Photo: Mazur/WireImage

Last week, Rolling Stone wondered if Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel were putting together a North American tour after shows in North Dakota and Minnesota hit Ticketmaster. Today the duo confirmed the news, announcing a 13-date North American trek that kicks off with their April 24th gig at New Orleans’ Jazz & Heritage Festival. Though most of the stops will focus on Canada, the iconic folk duo will hit Saint Paul, Minnesota; Fargo, North Dakota; Madison, Wisconsin, and Detroit. Most dates go on sale March 12th at 10 am.

Simon and Garfunkel — who split 1970 and reunited for sporadic performances over the years — hit the road in 2003 for the massively popular “Old Friends” tour, selling out 12 of 14 U.S. dates and grossing over $2 million dollars per city, according to Pollstar. Most recently, the pair got together in November to perform at the 25th Anniversary Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Concert at New York’s Madison Square Garden, where they delivered a rousing rendition of “Cecilia.”

On the upcoming trek, Simon and Garfunkel will focus on songs from their classic catalog, although the duo promise to spice up their set lists with material from both Simon and Garfunkel’s respective solo catalogs.

April 24 – New Orleans, LA @ Jazz & Heritage Festival
April 29 – Vancouver, BC @ General Motors Place
May 1 – Edmonton, AB @ Rexall Place
May 2 – Calgary, AB @ Pengrowth Saddledome
May 4 – Saskatoon, SK @ Credit Union Centre
May 5 – Winnipeg, MB @ MTS Centre
May 7 – Fargo, ND @ Fargodome
May 8 – St. Paul, MN @ Xcel Energy Center
May 9 – Madison, WI @ Kohl Center Arena
May 11 – Detroit, MI @ TBA
May 12 – Toronto, ON @ Air Canada Centre
May 14 – Ottawa, ON @ Scotiabank Place
May 15 – Montreal, QC @ Bell Centre

Shortly after being ousted from “American Idol’s” class of 2010, the four eliminated contestants still sounded a bit shell-shocked from a particularly harsh round of judges’ comments.

“American Idol” voters said goodbye to the first four contestants of season nine on Thursday night, eliminating Janell Wheeler, Joe Munoz, Ashley Rodriguez and Tyler Grady.

Billboard’s Ann Donahue breaks down every live performance of “American Idol” Season 9, from the top 24 contestants to the last one standing.

“American Idol” contestant Chris Golightly has been disqualified from the top 24 and replaced with Tim Urban, Fox confirmed early Thursday morning.

Taylor Swift’s own line of Taylor Swift American Greeting cards, written and inspired by Taylor Swift herself, are finally in stores. Taylor’s greeting cards have a healthy dose of everything from shrugging acceptance-turned-into-optimism to full-on hope, and I could totally see her sitting in her cute bedroom (like the one in “You Belong With Me”) and writing happy messages to her BFF, Abigail. And no, there’s no “sorry you got interrupted on MTV” card. Har.

Check out Taylor’s new cards below. I mean, they’re definitely cooler than those persnickety Maxine cards that are always about having saggy boobs. Get Taylor’s cards where American Greetings cards are sold.

Ellen DeGeneres kicked off her debut as the new “American Idol” judge in impressive fashion on Tuesday night  (Feb. 9), bringing a healthy dose of honest critiques and well-timed punchlines to the first night of Hollywood auditions.

Photo: Ufberg/WireImage
Last week Page Six stoked a rumor that Howard Stern is a possible candidate to replace the departing Simon Cowell on next season’s American Idol. Today the shock jock addressed the reports on his satellite radio show, admitting the job wouldn’t be out of the question. “There’s not a better job on the planet than judging a fucking karaoke contest,” Stern said, MTV reports. “It might be possible, we’ll see.”

As Rolling Stone reported last week, Stern’s five-year, $500 million contract with Sirius XM expires in January 2011, freeing up the radio personality to pursue other opportunities. While the New York Post wrote last week that Idol’s overtures to Stern might just be a leverage tool to help secure Stern a lucrative new contract from his current employer, Stern seemed pretty open about taking on the Idol job because he’s long been a fan of the show. “If I do say so myself, I can’t imagine anyone else but me replacing [Cowell],” Stern said. “I mean, how else are they going to make that show work? Who knows how to broadcast and who knows how to be interesting? And who’s not afraid to speak their mind?”

Idol producers are rumored to be considering offering Stern a contract that mirrors his five-year, $500 million deal with Sirius XM, but considering Paula Abdul and Idol split ways over a few million and Cowell will only make a reported $50 million per season to executive produce and judge on The X Factor, that figure seems a little excessive. “A $100 million to judge a karaoke contest? Yeah, I think I would do that show for $100 million,” Stern said. “It would be the best thing that happened to me. What a cush job: $100 million for four months. Who wouldn’t take that?”

