Quick Takes - April 14, 2010

Strait the hitmaker

George Strait has set a Billboard record.

The trade magazine said Tuesday that the country legend was the first act to hit the top 10 on any Billboard chart for 30 straight years.

The song that set the record was “I Gotta Get to You,” which has reached No. 9 on Billboard’s top country songs list.

Strait’s first country top 10 hit was in 1981, with “Unwound,” and he has cracked the top 10 every year since then. His latest hit is his 82nd top 10 country hit.

—Associated Press

‘Tonight’ taps ‘Idol’ musician

Rickey Minor of “American Idol” will take over as music director of “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno” in June following Kevin Eubanks’ departure May 28, NBC said Tuesday.

Minor is the music director of “American Idol,” whose season ends in late May. He will continue to consult with “American Idol” creator Simon Fuller on various projects.

Minor has also served as music director of the Super Bowl, the Grammy Awards and the NAACP Image Awards.

Eubanks has been aboard “Tonight” since Leno took over as host in 1992. He became music director when Branford Marsalis left in 1995.

—Associated Press

Arts funding has Army ally

The United States government should start thinking of the arts as a tool, if not exactly a weapon, in the nation’s military campaigns and diplomatic initiatives, a recently retired Army brigadier general testified before Congress on Tuesday.

Nolen Bivens, who served 32 years in the Army, including a year in Iraq during 2003-04, was an unusual enlistee in arts supporters’ annual “arts advocacy day” deployment to Capitol Hill in a push for an elusive objective: ample funding for the National Endowment for the Arts.

Bivens argued that the arts have a role to play in building better relations with other countries and in improving the morale of U.S. troops. Others who gave testimony included actors Jeff Daniels and Kyle MacLachlan, and Charles Segars, chief executive of the Ovation arts television network.

The bottom line urged Tuesday by Americans for the Arts and congressional witnesses is $180 million for the NEA’s 2011 budget, up 7.5% from current funding. President Obama has proposed a 3.7% cut to $161.3 million.

—Mike Boehm

Words from JFK’s widow

With the 50th anniversary of her father’s inauguration coming next year, Caroline Kennedy is allowing the widespread release of seven interviews that her mother, Jacqueline Kennedy, gave to historian and family friend Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. in the first half of 1964, just months after her husband was assassinated.

The interviews, in which the former first lady discussed her

marriage, her White House years, election-year campaigning and President John F. Kennedy’s thoughts about a second term, have been kept sealed at Jacqueline Kennedy’s request. She died in 1994.

In September 2011, Hyperion will publish the transcripts and release 61/2 hours of audiotapes of her discussing topics she rarely touched upon in public.

Caroline Kennedy will serve as editor and write an introduction for the book, currently untitled, and a historian will provide annotation.

—Associated Press

Sayles’ novel finds a home

More than a year after his agent first shopped the manuscript, filmmaker John Sayles has a deal for a long historical novel.

Sayles’ fictionalized account of the U.S. occupation of the Philippines around the turn of the 20th century is tentatively titled “Some Time in the Sun.” It’s more than 1,000 pages in manuscript form.

It will be released in 2011 by McSweeney’s, the San Francisco-based press founded by author Dave Eggers.

Sayles is best known for such films as “Eight Men Out” and “Matewan.” He’s also the author of several books.

—Associated Press

Finally

Early renewal: “Treme,” HBO’s new drama about a community of musicians in post-Katrina New Orleans, got the go-ahead for a second season Tuesday, just two days after its premiere.

Book deal: Actress Elizabeth Berkley, whose credits range from the sitcom “Saved by the Bell” to the infamous movie “Showgirls,” is writing what is described as “a self-esteem handbook for teen girls” for G.P. Putnam, to be released next spring.