Sly Stone tells magazine he plans to make a new album

Los Angeles – After 25 years, Sly Stone speaks.

The famously reclusive funkster broke his silence by granting his first interview since the ’80s to Vanity Fair. In the magazine’s August issue, the frontman of the late-’60s band Sly and the Family Stone talks about his music, his disappearance from public view and his long-awaited return.

Stone, 64, who made a brief, blond Mohawked appearance at the 2006 Grammys, says he plans to start work on a new album in the fall. But after more than two decades away from the spotlight, why come back now?

“‘Cause it’s kind of boring at home sometimes,” he tells the magazine. “I got a lot of songs I want to record and put out, so I’m gonna try ’em out on the road. That’s the way it’s always worked the best: Let’s try it out and see how the people feel.”

Hits by Sly and the Family Stone include “Everyday People,” “Dance to the Music,” “I Want to Take You Higher” and “Stand!”

Fans greet J.K. Rowling at London film premiere

London – J.K. Rowling said she was sad, but relieved, to have completed the final “Harry Potter” book as she greeted fans at the European premiere of the latest movie in the young wizard saga.

Hundreds of fans – dozens of whom had camped overnight to secure a spot in front of a London cinema – waved flags, placards and scarves as Rowling and the film’s stars arrived at London’s Leicester Square.

Rowling’s “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” the seventh and final volume in the series, will be published July 21.

“Finishing it was very, very emotional. It was a combination of relief and sadness really,” she said.

Fans pleaded for clues, seeking to learn the answer to the most hotly anticipated plot twist: Will Harry die?

Rowling said details are a secret from even her own family.

Leicester Square was draped in green and gold for the premiere of “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” to imitate the movie’s Ministry of Magic.

“Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” opens in the U.S. on July 11 and in Britain the following day.

Spike Lee project to highlight role of black soldiers in WWII

Rome – Spike Lee announced plans Tuesday to make a movie about the struggle against Nazi occupiers in Italy during World War II that he hopes will highlight the contribution of black American soldiers who fought and died to liberate Europe.

The film will spotlight the courage of black soldiers who, despite suffering discrimination back home, offered a contribution that has so far gone largely unnoticed in other Hollywood movies, Lee said.

“We have black people who are fighting for democracy who at the same time are classified as second-class citizens,” the 50-year-old filmmaker said. “That is why I’d like to do a film to show how these brave black men, despite all the hardship they were going through, still pushed that aside and fought for the greater good.”

Based on the novel “Miracle at St. Anna” by James McBride, the movie will tell the story of four black American soldiers, all members of the Army’s all-black 92nd “Buffalo Soldier” Division, who are trapped behind enemy lines in an Italian village in Tuscany in 1944.

‘Benny Hill’ saxophonist Boots Randolph dies at 80

Nashville, Tenn. – Boots Randolph, whose spirited saxophone playing on “Yakety Sax” endeared him to fans for years on Benny Hill’s TV show, died Tuesday. He was 80.

Randolph suffered a cerebral hemorrhage June 25 and had been hospitalized in a coma. He was taken off a respirator at Skyline Medical Center earlier Tuesday, said Betty Hofer, a publicist and spokeswoman for the family.

In 1963 he had his biggest solo hit, “Yakety Sax,” which he co-wrote with guitarist James Rich.