Related Stories:

• Howard Stern Named as Rumored Replacement for Cowell on “Idol”
• <Cowell’s Fear of “Overexposure” Led to “American Idol” Exit
• <“The X Factor” Due Fall 2011; Simon Cowell Confirms Departure From “American Idol”

Howard Stern told his satellite radio listeners Monday morning that the rumor is true: “American Idol” producers are, in fact, considering him to replace Simon Cowell as a judge on the show.

Drake will headline “The Away From Home Tour,” his first North American solo trek, which runs from Apr. 6 through May 8.

Photo: Mayer/WireImage

Taylor Swift’s label head jumped to her defense today, telling the press Swift’s Grammy-night performance may not have been note-perfect, but it captured why the 20-year-old is the “voice of a generation.” Big Machine CEO Scott Borchetta went on to say, “This is not American Idol. This is not a competition of getting up and seeing who can sing the highest note. This is about a true artist and writer and communicator. It’s not about that technically perfect performance.”

His comments about Idol riled Season One champion Kelly Clarkson, who immediately responded in an open letter on her I Am Kelly blog. “Thank you for that ‘Captain Obvious’ sense of humor because you know what, we not only hit the high notes, you forgot to mention we generally hit the ‘right’ notes as well,” Clarkson wrote. She signed her post “One of those contestants from American Idol who only made it because of her high notes.” Clarkson has two Grammy wins under her belt, and songwriting credits on some of her biggest hits, including “Because of You” and “Already Gone.”

Look back at the 2010 Grammys’ big moments in photos.

Writing that she too has experienced off-nights in the post titled “Scott Borchetta” (just in case there was any confusion who it was addressed to), Clarkson added, “Instead of lashing out at other artists (that in your ‘humble’ opinion lack true artistry), you should simply take a breath and realize that sometimes things won’t go according to plan or work out and that’s okay.” Swift — who recently toured with an American Idol contestant, Kellie Pickler — won four Grammys at Sunday night’s ceremony, but news of her victories has since been overshadowed by criticism that she sang off-key during her three-song performance, which featured cameos with Stevie Nicks and Butch Walker.

Kelly Clarkson’s journey from Idol to stardom.

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The Specials have confirmed the dates for the reunited British band’s first North American tour in nearly 30 years. In addition to playing a top spot at the Coachella Music and Arts Festival, the band will play club dates in Los Angeles, Toronto, and New York in April.

The American Carnage Tour featuring Slayer and Megadeth rises again — the trek was postponed due to Slayer’s Tom Araya’s back surgery, but a new slate of dates have arrived. Plus, She & Him plan a jaunt in support of Volume 2 and Swedish retro-rockers the Soundtrack of our Lives cross the Atlantic to give Communion. Full dates for all three tours are below:

American Carnage Tour
Jul. 23 – Quebec City, QC @ Pavillon de la Jeunesse
Jul. 24 – Montreal, QC @ Heavy MTL
Jul. 26 – Halifax, NS @ Metro Centre
Jul. 27 – Moncton, NB @ Moncton Coliseum
Jul. 29 – Toronto, ON @ Molson Amophitheatre
Jul. 30 – London, ON @ John Labatt Centre
Aug. 11 – Glens Falls, NY @ Glens Falls Civic Center
Aug. 12 – East Rutherford, NJ @ Izod Center
Aug. 14 – Boston, MA @ Tsongas Arena
Aug. 15 – Camden, NJ @ Susquehanna Bank Center
Aug. 16 – Wallingford, CT @ Chevrolet Theatre
Aug. 18 – Cleveland, OH @ Tower City Amphitheatre
Aug. 19 – Detroit, MI @ Joe Louis Arena
Aug. 20 – Chicago, IL @ UIC Pavilion
Aug. 21 – Minneapolis, MN @ Roy Wilkins Auditorium
Aug. 23 – Kansas City, MO @ Cap Fed Park
Aug. 25 – Denver, CO @ Magness Arena
Aug. 26 – Albuquerque, NM @ Tingley Coliseum
Aug. 27 – Phoenix, AZ @ Dodge Theatre
Aug. 29 – San Diego, CA @ Cricket Wireless Amphitheatre
Aug. 30 – Long Beach, CA @ Long Beach Arena
Aug. 31 – San Francisco, CA @ Cow Palace
Sept. 1 – Sacramento, CA @ ARCO Arena
Sept. 3 – Seattle, WA @ WaMu Theatre
Sept. 4 – Portland, OR @ Washington County Fairgrounds

She & Him
Mar. 15 – Los Angeles, CA @ Largo at the Coronet
Mar. 25 – Los Angeles, CA @ El Rey Theatre
Mar. 27 – Savannah, GA @ Savannah Music Festival
Mar. 29, 30 – New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom
Apr. 15 – Pomona, CA @ The Glass House
Apr. 16 – Indio, CA @ Coachella

