Randy Newman & T-Bone Burnett Get Oscar Nods, KISS Doing a Makeover, more

Randy Newman earned two Oscar nominations today for the songs Almost There and Down in New Orleans, both from the film The Princess and the Frog.  T-Bone Burnett was also nominated, again with Ryan Bingham, for the Golden Globe winning The Weary Kind (Theme From Crazy Heart).

---

KISS have shot an episode of ABC's Extreme Makeover: Home Edition which features a family Gainesville, Florida who are huge fans of the group.  While the team works on their house, the family is flown to Tulsa for a KISS show and to meet the members.  The morning after the show, they joined the group in a presentation of $100,000 in instruments to a local school.

The episode is scheduled to air on February 21 at 8 PM EST.

---

Three Dog Night, B.J. Thomas, Ray Stevens, Debbie Boone, Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis Jr. and others will be taping a new PBS special, Marvin Hamlisch Presents: The 70's, The We We Were, from March 15 to 18 at Lindenwood University in St. Charles, Missouri.  The program is expected to be aired during pledge drives starting in August.

---

Bryan Adams has recorded the Olympic Theme Song, but not for his native Canada, but for Germany.  One World - One Flame was released to German radio on January 29 and the country's ARD TV will use the song as the theme for their Olympics coverage.

---

A pre-Super Bowl press conference that will include Roger Dalrey and Pete Townshend will be streamed over the internet on Thursday at 3 PM (EST) via NFL.com.

Serius-XM Radio has announced that they will launch The Who channel for five days starting Thrusday, February 4 and running through Monday, February 8.  Look for music from throughout their career, interviews and rarities.

---

Mary Miller, the widow of Roger Miller, will get her day in court on February 19 in an ongoing battle over who should get royalties from her late husband's catalog.  At issue are the songs he wrote from 1964 forward, which include most of his big hits.  Even though Miller died in October 1992, Sony renewed the copyrights on his 1964 material in Miller's name on January 1, 1993.

Mary contends that, since her husband had passed by the time of the renewal that she had the right to reclaim the copyrights under her own company.  Sony says that they had an implied, nonexclusive license to, at a minimum, the 1964 songs.  In 2008, the courts sided with Sony but a federal judge ruled in October that a special master should review the legal documents.

---

They might not have a lead singer at the moment, but Aerosmith is pushing ahead with marketing.  Starting February 15, those in Michigan will be able to start buying the new Aerosmith Scratch-off Game.  A similar lottery game will start in Oregon on March 2.