Patti Page: A Look at Her Billboard Chart History, From 1948 - 1982

Patti Page, who died Monday at 85, was a force on Billboard's charts from the late 1940s all the way through the early 1980s.

Her most prosperous period -- in terms of hits -- came in the 1950s, where she charted top 10 pop hits in nearly every year that decade.

The late singer notched her first chart entry with 1948's "Confess," with the George Barnes Trio, which climbed to No. 12 on the Records Most Played by Disk Jockeys chart that year. It was the first of 80 pop chart hits for Page, who lasted visited a pop tally in 1968 with "Little Green Apples." That tune topped out at No. 96.

During her pop career, she claimed No. 1 hits with "All My Love (Bolero)" (1950), "I Went to Your Wedding" (1952), "The Doggie in the Window" (1953)" and her likely best-known single, the iconic "The Tennessee Waltz."

Page's version of the song, which was written by Pee Wee King and Redd Stewart in 1946, spent 13 weeks at No. 1 on Billboard's Most-Played in Juke Boxes chart in 1950 and 1951. The tune became a hit for Page on the Hot Country Songs chart, where it spent three weeks at No. 2. Page's cover proved to be so popular, it was made an official song of the state of Tennessee in 1965 and inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998.

Page charted a total of 20 entries on the Hot Country Songs chart as well as 19 hits on the Adult Contemporary chart. On the latter tally, she visited the top 10 a total of four times with "Go On Home," "Most People Get Married" (both in 1962), "Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte" (1965) and "Gentle On My Mind" (1968). "Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte" was the title theme to the film, starring Bette Davis, and was also Page's final top 10 pop hit. It reached No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Her final hit on any tally was "My Man Friday" in 1982, which topped out at No. 80 on the Hot Country Songs chart.

Along with Ravi Shankar, who died last month, and several others, Page was to receive a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award next month.

KATHY GRIIFFIN KISSES ANDERSON COOPER'S CROTCH ON LIVE TV (VIDEO)

Just when you think comedian Kathy Griffin can't get anymore over-the-top with her jovial antics, she goes and does things like this.

Acting as a New Year's Eve co-host on CNN with Anderson Cooper , Griffin decided to take matters into her own hands—or lips rather—with some overtly sexual flirtation with Cooper. What started out as a request to "tickle [Anderson Cooper's] sack," quickly turned into the redhead comedian getting on her knees in front of Cooper during the live broadcast.

No comment on this one. Watch the video below to see Kathy in all her shameless glory:

Irving Azoff's Exit: The Invisible Hand of John Malone

The exit of veteran music manager Irving Azoff as executive chairman at Live Nationcomes two months after another media veteran, Mel Karmazin, stepped down as chairman and CEO of SiriusXM Satellite Radio. 
  
The person they have in common? 
  
Veteran media investor John Malone, who in the last few years had become, respectively, each company's largest individual shareholder. 
  
Liberty Media's highly desirable A shares have been skyrocketing since the end of May when they were selling for $82.34. On Dec. 31, the day Liberty acquired Azoff's shares in Live Nation, it closed at $116.01. 

With the legendary risk taker Malone in an even stronger position, Live Nation may finally become the Wall Street darling its architects envisioned when it split off from Clear Channel in December 2005. An entrepreneur at heart, Azoff made no secret of the fact he did not enjoy running a public company.

Irving Azoff on Leaving Live Nation, What's Next, and Why He Regrets Ticketmaster Merger

Liberty Media, one of Live Nation's largest shareholders prior its acquisition of Azoff's 1.7 million shares, will now have a 26.4 percent stake in the concert, ticketing and management behemoth. In 2011, Liberty Media A shares roses 54%, and in December financial analysts stated it continues to trade at significant high multiples compared with S&P 500 companies.

Business Matters: Rumors Heat Up That Liberty Media Will Buy Out Live Nation

Could Live Nation, which has bounced between $8 and $11 over the last 52 weeks, finally see the stock price rise to levels expected when the merger was struck? Malone is always unemotional about achieving his return on investment, sometimes through very complex financial engineering. His recent interest in the music space will be no different.

Live Nation Would Benefit From Going Private: John Malone

Liberty Media chief executive Greg Maffei told Billboard in November, "We think the music space is a great space and there will always be an enduring interest in music."