The Soundtrack of Our Lives
Feb. 16 – New York, NY @ Irving Plaza
Feb. 17 – Philadelphia, PA @ The Note
Feb. 18 – Washington, DC @ Black Cat
Feb. 19 – Houston, TX @ Warehouse Live
Feb. 20 – Austin, TX @ Emo’s
Feb. 21 – Dallas, TX @ Granada Theatre
Feb. 23 – Tucson, AZ @ Rialto Theatre
Feb. 24 – San Diego, CA @ The Casbah
Feb. 25 – Pomona, CA @ The Glass House
Feb. 26 – Los Angeles, CA @ El Rey Theatre
Feb. 27 – San Francisco, CA @ The Independent
Feb. 28 – Chicago, IL @ Lincoln Hall

Erica Rhodes is no General Larry Platt, but the 23-year-old Texan certainly found a special way to stand out at her “American Idol” audition, which aired on Wednesday night.

General Larry Pratt ruled the “American Idol” Atlanta auditions with his original song, “Pants on the Ground.” Watch the video here.

Photo: Michael Ochs Archive/Getty

Johnny Cash’s American VI: Ain’t No Grave, featuring the final recordings the Man in Black ever made before his death in September 2003, will be released via American Recordings and Lost Highway on February 26th, the day that would have marked Cash’s 78th birthday. Like the previous LPs in the American series, Rick Rubin produced the sixth installment.

Covers on the set include Sheryl Crow’s “Redemption Day,” Kris Kristofferson’s “For the Good Times,” Ed McCurdy’s “Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream” and Bob Nolan’s “Cool Water.” American VI will also feature the never-before-heard Cash original “I Corinthians: 15:55,” which he wrote during the last three years of his life. Cash began recording American VI in 2002 and worked up until his September 12th, 2003 death. Cash stuck with the project even after the death his wife June Carter in May 2003. “Johnny said that recording was his main reason for being alive. I think it was the only thing that kept him going,” Rubin said in a statement.

Check out classic photos of Johnny Cash.

Guitarists Mike Campbell, Matt Sweeney, Jonny Polonsky and Smokey Hormel and keyboardist Benmont Tench join Cash on American VI, and the Avett Brothers’ Seth and Scott contribute to the title song “Ain’t No Grave.” As this album represents the last of Cash’s recordings, American VI will be the final installment of an American series that dates back to 1994. Both American III: Solitary Man and the American Recordings box set Unearthed were among Rolling Stone’s Top 100 Albums of the Decade.

Photos of Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan and Miles Davis by Don Hunstein.

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Paula Abdul? Gone! Simon Cowell? Nearly gone. Kelly Clarkson? Sings “Already Gone.” Tonight, to mark the return of the ninth season of the in-flux American Idol, Rolling Stone will be following the action as it happens in our first live blog of the new decade. The auditions begin in Boston, where Victoria Beckham (a.k.a. “Posh” Spice) will be filling in as guest judge. Join as we track the best and worst hopefuls and remember some of Paula’s best moments.

Look back at photos, interviews and more of our essential Idol coverage.

8:00 pm: Remember when Kris Allen beat Adam Lambert? And then Paula Abdul left Idol? And then Ellen DeGeneres got her job? Ryan Seacrest is introducing “a new beginning.”

8:03 pm: Nine seasons and they still haven’t changed that weird cheesy opening.

8:05 pm: 9,000 hopefuls in Beantown for Kara DioGuardi, Randy Jackson, Simon Cowell and Victoria Beckham. “We’re so coordinated, we look like we’re on a night out,” Posh says to a PA who is having the best moment of his life.

8:08 pm: OK, first singer Janet McNamara has already plugged the Idol video game, pumped herself up in a bathroom, said “wicked” and murdered “Pocket Full of Sunshine.” Perhaps it’s a good time for our first Paula memory?

Remember when Paula spat her gum on Simon during an audition?

8:14 pm: Maddy Curtis is 16 and has three siblings with Down Syndrome. She evidently hasn’t heard that Leonard Cohen has called for a “Hallelujah” moratorium. She’s going to Hollywood!

8:19 pm: Oh look, a cranky hipster! Who’s not amused by the perky guy who’s “not scared to be myself,” Pat Ford. Who’s auditioning with Britney Spears’ “Womanizer.” And doing more choreography than she managed on her Circus tour.

See before and after pics of your favorite American Idol contestants and judges.

An American version of the hit British music competition show The X Factor is officially coming to Fox in the fall of 2011, and as expected American Idol’s Simon Cowell will also serve as the new show’s judge and executive producer in its debut season. But the news is bittersweet for Idol fans: Cowell will exit American Idol after this season, the show’s ninth, to focus solely on X Factor, according to Variety.

