiovi, of Red Bank, N.J., is recovering at a hospital he declined to name.

Police say Bongiovi and 21-year-old Ian Grant, also of Red Bank, were charged with drug possession. Both were issued tickets and ordered to appear in court at a later date. Police didn't know if they have lawyers.

The musician's representative isn't commenting.

Bon Jovi is scheduled to perform at a benefit concert for Hamilton in Times Square on Dec. 5.

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