The singer-songwriter has agreed to perform his 1971 hit with the Portland Symphony Orchestra during city's annual Stars and Stripes celebration on the Eastern Promenade. McLean gained fame with his No. 1 hit "American Pie," which recounts the deaths of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper in a plane crash on Feb. 3, 1959 — the "day the music died."

Opera to stage free outdoor performances MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The Minnesota Opera plans to present free outdoor concerts next month. The Minnesota Opera is presenting the free outdoor concerts as an encore to its 50th anniversary season.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Stone Temple Pilots accuse former frontman Scott Weiland of misusing the band's name to further his solo career and want a judge to strip the rocker of his ability to use the group's name or songs. The lawsuit sheds light on the band's breakup, accusing Weiland of interacting with band mates only through lawyers or managers and showing up late to the group's 2012 shows. "First of all they don't have the legal right to call themselves STP because I'm still a member of the band," he said. The suit claims the band owns the rights to the name Stone Temple Pilots, and the band's songs, copyrights and trademarks. The band's hits include Vasoline, ''Interstate Love Song and Plush, which won a Grammy in 1993 for best hard rock performance with vocal.

NBC and sister networks will air Blake Shelton's concert to help his fellow Oklahomans affected by this week's storms in their home state. Shelton's "Healing in the Heartland" benefit will be broadcast live as a telethon by NBC on May 29, at 9 p.m. EDT.

CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — The Spoleto Festival USA opened its 37th season on Friday remembering those who helped establish the event that has brought Charleston international renown in the world of the arts. "Even though I'm retiring from an active artistic role in the festival, I expect to remain an enthusiastic member of the audience," Flummerfelt said. The schedule this season includes a production of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" by Tom Morris and the Handspring Puppet Company as well as a production of "Oedipus" by the Nottingham Theatre. Rosanne Cash gives a concert and the festival also features "The Intergalactic Nemesis," which the festival describes as a live-action graphic novel in which comic book drawings are projected on a large screen while actors voice parts.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Some of country music's big names, including Lady Antebellum, Miranda Lambert, Darius Rucker and Zac Brown Band, take the stage at the Bayou Country Superfest at LSU's Tiger Stadium for a Memorial Day holiday jamfest. The festival's producer, Quint Davis, said the talent and the free fan fest held before the nightly concerts help to entice attendees. Headlining Saturday are Lady Antebellum, Lambert, Rucker, who has a No. 1 country hit with "Wagon Wheel," and Aaron Lewis, the former frontman for rock band Staind. Lewis is appearing as a solo artist, promoting his album "The Road," which was released last year. The fan fest features Louisiana artists including the Kyle Turley Band, Yvette Landry, Jaryd Lane and the Parish, Mark Adam Miller, the Chase Tyler Band and Gal Holiday & The Honky Tonk Revue.

The 42-year-old Grammy winner, who is launching a summer tour where most tickets are priced at $20, said he's holding about 1,000 tickets from each show and reselling them on ticketsnow.com — owned by Ticketmaster — to make up for the cheaper regular price he's offering. Kid Rock's "$20 Best Night Ever Tour" kicks off June 28 in Bristow, Va., and the Detroit native, who released his debut album in 1990, said he likely scalped secretly on past tours. Kid Rock's discount ticket pricing is leading a change in the tour industry where scalpers' well-established role as a second source for tickets continues to grow. Along with Kid Rock, key acts like The Rolling Stones, Beyonce, Paul McCartney, Taylor Swift, Justin Timberlake and Jay-Z have tours this summer, and a number of those tickets are being sold for a much higher price on StubHub and other websites. The Rolling Stones did play a secret show at the Echoplex club in Los Angeles last month, where fans got in by winning a lottery and had to be ID'd and given photo bracelets to eliminate the chance of scalping the tickets, which were just $20. Bruce Springsteen, Keith Urban, New Kids on the Block, Radiohead, Rascal Flatts, Selena Gomez, Muse, Miley Cryus, Iron Maiden, Atoms for Peace and Eric Church are among the acts using paperless tickets. Fan Freedom, an organization that supports the rights of ticket holders, echoed StubHub's thoughts on paperless tickets. Ticket holders are allowed to sell tickets at any price on sites like StubHub and ticketsnow.com, that's why Kid Rock isn't selling tickets for the first two rows at his shows. Kid Rock, whose tour openers include ZZ Top, Uncle Kracker and Kool and the Gang, is playing the same venues he's performed at in the past, but he said he's filling up more seats and selling tickets faster.

NEW YORK (AP) — Before achieving back-to-back radio hits with "Give Your Heart a Break" and "Heart Attack," Demi Lovato wondered why she had yet to find her breakthrough on the radio. Lovato got her first real hint of radio love when "Give Your Heart a Break" became a hit last year as she was appearing as a judge on the Fox network's "The X Factor." Though she had a Top 10 hit with "Skyscraper," the first single, "Give Your Heart a Break," became her breakthrough, selling 1.9 million tracks. Lovato quickly went into the studio to record her new album, releasing the in-your-face pop jam "Heart Attack," which is platinum and has so far peaked at No. 10 on the Hot 100. I think there's going to be a lot of radio singles, a lot of hits, said Dastur, naming songs like Without the Love, ''Neon Lights and Really Don't Care as potential smashes. "A lot of the power vocalists ... they get the respect, but they don't get the recognition with hit songs that they deserve to have, and a lot of pop artists are very talented, but they don't have the vocal capability to really carry on those power ballads," she said. Lovato, who starred in the Disney Channel movie "Camp Rock" and the TV series "Sonny With a Chance," said becoming a radio artist has been a top goal.

The filmmakers got together again this week to tell another Hoosiers tale, very different from the first, much shorter in length, but like the film, emotionally powerful and inspiring. Pena said the challenge for the new commercial, and ones to follow, is to set IU apart from the multitude of university commercials that television viewers see during normal programming and especially during sporting events on stations such as ESPN and the Big Ten Network. There was a palpable sense that something special was being created within the fairly large cast and crew filming at the Musical Arts Center and Simon Music Library & Recital Center building. The story line for the commercial follows an aspiring opera singer from her audition for admittance to the Jacobs School through her education — learning staging, production and makeup to auditioning for roles, getting cast for minor parts and finally winning leading roles. Perez is played by recent master's graduate Hanna Brammer in the IU commercial, but Pizzo, producer Jo Throckmorton and a small crew will travel to London to film Perez where she currently is performing at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden. The final scene showing Perez in all her glory will cap the concept of an IU student's journey from aspiring music student to opera star. Brammer performed like a pro Thursday, doing take after take with ease as Pizzo, Murphy and Throckmorton assessed angles, lighting and various elements of the shots and the small details of the actors' performances. After discussing the concept for the 60-second commercial with Pizzo, he immediately decided on a musical score using the technique of vocalese and having Brammer sing vowel sounds without lyrics, because lyrics would likely divert attention from the message of the commercial.

Texas rapper indicted, controlled substance count CORSICANA, Texas (AP) — Platinum-selling rapper Lil' Flip of Houston has been indicted on a charge of possession of a controlled substance over a 2012 Texas traffic stop.