Mariah Sued by Songwriters
Songwriter Seth Swirsky might have gotten his start penning a jingle for Thomas's English Muffins, but now he and fellow tunesmith Warryn Campbell want to turn Mariah Carey into toast.
In a U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on Friday, the two hit Carey with a suit alleging that her No. 1 R&B and pop hit "Thank God I Found You" infringes on the copyright of one of the duo's tunes, Billboard Bulletin reports. The suit also names producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, Columbia Records, Sony Music Entertainment, and three publishing companies as defendants.
Swirsky and Campbell claim Carey's tune, from her 1999 Columbia full-length, Rainbow, bears a striking resemblance to their ditty "One of Those Love Songs."
The plaintiffs' original song was penned for Traces of My Lipstick, a 1998 album by female R&B quartet Xscape, who are signed to producer Jermaine Dupri's So-So Def label, which is distributed through Carey's label, Columbia. Coincidentally, Dupri contributed to several cuts on Rainbow.
The damages being sought in the suit have yet to be determined. Swirsky's writing credits include
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Mariah Carey Hospitalized
BOSTON (Reuters) � Singer Mariah Carey is in "fair" condition in a Boston hospital Tuesday after being admitted for complications from dehydration and food poisoning, a hospital representative and the singer's publicist say.
The Grammy-winning songstress became ill after eating raw oysters in Atlanta over the weekend and checked into Massachusetts General Hospital Monday night, where she is being treated with intravenous fluids and is expected to remain for several days, says her publicist, Cindi Berger.
"Right now she's resting comfortably," Berger says.
A hospital representative says the singer is in fair condition.
Carey's concert scheduled for tonight at the Fleet Center in Boston has been rescheduled for April 13.
Carey performed in Atlanta despite her illness Saturday, but her condition worsened after arriving in Boston.
Carey, the biggest-selling female artist of the 1990s, is touring in support of her ninth album, Rainbow. Earlier hit singles include "Love Takes Time" and "Someday."
Mariah Confronts Cameron Diaz
Mariah Carey tells the British men's mag FHM that behind her innocent face and sweet voice is a born-and-bred New Yorker who doesn't take kindly to being insulted.
"People think that I'm this little girl next door, and they can say stuff about me, and I'll never check them if they run into me," Carey says. "Wrong."
Specifically, Carey recalls a run-in she had with There's Something About Mary star Cameron Diaz. Last year, Diaz said that if anyone wanted to "torture" her, forget the dripping water or the rats � just tie her up and start playing some Mariah.
When Diaz and the Diva ended up in the same New York restaurant, Carey says, "I decided I should seize the opportunity to straighten a few things out."
The two 5-foot 9-inch stars faced off, and Diaz backed down, explaining that "her words had been twisted" by an interviewer. Carey gave her the benefit of the doubt, but adds, "I was actually one of those bad girls at school who used to push people in the lockers and smoke in the bathroom when I was 12. So [Diaz] is lucky."
Carey tells FHM that in addition to her self-protection instincts, her showdown with Diaz was probably fueled by "too much wine."
March 30, 2000
Mariah Out of Her Depth on Tour
MIAMI � Could that woman in the spotlight really be the best-selling female artist of the last decade? Dropping in Wednesday night on Mariah Carey's first concert tour since 1993, the feeling is that you've somehow stumbled into the wrong building � a high-school talent show, perhaps.
Carey's awkward evening of girlish musings and clich�d play-acting is so vastly below what any fan would expect from a music phenom who has sold more than 125 million albums that one has to wonder who at Sony greenlit this traveling train wreck.
During a decade of stardom, Carey has indeed perfected most of the showbiz basics: The chart-topping pay-off note, the red-carpet pose, the faux flirting with Leno and Letterman. But she has never learned to perform in concert � something she skipped right over when she burst onto the airwaves in 1990 as a fully formed, just-add-water superstar.
And now it's too late. She's too famous to go back and learn her trade in clubs; too important to stay off the road completely. So she skates by on as few live dates as possible, playing the odd celeb event and even debuting this tour overseas. The U.S. leg visits just nine cities before calling it a wrap, inexplicable in an age when the 60-city multi-million-dollar jaunt is standard.
Now, it's not as if Carey can't sing, or that she doesn't have the catalog to fill out an evening. Indeed, she has great pipes and plenty of pleasant hits. What she lacks is a sense of what a big star should be doing on stage, particularly in an arena setting.