But arguably the interest in music is coincidental rather than strategic. The bigger picture for Malone and his lieutenant Maffei is that both Sirius and Live Nation (post-merger) are near-monopolies in their respective markets. In fact, Sirius has no U.S. competitor in satellite radio. And Live Nation is the strong market leader of a duopoly with AEG in live promotions, while Ticketmaster is completely dominant in its space.

This is the attraction to the man who made his wealth inventing regional cable TV monopolies from scratch.

Sirius, with Liberty owning 49.77 percent, and Live Nation "have found interesting ways to grow. Just because music is popular doesn't always mean it's possible to make money from it," he said.
 
Malone has been bullish on Live Nation since its merger with Ticketmaster, purchasing 34.5 million shares of Live Nation Entertainment the day after the merger was approved in 2010. At the time, Liberty held a 30% stake in Ticketmaster, which dropped to 15% after the merger.
 
But last year Malone also supported the idea of taking the company private as its shares underperformed, with the business struggling through a weak economy that kept fans from attending some bigger events.
 
And, to be clear, Azoff is still going to be working with Malone in some capacity. He will be on the board of Malone's soon-to-be spun-off cable network Starz. Azoff confirmed to Billboard he will still be joining the board and said he had enjoyed working with Liberty Media.

Indeed, if Azoff is ever looking for financing for expanding any of his proposed new ventures beyond music, he could always turn to Malone.
 
Malone built a fortune in his cable television company TCI, selling it to AT&T for $54 billion in 1999. A master at acquisitions -- he is the largest land owner in the U.S. - he has battled with the like of former Vice President Al Gore, Viacom's Sumner Redstone and the man with whom is most closely associated (sometimes as friend and others as an enemy), Barry Diller, the man who handed over the reins at Ticketmaster to Azoff.

Less than three weeks ago, Malone's Liberty Interactive purchased Diller's 4.8 million shares inTripAdvisor, the nation's largest travel advisory site. In some ways the Live Nation deal feels like history repeating: Diller's Citysearch concept in the 1990s owed to the combination of consumers desiring tickets and travel destination information.
 
While Malone has publicly stated that the sports industry is out of control in terms of costs, Liberty is interested in looking at some of the holdings within Phil Anschutz's Anschutz Entertainment Group, whose assets include Los Angeles' Staples Center and AEG Live, the No.2 live entertainment business after Live Nation.
 
"Phil Anschutz has built a very interesting portfolio of businesses and assets, some of which fit in with our existing businesses," Maffei said. "But I'm not sure if we'll have the ability or rather be allowed to buy some of those assets that fit in with Live Nation, because of the regulatory scrutiny which it already faced during the Ticketmaster merger."

GAME OPENS UP ABOUT 40 GLOCC BEEF: "I DIDN'T THINK HE WAS GONNA SUE"

The Wall Street Journal got all Barbara Walters on the Game during a recent sit down with theJesus Piece rapper. The WSJ had questions about Game's beef with 40 Glocc, and, more specifically wanted to know why he beat up the G-Unit rapper with one hand while videotaping the altercation with the other, and later posted it to YouTube. 40 Glocc is now suing the Game.

"...Let's just take the Glocc and 40 out of his name, cause it doesn't make sense," started the Game. "That's like a real nerdy guy being called Bazooka. It doesn't make sense."

"He, for some reason, one day, woke up and brushed his teeth and felt like he wanted to say something about me," says Game about how the alleged beef started. Game claims he was tired of 40 Glocc always showing up uninvited to music video shoots and harassing people, but when 40 Glocc made a Twitter page in the alias of Game's young son, that was the last straw.

"You can do whatever you want to me: rap about me; you can shoot me; kill me; stab me; it doesn't matter. You talk about my kids, that's when it gets really real," explained Game. He then goes into detail about the day that infamous video came to fruition. "I didn't think he was gonna sue," adds Game. 

'Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve' Wins Monday Night, Draws Most Viewers Since 2000

ABC took another New Year's Eve ratings crown on Monday night, besting all networks in adults 18-49 (3.1 rating) and total viewers (10.7 million). After the two-hour special honoring the show's founder, "New Year's Rockin' Eve Celebrates Dick Clark" (2.6 adults), the first hour of the official show, "Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve With Ryan Seacrest," started its road to midnight with a 4.1 adults rating. Even with its 2011 showing in the demo, the show surged in total viewers from last year with its largest haul since 2000 (13.3 million viewers).

The "Rockin' Eve" show was the first since Clark's passing from a heart attack in April.

