Kid Rock and the Turkish foreign minister, Abdullah Gul, were among hundreds of mourners who paid tribute to Ahmet Ertegun, a co-founder of Atlantic Records, at his funeral in Istanbul, his birthplace. "He could not sing, but he was music personified," Kid Rock told the state-run news agency Anatolia. Ertegun, who helped shape the careers of Ray Charles, the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin and many others, died on Thursday in New York at 83.
He was buried at an ancestral family site near a Muslim religious lodge on the Asian side of Istanbul, The Associated Press reported. "The one thing he loved more than music was Turkey," Anatolia quoted Lyor Cohen, the chief executive of the Warner Music Group, the parent company of Atlantic Records, as saying.
Under heavy security, a controversial production of Mozart's opera "Idomeneo," dropped for fear of a Muslim backlash over a scene with the severed head of the Prophet Muhammad, has returned to the stage without incident.
A powerful male voice called out "stop it!" and "boo!" as the head of Islam's founder, along with those of Jesus, Buddha and Poseidon, the Greek god of the seas, came tumbling out of a sack hefted by Idomeneo.
But several voices from the other side of the hall yelled, "continue, continue," their cheers clashing with the voice of the critic, and the cast and orchestra received prolonged applause. A complete article on the performance is at www.iht.
com/culture. (AP)
Some rock legends are taking a music memorabilia Web site owner to court, claiming he is illegally selling vintage recordings and memorabilia.
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