Hands:Away

AP - A-Rod and the Material Girl? That's a lot of hits.

AP - Brad Paisley says he got to mark a biggie off his wish list when Andy Griffith agreed to be in the video for his new single, "Waitin' On a Woman."

AP - Jason Priestley says he got a crash course on the Nashville music industry while directing a reality series about the Canadian band the Road Hammers.

AP - Donna Summer says she approached her summer tour like a chocolate-chip cookie.

Reuters - An opera-loving dentist is ready to swap his drill for a microphone after winning a four-album recording contract worth about $2 million.

AP - Ask his fellow musicians about Alejandro Escovedo, and you'll hear nothing but praise. Yet he's never been a household name, and even among rock fans, his work, though influential, is not widely known: He's been more of an aficionado's musician.

Reuters - It's not easy living with having been the muse and lover of any great artist, let alone someone with demigod status like Bob Dylan.

Reuters - New EU competition rules on the collection of royalties have hit a wrong note with top songwriters such as Bee Gee Robin Gibb, who have threatened to pull their songs off the airwaves if they go ahead.

AP - Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez and his wife have split less than three months after the birth of the couple's second daughter, according to a report in the New York Daily News.

Reuters - Kylie Minogue, the former soap actress who become one of the world's most famous female recording artists, was honored for her services to music on Thursday.

E! Online - Jennifer Aniston has resorted to taking the bus these days, and it has nothing to do with the summer's sky-high gas prices.

E! Online - If Boy George had to call off his American summer concerts due to visa restrictions, how did paps snap him strolling in Beverly Hills yesterday with a young boy-toy?

E! Online - Mel Galley, the former guitarist and backing vocalist for White Snake in its early-'80s incarnation, has died at the age of 60, the band confirmed on its website.

E! Online - Lindsay Lohan's private life has gone through some rather public growing pains over the past few years. And now, newly 22 years of age, the only growing she wants to do in public is of the professional variety.

Reuters - Texas rock trio ZZ Top has signed to producer Rick Rubin's American Recordings imprint, hoping for a commercial and critical revitalization along the lines of prior Rubin clients Johnny Cash and Neil Diamond.

E! Online - Here's one honor Kylie Minogue no doubt can't get out of her head.

Reuters - Singer/songwriter Natasha Shneider, who collaborated with former Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell and rock band Queens of the Stone Age, died Tuesday of cancer.