Taking Names

High Raitt-ings

The National Association of Recording Merchandisers has announced that it will honor Bonnie Raitt for her work on social and environmental issues.

The singer-songwriter and liberal activist will receive the Harry Chapin Memorial Humanitarian Award during the opening session of NARM’s 47th annual convention, Aug. 12 at the San Diego Marriott, Associated Press reports.

The award memorializes singer Harry Chapin’s efforts on behalf of the environment and humanitarian causes. Former winners include Bob Geldof, Midge Ure and Kenny Rogers.

Miss Raitt’s selection was announced this week by Jim Donio, president of the nonprofit trade association, which serves the music retailing community.

Miss Raitt, 55, participated in the Sun City anti-apartheid project and performed at the 1980 No Nukes concerts at Madison Square Garden.

In 1988, she co-founded the Rhythm & Blues Foundation, which works to improve royalties and financial conditions for R&B pioneers.

Jackson family travels

Michael Jackson is expected to celebrate his father’s 76th birthday in Berlin tomorrow with a select crowd of the pop star’s German fans.

The recently acquitted star, who dangled his baby son from the railing of a fourth-floor hotel window before shocked fans on a 2002 visit to Berlin, is fond of the German capital and may go to the party to thank his supporters, his father,Joe Jackson, said at a news conference in Berlin yesterday, according to Reuters News Agency.

“I hope that Michael will come to Berlin Thursday,” Joe Jackson said, adding that his children Jermaine, Janet and La Toya would be at the party with about 1,000 fans in a luxury Berlin hotel.

“When Michael was here before, he was shown a lot of hospitality,” Joe Jackson said. “And so it’s my birthday, and I come back to celebrate my birthday because we have a lot of fans here in Germany.”

Last month, a court in Santa Maria, Calif., acquitted the 46-year-old pop star of child sex abuse charges that had threatened to destroy his career.

Hope over experience

Will the third time be a charm for Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee?

The on-again-off-again spouses will marry this week for the third time, according to the British Web site Ananova.com.

Since they last divorced in 1998, Miss Anderson has been linked romantically to a number of other men, including musician Kid Rock and actor Stephen Dorff.

But the former “Baywatch” babe is apparently weak in the knees for Mr. Lee again, who is said to have proposed last week in Las Vegas.

B.I.G. movie

The life of slain rapper Notorious B.I.G. is getting the big-screen treatment, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

Fox Searchlight, the buzzy studio behind movies such as “Sideways” and “Napoleon Dynamite,” secured B.I.G.’s life rights and tapped Cheo Hodari Coker to write the biopic. It is negotiating with Antoine Fuqua to direct. Producing are B.I.G.’s mother, Voletta Wallace, and former managers Wayne Barrow and Mark Pitts.

“People wanted to give us a check and do a film that they wanted to do, but Searchlight gave us the opportunity to really be able to come in and tell the story the way it was supposed to be told,” Mr. Barrow said of the project chronicling the rapper, born Christopher Wallace, who was fatally shot in 1997.

“It’s not just a hip-hop film; it’s a film of life and a film of love. We didn’t want to sell our souls to the devil, so to speak, just to get a check. The story is too important, not just to us but to hip-hop.”

Compiled by Scott Galupo from Web and wire reports.