Critics' Choice - Three artists have been shortlisted for this year's Brit Critics' Choice award, won last year by singer Tom Odell. Chloe Howl, Ella Eyre and Sam Smith are in the running with the winner to be announced on Thursday 12 December. Howl has been compared with Lily Allen, while former Brit school student Eyre scored a number one as the vocalist on Rudimental's Waiting All Night. La, La, La, Smith's collaboration with producer Naughty Boy, also reached number one in the UK singles chart.
Voting for the 2014 Brit Awards opened for members of the music industry last week. Their shortlists for categories including best male, best female and best album will be announced in January, with the award ceremony taking place at London's O2 Arena on 19 February. This year's nominees are likely to include Arctic Monkeys, David Bowie and Mercury Prize-winner James Blake.
In The Saleroom - The electric guitar played by Bob Dylan at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival has been sold at auction in New York for a record $965,000 (£591,000). The Fender Stratocaster had been in the possession of a New Jersey family for 48 years after he left it on a plane. The pilot's daughter had it authenticated on a television programme on US broadcaster PBS. The festival in Newport, Rhode Island, is often cited as the performance where Dylan "went electric".
Dylan's move "changed the structure of folk music", Newport Folk Festival founder George Wein, 88, told the Associated Press news agency. "The minute Dylan went electric, all these young people said, 'Bobby's going electric. We're going electric, too.'"
On The Road Again - Garth Brooks has scheduled a world tour - more than 10 years after he last hit the road. Brooks retired from recording new music and touring in 2001 so that he could see his three daughters grow up. "My children are off on their own, so the guilt of not being there ... I'm a phone-call dad now," the singer told ABC's Good Morning America programme. According to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA,) he is the second best-selling solo albums artist of all time in the US behind Elvis Presley.
(Jim Evans)