Check in with some of Idol’s biggest winners and losers.

During a TV Critics Association press tour today, Cowell signed the papers that make his departure official in front of the press. As Rolling Stone previously reported, it was widely speculated that Cowell would leave AI after this season, but his exit comes on the heels of another major staffing change at the show. Last summer, Paula Abdul left Idol after failed contract negotiations. Ellen DeGeneres will fill Abdul’s vacant seat at the judges’ table, but replacing Cowell will be a much harder — and possibly even impossible — task for producers moving into the 2011 season, when potentially only DeGeneres, Randy Jackson and Kara DioGuardi will remain.

Look back at Idol’s season eight, starring Adam Lambert and Kris Allen.

Meanwhile, rumors are already swirling that Abdul is in talks to judge on X Factor, which would air during the fall while American Idol would be broadcast winter/spring so to not overlap. So You Think You Can Dance will bridge the summer months. Cowell added that he thinks both X Factor and Idol will flourish despite his departure, and that he wouldn’t have left Idol if he felt X couldn’t match the top-rated success it already has in his native Great Britain.

Cowell made a similar move in the U.K. in 2003, when he left Pop Idol — the basis for American Idol — because he wanted to executive produce his own show, The X Factor. The latter is a similar music competition program that helped launch the career of Leona Lewis and was responsible for four consecutive U.K. Christmas Number One singles until a grassroots campaign supporting Rage Against the Machine put an end to the streak in 2009. After Cowell left Pop Idol, the show went on permanent hiatus. Fox Entertainment chairman Peter Rice said it was “incumbent” for the network that American Idol remains successful despite Cowell’s departure.

Although Cowell judges on two shows in the U.K., Britain’s Got Talent and The X Factor, he won’t be pulling the same double duty in the U.S. Also, by the time Idol ends in 2010 and X Factor begins in 2011, Cowell is expected to be off American airwaves for approximately 16 months, so X Factor will be welcomed with a massive audience anticipating the return of the sardonic judge.

“I’m thrilled that we have put a date on the launch of the U.S. version of The X Factor, and delighted to be continuing to work with Fox,” Cowell said in a statement. “We have a fantastic relationship, a great team and are all very excited about this.”

Related Stories:

• Randy Jackson Promises “Interesting Wrinkles” for Ninth Season of “American Idol”
• “Idol” Judges Talk Gay Jokes, Ellen’s Music Smarts in New Interview
• Fox Near Deal to Extend “American Idol” Amid Rumors of Cowell’s Exit

Photo: Michael Becker / FOX

Randy Jackson predicts America has an “interesting, funny, different season” in store when the ninth cycle of American Idol kicks off next Tuesday on Fox. In a press conference earlier today Jackson assured reporters “this season we have some really good, bona fide, stand-in-your-shoes singers without all the props or all the affectations.”

Look back at Idol’s Season Eight in photos.

Permanent fourth judge Ellen DeGeneres won’t make her debut until Hollywood Week starts February 9th (the episodes are being taped next week), but a host of guest judges — Victoria Beckham, Mary J. Blige, Shania Twain, Kristin Chenowith, Joe Jonas, Neil Patrick Harris, Avril Lavigne and Katy Perry — will fill the spot vacated by Paula Abdul for the preliminary audition rounds. “What I like about the guest judges is that they all come from a singing/live performance background, so they know what it’s like,” Jackson says.

He recalls Mary J. Blige invoking a bit of a “fear factor” during the Atlanta tryouts by being a real “stand-in-your-shoes” singer. “What people don’t expect is that these artists who have huge pop careers will really know what they’re talking about, but if you spoke to a Lady Gaga or you watch Katy or Avril, you realize their success is based on them knowing what they’re doing.”

Jackson did remember looking down the judges’ table and wondering, “Wait a minute, where’s Paula? I’ll expect to hear something from her in my left ear and I go, ‘Wait a minute, that doesn’t sound like Paula!’ ” he says with a laugh. “It’s going to take a little getting used to [not having her there] — the whole thing started with me, Ryan [Seacrest], Simon [Cowell] and her, but welcoming Ellen to the fold is a good look.”

Of this season’s hopefuls Jackson says, “This year you would have thought there would have been a lot more theatrical contestants that showed up [based on Adam Lambert], but that’s not what happened at all.” Though he remained relatively mum on specifics, Jackson promised “a couple of interesting wrinkles” for the performance themes and revealed he’s most interested in hearing the contestants sing current music. “Where ever you come in with this show, the only thing you know for sure is that you get a shot to go up against your contemporaries,” he explains. “This show is definitely a rocket ship to the top. Is it the only rocket ship? No, but I think it’s the best show of its kind, ever and it can go on for quite a long time.”