New Year's Eve Without Dick Clark: Ryan Seacrest, 'Rockin' Eve' Execs Reflect

ABC easily topped the evening, more than doubling its nearest competition, CBS, in total viewers, and beating its combined network competition by 15% in adults 18-49 (CBS, NBC and Fox combined).

'Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve 2013': A Special Backstage Preview With Producer Larry Klein

Elsewhere, "New Year's Eve With Carson Daly" was up two tenths of a point in the key demo, rising from last year to a 1.1 adults rating on NBC. Including its broadcast of "Enchanted," the network averaged a 0.9 with 18-49-ers and 3.3 million viewers.

Encores on CBS averaged a 0.8 adults rating and 4 million viewers, while two episodes of "The Mob Doctor" brought in a 0.6 and 0.4 adults rating at 8 and 9 p.m. The two broadcasts averaged a 0.5 adults rating and 2.95 million viewers.

The CW's repeat airing of the "iHeartRadio Music Festival" earned a 0.5 rating with adults 18-4 9 and 1.3 million viewers.

'TRAINING DAY' DIRECTOR IGNORES SPIKE LEE BASHING, DEFENDS "DJANGO" N-WORD USAGE

Moviemaker Antoine Fuqua has stepped up and come to the defense of fellow director Quentin Tarantino's new Django Unchained box office hit amid dicey remarks from Spike Lee over its controversial N-word usage.

Although he can respect Spike's stance, Fuqua said the renowned Hollywood director chose the wrong way to get his point across.

"That's just not the way you do things," said Fuqua, speaking on the sidelines of the 17th Capri, Hollywood Film Festival. "If you disagree with the way a colleague did something, call him up, invite him out for a coffee, talk about it. But don't do it publicly." "I don't think Quentin Tarantino has a racist bone in his body," he said. "Besides, I'm good friends with [Django Unchained star]Jamie Foxx and he wouldn't have anything to do with a film that had anything racist to it." (The Hollywood Reporter)

The Training Day director also said the movie's context supported Tarantino's usage of the controversial word.

Fuqua continued: "I haven't seen the film, so I can't speak about it specifically, but we're supposed to find some truth in films and if you set a film in the 1850s, you're going to hear the word 'n****r,' because that's the way they spoke then, and you're going to discuss slavery because that was part of the reality," he said. "I want my kids to hear those kinds of words in the right context, so that they'll know that language is not OK," Fuqua said. (The Hollywood Reporter)

Despite Fuqua's support, comedian Katt Williams shared a different sentiment a few days ago.

In between getting out of jail and getting in the middle of a parking lot brawl, Katt Williams took the time to talk to TMZ about "Django Unchained" ... and threatened to beat the crap out of Quentin Tarantino if he gets the chance. Williams didn't voice his opinion in a polite way like Spike Lee did. First he threatened to punch QT in the face, then told us, "Quentin Tarantino thinks he can say the N-word. But I checked with all of Ni**adom and nobody knows where he got his pass from. I hope he didn't get it from Samuel L. Jackson and Jamie Foxx cause they aren't going to help you when I see you." (TMZ)

Lee initially hopped onto Twitter to air out his issues with Tarantino's latest flick.

"American Slavery Was Not A Sergio Leone Spaghetti Western.It Was A Holocaust.My Ancestors Are Slaves.Stolen From Africa.I Will Honor Them.," he tweeted. (Spike Lee's Twitter)

TRINIDAD JAMES BEING SUED BY 'MARTIN' CREATOR FOR COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT?

The outrageous rumor that rapper Trinidad James was being sued by the creators of the '90s sitcom Martin began swirling on Dec. 20. The show's creator "Gerald Levin" was supposedly filing a $5 million lawsuit against James for infringing the show's pimp-tastic character Jerome Rome. One problem, IMBD lists the shows creators as Martin Lawrence, John Bowman and Topper Carew.

"Gold chains, gold rings, and rotten teeth, that’s Jerome!!" Levin was quoted saying. "…Martin created that."

The quote surfaced on a random blog. It seems people's nostalgia for Martin has gotten the better of them as a document proving that said lawsuit is actually legit has yet to surface.

James, who signed a recent reported $2 million deal with Def Jam, does bear some hilarious uncanny similarities to the pimp-inspired character. Both speak with a raspy, gruff voice and don some gold jewelry. James, whose breakthrough track is titled "All Gold Everything," also sports a gold grill on his teeth. However, we'll vouch for James' true identity. Check out side-by-side videos of Martin Lawrence as Jerome and Trinidad James as himself below, and judge for yourself.

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