Granted, many arena shows don't offer great music. But performing in these sports boxes is the way it is � pop's necessary evil � and everyone from Madonna to Ricky Martin has figured out how to stage these concerts brilliantly. It's a science � nothing a little time, money, and imagination can't buy. And with her status, Carey certainly has access to the best choreographers, conceptualists, scenic designers, and everything else in the business.
Apparently, though, Carey hasn't hired any such people, or if she has, she certainly hasn't listened to them, choosing instead to compensate with absurd displays. In fact, according to Daily Variety, Jeffrey Hornaday, the one big-name producer she did employ, has now disassociated himself from the entire spectacle.
From a bizarre scene in which she invited a rag-tag band of fans onstage to drink champagne and receive stuffed animals from her, to a mock boxing match and an incoherent "Miss Diva Contest," Carey is just plain lost. There was also that strange bedtime interlude during which she pranced around in pajamas, wrapping herself in a child's blanket. Perhaps, though, this wasn't too surprising, coming scant months after she showed up on Live With Regis and Kathie Lee in a bathrobe and high heels and attended by a small dog.
The tour also features more of the "Mariah vs. evil twin Bianca" saga, recently showcased in the video for "Heartbreaker." This time it's a long-form video piece used to open the show, filled out with odd celeb testimonials from the likes of Pamela Anderson Lee, Ozzy Osbourne, and Donny and Marie Osmond, and looking like it was shot by an intern at a low-watt television station.
Decked in ripped-at-the-hip jeans and a backless halter top, Carey finally appeared in the flesh when the video concluded, spouting the same kind of phony stage patter and hubris that eventually finished off Diana Ross � i.e., "I love you all so much!"
She began with a cursory run-through of her 1991 hit "Emotions," followed by a condescending soliloquy on how she fought off a bad cold so that she could "be there for my fans." And though she frequently left the stage for costume changes, she was also, at one point, inexplicably attended to onstage by a make-up man and stylist who freshened her look while she talked about the heat.
It should be noted, too, that Carey was apparently too pressed for time to conduct the time-honored ritual of introducing her own band, a chore she relegated to a back-up singer as she flitted down a side staircase for yet another break.
Amid these distractions, though, Carey did manage to squeeze in hits such as "Always Be My Baby"; "My All"; "Against All Odds," a reworking of the Phil Collins hit; and "Close My Eyes," off Butterfly. But there was no pacing, no charisma, no idea of how to put even the big notes across. And she still hasn't mastered even the simplest dance steps.
Later, she found time to showcase her sometime singing partner Trey Lorenz, as well as opening act Da Brat, who returned midway through the show while Carey was offstage again, changing clothes.
The kicker? It's not as if these costumes were spectacular getups worth the anticipation. Rather, it was her usual mall rat-meets-The Sopranos look. One pair of too-tight jeans after another, followed by the inevitable Spandex gowns. First pink, then blue.
In fact, there's almost no money up on the stage at all, despite the $75-$100 ticket price. Every aspect of the production feels cut-rate, from the unexceptional five-piece band to the bad lighting to the formulaic dancers. The stock set is festooned with one paltry metallic curtain and a trio of budget-priced, image-distorting video screens that seem to have come from the conference room of a Holiday Inn. To top it off, all of this was further hampered by Miami's gloomy new arena, a dungeon of exposed cement that rendered just about every word unintelligible.
In 1993, when Carey's then-Svengali, Tommy Mottola, prematurely plopped her on arena stages, her lack of experience and odd transgressions could be forgiven. Today there's no excuse, only the mystery as to why this talented singer is so out of touch.
� Deborah Wilker
June 8, 1998
Mariah's Limo Woes
In the world of superstardom, one of the things celebrities take for granted is the discretion of their limo driver, which is why Mariah Carey is probably less than thrilled right now. The New York Post reports that the "Butterfly" singer could be facing a lawsuit from her former driver, and should the case go to court, it might mean her private life could become part of the court record.
According to the paper, Carey's ex-chauffeur Franco D'Onofrio, owner of Showcase Limousines in New Jersey, plans to file suit in Manhattan Supreme Court on Monday, alleging that Carey made "huge demands" on his company, and though she promised to give his car service her exclusive business, she instead ended up firing the firm without paying her bill.
Those pesky unidentified sources tell the paper that D'Onofrio, who was behind the wheel for Carey for four years, may have to "spill the beans" about how he drove the diva to her "secret trysts" with New York Yankees star Derek Jeter while she was still married to Sony head Tommy Mottola.
Carey's people tell the paper that they are unaware of any pending legal action, adding that they believed the entire matter was about to be settled. Showcase will reportedly ask for $1 million in damages.
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